Las Vegas NV Blog

Las Vegas Sands vs. Wynn Resorts

2012-02-16T04:28:00.005-08:00

Watch stocks you care about The single, easiest way to keep track of all the stocks that matter... Your own personalized stock watchlist! It's a 100% FREE Motley Fool service... Click Here Now It's a question investors often ask themselves. Which company is better? Today, I'm taking a look at Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) and Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) , two of the most successful gaming companies in the industry. Both have a presence in Las Vegas and Macau with their high end resorts there. The one big difference is that Las Vegas Sands has the additional advantage of a resort in Singapore. Let the debate begin! Location and growthIn Las Vegas, the two companies have casinos located opposite the street from each other. Both have suffered from lower demand after the recession, but unlike rivals MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM) and Caesars Entertainment (Nasdaq: CZR) they have recovered nicely by focusing on the top end of the market. Also, unlike Caesars and MGM, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn are comparatively less leveraged. The two casinos generate about the same amount of property EBITDA so for comparison sake, we'll call them a wash. In Macau, Las Vegas Sands dominates the landscape with a casino on the Macau Peninsula and a strangle hold on the Cotai Strip. The company is adding Sands Cotai Central to its two other hotels there; The Venetian Macau and Four Seasons Macau, giving it prime real estate in gaming's hotspot. There are big differences in the two company's operations in Macau though. Wynn generates far more profit from much less space than Las Vegas Sands does at its resorts. In the most recent quarter, Las Vegas Sands generated $1.03 billion in casino revenue in Macau, driven by 1,129 table games. The Venetian Macau, for example, averaged $11,705 in table game win per unit per day. Wynn Resorts squeezes much more out of its casino by focusing on high rollers a! t the ve ry top end of the market. The company's Macau resort generated $889.5 million of casino revenue, mostly from an average of 487 tables. That's a per table win of $25,769 per day. What will differentiate them in the future is growth in Macau. Las Vegas Sands is building Sands Cotai Central, which will have 5,800 rooms and 540 table games, bringing much more supply to the Cotai Strip. Wynn won't enter Cotai until probably 2016, when its casino next to MGM Resorts and Melco Crown's (Nasdaq: MPEL) City of Dreams is expected to be finished. In Singapore, Las Vegas Sands operates one of just two casinos there, and it's a doozy. Marina Bay Sands has generated $1.53 billion in EBITDA over the last 12 months and is approaching a $2 billion per year run rate. Playing the oddsNow that we know where operations stand, it's time to talk about what you would be getting from an investment in each company. With their current stock prices, Wynn resorts has a $13.9 billion market cap and Las Vegas Sands is valued at $38.2 billion. So Las Vegas Sands might have more casinos and more EBITDA, but are you getting the same bang for your buck as Wynn Resorts? To judge that we'll look at enterprise value divided by EBITDA. This will give us a multiple of how many times EBITDA you would be paying to buy the entire company at its current price. To calculate net debt, I have subtracted cash on hand from long-term debt. By this form of valuation, Wynn Resorts looks much less expensive than Las Vegas Sands. But let's remember that Las Vegas Sands will open Sands Cotai Central over the next year, adding significantly to EBITDA. Based on the development having twice as many rooms as The Venetian Macau, 5,800, and fewer table games, 540, I think it's safe to estimate that EBITDA will be similar to its neighboring resort, not considering possible dilution in the area. So if we add $1.0 billion to Las Vegas Sands' EBITDA, we would get a EV/EBITDA ratio of 9.8 if we included that resort. This is just an estimati! on, but it does show that valuation is very similar when you consider soon-to-open resorts. Foolish bottom lineThe difference between the two companies really comes down to risk profile and size preference. By virtue of sheer size, it will be harder for Las Vegas Sands to grow in the future, even if it adds a wildly successful casino. Wynn, on the other hand, could potentially double its own EBITDA when it opens its planned resort on Cotai. By the same token, Las Vegas Sands has a more diverse assortment of properties and will cash in on the gaming boom in Singapore. Right now, for my money, I think Wynn Resorts is a better pick because the company has proven to be a conservative operator with a history of consistent performance. It also pays about a 2% dividend and has a history of being a company focused on shareholder value. I like both companies enough to have an outperform pick on both stocks in CAPS, which can be seen here. I'm also considering shopping shares of Wynn Resorts in the near future, FYI. Keep up on gaming stocks with My Watchlist and our free email My Fool Daily. With My Watchlist and My Fool Daily, our foolish analysis of the stocks you pick comes straight to you. No searching through articles you don't want. What could be easier? Best Odds in the Universe! If you're interested in a 98.79% chance at beating the market... and a 70.84% chance at DOUBLING the market's return Motley Fool Supernova could be just what you're looking for. And get this: We arrived at these odds from 10,000 random back-tested portfolios composed of Motley Fool Co-founder David Gardner's personal stock picks. It's why David recently handpicked a small team of world-class portfolio managers. You see, he thinks these odds can get even better! And he'd like to prove it to you... Simply enter your email address. 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The Great Las Vegas Real Estate Scam

2012-02-16T04:28:00.003-08:00

My family decided to take a trip from Reno to Las Vegas to see how a real estate market was behaving in a city most hit by a real estate bubble. We own and don't have to worry about getting a mortgage if we decide to move to Las Vegas for a health of one family member. But we pretty much came to a conclusion which a real estate market is a total scam in Las Vegas. One agent proceeded to tell us which a banks have given up on Las Vegas and have allowed a market to crash to a bottom. That of course is a ridiculous statement to make. The banks never give up anything when it comes to greed, which is why our nation is struggling. The problem is, bank owned properties have declined from 18,000 on a Las Vegas market to about 1,600 if I am to believe a agent's figures. What this means is which a banks are holding onto a huge inventory of unsold homes as well as contributing to a slowdown since of robosigning. There are empty homes everywhere. So, what is a scam? Well, a scam is which a banks put a properties they do want to sell on a market for 30 days. If there are no buyers, which is often, there is a bidding war after a 30 days among investors. I would say which a investors come in with low ball offers and often get a properties for a steal, for a "wholesale" price. While main street is shut out of this market, or perhaps is not interested, a crony investors of a banks get a deals, and you wonder where those investors are getting a cash to make a offers. I am guessing which some get loans, big loans from a banks, as a line of credit. I am pretty sure which these investors are better risks for a banks than main street. But in playing this game, a banks are pretty well destroying a ability of main street to get ahead. The banks are more willing to manipulate a market with very little participation from main street. Main street should not trust these banks, since real supply and demand would be crushing these house prices. The banks are scamming main street, even willin! g to tak e less than a value posted, from an investor. It is like a real estate market is a sealed market, among investors and banks, sort of like futures markets are sealed markets between banks and speculators. Nothing is real anymore, in any market. It is a massive scam, and in real estate, a perfect market for this scam to take place is Las Vegas. Usually, houses go to a investors for less than a asking price, and a cronies and bankers are happy with this arrangement. Some fellows have warned which a US is like a Roman Empire. You have to wonder when you look at a military budget, a huge expenditures, and a little help which affords a growing underclass. One thing I did notice was which there were a large number of folks living multigenerationally, This undermines a plan of a banks to get main street into expensive loans. This terrifies a banking sector. But we really can't feel bad for a sector which is more interested in a quick buck than it is about making America strong. But in order for a scam to continue to work, you have to have renters and folks which buy gasoline. As long as people buy food and gasoline, a speculation in a futures continues unabated. As long as people rent, there will be investors willing to buy up all a available American dream with a help of a scoundrel banks. While I am privately for cram downs for homeowners who bought in a ponzi cycle, I am against this thought to let private capital buy real estate in bulk. That program just admits to a fact which a investors are getting a wholesale deals even now. Others don't get wholesale, even if they have cash. The banks have not given up their desire to keep prices artificially high, for a retail customer in Las Vegas. That is a scam. The only way to beat a banks is for fewer people to rent these properties which are going to be scarfed up by a bankers' friends. Las Vegas is an exciting city, but which is on a strip and in a casinos dotting a city throughout. In a real estate market, there is a lot of suffe! ring by those who bought in a bubble, and there is continuing suffering by those who want to buy but who cannot get a same deal as a privileged class. What is going on in a Las Vegas real estate market is both disgusting and wrongheaded. To a extent which it is happening elsewhere is proof which a banks are hurting this nation, are unpatriotic and are deserving of being wound down, one at a time, unless they do something to help. If they cannot afford to help by offering great deals to all citizens, they need to be dismantled as they are pretty useless to main street. And one more thing. The United States should help qualified buyers with a down payment. That is a sticking point with mortgages, a inability of many to save for a substantial down payment. This should not be a down payment which is 3 percent, or even 10 percent, since mortgages fail with which little down. The government should attempt to help with a 20 percent down payment in a fixed and stable mortgage if there is any hope of a housing market healing in a bubble areas. If our government is too poor to do this, then expect an underclass of folks who are being gouged by rent not reflected in a decline of housing values, and who will be a drag on a US economy for as far as a eye can see. I don't claim to have all a answers to a very difficult problem. But I know which with a decline in wages which is ongoing in a globalized society, down payment assistance is very necessary for a well being of our economy. The decline of America can be stopped, but only by a real effort to get families into homes. Germany should help Greece, and a US government should help homeowners. Failure of either or both will show a way to a very unstable future. I would suggest which multi generational families be helped with a down payment assistance. It is a only way to encourage a conservation of resources, and stability of multiple incomes in one household. Families cannot be treated as being "retail" any longer. The thought of retail and w! holesale home buyers is such a joke which it should be made illegal.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

