Latest Fall: Former hotel queen Leona Helmsley...

Latest Fall: Former hotel queen Leona Helmsley said her 81-year-old husband Harry Helmsley is “all right” after falling down a flight of stairs Monday and hitting his head in his New York apartment, columnist Cindy Adams wrote in Tuesday’s New York Post. “I was waiting for Harry to join me for lunch,” Helmsley was quoted as saying. “Instead, an ambulance became my lunch.” Convicted of tax evasion and other charges, Leona Helmsley is free pending an appeal. Harry Helmsley was ruled incompetent to stand trial on income tax evasion charges.

South for the Winter: Globe-trotting novelist James A. Michener is hunting for a winter retirement home in Florida, his editor says. Michener recently visited a group of retired professionals in St. Petersburg, editor James Kings said Monday. “He said they were very interesting people down there, and he was more interested in that than he was in the sun,” Kings said.

Bleacher Bum: Pete Rose is facing his first season out of baseball since 1963 with a sense of humor. “I’m ready for it. The only difference is I think I’ll have to pay to go to the games now. So I’ll pay for my tickets, sit behind home plate and the first guy that strikes out I’m going to boo,” the former Cincinnati Reds manager said Tuesday in Indianapolis. But, he said, some things are not funny: “To see guys turn on me because of hearsay. . . . Guys that I thought were my so-called friends.” Baseball’s career-hit leader was banned from the sport Aug. 24 for illegal gambling.

Pump It Up: The White House limousine pulled up to Dave’s Sunoco service station in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and out popped George Bush in a photo opportunity for his clean-air program. Bush helped inaugurate the new methanol fuel pump at Dave’s. Methanol fuel is cleaner-burning than regular gasolines, but environmentalists charge that Bush’s legislative compromises weakened the clean-air package. While Bush spoke, demonstrators nearby carried placards reading “Clean Air Hypocrisy.”