Hotelier’s new home: Single occupancy, three meals,...

Hotelier’s new home: Single occupancy, three meals, no balcony. Only $26 a day. That would be the average cost to taxpayers for each day Leona Helmsley could spend in Danbury Prison Camp in Connecticut. Helmsley is free on bail pending an appeal of her August conviction. Danbury is reportedly like a college campus, with no fences and unlocked rooms.

Long Story: Even when Louisiana’s colorful Gov. Earl Long was cavorting with stripper Blaze Starr, he came home at night, his widow says. Blanche Long, 87, discussed Long’s romps (re-created by Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich in the movie “Blaze”) with the press. “He was down there on Bourbon Street a lot, (but he) would be right at home that night. You know how men do that sort of thing, don’t you?” Historians agree Starr was not the love of Long’s life, because he also saw other women at the time. “What with the drugs he was taking, the liquor and the cigarettes, he was almost impotent, and that’s why he was grabbing these young women,” said historian Morgan Peoples.

Jackpot: Col. Jack Waters of the Salvation Army announced that because his charity had been banned from many shoping malls, the group would lose about $100,000 this season. But then Barbara Bush dropped $10 in a kettle in Washington. Now, Lillian Soloman and her brother Izzy Cohen, chairman of Giant Foods, have read about the First Lady’s donation and decided to give Waters a $100,000 check.

MOTH Award: The 1989 Most Outrageous Tabloid Headline Awards were announced by United States Playing Card Co. of Cincinnati. From the Sun: “It’s Every Infant’s Nightmare . . . Boy George to Adopt a Baby,” which won the music and entertainment category. From the Globe: “Man Explodes on Operating Table” won health and fitness. And “Bride’s Kiss Makes 80 Guests Sick” copped the society prize for the Weekly World News.