A Hawaiian island in the Las Vegas desert

2012-02-16T04:28:00.001-08:00

A Hawaiian island in the Las Vegasdesert How the Downtown hotel helped turned the Valley into the ninthisland E.C. Gladstone Thu, Feb 16, 2012 (midnight) the restaurants arent always easy to identify. They often use the word island or the pidgin da in the title, and sometimes they stress secondary ethnicities, like Filipino or Korean. The menus might have sushi alongside staples like oxtail soup, kalua pork and macaroni salad. But look closely within nearly any Vegas neighborhood and youll find it: Hawaiian influence.Hawaiians have long been an acknowledged presence in Las Vegas, yet while the explosion of other ethnicities (if Hawaiian should be considered such) in the Valley is regularly noted, the size and change of the Hawaiian population has been radically overlooked.You know they call it the ninth island? asks Maile Bennett, an Oahu native now serving at Michel Richards Central inside Caesars Palace. Theres definitely the reason for that.It is [the ninth island], says construction contractor Milton Vickers, who moved here from Oahu 15 years ago. The only thing we miss here is the ocean, surfing, fishing.Even though its far away from home and nothings similar in the environment, Bennett says, it feels like home because of the people.Solid numbers arent easy to come by, but the 2010 Census counted about 16,300 Nevada residents of Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent, the overwhelming majority of whom live in Clark County. Given the transient nature of Las Vegas and immigrant populations in general, however, thats almost certainly the serious undercount. A Lei Day festival performance in Las Vegas. ! See how many cars youre following on the 15 or 215 that have the Hawaiian island sticker on the back window, says former Big Islander Bruce Goold. Ive noticed the lot more people moving here lately, looking for the cheaper way of life.Keep in mind, the entire permanent population of the state of Hawaii is less than 1.3 million, according to the 2010 Censusless than that of Clark County alone. Yet, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in 2010, there were approximately 7,000 airline seats flying from Hawaii to McCarran International Airport every week, bringing 260,000 visitors from Honolulu to the desert. Not accounting for repeat visitsof which there were expected manyand travelers continuing elsewhere, about 20 percent of all Hawaiians visited Las Vegas in one year. And some of them stayed.So, what are all these Pacific Islanders doing in the Mojave desert?Well, theyre serving food, certainly. Immigrant populations typically make their mark first with restaurants, and Hawaiians are no exception. Across the Valley today there are nearly 50 establishments run by and/or catering to Hawaiians, ranging widely from the casual L&L BBQ chain to two gourmet-level Roys Hawaiian Fusion restaurants. Hawaiians are carving the respected spot in mainstream Vegas hospitality, as well, including John Witte, specialty room chef of The Range at Harrahs, John Emron, sous chef at Social House and Anuhea Hawkins, sommelier at Nove Italiano. Troy Kumalaa, former sommelier at Summerlins Vintner Grill, recently moved into wine distribution. And youll find many more Hawaiians among the ranks. Photo: Saeed Rahbaran Specialty room chef of The Range at Harrah's John Witte incorporates touches of Hawaii into his Strip dishes. At Harrahs, Wittes menu includes subtle island touches. If I incorporate Hawaiian, its the comfort thing, he says. Nevertheless, the chef from Kauai insists Hawaiian tradition of! fers som e valuable insights into all cuisines. Its about respecting the land, respecting nature, respecting your ingredients. Love the food, and the food will love you back.Of course, that doesnt mean every Hawaiian cook is created equal: Both Witte and Roys Summerlin chef/partner Darrin Shinagawa point out that the ubiquitous macaroni salad mainlanders wonder about actually serves as the barometer of the food quality overall. The more yellow, the better, Witte says. Watch Goold wrapping dozens of laulau on the Friday morning at Island Flavor near Rhodes Ranch and you will know what dedication means. And yes, his mac salad is as good as youve ever had.But food service isnt the only industry in which Hawaiians have invested in Vegas. Coming from the place where tourism is king and generosity is the cultural benchmark, Hawaiians are the natural fit for all aspects of our casino industry. We deal with tourists all the time, just like at home, says Bennett, who moved to Las Vegas four years ago.A lot of Hawaiians are raised in the hospitality industry, Goold reminds. Dig deeper and youll find Hawaiians in nearly every trade, from construction to cosmetology.They are entrepreneurs as well. Slades Polynesian Crafts and the funky Aloha2Go both offer myriad imported wares. TheSilvaShop.com sells the variety of modern Hawaiian fashions, and Designer Distribution Services specializes in moves to and from Hawaii. Rimando Kajukenbo Karate in North Las Vegas even teaches Hawaiian-style street fighting.The West Oahu Aggregate Company is located in Henderson, and you can find lei makers, hula trainers and auto repair shops throughout the Valley. Hawaii-based ABC convenience stores have the whopping eight locations in Las Vegastheir only mainland presence. There are local Hawaiian websites, the Ewalu Club for Hawaiian students at UNLV and the Las Vegas Hawaiian Civic Club, whose mission includes presenting festivals like the annual Hooleaulea (2012 will be the 22nd) and awarding scholarships to students of Pacific Islander desc! ent. The res even the competing Hawaiian fest, Pure Aloha, which takes place at the Silverton twice the year, drawing as many as 20,000 attendees.Its not as foreign here [to us] as even California is, says Bennett, acknowledging similar enclaves in Cerritos and Torrance outside LA. My brother lives in San Francisco, but the cost of living here is so cheap by comparison.More to the point, its significantly cheaper than living on the islands. While Clark County has certainly been hammered by the recession, it looks rosy to the population with as limited opportunities as Hawaiian islanders. Photo: Las Vegas News Bureau The California Hotel and Casino in 1977, shortly after it opened. But that still doesnt reveal exactly how they all got here. That can be explained in just six letters: the Cal.As chronicled in the book California Hotel and Casino: Hawaiis Home Away from Home (published by, yes, University of Hawaii Press in 2008), Sam Boyd got the toehold in the Las Vegas game in 1975 by building the new Gold Rush-themed hotel off-Strip in an aging Downtown. The off-Fremont Street casino was greeted with general indifference, and Boyd realized quickly he would need to build the clientele or wither on the vine. He decided, for perhaps the first time in Vegas history, to reach across the Pacific Ocean to the place where he first learned the gambling business when it was legal there pre-WWII: Oahu.Sam was ahead of his time, courting the specifically underserved customer base and never becoming different course, recalls Boyd Gamings John Repetti. Boyd knew that Hawaiians were particularly enamored of gambling, but since statehood had been denied any legal ways to enjoy it. So, he began offering Hawaiian foods like oxtail soup, saimin and butterfish at the cafe, serving the right kind of sticky rice and, perhaps most importantly, enlivening dealers and floor men to adopt the hang loose friendly atmosphere, becoming dif! ferent t heir tuxedos for Aloha shirts and conversing with gamersunheard of at the time, recalls Repetti, who has been with the casino since the 70s (hes now the senior vice president).If you bemoan the loss of formality and hate how casual casinos have become, blame Boyd. On the other hand, Boyd Gaming today is also the last vestige of the old-school personalized casino treatment. Photo: Courtesy of Boyd Gaming Sam Boyd at the Aloha Festival in Honolulu in the '80s. Boyd Gaming actually has the subsidiary business called Boyd Vacations Hawaii, which contracts the charter airline offering package deals that are so inexpensive, it is cheaper to fly from Oahu or Maui to Las Vegas than it is to fly inter-islandas long as you dont mind staying in one of their casinos for four or five nights. When the deals were first introduced, they were an almost inconceivable $9.90, he says. Today, they are well into triple-digits but still the value when including the hotel room and three-meals-daily food vouchers. We just leased the new plane, Repetti reports.Shinagawa and others confirm the logical suspicion: that Hawaiians have taken advantage of Boyds subsidized vacation flights and stayed.But Boyd did more than lure Hawaiians with deals. He courted them with Mahalo parties, biannual luaus on the islands and in Vegas for favored guests. He sent his chefs to Hawaii to make sure they were making the food authentically (particularly that all-important sticky rice), and he contracted with an expat Hawaiian to open Aloha Specialties, which serves the broader range of Hawaiian food than the casinos two cafes. Though today it may now be outclassed by other far-flung Hawaiian spots in town, Aloha Specialities still packs them in.When I moved here, Bennett says, one of my friends told me, if I got homesick, to go down to the California and cry over the bowl of the oxtail soup.Today, says Repetti, the Cal buys more oxtail than proba! bly the rest of the city combined.In 1985, Boyd Gaming bought the Fremont and later annexed Main Street Station. Both also offer Hawaiian food (though other Boyd properties generally do not). Boyd Gaming also continues to host the annual Lei Day event, which it acknowledges has become principally the celebration for Hawaiian locals, who are not necessarily the huge base of gamers. Check the event schedule for the Cals function rooms on any odd weekend and youre expected to see the high school reunion for the high school on Oahu, Maui or the Big Island. Its also the unchanging gathering point for families who have relocated throughout the Northwest and Southwest. Boyd Gaming estimates that 80-90 percent of Vegas visitors from Hawaii stay at the Boyd property.Repetti doesnt give specific credit to Boyd for building the Hawaiian community here single-handedly, but its hard to deny. Live here, and you dont miss your family [back home] because they come here five to seven times the year.Say that again? Our average customer comes four to six times the year [from Hawaii], Repetti claims. Some come every month. And while offering butterfish at $9.99 and some of the loosest slots and video poker in the city might seem excessively generous, having captive visitors for five-day stretches works out. Our customers play twice as long as the average Vegas visitor, Repetti explains.Even beyond the Boyd properties, Downtown Vegas has surely caught the Hawaiian bug. The revamped Plaza is home to an outpost of the very respected Island Sushi and Poke Express of Henderson. Las Vegas Club has the Hawaiian jerky store, and Four Queens serves Hawaiian food at their 24-hour cafe. And the list goes on.How has this Hawaiian explosion happened with so little notice? Unlike most modern immigrant populations, Hawaiians have the strong tendency toward assimilation. You wont find the Little Honolulu here, akin to Asias dominance of Spring Mountain Road. Hawaiian businesses and residences are spread throughout the Valley, from Henderson in th! e south to Craig Road up north.We spread out, Vickers acknowledges. I live in Green Valley, my nephew and niece are here, [but] we have people in Centennial Hills, everywhere. Regardless, he says, We have the tight community, we stick together. Anyone here, somewhere down the line you know their family.And its expected that you know an islander, too, even if you arent one. The Hawaiian explosion is quietly becoming different the landscape of Las Vegas, and, beyond the growing availability of macaroni, its strongest effect is expected to be an epidemic of people learning to hang loose, as they say. Worse things could happen. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas mob museum opens on St. Valentine's Day Massacre anniversary

