Police have made about 5 million stops of New Yorkers in the past decade, mostly black and Hispanic men. The trial, set to begin Monday, will include testimony from a dozen people who say they were targeted because of their race and from police whistleblowers who say they were forced into making slipshod stops by bosses who were too focused on numbers.

"When we say stop, question and frisk, we're not talking about a brief inconvenience on the way to work or school," said Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lead attorney on the case. "We're talking about a frightening, humiliating experience that has happened to many folks."

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has said in earlier rulings that she is deeply concerned about stop and frisk, is not being asked to ban the tactic, since it has been found to be legal. But she does have the power to order reforms, which could bring major changes to how the nation's largest police force and other departments use the tactic.

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Nechemya Weberman was convicted in December of 59 counts, including sustained sexual abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse. He testified in his own defense, saying he "never, ever" abused the girl, and maintained his innocence at sentencing.

His trial put a spotlight on the ultra-orthodox community and its strict rules that govern clothing, social customs and interaction with the outside world. Brooklyn is home to the largest community of ultra-orthodox Jews outside Israel, more than 250,000. Both Weberman, 54, and the accuser belonged to the Satmar Hasidic sect there.

The girl's school had ordered her to see Weberman because she had been asking questions about her religion and was dressing immodestly in violation of customs, and he was help her get back on the right path. Weberman wasn't a licensed counselor but spent decades working with couples and families in his community.

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In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to use their patrol car loudspeakers to warn vulnerable residents about evacuating, one of a number of measures that the beleaguered city was taking even as weather experts said Wednesday's nor'easter could be weaker than expected.

"Even though it's not anywhere near as strong as Sandy — nor strong enough, in normal times, for us to evacuate anybody — out of precaution and because of the changing physical circumstances, we are going to go to some small areas and ask those people to go to higher ground," Bloomberg said Tuesday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency put a number to the storm's homeless in New York and New Jersey, saying 95,000 people were eligible for emergency housing assistance. In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, more than 277,000 people have registered for general assistance, the agency said.

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The tapes also established that housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo recounted the attack to the man during their first conversation, a day after the alleged attack -- showing, her lawyer said, that her focus was on what had happened to her, not on the former International Monetary Fund leader's wealth or stature.

"Information has been put out there about Ms. Diallo that now I know was false. She never was scheming to take DSK's money, and that's a fact," said her attorney, Kenneth Thompson, referring to Strauss-Kahn by his initials. Diallo herself didn't speak to reporters, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office declined to comment on the meeting.

The marathon session marked the 32-year-old's first meeting with prosecutors since they said July 1 they had doubts about her credibility because she hadn't been truthful about her background or what she did right after the May 14 encounter. Strauss-Kahn denies the charges, and his lawyers are calling for the case to be dismissed.

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The Manhattan District Attorney's Office revealed Friday that the 32-year-old woman had committed a host of minor frauds to better her life in the U.S. since arriving in the country seven years ago, including lying on immigration paperwork, cheating on her taxes, and misstating her income so she could live in an apartment reserved for the poor.

In a letter to Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, prosecutors also said she had misrepresented what she did immediately after the alleged attack by Strauss-Kahn -- instead of fleeing his luxury suite to a hallway and waiting for a supervisor, she went to clean another room and then returned to clean Strauss-Kahn's suite before reporting the encounter.

That change in her story, and the revelations about her past, wasn't enough to kill the case entirely, but prosecutors acknowledged their position had been shaken, and agreed to a defense request that Strauss-Kahn be freed immediately from house arrest.

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Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested on Monday and is accused of sexually abusing the maid at The Pierre, a luxurious hotel near Central Park and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, police said.

The maid was called to Omar's room Sunday night to drop off tissues, police said. But once inside the 74-year-old's room, police said Omar would not let her leave and touched her inappropriately. The encounter was not reported until Monday, police said.

Paul Browne, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department, said detectives found the complainant to be credible.

There was no immediate information on whether Omar had an attorney. He was held Monday night at a police precinct and transferred Tuesday morning to a booking facility near a Manhattan courthouse.

Police said further details will be released at the suspect's arraignment, expected to take place Tuesday.

Omar is the former chairman of Egypt's Bank of Alexandria, but is currently an executive with El-Mex Salines Co., according to the salt production company's website.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was arrested on charges of a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment. He had been taken off the Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday afternoon by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was turned over to New York police, said Paul J. Browne, New York Police Department spokesman.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told The Associated Press that his client will plead not guilty at his expected Sunday afternoon arraignment.

