The Daily Blog

Merry Christmas.

armelo Anthony Leaves Nuggets Following Sister’s Death.

Carmelo Anthony has left the Denver Nuggets to be with his family following the death of his sister and will not rejoin the team until after Christmas.

Michelle Anthony died of a pre-existing medical condition Tuesday in Baltimore. She had four children.

“Our entire organization supports Carmelo during this difficult time for him and his family,” Nuggets executive vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri said in a statement released by the team. “It is heartbreaking news, particularly during the holiday season.”

Anthony has recently nursed a strained right elbow, sitting out the last two days of practice.

With several key players returning from injury in the near future — including Kenyon Martin (knee) and Chauncey Billups (wrist) — the Nuggets were hoping to see their roster fully intact for the first time this season, perhaps gaining insight into whether it can be a serious championship contender — or if it’d be best to accelerate the rebuilding process by trading Anthony.

Those plans are obviously on hold until Anthony returns. After Wednesday’s game against the Spurs, the Nuggets will travel to Oklahoma City to face the Thunder on Christmas Day before returning to Denver to host the Philadelphia 76ers on Dec. 26.

Paris Hilton Reveals Her 2010 Christmas Card.

We all know Paris Hilton had quite a bumpy year. And, as depicted in her new holiday photo, she just might be bracing for another one.

The provocative Christmas card has been mailed to friends and associates of the 29-year-old socialite (recently nixed from the Nicole Richie wedding guest list), and the message she sends, according to People.com, is as unsubtle as her slinky silver minidress: “Happy holidays to everyone! Love Paris, xoxo”

Perched on an upholstered throne and dressed to the nines, the jet-setter — who was arrested in August by Las Vegas police on a felony cocaine charge — is surely hoping to put her 2010 woes behind her. But despite her pout, she’s feeling cheerful, reports RadarOnline: “Christmas is my favorite time of year,” she says, adding that she plans to spend the holidays soaking up the sun, first in Hawaii, then Mexico.
Hilton’s latest venture, according to the New York Times, is a motorcycle racing team called SuperMartxé VIP by Paris Hilton (the name refers to a dance party in Ibiza). She recently flew to Madrid for the launch of her sporty new endeavor. The team will compete in the 2011 125cc MotoGP World Championship season, and as part of Hilton’s contract, she will reportedly be in attendance at various races over the next five years.

Widespread White Christmas Expected Across US.

For the second consecutive winter, a cold and stormy December has set the stage for a white Christmas across a significant part of the U.S. While snow cover is not likely to be quite as extensive as it was last year, a late-week storm might cover the ground in a magical white in parts of the East by the end of Christmas Day.

The depth of the current snow cover will guarantee a white Christmas in the Rockies and interior parts of the West, as well as in the northern Plains, much of the Ohio Valley, the Great Lakes and interior parts of the Northeast.Snow cover is spotty or completely lacking in parts of the mid-Atlantic region and coastal Northeast, but meteorologists are watching a late-week storm that could change that. Computer models are projecting a storm to move from the central Plains on early Friday to along the New England coast by later on Saturday, spreading snow along its path.

If this storm track materializes, fresh snow would be dumped from Iowa to parts of the Virginias, with a brand-new snow cover a possibility for the major cities along the Eastern Seaboard, from Washington, D.C., to Boston.Early-week storms moving through the West will increase the snow cover in the mountains of the West and Desert Southwest, expanding snow cover into some regions that are bare.

Even with the additional snow this week, snow cover was a little more extensive last Christmas when the combination of Arctic cold and a southern storm produced an abundance of snow.

Snow cover on Dec. 25, 2009, extended farther to the south in the Southwest and Plains than it will this year, with snow on the ground as far south as Dallas. Snow cover was also deep in the Virginias, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey, following the first of a couple of monster snowstorms in what turned out to be the snowiest winter on record.Typically, a white Christmas is a virtual certainty in the high mountains of the West, the extreme northern Plains and interior parts of northern New England, with a likelihood of greater than 90 percent. The likelihood drops to just 5 to 10 percent along a line extending from the Texas Panhandle to southern Virginia.

This year, a white Christmas is likely in much of the region, where there is just a 26 to 40 percent chance on average.

A white Christmas is generally defined as having an inch or more of snow on the ground.