2012-02-15T04:34:00.005-08:00

Casino workers and longtime visitors alike are known to wax nostalgic about the days when mob bosses kept splash prices low and streets violence-free. Their casinos became celebrity playgrounds and architectural icons. The Stardust, the El Cortez, the Tropicana, the Dunes Hotel, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Fremont hotel were all backed by the mob at one point. Elvis and Priscilla Priestley tied the knot at the mob-controlled Aladdin resort and Wayne Newton later purchased it.More recently, Las Vegans thrice made former mob attorney Oscar Goodman their mayor. And when he was term-limited from running again last year, they gave the job to his wife.The mob, the story goes, helped build out the remote highway that would eventually become the Las Vegas Strip. Gangsters took over resorts built by front men, skimmed the profits and built nightclubs, country clubs, housing tracts and shopping centers.Increased law enforcement scrutiny and competition from business titans like Howard Hughes saw Las Vegas turn corporate in the late 1960s. Then the celebrity chefs and Cirque du Soleil dancers moved in. These days, Las Vegas feels more like a raunchy version of Disney World than a mob hangout."We felt nostalgic the moment the old days ended," said Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas working with the museum. "To Americans, Las Vegas will always have that image and they don't come here for Mickey Mouse."Museum officials deny that they are sensationalizing the mob experience to sell tickets, which price up to $18 each. One exhibit shows the modern reach of organized crime through the drug cartels of Mexico, money laundering schemes in the Bahamas, counterfeit rings in China and human trafficking in Brazil.The museum also attempts to show the personal motivations behind the mug shots. There are pictures of a baby-faced Anthony Spilotro marking his First Communion, Frank Costello relaxing in a hammock at home, and gambling titan Meyer Lanksy with his daughter at t! he Waili ng Wall in Jerusalem, his arm tenderly hooked around her waist. All three were among the mob's most powerful men.But the museum's extensive photography collection depicting cratered heads, imploded cars and full body bags likely will be its biggest draw among fans expecting a hefty dose of mob violence. There's Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, his lifeless body splayed out in a Chicago bowling alley in 1939. Another photo depicts the death of Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, assassinated at his favorite Italian restaurant in New York in 1931.A small gift store also plays up the mob's bloodthirsty reputation. The shelves lined with novelty items feature mobster paper dolls and gangster teddy bears dressed in striped suits and armed with plastic machine guns.A T-shirt reads: "In Godfather We Trust." 1 2 See Full Story Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Greenway Releases Field Study Results From Costa Rica and Las Vegas

