Atlantic

Pam Chandler decided to accompany her husband, Bob, to the extraordinary auction of an Ocean City, N.J., mansion Saturday to keep him from "going overboard. " But an hour after she toured the 7,000-square-foot Victorian-style house on the Great Bay, she was the one prodding him to stay in the frenzied bidding on the breezy bayside veranda. The Chandlers, who live in Rumson, Monmouth County, with their three children, won the auction, ultimately paying $3.9 million for a property that was listed at about $6.5 million two years ago. It is assessed at $5 million.

ATLANTIC CITY — The stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists outside a casino hotel left tourism officials stunned and dismayed Monday, casting a shadow over the formal opening on Memorial Day weekend of the newest gambling palace and tripping up a $30 million-a-year campaign to rebrand and revive the sagging resort town. The two victims, women ages 80 and 47, were stabbed and killed during a robbery Monday morning outside Bally's Atlantic City casino hotel, just steps from where a police officer was sitting in a patrol car. Police declined to provide the names of the victims, or precisely where they were from, pending notification of family.

The official relocation of the Atlantic 10 Conference headquarters from Philadelphia to Newport News, Va., was announced yesterday. The relocation was first reported by the Daily News. "Moving the office to a new region of the Atlantic 10 footprint is an opportunity to further brand the A-10," commissioner Bernadette McGlade said. The A-10 office had been in Philadelphia since 1995.

SCHEDULE Temple Wednesday vs. Xavier , 7 (TCN) Saturday at Fordham, 1 La Salle Wednesday at Penn, 7 Saturday vs. Charlotte, 2 Saint Joseph's Tonight vs. Towson, 7 Saturday vs. Dayton, 6 (ESPNU) GAME OF THE WEEK Wednesday Xavier at Temple, TCN First place in the league is on the line between the teams that allow the fewest points (56) and score the second most (78.6). If you don't know which is which, you need to watch more A-10 hoops, especially this game.

Already, things are falling into place. Yesterday, less than 24 hours after learning Rutgers and West Virginia were leaving to join the Big East in 1995-96, the Atlantic 10, as anticipated, invited Xavier to join. This likely will not be the A-10's last expansion move. But getting Xavier from the beleaguered Midwestern Collegiate Conference is a solid step in the right direction. "We are elated, given (Xavier's) outstanding reputation both academically and athletically," said A-10 commissioner Ron Bertovich, who is leaving after the season to take a job with a cable company in Buffalo.

The wall adornment was impressive and unique to the occasion: Six colorful banners hung behind the rostrum to advertise the television networks that would show Atlantic 10 basketball this season. To the conference, they represented a public step forward. The trappings helped dress up the A-10's annual media day yesterday at Giants Stadium, where the conference announced preseason rankings, all-star teams and freshmen of influence. The rankings, by reporters, listed Temple as the overwhelming favorite to capture the league title, with St. Joseph's a distant second pick.

Ever since Jack Nicklaus turned 50 four years ago, the PGA Seniors Bell Atlantic Classic has tried to land the six-time Masters champion. That persistence finally was rewarded. Nicklaus, who has played in only two other Senior events this year, officially committed to be at the Chester Valley Golf Club in Malvern from May 21 to 23, when Lee Trevino defends his championship. It will be the Golden Bear's first competitive appearance in the Philadelphia area since the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, where he was the defending champ.

Temple completed a perfect Atlantic 10 regular season with a 69-46 rout of host Saint Joseph's yesterday. The No. 16 Owls (24-3, 16-0) won their 21st straight game behind 15 points by Ari Moore. Temple became the first undefeated Atlantic 10 team since George Washington finished 16-0 in 1996-97. Ayahna Cornish and Timisha Gomez scored 10 points each for Saint Joseph's (6-22, 4-12). In another women's game: Manor Junior College, using its entire roster of just six players, lost to host Pittsburgh-Titusville, 74-69, in a state title game yesterday.

THE TEMPLE women's basketball team has been selected as co-favorite to win the Atlantic 10 in a preseason poll conducted by the league coaches. The Owls and Dayton each received 14 first-place votes. Temple, which returns three starters from last year's 24-9 team, has made the NCAA Tournament 8 consecutive years. Owls senior guards Shey Peddy (team-best 14.1 points per game) and Kristen McCarthy (13.2 points) were preseason all-conference first-team picks. Peddy also was named to the league's preseason all-defensive team.

From beneath the waves and out of the past, the steamer Atlantic is still stirring up trouble. The 19th-century vessel carried perhaps 300 people to their deaths in a storied collision, crippled one legendary treasure-hunter, enriched another, may have ensnared one of history's first submarines, and now has touched off a maritime dispute between Canada and the United States. American salvagers have laid claim to the Lake Erie wreck of the Atlantic - as well as a treasure they say is still aboard.