"He denies all the charges against him," Brafman said. "And that's all I can really say right now."

France woke to the bombshell news Sunday to surprise and a degree of caution. Online commentators questioned whether the incident could have been part of a smear campaign by the unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose political fortunes have been flagging, against his primary rival in the race for next year's presidential elections.

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The blaze started around 6:40 p.m. Sunday, when a woman visited a fourth-floor apartment in Brooklyn and paid a man $300 to perform a mystical ceremony that would bring her good luck, according to fire marshals with the Fire Department of New York.

The man was known in the neighborhood as a priest, and the two were either having sex, or had sex when the fire started from the candles on the floor, though it's not clear if it was part of the ceremony, said the official, who had direct knowledge of the case but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Instead of calling 911, the man first tried to put out the fire himself using water from a bathroom sink. As smoke began to gather, one of the other apartment occupants opened a window and propped the hall door open in an attempt to dissipate the plume. But instead, wind gusts shot the flames back inside, creating "a blowtorch effect" that pushed the fire into the hallway, the FDNY said.

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At first, it seemed like a case of revenge against an ex-girlfriend.

But it became clear later the killings -- two of four that Gelman is accused of committing during a rampage that lasted 28 hours -- had a much more complicated motive.

Victim Yelena Bulchenko, 20, had a longtime boyfriend, and some of her friends didn't know the suspect. They said the only relationship Gelman had with the woman he's accused of killing was in his mind. If he snapped, they said, it was because he couldn't have her.

"He did not know her. He was not her boyfriend," said Gerard Honig, Bulchenko's boyfriend of two years who said he lived with the family. "She said he was creepy. He was weird, he was a stalker."

Authorities are still piecing together the case. The attacks that swept up strangers, as well as people in the suspect's life, prompted questions about what could unleash such a sprawling and sudden burst of violence from someone with no known history of it.

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Maksim Gelman, 23, was to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court in the deaths of four people, including his stepfather, a female acquaintance and her mother, and a complete stranger he ran over with a car, prosecutors said.

A massive manhunt ended Saturday morning after he randomly stabbed a passenger on a train as it passed beneath Times Square. It's not clear if he has an attorney, and it was possible the court hearing could be moved back to Monday.

The violent spree started just after 5 a.m. Friday, when police say Gelman snapped during an argument over the use of his mother's Lexus sedan. His stepfather, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, intervened and was stabbed to death at their apartment in Brooklyn. Police found the 54-year-old's body in his home. His mother was uninjured.

Later that morning, Gelman turned up at the home of a 20-year-old acquaintance, Yelena Bulchenko, and stabbed to death her mother, 56-year-old Anna Bulchenko. When Yelena arrived home at about 4 p.m., she found her mother dead in a pool of blood and called 911. But Gelman was waiting for her there, chased her outside and stabbed her 11 times, authorities said.

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Mark Madoff was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of investors of their life savings, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. His 2-year-old son was sleeping in the next bedroom, the officials said.

Mark Madoff, who reported his father to authorities the day after he confessed his fraud to them, has never been criminally charged in the investigation that has snared a half-dozen Madoff employees. He and his brother Andrew have said they were unaware of their father's crimes. But they have been remained under investigation and been named in multiple investor lawsuits.

Mark Madoff's lawyer, Martin Flumenbaum, said the 46-year-old had taken his own life Saturday.

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The spokesman, Stan Rosenfield, said Sheen is expected to be released Wednesday.

A law enforcement official said Sheen was hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation after a woman told police he was throwing furniture in his room at New York City's Plaza Hotel early Tuesday.

The official says the 45-year-old star of CBS' "Two and a Half Men" was not arrested, but checked himself into a hospital for an evaluation.

The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the incident and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A law enforcement official says actor Charlie Sheen was hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation after a woman told police he was throwing furniture in his New York City hotel room.

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Cesar Mercado, 34, was found at 10:35 a.m. in his apartment in the Bronx. The driver found the door ajar and Mercado's body lying just inside the blood-spattered apartment, police said.

"The knife was found on the floor next to him," said Paul Browne, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information.

Police were investigating a possible motive, and no suspects were immediately identified.

An assistant to Nicaragua's ambassador to the United Nations, Maria Rubiales de Chamorro, said the mission couldn't immediately release any information. Mercado was listed as the former counsel.

Leaders from 192 nations were in town for the General Assembly, including Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who is a fierce critic of the United States and a defender of North Korea and Iran. President Barack Obama addressed the General Assembly on Thursday.