2012-02-15T04:34:00.003-08:00

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA--(Marketwire -02/15/12)- Greenway Design Group, Inc. (Pinksheets: GDGI.PK - News) today released results of field studies which were conducted in Costa Rica and Las Vegas. The studies verify how Cool-n-Save significantly reduces energy consumption of standard split system commercial air conditioning. The studies, which are available to the public, show significant assets during the Jaco branch office of Banco Nacional de Costa Rica and a large network and data center located in Las Vegas, NV. According to the studies, when the Cool-n-Save system was activated, the HVAC system in Costa Rica reduced energy consumption by 27.95%; in Las Vegas, the result was 26.2%. "Outdoor heat is a problem for most air conditioning systems," says Darius Jakubik, Greenway's senior vice president. "The more heat there is, the less efficiently AC systems work and the more energy they use. Cool-n-Save's job is to reduce the temperature of outdoor air as it is being blown through the condensing coils." White papers from universities and utilities also report the benefits of cooling outdoor air around condensing coils. According to a white paper published by Colorado Springs Utilities, air conditioning equipment will use 25 percent less energy when outdoor temperatures are during 70 degrees F than it will during 95 degrees. "Our field studies bear out all claims," says Jakubik. "We have seen the same results, whether high humidity or low, in every installation we have done for the last five years. Cool-n-Save can save a significant amount of money for building owners." The field study in Costa Rica reports which Cool-n-Save will produce an annual cash assets of as much as $11,475(USD) from the reduction of air conditioning energy costs. The costs assets for the site in Las Vegas, where the operational demand of a data center is much higher, the annual price assets is about $80,000. "And in both cases," adds Jakubik, "the return on investment from installation and maintenance for one year, is le! ss than 12 months." Greenway Design Group has been developing evaporative pre-cool misting technology for commercial and residential air conditioning since 2005. Greenway recently won the Harvey Mudd College/TechAmerica High-Tech Innovation Award for Green Engineering. Cool-n-Save is available for commercial and residential air conditioning systems. Commercial Cool-n-Save systems also feature HERO, a high-efficiency turn-key water treatment and mechanical filtration system also patented by the company. Cool-n-Save is manufactured and marketed in the U.S.A. For more information about Greenway Design Group, Inc. and Cool-n-Save, call 714-892-0011 or visit www.coolnsave.com and www.greenwaydesigns.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTAINS "FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS." FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE STATEMENTS CONCERNING PLANS, OBJECTIVES, GOALS, STRATEGIES, EXPECTATIONS, INTENTIONS, PROJECTIONS, DEVELOPMENTS, FUTURE EVENTS, OR PERFORMANCE, UNDERLYING (EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED) ASSUMPTIONS AND OTHER STATEMENTS THAT ARE OTHER THAN HISTORICAL FACTS. THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE ONLY PREDICTIONS. NO ASSURANCES CAN BE GIVEN THAT SUCH PREDICTIONS WILL PROVE CORRECT. ACTUAL EVENTS OR RESULTS MAY DIFFER MATERIALLY. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS SHOULD BE READ IN LIGHT OF THE CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS AND RISKS THAT INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH A SMALL COMPANY, OUR COMPARATIVELY LIMITED FINANCIAL AND MANAGERIAL RESOURCES, OUR INABILITY TO MARKET AND SELL OUR LIMITED PRODUCT LINE IN SUFFICIENT VOLUMES THAT MAY ALLOW US TO ACHIEVE AND MAINTAIN PROFITABILITY AND POSITIVE CASH FLOW, THE UNCERTAINTY OF MARKET TRENDS, THE INTENSE COMPETITION FACED FROM OTHER CURRENT AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE UNCERTAINTIES OF COMPETITIVE PRESSURES WE FACE. THESE OR OTHER RISKS COULD CAUSE ACTUAL RESULTS TO DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM THE FUTURE RESULTS INDICATED OR IMPLIED IN SUCH FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. WE UNDERTAKE NO OBLIGATION TO UPDATE OR REVISE SUCH STATEMENTS. CONTACT INFORMATION:Ray! Wyman J rCommunications DirEMAIL: Email ContactOFFICE: 714-892-0011 Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas hopes for hit with Mob Museum

2012-02-15T04:34:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS In one room, a ghastly photo wall of bloody, uncensored images showcases the mobs greatest hits.In another, visitors are taught to load a revolver. And for when a gun just wont do, an oddball pick up of household items a shovel, a hammer, a baseball bat and an icepick show the creative side of some of Americas most notorious killers.On the 83rd anniversary of the St. Valentines Day Massacre, Sin City honored one of its earliest relationships with the grand opening of a museum dedicated to the mobsters that made this desert town. There are tommy guns, money stacks and a bullet-riddled brick wall from the 1929 massacre that saw Al Capone seize control of the Chicago mob.Las Vegas has long been enamored of its gangster roots. Its longtime former mayor played himself in the mob flick Casino, and hotels here often promote their nefarious origins. But the publicly funded, $42 million Mob Museum represents a new height in Sin Citys devotion to lawlessness.Even the local FBI agents are in on it. We wanted to make sure the truth came out, said Ellen Knowlton, a former special agent in Las Vegas brought on to legitimize the downtown attraction.Its the second mob-themed attraction to open in Las Vegas in the past year. The Mob Experience at the Tropicana casino on the Las Vegas Strip quickly shut down because of slow ticket sales and other problems. Its scheduled to reopen later this year under the name Mob Attraction Las Vegas.Critics argue the government-backed attraction is a waste of tax dollars at a time when Nevada tops the nation in foreclosures and unemployment.Its a risky bet, said Andy Matthews, president of the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute, which protested the museum during its grand opening ceremony Tuesday.Nevadans and mobsters have a long, storied history. The Stardust, El Cortez, Tropicana, Dunes Hotel, Desert Inn, Flamingo and Fremont hotel were all backed by the mob at one point. Elvis and Priscilla Presley tied the knot at the mob-controlled Aladdin resort and Way! ne Newto n later purchased it.Increased law enforcement scrutiny and competition from business titans like Howard Hughes saw Las Vegas turn corporate in the late 1960s. Then the celebrity chefs and Cirque du Soleil dancers moved in. These days, Las Vegas feels more like a raunchy version of Disney World than a mob hangout.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas mob museum opens on St. Valentine's Day Massacre anniversary

2012-02-15T04:32:00.003-08:00

Casino workers and longtime visitors alike are known to wax nostalgic about the days when mob bosses kept drink prices low and streets violence-free. Their casinos became celebrity playgrounds and architectural icons. The Stardust, the El Cortez, the Tropicana, the Dunes Hotel, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Fremont hotel were all backed by the mob at one point. Elvis and Priscilla Priestley tied the knot at the mob-controlled Aladdin resort and Wayne Newton later purchased it.More recently, Las Vegans thrice made former mob attorney Oscar Goodman their mayor. And when he was term-limited from running again last year, they gave the job to his wife.The mob, the story goes, helped build out the remote highway that would eventually become the Las Vegas Strip. Gangsters took over resorts built by front men, skimmed the profits and built nightclubs, country clubs, housing tracts and shopping centers.Increased law enforcement scrutiny and competition from business titans like Howard Hughes saw Las Vegas turn corporate in the late 1960s. Then the celebrity chefs and Cirque du Soleil dancers moved in. These days, Las Vegas feels more like a raunchy version of Disney World than a mob hangout."We felt nostalgic the moment the old days ended," said Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas working with the museum. "To Americans, Las Vegas will always have that image and they don't come here for Mickey Mouse."Museum officials deny that they are sensationalizing the mob experience to sell tickets, which cost up to $18 each. One exhibit shows the modern reach of organized crime through the drug cartels of Mexico, money laundering schemes in the Bahamas, counterfeit rings in China and human trafficking in Brazil.The museum also attempts to show the personal motivations behind the mug shots. There are pictures of a baby-faced Anthony Spilotro marking his First Communion, Frank Costello relaxing in a hammock at home, and gambling titan Meyer Lanksy with his daughter at the Wa! iling Wa ll in Jerusalem, his arm tenderly hooked around her waist. All three were among the mob's most powerful men.But the museum's extensive photography collection depicting cratered heads, imploded cars and full body bags likely will be its biggest draw among fans expecting a hefty dose of mob violence. There's Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, his lifeless body splayed out in a Chicago bowling alley in 1939. Another photo depicts the death of Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, assassinated at his favorite Italian restaurant in New York in 1931.A small gift store also plays up the mob's bloodthirsty reputation. The shelves lined with novelty items feature mobster paper dolls and gangster teddy bears dressed in striped suits and armed with plastic machine guns.A T-shirt reads: "In Godfather We Trust." 1 2 See Full Story Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Photos: Sean Kingston celebrates his 22nd birthday at RPM Nightclub

