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You didn't have to believe in omens to find it a bit odd that on the subway ride toward Mellon Arena yesterday, "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas" seemed to be squawking in a continuous loop. This was right at the top of zero hour, when the long-awaited, viciously anticipated casino licensing issue would finally be decided. Twenty minutes later, the Penguins had begun practice on the NHL's oldest living hockey pond, and at precisely 11:27 a.m., the franchise learned it was indeed getting nothing for Christmas. Oh yeah, mommy and daddy are mad, the NHL is mad, even the Rooneys...

CAMERON — Former presidents and A-list Academy Award-winning actors are a few steps up from the kind of dignitaries generally spotted at the dedication of a local hospital, but Cameron Parish hosted one of each at an event for South Cameron Memorial Hospital on Wednesday. Former President George Bush and actor George Clooney headlined an event in the Hurricane Rita-ripped city of Cameron that was partly a rally and partly an announcement of a $2 million donation for the ruined hospital from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. Welcoming them were hundreds of Cameron residents gathered on the bare foundations or what...

National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman issued a grim assessment Wednesday of the Penguins' future in Pittsburgh after state gambling regulators bypassed the team's partner for the city's sole slots license. Detroit-based Majestic Star Casino, which won the license, says it will contribute $7.5 million a year for 30 years toward an arena -- as long as the team and taxpayers also contribute money. St. Louis-based Isle of Capri Casinos pledged $290 million to build an Uptown facility the team and the NHL say is necessary to guarantee the franchise stays in Pittsburgh. "The future of this franchise in Pittsburgh...

LAS VEGAS - Harrah's Entertainment Inc., the world's largest casino company, has agreed to a $90 per share buyout offer from two private equity groups, said a person with knowledge of the negotiations. The agreement with Apollo Management Group and Texas Pacific Group came late last week but lawyers for both sides have been working out the details, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. An official announcement on the deal could come as early as Tuesday, the person said Monday. A Harrah's spokesman declined to comment. The company owns the...

DENVER -- Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony is featured in an underground DVD that is circulating in his home town of Baltimore, Md. The DVD is called "Stop Snitching" and shows alleged drug dealers talking about what happens to people who cooperate with the police, and Anthony is standing next to one of them. He is also seen on the DVD talking about his Olympic bronze medal and saying that he threw it in a lake. The man he stands next to later goes on to tell how he would take care of snitches by "putting a hole in their...

You'll be happy to hear that Biloxi's gaming business not only has made big strides since Hurricane Katrina devastated the coastline, but also that the restored casinos have expanded what they offer, and new properties are on the way. Before the storm that destroyed tens of thousands of gulf-area homes, Biloxi had nine casinos. Today, seven are back in business, including the glitzy Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, which reopened at the end of August, a year after Katrina hit. After the hurricane, the city changed its laws to allow casinos -- previously confined to floating structures at the water's...

The most telling thing lately is that Bill Cowher is discussing his future publicly. It's time. That's what Chuck Noll told me when I asked why he was retiring as Steelers coach in December 1991. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's time." Now it's Bill Cowher's time. I have the same feeling now as I had near the end of the 1991 season when I believed Noll was ready to hang it up. I think Cowher will "retire" soon after this season ends. First, here's some history on Noll's retirement, the only end to a head coach's career with...

A little more than a year after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is seeing a boom in its Latino population, with many coming to help reconstruct the city. Health officials had not anticipated the surge in the city's Latino population, The New York Times reported. In a demographic twist, hundreds of Latino babies are being born in New Orleans to immigrant Latino workers, both legal and illegal. In a city largely abandoned by its doctors after the storm, this new population adds a financial strain to the already struggling city. Many expectant mothers, lacking in financial assistance, cannot afford prenatal care...

A manatee that traveled 720 miles up the Mississippi River to Memphis in October and eluded his would-be rescuers was found dead today on the banks of a lake. Police said the manatee was discovered around 1:30 p.m. at Lake McKellar, a slackwater lake off the Mississippi River south of Memphis. The manatee was first spotted in October in the Wolf River harbor just north of the densely populated downtown area. But the animal disappeared a few days later and wasn't seen again until its body was found today. Sea World officials say they have no plans to return to...

Comedian talks tough at LeMoyne-Owen Bill Cosby doesn't sugarcoat his words. The sitcom star, author, comedian and former Jell-O spokesman told a crammed cafeteria at LeMoyne-Owen College Saturday that "the new Ku Klux Klan happens to be us, we're the Ku Klux Klan, and we have not protected our children." He continued: "Children need confidence and if you don't give it to them, how are they going to know that they can do something?" If Cosby's October visit to Memphis aimed to entertain, his most recent jaunt to town intended to inspire inner-city students. He spoke on education and personal...

