Fox News reports that “The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending staff up and down the East Coast to help prepare communities potentially affected by Hurricane Earl, a Category 4 storm making its way toward the U.S. shoreline.”

Fox also reports that the state of Maine’s Emergency Management Agency is expecting FEMA’s Region One officials to arrive in the city Augusta on Thursday, Sept. 2, in anticipation of the storm’s arrival.

Due to a scheduling conflict, the Justin Bieber concert scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 20, at Boardwalk Hall has been changed to Friday, Nov. 19. All tickets purchased for the Nov. 20 date will be honored Nov. 19. The showtime has also been changed from 8pm to 7pm.

When folks in Atlantic City talk about a trip to the White House, they are not talking about a trip to D.C., they are talking about the fabulous sub shop. Now it has been announced that the White House will open a new location at the Trump Taj Mahal next spring. Go here for the story.

Atlantic City Weekly has learned that the Experience Hendrix tour is coming back to Atlantic City this November. Among the just-announced set of fall dates for the tour — which crisscrossed the country earlier this year — is a Nov. 13 date at Caesars Atlantic City.

The line-up of the tour this time out, includes the late Hendrix’s long-time friend and musical partner Billy Cox, along with an impressive list of blues-rockers, including Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph, Jonny Lang, Steve Vai, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas, Eric Johnson, Ernie Isley, Living Colour, Chris Layton of Double Trouble and The Slide Brothers.

According to a news release sent to the media today, “For the first time in its history, Experience Hendrix, the concert tour that has wowed audiences revisiting the music and inspiration of Jimi Hendrix featuring an all-star line up of music greats will be re-launched within a single calendar year. The Experience Hendrix tour crisscrossed the country this past March for a string of sold-out concerts and will return with a new set of U.S. and — for the first time — Canadian dates this October and November.”

Click here for more information on the tour series.

Tickets are on sale now for the Experience Hendrix Fall 2010 dates, which are:

Oct. 26 – Pittsburgh – Benedum Theater
28 – Toronto, ON – Sony Center
29 – Quebec City, QUE – Grand Theatre
30 – Montreal, QUE – Place des Arts
Nov. 2 – Buffalo, NY – Center for the Arts
3 – Morristown, NJ – Community Theatre
4 – Mashantucket, CT – MGM Grand @ Foxwoods
6 – Albany, NY – Palace Theater
7 – Boston, MA -  Orpheum Theater
9 – Hershey, PA – Hershey Theatre
10 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre
11 – Baltimore, MD – Hippodrome
12 – Richmond, VA – Landmark Theater
13 – Atlantic City, NJ – Caesars Casino
16 – Columbus, OH- Palace Theater
17 – Cincinnati, OH – Taft Theater
18 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theater
19 – Merrilville, IN – Star Plaza Theater
20 – Indianapolis – Murat Theatre

Courtesy of HBO

Including one very exciting one co-organized and co-presented by Atlantic City Weekly called “Conversations & Storytelling,” which will be followed by a free and open-to-the-public Viewing Party at Caesars on Sept. 19, the night of the premiere of HBO’s upcoming series Boardwalk Empire.

Click here for all the info, plus info about some of the major events planned for the Atlantic City area over next couple months in relation to the show.

While you’re at it join the AC Weekly Boardwalk Empire Fan Club on Facebook to keep up to date on all the news and promotions surrounding the Cable TV series.

Philanthropist and Philadelphia attorney James Binns has overseen the funding and dedication of hundreds memorial plaques for police officers who died in the line of duty (including eight in Atlantic City and two in Margate), and created a similar program that commemorates the lives of Philadelphia firefighters who lost their lives while serving the public.

He’s established a fundraising effort called Cop Wheels that has provided dozens of patrol motorcycles to various police departments, and he single-handedly revived a popular Philadelphia spectacle (scheduled for Sept. 18 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philly) called the Hero Thrill Show that has raised well over $1 million in five years to pay for the college tuitions of children of police officers/firefighters who died in the line of duty.

This Saturday, Aug. 28, as a sort of prelude to that Philadelphia show, the City of Margate will host its own Hero Thrill Show. It will take place at Ventura’s Greenhouse at Benson Street and Atlantic Avenue (by Lucy the Elephant) from 11am-3pm, and will include daring stunts by the Philadelphia Police Department Motorcycle Drill Team, a K-9 unit demonstration, stunts by the Philadelphia Police Narcotics Strike Force Bicycle Team, and a demonstration by the Atlantic City Bomb Squad. The event is free to the public, and there will be food and entertainment provided.

