While it was slightly delayed due to President Bush’s address on the current financial crisis, ABC’s much-hyped two-hour David Blaine special still proved to be a dud with only 7.7 million viewers, according to overnight ratings. David Blaine’s Dive of Death (pictured) lost more than half of its Dancing With the Stars lead-in audience (15.6 million). The illusionist could not compete with CBS’ Criminal Minds which won the 9-10 p.m. hour with 15.1 million, up 19 percent from last year’s premiere of 12.7 million. NBC’s America’s Got Talent also dipped in viewership with 10.3 million, down from last week’s 12 million. But the biggest ratings bomb of the night would have to be Fox’s ‘Til Death which only saw about 4.1 million viewers.

At 10 p.m., CSI: NY was also up from last year’s premiere (12.7 million) with a quite impressive 15.6 million viewers, building slightly on Minds’ audience. NBC’s Lipstick Jungle season 2 premiere only earned 6.1 million viewers, down from its 7.5 million debut last February.

Earlier in the evening, CBS’ new comedy block of The New Adventures of Old Christine and rooke series Gary Unmarried were not met with much laughter, rating just 6.7 million and 6.8 million, respectively. NBC’s flashy reboot of Knight Rider also bombed with a sorry 7.3 million, a big drop from the 12.7 million people that watched the network’s February TV movie. Elsewhere, Fox’s Bones continued to perform solidly with 9.6 million while The CW’s America’s Next Top Model reached 4.1 million eyes.

Though she might have ceded the headlines, Anna Nicole Smith is hardly forgotten on the one-year anniversary of her demise.

The 39-year-old Playmate turned reality star died unexpectedly Feb. 8, 2007 in a Florida hotel room. Her death came just five months after the equally surprising death of 20-year-old son Daniel, a loss that came three days after the birth of her daughter Dannielynn. 

And while it may have taken a full 12 months before those left behind have been given any semblance of peace, the passing of time hasn’t healed all wounds.

“Anna Nicole Smith, I love you and hope you are proud of our beautiful baby girl,” Larry Birkhead posted on his Website Friday. “Please watch over us and guide us on our journey through life. We miss you.”

The message, the first to be added to the site in more than three months and accompanied by both a photo of a lounging Smith and a backdrop of Smith’s signature color, bright pink, was signed: “Love, Larry and Dannielynn.”

Smith’s longtime sidekick Howard K. Stern also paid tribute Friday.

“Today is extremely difficult for those of us who were close to Anna Nicole, and we ask that the media please respect our privacy,” he toldEntertainment Tonight.

In memory of his once constant companion and her late son, Stern has created the Anna Nicole and Daniel Smith Charitable Foundation, which will benefit causes championed by Smith during her life, chief among them children, elderly and the prevention and treatment of AIDS.

“Hopefully it will grow, help more people each year, and eventually be headed by her daughter Dannielynn.”

Smith, born Vickie Lynn Hogan in Mexia, Texas, led a life of watercooler highlights—teen bride, stripper, high-profile model, wife of octogenarian mogul, gazillionaire widow at 27, tabloid train wreck, reality star.

A coroner ruled last year that Smith’s death was caused, like her son before her, by a lethal combination of prescription medications, triggering an ongoing criminal investigations into several of her  doctors, some of whom issued multiple prescriptions in fake names.

Her death was also followed by months-long legal battles in Florida and the Bahamas over the paternity of her sole surviving child. While both former lover Birkhead and Stern claimed fatherhood—claims also echoed by a revolving door of less-likely Z-listers—a DNA test finally proved in April that Birkhead was the papa.

Despite their conflicts, Birkhead and Stern remained surprisingly cordial in the wake of their courtroom drama, a geniality that led to salacious reports of the duo’s relations, followed by a massive libel suit, over Rita Cosby’s Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death.

Birkhead retains custody of Dannielynn to the chagrin of Anna Nicole Smith’s estranged mother, Virgie Arthur. Stern remains the executor of Smith’s estate and has been laboring in Los Angeles courts to have Dannielynn named as Smith’s sole heir. A hearing in that case will take place Mar. 14.

Two teenagers stabbed an adult acquaintance, took a blowtorch to his corpse and threw his severed head into a river, prosecutors said. The teenagers, Jean Pierre Orlewicz, 17, and Alexander James Letkemann, 18, ambushed 26-year-old Daniel Sorenson last Wednesday in a garage owned by Mr. Orlewicz’s grandfather, said Kym Worthy, the Wayne County prosecutor. “They prepared a space to kill him,” Ms. Worthy said at a news conference. Mr. Sorenson’s head was found Saturday in the Rouge River on the border of Detroit and Dearborn Heights, about 15 miles from where his torso was found. Not guilty pleas were entered on the teenagers’ behalf, and both were ordered held without bail.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office was scheduled to conduct an autopsy Wednesday on Donda West, mother and manager of hip-hop star Kanye West, amid reports that she died of complications from cosmetic surgery.

A statement issued by the family late Monday offered no details about how West died, but the coroner’s office cited a recent surgical procedure as a possible cause. A California surgeon said through a spokeswoman that he had declined to perform cosmetic surgery on West months ago because she had a pre-existing condition.

West, 58, who stopped breathing at her home in Los Angeles on Saturday, was brought to the Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center in Marina del Rey by paramedics, hospital spokeswoman Cyndee Woelfle told the Tribune. Woelfle said it was her understanding that West had had some cosmetic surgery, and that her “problems were a result of the surgery but it was not done at this hospital.”

On Monday, Patricia Green, a publicist for Donda West, told news media she understood West had undergone cosmetic surgery; later, Green backed away from that statement.