Late-night talk host suiting up with Wolves

MINNEAPOLIS -- Late-night wisecracker Craig Kilborn, a native Minnesotan, will suit up with the Minnesota Timberwolves next week when the team meets for training camp.

The host of CBS' "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn," who played basketball for Hastings High School and Montana State, is an unabashed Wolves fan.

Wolves coach Flip Saunders on Monday officially invited Kilborn to join the squad for a few workouts, although the visit had been in the works for weeks.

"I am excited about having Craig join us at training camp," Saunders said. "I hope he is in shape and prepared for this. He better not expect any preferential treatment, either."

Kilborn, 41, will practice Monday and Tuesday with the Wolves at the team's training camp in St. Cloud.

"Two words for you: bounce pass," Kilborn said. "I have two more words for you: groin pull."

Figure skater Yamaguchi gives birth to healthy girl

LOS ANGELES -- It's a girl for Olympic champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and her husband, Bret Hedican, a defenseman for the Carolina Hurricanes.

The couple's first child, Keara Kiyomi Hedican, was born early Wednesday at a Raleigh, N.C., hospital, Yamaguchi's Los Angeles publicist said. The baby weighed 7 pounds and was 20 inches long.

"She's doing fantastic," Michael Sterling said. "Both the mother and baby are in excellent health."

Yamaguchi, 32, retired from the Stars on Ice tour last year to begin a family with Hedican, 33. The couple met at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, where she won a gold medal and he played for the U.S. hockey team. They married three years ago.

Jazz composer honored near Mississippi home

CLARKSDALE, Miss. -- Jazz composer and musician Gerald Wilson will be honored Saturday by his record label and local officials at a reception in Clarksdale.

The reception for the 85-year-old Wilson, a native of Shelby, follows the release of his new album, "New York New Sound," on Mack Avenue Records. The album also features Wilson's son, Anthony, on guitar, along with Clark Terry, Kenny Barron, Stix Hooper and others.

"I'm looking forward to just coming back. I'm told I won't be doing anything else, so I just plan to sit back and take it easy and visit," he said .

Salvatores film tagged as Italian Oscar nominee

ROME -- Gabriele Salvatores' "Io non Ho Paura" ("I'm Not Scared") has been selected as Italy's candidate for this year's Academy Awards.

The movie, based on Niccolo Ammaniti's popular novel and set in a small village in Sicily, tells of the relationship between a boy who's been abducted and the son of his kidnapper.

"I hope I can represent Italy well," Salvatores told the AGI news agency Wednesday. "'Io non Ho Paura' is not only the tale of a kidnapping, it is also and above all a parable about the passage from childhood to adulthood."

The Academy Awards jury makes its five foreign-language nominations public on Jan. 27. The Oscar ceremony is scheduled for Feb. 29 in Los Angeles.

Magic signs on for home-loan help in N.Y.

NEW YORK -- Magic Johnson, the former Los Angeles Lakers star, joined with Washington Mutual to open a new home loan center in Harlem as part of a nationwide effort to help residents in low- to medium-income neighborhoods buy homes.

"Together, I know that we will bring new opportunity and positive change to our communities," said Kerry Killinger, Washington Mutual's chairman.

The Harlem center, which opened Wednesday, is the first of its kind in a five-year partnership between the bank and Johnson Development Corp. that seeks to further economic development in minority communities.

-- From wire reports