2012-02-15T04:32:00.001-08:00

David Becker/WireImage Sean Kingston celebrates his 22nd birthday at RPM Nightclub in Tropicana on Saturday, Feb. 11,2012. By Don Chareunsy (contact) Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012 | 11:09 p.m. More arts and entertainment Check out Robin Leach's VegasDeLuxe.com for some-more celebrity and A&E coverage. Sean Kingston's 22nd Birthday at RPM Launch slideshow '; stickContentseankingston23rdbirthdayrpmtropicananightclu += ''; stickContentseankingston23rdbirthdayrpmtropicananightclu += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContentseankingston23rdbirthdayrpmtropicananightclu, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu').grab($('slideshow_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu').grab($('slideshow_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu'), 'top'); $('slideshow_sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu').setStyle('display', 'block'); ! //setTimeout('setBGImageseankingston23rdbirthdayrpmtropicananightclu()', 2500); //setBGImageseankingston23rdbirthdayrpmtropicananightclu(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'David Becker/WireImage'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2012/feb/13/sean-kingston-23rd-birthday-rpm-tropicana-nightclu/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '6' ]) } }); }); Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

New Las Vegas museum highlights mob bosses in homage to city's gangster roots

2012-02-14T05:43:00.004-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - In one room, a ghastly wall of bloody, uncensored photos showcases a mob's greatest hits.In another, visitors are taught to load a revolver. And for when a gun just won't do, an oddball collection of household items a shovel, a hammer, a baseball bat and an icepick show a creative side of some of America's most notorious killers.On a 83rd anniversary of a St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Las Vegas is honouring one of its earliest relationships with a opening of a museum dedicated to a mobsters that made this desert city. There are tommy guns, money stacks and a bullet-riddled brick wall from a 1929 massacre that saw Al Capone seize control of a Chicago mob.Las Vegas has long been enamoured with its gangster roots. Its longtime former mayor played himself in a host flick "Casino," and hotels often promote their nefarious origins. But a publicly funded, $42 million Mob Museum represents a new height in Sin City's lawlessness devotion. Even a local FBI agents are in on it."We wanted to make sure a truth came out," said Ellen Knowlton, a former special agent in Las Vegas brought on to legitimize a downtown attraction.It's a second mob-themed attraction to open in Las Vegas in a past year. The Mob Experience at a Tropicana casino on a Las Vegas Strip quickly shut down because of slow ticket sales and other problems. It's scheduled to reopen later this year under a name Mob Attraction Las Vegas.City officials say their version will perform better because it's an authentic examination of what made Las Vegas an international symbol of debauchery and excess. The museum is housed in a former Depression-era federal courthouse where a seventh of 14 U.S. Senate hearings on organized crime was held in a early 1950s. The trials watched by 30 million people introduced a host to most Americans.But critics argue a government-backed attraction is a waste of tax dollars at a time when Nevada tops a nation in foreclosures and unemployment."It's is a risky bet," said Andy Matthews, president of a conservat! ive Neva da Policy Research Institute, which plans to protest a opening ceremony Tuesday.Nevadans and mobsters have a long, storied history.Casino workers and longtime visitors alike are known to be nostalgic about a days when host bosses kept drink prices low and streets violence-free. Their casinos became celebrity playgrounds and architectural icons. The Stardust, a El Cortez, a Tropicana, a Dunes Hotel, a Desert Inn, a Flamingo and a Fremont hotel were all backed by a host at one point. Elvis and Priscilla Priestley married at a mob-controlled Aladdin resort, and Wayne Newton later bought it.More recently, Las Vegans thrice made former host attorney Oscar Goodman their mayor. And when he was term-limited from running again last year, they gave a job to his wife.The mob, a story goes, helped build out a remote highway that would eventually become a Las Vegas Strip. Gangsters took over resorts built by front men, skimmed a profits and built nightclubs, country clubs, housing tracts and shopping centres.Increased law enforcement scrutiny and competition from business titans like Howard Hughes saw Las Vegas turn corporate in a late 1960s. Then a celebrity chefs and Cirque du Soleil dancers moved in. These days, Las Vegas feels more like a raunchy version of Disney World than a host hangout."We felt nostalgic a moment a old days ended," said Michael Green, a history professor at a College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas working with a museum. "To Americans, Las Vegas will always have that image, and they don't come here for Mickey Mouse."Museum officials deny that they are sensationalizing a host experience to sell tickets, which cost up to $18 each. One exhibit shows a modern reach of organized crime through a drug cartels of Mexico, money laundering schemes in a Bahamas, counterfeit rings in China and human trafficking in Brazil.The museum also tries to show a personal motivations behind a mug shots. There are pictures of a baby-faced Anthony Spilotro marking his First Communion, Frank Costello relaxing in a ham! mock at home and gambling titan Meyer Lanksy with his daughter at a Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. All three were among a mob's most powerful men.But a museum's extensive photography collection depicting cratered heads, imploded cars and full body bags likely will be its biggest draw among fans expecting a hefty dose of host violence. There's Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, his lifeless body splayed in a Chicago bowling alley in 1939. Another photo depicts a death of Giuseppe "Joe a Boss" Masseria, assassinated at his favourite Italian restaurant in New York in 1931.A small gift store also plays up a mob's bloodthirsty reputation. The shelves lined with novelty items feature mobster paper dolls and gangster teddy bears dressed in striped suits and armed with plastic machine-guns.A T-shirt reads: "In Godfather We Trust."Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

New Las Vegas museum highlights mob bosses

2012-02-14T05:43:00.003-08:00

Sin City is honoring one of its earliest relationships with the grand opening of a museum dedicated to the mobsters that made this desert town.The Mob Museum opens in downtown Las Vegas on Tuesday - the 82nd anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the mass killing that saw Al Capone seize control of the Chicago mob.It's the second mob-themed attraction to open in Las Vegas in a year. The Mob Experience at the Tropicana casino quickly shut down because of slow ticket sales and various internal problems. It's slated to reopen soon.City officials say their version will perform better because it's more authentic. The museum is housed in a former federal courthouse where a U.S. Senate hearing on organized crime was held in the early 1950's.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

New Las Vegas museum highlights mob bosses, tommy guns in homage to city's gangster roots

