Looking at the existing tables/recordset option:
These are the rs from the home page:
mysql_select_db($database_buffalogals_wp, $buffalogals_wp);
$query_Recordset1 = "SELECT * FROM wp_posts ORDER BY post_date DESC";
$Recordset1 = mysql_query($query_Recordset1, $buffalogals_wp) or die(mysql_error());
$row_Recordset1 = mysql_fetch_assoc($Recordset1);
$totalRows_Recordset1 = mysql_num_rows($Recordset1);
mysql_select_db($database_buffalogals_wp, $buffalogals_wp);
$query_Recordset2 = "SELECT * FROM wp_terms WHERE slug = 'site-news-item'";
$Recordset2 = mysql_query($query_Recordset2, $buffalogals_wp) or die(mysql_error());
$row_Recordset2 = mysql_fetch_assoc($Recordset2);
$totalRows_Recordset2 = mysql_num_rows($Recordset2);
The first block gets me the latest post. I don't know how to filter it based on the second one (filtered by category (slug) equalling 'site-news-item').