A 'Sopranos' Alum for a New Mob 'Empire'?

HBO, which has been struggling to recover its mojo since losing "The Sopranos" last year -- mostly with series that tackle subjects of varying degrees of outre-tude (levitating surfer addicts, internecine squabbling of polygamist wives, hot Southern vampires) -- is trying to persuade "Sopranos" alum Steve Buscemi to star as a bootlegger in its new mob drama, "Boardwalk Empire."

Buscemi, who played the cousin of wily waste-management expert Tony Soprano on the pay cabler's long-running mob drama, would play a wily "businessman who runs a liquor-distribution ring at the onset of Prohibition," as trade paper Hollywood Reporter noted -- although an HBO publicist couldn't have put it better.

"The Sopranos" was set in West Orange, N.J. "Boardwalk Empire," based on Nelson Johnson's nonfiction book, is set in Atlantic City, N.J.

Plus, Buscemi looks like a vampire. Can't miss with this one.

* * *

"The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" got an early holiday gift yesterday, courtesy of the very flush Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: a grant of $3.5 million. The money, to be spread over three years, will fund reporting of international health issues at the PBS-distributed program.

Technically, the recipient of the Gates grant is WETA, the public TV station that co-produces (along with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and WNET of New York) "NewsHour." Nevertheless, the money will pay for a series of reporting trips that will yield about 50 broadcast and online news stories about topics such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and reproductive health.

Global health issues are one of the major areas of grantmaking for the Gates Foundation, which had assets of $35 billion last year and handed out about $2 billion in grants. Show spokesman Rob Flynn, in a phone interview with The Post's Paul Farhi, insisted that the foundation will have no involvement in editorial decisions at "NewsHour," which is produced at WETA's Arlington studios.

Foundations have been making "targeted" grants to the program in the past few years to fund reporting on specific subjects. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, funds reporting on domestic health issues, and the National Endowment for the Arts provides money for arts coverage. The Gates Foundation previously underwrote "NewsHour's" education reporting.

Foundations provide about $7.5 million a year to the show, up from about $3 million in 2005, and account for about one-third of the show's production budget, Flynn said.

* * *

Because Glenn Beck was able to untangle himself from his contract with CNN sooner than expected, Fox News Channel is able to debut his new program the day before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in -- and not in early spring, as FNC originally announced last month.

FNC also unveiled the name of the new show: "Glenn Beck." Not to be confused with his previous show, which aired on CNN's Headline News, "Glenn Beck." The latter "Glenn Beck" show ran at 7 p.m. and again at 9 p.m.; the former will run at 5 p.m.

In its announcement, FNC said its "Glenn Beck" show will feature "a variety of guests and topics from the political, entertainment and business news worlds."

* * *

Nancy Cordes is CBS News's new congressional correspondent. The former WJLA reporter joined CBS News in 2007 as its transportation and consumer safety correspondent, after a stint with ABC News -- first as a Washington-based correspondent for its affiliate news service, then as an ABC News correspondent based in New York.

Cordes replaces Chip Reid, who was Capitol Hill correspondent until named White House correspondent last month; that change becomes effective in January. Reid replaces Jim Axelrod, who has been made a national correspondent, based in New York.

While covering Congress, Cordes will also be expected to continue to cover transportation and consumer safety, the network said.