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Nicole John fell about 4:15 a.m., apparently from the top floor of the 25-story Herald Towers, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. She was found on a third-floor ledge with severe trauma to her body after people across the street saw her fall.

Her death was believed to be an accident. John was believed to have been drinking, and 25-year-old Ilan Nassimi, who rents the apartment, was arrested later Friday on charges of unlawful dealing with a minor, police said. No attorney information was available for Nassimi.

John was an incoming freshman at the Parsons The New School for Design and lived in Manhattan's East Village. She and others had been out earlier at a Manhattan club, leaving around 2 a.m. go to the apartment on West 34th Street near the Empire State Building, Kelly said.

Police believe the apartment may have been cleaned up by the time investigators arrived, but they think about a dozen people where there and had been drinking.

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Growing confidence in the experimental cap's security convinced scientists it was safe to leave it unmonitored for a few days, Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

Allen said they'll decide Thursday evening whether ships will have to leave.

"The decision has been made to leave the cap on, even if the well is unattended," Allen said.

Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami say the storm system has already caused flooding in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It could become Tropical Storm Bonnie later Thursday and reach the Gulf of Mexico by Saturday.

Seas already were choppy in the Gulf, with waves up to five feet rocking boats as crews prepared to leave if needed. Some boats involved in the cleanup were called into port Thursday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft said. He also directed workers to remove oil-absorbent booms from marsh areas along the coast to prevent damage to ecologically sensitive areas.

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Retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said tropical weather could force crews on the water to abandon their watch over the experimental cap that's been bottling oil a mile below the surface of the water for nearly a week.

Scientists have been closely watching to determine if the cap is displacing pressure and causing leaks underground. If they can't observe the cap because of bad weather -- for up to four days, Allen said -- they could decide to reopen the cap to avoid missing signs the well is buckling.

Forecasters say the storm system will likely move into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, although it appears to be weakening. Right now, it has a 60 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or storm within the next 48 hours.

In Florida, crews were removing protective boom intended to buffer the state's inland waterways in the Panhandle from oil. High winds and storm surge could carry the boom into sensitive wetlands, damaging those areas.

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The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday.

Late Sunday, Allen said something was detected seeping near the broken oil well and demanded in a sharply worded letter that BP step up monitoring of the ocean floor. Allen didn't say what was seeping. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday afternoon the seepage was about two miles from the well head. He also said the well head is leaking.

The concern all along -- since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected -- was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. An underground leak could let oil and gas escape uncontrolled through bedrock and mud.

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The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that government scientists had gotten the answers they wanted about how BP is monitoring the seabed around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday.

Late Sunday, Allen said a seep had been detected a distance from the busted oil well and demanded in a sharply worded letter that BP step up monitoring of the ocean floor. Allen didn't say what was coming from the seep. White House energy adviser Carol Browner told the CBS "Early Show" the seep was found less than two miles from the well site.

The concern all along -- since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected -- was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. An underground leak could let oil and gas escape uncontrolled through bedrock and mud.

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Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said on a Friday afternoon conference pressure readings from the cap have not reached the level that would show there are no other leaks in the well.

He said the test will go ahead for another 6-hour period before being reassessed to see if BP needs to reopen the cap and let oil spill out again.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- BP said its capped-off well appeared to be holding steady Friday as a white-knuckle waiting period ticked by with engineers watching pressure gauges for signs of a leak.

Results monitored from control rooms on ships at sea and hundreds of miles away at the company's U.S. headquarters in Houston showed the oil staying inside the cap, rather than escaping through any undiscovered breaches, BP PLC vice president Kent Wells said on a morning conference call.

Four underwater robots scoured the sea floor but had also found no signs of new leaks, he said.

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Results monitored from control rooms on ships at sea and hundreds of miles away at the company's U.S. headquarters in Houston showed the oil staying inside the cap, rather than escaping through any undiscovered breaches, BP PLC vice president Kent Wells said on a conference call.

Four underwater robots scoured the sea floor but had also found no signs of new leaks.

President Barack Obama said Friday the progress was good news, but cautioned an anxious public not to "get too far ahead of ourselves." Obama said the cap was still being tested and there was still an "enormous clean up job" and ensuring quick compensation for Gulf residents and business in the offing.

There was no evidence of a leak in the pipe under the sea floor, Wells said, one of the main concerns. Wells said the results were encouraging 17 hours after valves were shut to trap oil inside the cap, a test that could last up to 48 hours.

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