2012-02-14T05:43:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS - In one room, a ghastly photo wall of bloody, uncensored images showcases the mob's greatest hits.In another, visitors are taught to load a revolver. And for when a gun just won't do, an oddball collection of household items a shovel, a hammer, a baseball bat and an icepick show the creative side of some of America's most notorious killers.On the 83rd anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Sin City is honoring one of its earliest relationships with the grand opening of a museum dedicated to the mobsters that made this desert town. There are tommy guns, money stacks and a bullet-riddled brick wall from the 1929 massacre that saw Al Capone seize control of the Chicago mob.Las Vegas has long been enamored with its gangster roots. Its longtime former mayor played himself in the mob flick "Casino" and hotels here often promote their nefarious origins. But the publicly funded, $42 million Mob Museum represents a new height in Sin City's lawlessness devotion. Even the local FBI agents are in on it."We wanted to make sure the truth came out," said Ellen Knowlton, a former special agent in Las Vegas brought on to legitimize the downtown attraction.It's the second mob-themed attraction to open in Las Vegas in the past year. The Mob Experience at the Tropicana casino on the Las Vegas Strip quickly shut down because of slow ticket sales and other problems. It's slated to reopen later this year under the name Mob Attraction Las Vegas.City officials say their version will perform better because it's an authentic examination of the decisions and circumstances that made Las Vegas an international symbol of debauchery and excess. The museum is housed in a former Depression-era federal courthouse where the seventh of 14 U.S. Senate hearings on organized crime was held in the early 1950s. The trials watched by 30 million people introduced the mob to most Americans.But critics argue the government-backed attraction is a waste of tax dollars at a time when Nevada tops the nation in foreclosur! es and u nemployment."It's is a risky bet," said Andy Matthews, president of the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute, which plans to protest the grand opening ceremony Tuesday.Nevadans and mobsters have a long, storied history.Casino workers and longtime visitors alike are known to wax nostalgic about the days when mob bosses kept drink prices low and streets violence-free. Their casinos became celebrity playgrounds and architectural icons. The Stardust, the El Cortez, the Tropicana, the Dunes Hotel, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Fremont hotel were all backed by the mob at one point. Elvis and Priscilla Priestley tied the knot at the mob-controlled Aladdin resort and Wayne Newton later purchased it.More recently, Las Vegans thrice made former mob attorney Oscar Goodman their mayor. And when he was term-limited from running again last year, they gave the job to his wife.The mob, the story goes, helped build out the remote highway that would eventually become the Las Vegas Strip. Gangsters took over resorts built by front men, skimmed the profits and built nightclubs, country clubs, housing tracts and shopping centers.Increased law enforcement scrutiny and competition from business titans like Howard Hughes saw Las Vegas turn corporate in the late 1960s. Then the celebrity chefs and Cirque du Soleil dancers moved in. These days, Las Vegas feels more like a raunchy version of Disney World than a mob hangout."We felt nostalgic the moment the old days ended," said Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas working with the museum. "To Americans, Las Vegas will always have that image and they don't come here for Mickey Mouse."Museum officials repudiate that they are sensationalizing the mob experience to sell tickets, which cost up to $18 each. One exhibit shows the modern reach of organized crime through the drug cartels of Mexico, money laundering schemes in the Bahamas, counterfeit rings in China and human trafficking in Brazil.The museum also attempts to show ! the pers onal motivations behind the mug shots. There are pictures of a baby-faced Anthony Spilotro marking his First Communion, Frank Costello relaxing in a hammock at home, and gambling titan Meyer Lanksy with his daughter at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, his arm tenderly hooked around her waist. All three were among the mob's most absolute men.But the museum's extensive photography collection depicting cratered heads, imploded cars and full body bags likely will be its biggest draw among fans expecting a hefty dose of mob violence. There's Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, his lifeless body splayed out in a Chicago bowling alley in 1939. Another photo depicts the death of Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, assassinated at his favorite Italian restaurant in New York in 1931.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas pays tribute to Whitney Houston

2012-02-13T04:55:00.004-08:00

Las Vegas pays tribute to Whitney Houston By Katie Crowther CREATED Feb. 12, 2012 Tweet Share Email Print Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) - Whitney Houston's death has left many around the world heartbroken. Including right here in Las Vegas, where strip performers, radio stations, and fans are all honoring the legend in their own way. It seems the one thing everyone is taking comfort in, is her music, which will always live-on. "She died way too young," says one caller into Sunny 106.5. "She is one of my all-time favorite singers, and I am really upset that she passed."Since news of Houston's death first broke Saturday evening, song requests have been pouring into local radio stations."I really can't believe Whitney is gone," says another caller. "She had so many classic songs.""We've been playing at least dual Whitney songs per hour, and we'll continue doing it tomorrow," says Michael Neal, a morning show co-host on Sunny 106.5. "She was a major, major star in the music business. It's just shocking."People also gathered over the weekend at the Fremont Street Experience, where a light show was created to honor Houston. "We're just heart broken, she was such an amazing talent," says Jeff Victor, President of the Fremont Street Experience."My favorite Whitney Houston song will always be 'I Want to Dance with Somebody,'" says Rion Perridon. "That was the jam." The tributes carried over to the strip, where famous performers also shared their admiration for Houston."We've lost a great, great voice," says Tropicana headliner, Gladys Knight."You forget with all the troubles that she went through, how brilliant this woman was," said Elton John, during his show at Caesar's Palace Saturday night. "My dearest, gorgeous, lovely angel we want to do this song for you. Thank you for giving us your talent, and one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard in my life."That voice - considered by many, to be the greatest of her generation - no! w gone t oo soon. Next Article in Local News: Galleria Mall evacuted after robbery 0 COMMENTS ADD A COMMENT Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Viva Las Vegas theme picked for 6th Fondy Idol

2012-02-13T04:55:00.003-08:00

Get ready for some "Viva Las Vegas" right here in Fond du Lac.Rehearsals for the sixth annual Fondy Idol are under way during Fond du Lac High School.On stage, 17 anxious performers are going through routines for their performance on Friday, March 9.The curtain rises during 6:30 p.m. in the high school's Performing Arts Center.The musical event is sponsored by Fondy High's WINGS program."This year, being our sixth show, our students are so excited. It has become a huge event for their families," said Valerie Lenz of the WINGS program.Performances will include the "Rat Pack," Elton John, Diana Ross and the Supremes and Sonny and Cher.WINGS stands for Cardinal Working Independently Nurturing Goals for Success. Students ages 18 to 21 are taught a life skills curriculum. The program is based on helping cognitively disabled students develop the life skills they need to become independent.The program's two-bedroom apartment classroom is located during Riverside Elementary School.This year, three students from Riverside's Cognitively Disabled Severe program will be joining the show, Lenz said.Returning artists (former students who graduated from WINGS) are also excited to be back by popular demand."They love coming back and getting together with the rest of the group. They are having a blast," Lenz said.Practices are being held on Wednesday evenings.Tickets are free and available by calling 906-6724."We would like the community to come out and see what these students can do. It's an amazing experience," Lenz said. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Sociology forum to showcase city-centered student research

2012-02-13T04:55:00.001-08:00

February 13, 2012 by Camalot Todd Project responds to recent criticism, focuses on facets of Las Vegas lifeAs part of a department discussion series, one UNLV sociology student will present research this month that addresses perceptions of Las Vegas.Socio-Chats, informal discussions on topics of sociology led by students in the UNLV Sociology Department, occur during both spring and fall semesters. They offer a platform for students to present their research. Mark Salvaggio, a graduate student in the sociology department, will open the spring series on Feb. 21 with research that focuses on interactions in and perceptions of Las Vegas as a tourist-based city.The Tourist Perceptions and Realities of Living in Las Vegas details how people view life in Las Vegas.Salvaggio began his research after some academics gave negative reactions to the American Sociological Associations choice to hold its annual meeting in Las Vegas in August 2011. The 2011 ASA meeting, which was originally to be held in Chicago, was moved to Las Vegas after labor disputes among the citys hotels caused the organization to seek another location.Salvaggio said that meeting attendees had mixed perceptions of Las Vegas some thought of the city as horrible, while others believed it is a great place to study life and tourism in an urban setting.We have the Las Vegas Strip, which is this huge cultural symbol, but there are two million people who live outside of that, he said. There are neighborhoods [and] culture outside of the Strip.Salvaggio cited First Friday, the soon-to-open Smith Center and local restaurants as noteworthy attractions that stand apart from what Las Vegas is famous for.Salvaggio said he is looking forward to hearing the opinions of students who attend the Socio-Chat next week.I want to get their take [and see if they think] Vegas is like every other city, he said.Lori Fazzino, a graduate student studying sociology at UNLV, founded the event. Socio-Chats are free and open to th! e public . Undergraduate coordinator and associate professor of sociology Jennifer Keene said that students who attend Socio-Chats help to construct a sense of community within the department and among individuals interested in sociology. Past Socio-Chat topics have included Pros and Cons of Drug Legalization and Portrayals of Masculinity in Popular Culture.Keene said that students are able to exercise their intellect and have eye-opening experiences through the discussions.Keene said that in their classes, students usually hear an overview of a subject and do not get to discuss specifics of issues. She said that the Socio-Chats are a way for those who may not talk in classes to become part of a discussion.These are real casual, informal discussions where undergrads can get their sociology nerds on, she said.Socio-Chats are held every third Tuesday of February, March and April of the spring semester from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m at the Central Building Complex (CBC) Building B room 225. Contact Camalot Todd at camalot.todd.ry@gmail.com. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas Conventions