Jefferson Parish's murder rate continued to spiral upward Friday night, after authorities logged a third killing within 24 hours, pushing the bloodshed to its highest level since 1980. The tally stood at 62 homicides in unincorporated Jefferson Parish, with the West Bank accounting for 43. The previous high for unincorporated Jefferson Parish was 50 murders logged in all of 1990, said Col. John Fortunato of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Friday night's violence, which brought Sheriff Harry Lee to the scene in Terrytown, came more than 24 hours after two men were cut down in a Harvey neighborhood Thursday night.

Memphis, Tenn. (WHBQ)- Even before the ink dried on the last criminal complaint, two more Memphis City Council members have an appointment with the law. The two council members were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury Friday afternoon, eight days after two other councilmen were accused of bribery.

What if Baghdad Bob was right all along? Friday, December 08, 2006 Remember Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf? He was the former Iraqi information minister who became a folk hero in the West because of his unintentionally hilarious daily briefings even as coalition forces tightened the noose around the regime's neck. Nicknamed "Baghdad Bob" by a credulous American press corps all too willing to parrot Bush administration propaganda, the Iraqi bureaucrat had a talent for lurid prose that hinted at a poetic sensibility beneath the nonsense. Among my favorites were: "God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of the...

Claims Cooper's out for Cooper City Councilman Edmund Ford said Thursday he's innocent of bribery charges and insists he was set up by an old friend: Former county official Joe Cooper. On a day that council staff was responding to two grand jury subpoenas, Ford told The Commercial Appeal that Cooper did give him cash this fall and that he's seen an undercover videotape that the FBI played for him when he was arrested last week. But the Dist. 6 councilman said he did not trade the money for his vote. Rather, Ford said, he believed Cooper was making him...

"IT'S AN EMBARRASSMENT AND BREACH OF TRUST" A Louisiana State Police employee and 11 others have been arrested as part of a statewide investigation into the theft of 256 computers purchased by FEMA. Only 43 of the stolen computers had been recovered as of Monday morning, police said. The Dell computers, valued at approximately $900 each, were intended to replace computers in government buildings, hospitals, and other facilities in Louisiana damaged by Hurricane Katrina, said State Police spokesman Lt. Lawrence McLeary. The computers were being stored at the Louisiana State Police Compound on Independence Boulevard in Baton Rouge. "It's an...

Another day has passed with listening to the comments made by several of the programs, it's surprising the disconnect at FNC. Yes, the Yankees are an incredibly popular team in the NYC metro area. That feeling doesn't translate to the vast majority of viewers comprising the cross sections of the country (memo: BOR, Fox & Friends, Forbes, W'end Fox & Friends). Nevermind we're in the midst of the NFL & NCAA football peak seasons ... btw There were two segments with Jeter on FNF yesterday. While he was pushing his new cologne and several business ventures, did anyone hear a...

One city watchdog barked at another yesterday, as Pittsburgh's acting Controller Tony Pokora took legal action to unleash his budget from restrictions imposed by state fiscal overseers. Mr. Pokora's complaint says the $2.21 million allocation to his office now under consideration by City Council would leave him "unable to adequately perform the duties mandated" by the city's charter. It asks Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr., who has decided several cases involving the office, to set an adequate budget. "I'd have to lay people off" under the current spending plan, Mr. Pokora said, predicting that six of his 61...

HOUMA -- After his arrest, suspected serial killer Ronald Dominique needed little prompting before he began detailing the murderous trysts that claimed almost two dozen lives over nearly a decade and confounded police in six parishes where the bodies were dumped, authorities said Monday. In a taped confession, Dominique recounted for detectives how he enticed his victims with offers of money for sex, tied them up, then raped and strangled them, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said. However, Dominique wasn't a fighter, Larpenter said. Each victim -- all males between the ages of 16 and 46, some of whom were...

A multi-agency task force investigating as many as 21 stranglings arrested a 42-year-old Houma man on Friday and booked him with two of the earliest ones. See story A statewide investigation into nearly two dozen slayings of men, most around the southeastern Louisiana town of Houma and in neighboring parishes, led police to arrest a suspect Friday who they believe is a serial killer, charging him in the killings of two men from New Orleans. Houma police arrested Ronald J. Dominique, 42, at a homeless shelter run by the police department on Friday, and accused him of leaving two dead...

Today I'd like to award my first "On the Pipe" awards to Memphis City Councilmen Rickey Peete and Edmund Ford, both arrested Thursday on public corruption charges. No insult to addicts intended, this award goes to anyone whose behavior is so bizarre, so devoid of any common sense, so head-scratchingly stupid that the only explanation is a serious addiction to the crack pipe. What makes Ford's and Peete's stupidity so memorable, so worthy of the "On the Pipe" award is the timing. In August and October, federal prosecutors say Ford took a total of $6,900 in bribes to get the...