Fats Domino returns home

New Orleans – Visiting his home for the first time since he was rescued from rising floodwaters in a boat, Fats Domino found his piano overturned among mud and debris and his house in ruins.

Despite the destruction, the 77-year-old legendary musician found a few bright spots during last week’s tour, arranged by WWL-TV: a favorite shirt that survived unblemished and a bust that made it through the storm unbroken.

Those were the exceptions. His electric keyboard sat against a wall covered in dried mud, mildew and mold, and his white grand piano was overturned, broken and stained with the filth that flowed into the Lower Ninth Ward along with the floodwaters.

The water reached well over 8 feet, brushing the bottoms of chandeliers inside the home, WWL-TV reported.

Domino’s fate was not publicly known for several days after the Hurricane Katrina-spawned floods hit the low-lying neighborhood. He was rescued in a boat along with other family members from an upper-floor balcony.

The side of the balcony was spray-painted with a premature farewell when it was feared Domino had not survived. “R.I.P. Fats. You will be missed.”

Domino’s house was a mansion of pink, yellow and lavender decorated with such touches as his “Cadillac couch,” resembling the rear of a 1950s car. The room was left in shambles.

Eastwood takes on two movies to tell whole story of Iwo Jima

New York – In making a movie about U.S. Marines in the battle of Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood became concerned that he was telling only half of the story.

So he made another movie.

The two films – “Flags,” telling the story of six men who raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi, and the tentatively named “Lambs Before the Wind” on the Japanese side of the battle – are scheduled for simultaneous release next fall.

Eastwood had difficulty articulating to Time magazine why he took on the ambitious projects.

“I don’t know – sometimes you just get a feeling about something. You have a premonition that you can get something decent out of it,” he told the magazine in an interview in this week’s issue. “You just have to trust your gut.”

Nearly 7,000 American troops and more than 20,000 Japanese died in the battle from February to March 1945.

Material girl says she’s the disciplinarian of her children

New York – Madonna says she’s the disciplinarian with 9-year-old Lourdes and 5-year-old Rocco.

The former material girl told Newsweek that she doesn’t let her children watch TV or look at magazines. She says milk and ice cream are also off-limits.

“When Daddy gets home, they get chocolate,” Madonna said. “I’m the disciplinarian.”

She’s also strict about laundry duties: If Lourdes leaves dirty clothes on the floor, “we take all of her clothes and put them in a bag, and she has to earn all of her clothes back by being tidy,” Madonna said. “She wears the same outfit every day to school until she learns her lesson.”

Vanna White dishes up ice cream honor in hometown

North Myrtle Beach, S.C. – Vanna White stopped by her hometown Saturday to honor a local ice cream parlor for all the sweet treats dished out there.

White gave Original Painter’s Homemade Ice Cream an award from the Turner South cable network program “Blue Ribbon,” whose viewers voted Painter’s the best ice cream in the South.

It didn’t take much to get the “Wheel of Fortune” star back. She loves the ice cream, especially the maple nut, and Painter’s dubs one of its concoctions the “Vanna Banana” sundae.

Ricky Martin says fame, fortune left him bored

New York – Ricky Martin, whose hits include “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” says the fame and fortune he experienced in the late ’90s left him feeling bored and embittered.

“There was a moment (in 2002) when I was onstage and I was just so angry,” Martin says in the Oct. 24 issue of People magazine.

“I thought, ‘Something is wrong. I have the applause, I have a great band behind me, I live comfortably. … I was starting to become a victim of fame. Everything was too serious and I wasn’t enjoying it.”

Soon afterward, he quit the stage and began touring the world. Now back in the United States, the 33-year-old singer says he’s looking forward to his Latin American tour this fall.

“When you work, work, work, something is wrong. You need to chill. You need to step aside and see where you’ve been, where you are now and where you want to be,” he said.