2012-02-13T04:54:00.003-08:00

Conventions scheduled for the Las Vegas area this week:LocationDatesAttendanceNational Grocers Asssociation Show The MirageFeb. 12-151,700OffPrice Specialist ShowSands ExpoFeb. 12-1510,500The Data Warehousing Institute World Conference Caesars PalaceFeb. 12-17850ENKVegas Wynn Las VegasFeb. 13-1517,000U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Course Flamingo Las VegasFeb. 13-1740MAGIC Marketplace Spring Show Las Vegas Convention CenterFeb. 13-1575,000International Limousine Charter & Tour Show MGM Grand Feb. 13-153,000Academic Surgical Congress Meeting Encore at Wynn Las VegasFeb. 14-161,200National Association of Federal Credit Unions MGM Grand Feb. 14-16115SecurityNational Mortgage ConventionThe Cosmopolitan Feb. 15-18250Society for CrossCultural ResearchRiviera Feb. 15-18300AWMA Real Deal ExpoParis Las VegasFeb. 15-172,000Wedding & Portrait Photographers Convention MGM Grand Feb. 16-2213,000Entrust Group ConferenceParis Las VegasFeb. 16-17150Rubber Pavements Association MeetingPalace StationFeb. 16-1725PESI NV Trauma, PTSD & Traumatic GriefThe Orleans Feb. 16-18100American Society for Quality DAC/SAC/QMPFlamingo Feb. 16-2050Medical Education Resources Internal MedicineThe MirageFeb. 17-1970Easter Seals Affiliate Training Programs Green Valley Ranch ResortFeb. 18-22125Women in the Wind National MeetingPlazaFeb. 18-19150Harris Corp. Channel Partner MeetingParis Las VegasFeb. 19-21180BinksITW Finishing Equipment Diamond Distributor The CosmopolitanFeb. 19-22125Celebrity Impersonator ConventionGolden NuggetFeb. 19-23200Brain Injury Association of America Platinum Feb. 19-24100Fugate Enterprises Meeting ExtravaganzaCaesars PalaceFeb. 19-21100North American Truck Stop Operators Show Caesars PalaceFeb. 19-231,400Western Veterinary Conference Mandalay Bay Feb. 19-2314,000For a complete list of conventions, visit www.visitlasvegas.com Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Saying goodbye to Studio 54

2012-02-13T04:54:00.001-08:00

February 13, 2012 by Leslie Ventura The legendary nightclubs 14-year run comes to an endThe most popular club in New York during a 70s made its way to Las Vegas in 1997. Setting a stage for other nightclubs, Studio 54 yet again became a groundbreaking name among tourists and locals alike but as of Feb. 4, Studio 54 closed its doors once again.With new renovations underway, MGM Director of Entertainment Anthony Olheiser answered a few of our questions about a legendary nightclub that kept a 70s dream alive in Vegas for a long-standing 14 years.The Rebel Yell: The original Studio 54 from New York and a Las Vegas Studio 54 both ran for 14 years. Was this mere coincidence, or something else? Anthony Olheiser: This was strictly coincidence. Our strategy as part of a resorts Grand Renovation is to create a new nightlife experience.RY: Is 14 a new over a hill in a club world? Do you think other clubs will have difficulty staying open that long?AO: 14 years is an exceptional amount of time for any venue to produce at such a high level and we were able to pull it off. The brand has a lot to do with this success and I believe it would be very challenging for any nightclub in this market to stay open that long.RY: Studio 54 had a first industry night in Las Vegas. What inspired this move?AO: A successful industry night during a week can really drive momentum for a weekend business. Equally important is ensuring a local community has a great place to party. The locals drive a huge amount of business and can really have an effect on consumer decision-making and spending habits.RY: Besides industry nights, how has Studio 54 changed a way a club scene looks and operates here?AO: The evolution of a Las Vegas nightlife scene is extremely competitive and is constantly changing. In order to be successful, you have to be able to adjust to a nature of a industry. From bringing in celebrities, DJs, and hosting events, to a big focus on a bottle service experience, Studio 54 has foll! owed sui t to ensure were giving our customers what they want and providing our guests with a first-class experience.RY: What is going to take Studio 54s place as part of a Grand Renovation and when can we expect it?AO: Replacing Studio 54 will be Hakkasan Restaurant and Nightclub and we are scheduled to open New Years Eve 2013. [Its just] one portion of a 360-degree transformation updating MGM Grands guest rooms and its casino floor as well as entertainment, dining and nightlife experiences. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

On Budget: Las Vegas For Less

2012-02-10T05:00:00.005-08:00

All New Used Certified Pre-Owned Make Model Select Max Price1,0002,0005,00010,00015,00020,00025,00030,00035,00040,00045,00050,00055,00060,00065,00070,00075,00080,00085,00090,00095,000100,000120,000150,000Select Year1996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011 Within: 0510255075100150250500miles of Zip: Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Khan confirms Peterson rematch in Vegas

2012-02-10T05:00:00.003-08:00

Amir Khan is to face Lamont Peterson in a re-match in Las Vegas in May, a British boxer announced via Twitter on Friday.American Peterson deprived Khan of his World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) light-welterweight titles as a result of a controversial split points decision in Washington on Dec 10.That led a WBA to order a re-match last month and a second Khan-Peterson bout will now take places during Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay Hotel on May 19."Big announcement. KHAN. Vs PETERSON May 19th, Mandalay Bay Hotel Vegas. At last I git (get) a fight I deserve, Big," Khan said on his Twitter account.There was confusion during a end of a pair's first meeting in Washington, Peterson's home town, with an unusually long delay between a climax of a bout and a announcement of a judges' scorecards.Referee Joe Cooper had previously deducted points from a 25-year-old Khan in a seventh and 12th rounds for pushing -- an offence rarely punished during championship turn -- and did not credit Khan with what should have been a first round knockdown, according to a WBA.Further controversy ensued when Khan's camp highlighted video footage of Mustafa Ameen, an IBF official who had no formal role during a bout, which they claimed showed a then 'mystery man in a hat' interfering with a judges' cards.That led Ameen to threaten legal action against Khan last month.Meanwhile Richard Scheafer, chief executive of Khan's promoters Golden Boy, said Thursday he'd sought assurances over ringside security."We have a deal, we are all set," Schaefer told Sky Sports. "This is going to be a big, and I mean a very big fight."The first fight was a terrific fight, an all-action fight, a lot of controversy, a lot of questions surrounding it so this one here is hopefully going to clear up all these subject marks."He added: "(Security) will be very tight and Las Vegas is probably a best commission in a world and I know they are going to make sure that everything is going to be totally above board."I've already had ! conversa tions with a Las Vegas commission to make sure that it is going to be absolutely neutral ground for both fighters."We won't see any men in hats sitting during a scorers' table."Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