ATLANTIC CITY - Two sets of visitors to this seaside casino resort often mingle in the streets behind the glitter of the Boardwalk - tourists and homeless people from across the region - and something went dreadfully wrong in that uneasy mix Monday when a woman described as homeless and deranged plunged a 12-inch butcher knife into two tourists from Canada, killing both. Antoinette E. Pelzer, 44, who holds a Philadelphia driver's license but who a relative said had been homeless for five months and undergone treatment for schizophrenia, made a first appearance Tuesday afternoon in state Superior Court in Atlantic County.

Shots were reportedly fired at the Oceanside Charter School in Atlantic City this morning. Few details of the incident were known. However, the Breaking News Network, which monitors police scanner activity, first reported the incident about 12:25 p.m. today at the school on 1750 Bacharach Boulevard. There were no reports of injuries. A woman who answered the phone at the school said she had no information to release. Police told reporters that the incident occurred just before noon and that two 10-year-old boys have been detained for firing a handgun in a bathroom.

ATLANTIC CITY - With The Who's "My Generation" playing on his earphones, dressed in crocs and plaid pajama pants, Keith Stell, 57, was happy to tell how he got to Atlantic City two months ago, a paranoid schizophrenic off his meds, a long rap sheet of drug and other arrests, just out of a Gloucester County jail. "A cop car," he said, sitting on a bench in the yard of the Atlantic City Rescue Mission with several other men who all attend the Atlantic Behavioral Health program. He said he was now on Seroquel.

The two Canadian tourists stabbed to death with a 12-inch butcher knife by a deranged woman in Atlantic City were a mother and her daughter, officials said today. They were identified as Po Lin Wan, 80, and Alice Mei See Leung, 47, of Scarborough, Ontario. Antoinette E. Pelzer, 44, allegedly stabbed Leung in her upper body during a robbery around 10 a.m. outside the Bally's Atlantic City Casino and then stabbed Wan in her lower body, hand and shoulder as she tried to help her daughter, authorities said.

Former basketball star Melissa Rotz will receive her doctor of Pharmacy degree and deliver the valedictory speech at the University of the Sciences graduation ceremony on Wednesday night at the Mann Center. Rotz, a graduate of Central Dauphin High School, was the women's basketball player of the year on the 2011 Inquirer all-academic team, chosen from the Philadelphia region's Division II and III schools. A four-year starter on the women's basketball team, Rotz has the distinction of graduating from University of the Sciences with the most individual academic honors ever won by a student-athlete at the institution, earning a dozen such awards over her career while performing as the team's starting point guard, the university said.

ATLANTIC CITY — The stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists outside a casino hotel left tourism officials stunned and dismayed Monday, casting a shadow over the formal opening on Memorial Day weekend of the newest gambling palace and tripping up a $30 million-a-year campaign to rebrand and revive the sagging resort town. The two victims, women ages 80 and 47, were stabbed and killed during a robbery Monday morning outside Bally's Atlantic City casino hotel, just steps from where a police officer was sitting in a patrol car. Police declined to provide the names of the victims, or precisely where they were from, pending notification of family.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - "Both?" Double murder suspect Antoinette Pelzer expressed surprise and swallowed hard in a court appearance Tuesday afternoon after learning that both the Canadian women she allegedly stabbed with a 12-inch butcher knife in an attack Monday in the tourism district of Atlantic City had died. According to charges read by Superior Court Judge Michael Donio, who set bail at $1.5 million for Pelzer, the older of the two victims, an 80-year-old, intervened as Pelzer attacked the younger, who was 47 and believed to be the older woman's daughter.

ATLANTIC CITY — At the East Coast Gaming Congress here on Thursday, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno sounded more like she was on the campaign stump than simply speaking to gambling-industry executives. Guadagno, a fill-in for Gov. Christie, dodged all questions regarding Internet gaming and sports betting at the gathering in the new Revel Casino. Instead, she chanted a familiar chorus: That it was her boss who ensured that Revel got built with $261 million in state tax credits, who streamlined regulations in the battered gambling town to entice investors, and who was going all-out to get Atlantic City back on track.

The Atlantic Ten Conference made another big move to fill the void left by the impending departure of Temple to the Big East, and dealt a blow to the Colonial Athletic Association, when Virginia Commonwealth announced Tuesday that it is leaving the CAA to join the A-10. The surprise was that VCU is leaving immediately, to begin playing A-10 sports in 2012-13. That's particularly noteworthy in men's basketball. VCU will be the 15th A-10 school next year. Butler is due to join the following year from the Horizon League, at the same time Temple leaves for the Big East Conference.

If they build it, will we come? Construction crews are finishing a $27 million, 75,000-square-foot expansion of Atlantic City International Airport that will add new gates and a federal inspection station for international flights and expand the baggage-claim area. Plans are under way for a $40 million connector road to better link the airport to the Atlantic City Expressway by 2016. A new parking garage has been built, and a contract has been awarded for a hotel adjacent to the airport, although construction has not begun.