For more on this event, go here.

Capt. Jim Fowler and crew with a nice haul of mahi and tuna.

There’s no better table fare than fresh tuna, and no, that’s not a reference to cans of Starkist the neighborhood ACME recently stocked on its shelves. It refers to fresh fish taken out of local waters by charter boats and offshore anglers, and this year has been an exceptional one regarding tuna and other large quarry caught off the southern New Jersey coast.

By “offshore” we mean the deep-water canyons about 60 to 80 miles out, among them the Hudson, Toms, Carteret, Lindenkohl, Spencer, Wilmington, Baltimore and Poor Mans that yield such big-game quarry as tuna, marlin, mahi-mahi, wahoo and swordfish. These are deep-water predators that you won’t find close to shore, and ones that put up the kind of fight you’d better be prepared to wage for a long time if the fish has any kind of size to it.

Last Saturday, Aug. 21, Atlantic City Weekly associate editor Ray Schweibert went on his second-ever offshore fishing trip aboard his buddy Jim Kay’s spectacular Viking sport-fisher Deep Blue out of Brigantine. For more on this thrilling adventure, go here.

Air show attendees on the Atlantic City beach Wed., Aug. 25.

According to published reports, the Atlantic City beaches were not as crowded as they were in 2009 for the annual Atlantic City Air Show. However, it is estimated that the 2010 Air Show attracted roughly 650,000 people.

Check out video from the Air Show here.

Our photographer Nick Valinote caught all the action, including the shot above. Check back later today for an extensive photo gallery from the 2010 Atlantic City Air Show: Thunder over the Boardwalk, which celebrated the 100th year of air shows in New Jersey.

One of the smaller participants in last year's Roar to the Shore motorcycle event in the Wildwoods. (photo from roartotheshoreonline.com)

If you need a quick “roar” fix between the recently completed “Thunder Over the Boardwalk” air show and the upcoming revival of Atlantic City’s “Feel the Power” offshore powerboat races on Sept. 19, then head down to Wildwood for the annual “Roar to the Shore” motorcycle rally taking place Thursday through Sunday, Sept. 9-12.

Thousands of bikers will roll into the Wildwoods for this 15^th annual event featuring specialized vendors and demonstrations, live entertainment and more. The vast vendor areas will feature hundreds of top-of-the-line merchants. It will be open each of the four days from 9am, and include everything from pin-striping, accessories, leather goods, helmets, eye protection, fine cigars and (drum roll please) … a mobile Jack Daniels museum. Merchants will be spread across five separate vending areas sited at the Wildwoods Convention Center (WCC)’s parking lot, and all along Oak and Atlantic avenues in downtown Wildwood.

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Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or what’s happening in the region. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly.

When New Jersey governor Chris Christie came to the Boardwalk July 21, called Atlantic City “A dying town” and announced his proposal for the state to oversee Atlantic City’s casino and tourism district, it unleashed a state and local news cycle that wailed away at Atlantic City. As the busy summer season was entertaining guests with great dining, shopping and entertainment, the news about Atlantic City was mostly negative, some of it justified, some of it warmed-up rehashing of old issues.

Dennis Gomes

Well, this week the news cycle got much brighter, topped by the news that Dennis Gomes, a veteran Atlantic City casino executive who was largely responsible for the development of The Quarter at the Tropicana and before that worked diligently for the Trump Taj Mahal, has purchased Resorts. For all the details, check out Mike Pritchard’s story here.

Dennis Gomes returning to town in the casino biz is a godsend. If anybody can turn around the town’s struggling first casino, he can. That perception is held across the industry. Gomes has an excellent track record, and that is what the moneymen and business analysts look for, previous success.

Dennis Gomes is also a kickboxing enthusiast who helped make the Tropicana one of the top spots in town for mixed martial arts events during his tenure there. I brought that up just to reinforce that Gomes is tough when he has to be.

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It was announced this week that Atlantic City International Airport is handling a record number of passengers. The South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the airport, says more than 688,000 passengers were booked on commercial flights from the airport between January and July. That’s up 29 percent from the first seven months of 2009.

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