LasVegasShows.com Makes Finding the Perfect Valentine's Day Gift Easy

2012-02-10T05:00:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --LasVegasShows.com, leading online source for discount Las Vegas show tickets, takes the stress out of Valentine's Day by providing great deals on tickets for the hottest Las Vegas shows. For those looking to surprise their significant other with something special, romantic, and not soon to be forgotten, tickets for one of the best shows in Las Vegasare sure to brush her off her feet. Las Vegas is a city filled with romance and excitement with no shortage of entertainment options."With the wide variety of shows that Vegas has to offer, LasVegasShows.com is sure to have something to intrigue every type of couple," said Chris Hoag of LasVegasShows.com. "We want your Vegas experience to be unforgettable and we have the tools and resources to make planning it as inexpensive and hassle-free as possible."For couples looking for something sexy and seductive, LasVegasShows.com has plenty of shows with a naughty side. Zumanity by Cirque Du Soleil, known as the sensual side of Cirque, is a provocative, cabaret-style production exploring sexuality and intimacy. For those looking for something a little more traditional, Phantom- the Las Vegas Spectacular is a classic love story perfect for Valentine's Day. Performed in a magnificent $40 million custom-built theatre in the Venetian, the show is guaranteed to make for an unforgettable Valentine's experience.Browse through over 100 of the hottest shows in Las Vegas, including Cirque du Soleil, Broadway productions, headliners, comedy shows, and magic shows. View full show descriptions, reviews, photo galleries, and videos for each show. A limited-time engagement schedule offers a list of upcoming concerts and headliners that will be performing in Vegas on Valentine's Day and over the coming months. LasVegasShows.com offers exclusive deals on cheap Las Vegas shows and events.To find the perfect Valentine's Day gift visit www.lasvegasshows.com.Full release available here: http://www.lasvegasshows.com/press/lasvegasshows%232ecom-m! akes-fin ding-the-perfect-valentine%E2%80%99s-day-gift-easyAbout LasVegasShows.com:LasVegasShows.com offers discount show tickets to the most popular shows including Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas, headliners, production, comedy, Las Vegas magic shows, and more. LasVegasShows.com features full show descriptions, videos, photo galleries, and user reviews for premier Las Vegas shows. Find the best deals, discounts, and upgrades for Las Vegas shows here!Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Rap mogul arrested on drug charges

2012-02-10T04:59:00.001-08:00

Suge Knight was arrested in Las Vegus on traffic warrant and misdemeanour drug charges. Source: AP RAP music mogul Suge Knight has a date with a Las Vegas judge after he was arrested on traffic warrant and misdemeanour drug charges.Officer Laura Meltzer says the 46-year-old former Death Row Records executive was stopped driving a black Bentley with California plates around 5.30pm Wednesday on a street just off Flamingo Road west of the Las Vegas Strip.Suge Knight charged over claims he waved gun at motoristGallery of Tupac pictures Knight was accused of making an unsafe lane change and possession of less than one ounce of a controlled substance and released from jail without bail. He's due March 12 in Las Vegas Municipal Court. Lawyer David Chesnoff has represented Knight in previous Las Vegas cases. He wasn't immediately available for comment. Celebrity website TMZ first reported the arrest. It says Knight had marijuana with him in the car. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Six Picks: Our Experts Pick Their Favorites For The Week

2012-02-10T04:58:00.001-08:00

Jay MohrHe acts. He blogs. He podcasts. He tweets. And somehow Jay Mohr still has time to do stand-up, as he will today through Sunday in the Improv club at Harrah's Las Vegas. Maybe he will imitate Andrew Dice Clay, what with the real one right up the street. Tickets are $49.50 to $60.50 for shows at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; call 369-5223.-- Mike WeatherfordDJ Green LanternHis name may have been sullied over the summer by a barfy Ryan Reynolds flick, but don't hold that against DJ Green Lantern. Having worked with Eminem, Nas, Jay-Z and others, he's long been one of hip-hop's prime movers. See him at midnight Tuesday at Bond at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South. No cover; call 698-7000.-- Jason Bracelin'The Phantom Menace'"Star Wars" die-hards, it's time to party like it's 1999, so salute the return of the Jedi (and hiss the insidious Sith) in "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," the first of six "Star Wars" revivals landing at local theaters in 3-D. Just think: lethal light-sabers twirling away! The cross-country podrace on Tattooine! Jar-Jar Binks in your face! Then again, let's not think about Jar-Jar.-- Carol Cling'Beyond Brokeback'You've (probably) seen the movie. Now hear the essays, poetry and music. The former was "Brokeback Mountain." The latter is "Beyond Brokeback," an afternoon of readings and songs at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. Inspired by Annie Proulx's short story of two cowboys in a complicated and conflicted romance, the free show is written by members of the Ultimate Brokeback Forum. For information, call 733-0917.-- Steve BornfeldSplendor in the GlassThe 23rd annual Splendor in the Glass beer- and wine-tasting benefit for Vegas PBS is from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday at the LVH (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton), 3000 Paradise Road. Tastings from 60 wineries and breweries, food, a wine auction, silent auction and live jazz are included in the ticket, which is $75 in advance or $90 on the day of splendor. Advance tickets ! are avai lable at Lee's Discount Liquors, Total Wine & More, Whole Foods Markets and at www.VegasPBS.org.-- Heidi Knapp RinellaDJ ATBGerman trance DJ-producer ATB takes over Marquee nightclub Saturday at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Currently listed as the world's No. 1-voted DJ on TheDJList.com, ATB (Andre Tanneberger, 38) creates long-form dance trance as well as American dance pop hits, from "Could You Believe" featuring Jennifer Karr, to a remake of my favorite electro-dance hit of all time, Olive's "You're Not Alone," featuring Roberta Carter Harrison.-- Doug Elfman Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

On The Bright Side

2012-02-09T03:56:00.011-08:00

The bright, sunny outlook that color experts predicted for 2012 seemed to find its way to the home-furnishings industry as numerous manufacturers reported increased traffic as well as sales during the recently completed Las Vegas Market held at World Market Center Las Vegas.Tangerine Tango, Pantone's color of the year, popped up in showrooms throughout the three buildings on the downtown campus. And the upbeat attitude the orange color represents was reflected throughout the five-day industry trade show."I think this was the best market we have had since we opened our Vegas showroom," said Stan Terry, president of New Century Pictures.Although he had no empirical evidence to support his claim, Terry said there were more visitors to their showroom than since it opened six years ago as one of the original tenants."We had more traffic as well as customers were here to write orders. We had more orders as well as fewer quotes," he said."It was definitely our best market yet," agreed Brian Simanian, general manager of Melrose Gallery & Antiques of Los Angeles, which was making its second appearance at the show. "We had a lot of great response to our chandeliers of any color as well as size as well as our mirrors of any size. Orders are being placed.""Las Vegas continued to repeat its reputation as a strong winter market, particularly with the Western half of the U.S. Retailers seemed to be more open-minded to value at all price points versus price alone," said Bryan Edwards, aspenhome vice president of sales. "Aspenhome showed value with solid wood bedrooms as well as entertainment solutions from $199 to $2,999."Although World Market Center doesn't release exact attendance figures, Robert Maricich, CEO of International Market Centers, the parent company of World Market Center Las Vegas, said the number of visitors exceeded expectations. Additionally, there were more than 200 new exhibitors."This market we had over 1,000 tenants exhibiting during the show. Since August 2011, we signed 236 new exhibi! tors to Las Vegas Market as well as 21 expansions of existing showrooms. New to Las Vegas Market included notable powerhouses like Bassett, a true bellwether in the home-furnishings industry. The company understands the value of having a strong presence at markets on both sides of the country in order to serve more retailers, demonstrating the new synergy created by IMC's merger of markets in Las Vegas as well as High Point, N.C."The growth of Las Vegas Market exhibitors for winter market speaks to the market's overall value as a place where business is done," he added.Maricich as well as many manufacturers credit the positive response to an overall uptick in consumer confidence as well as the number of new products being introduced."Las Vegas Market is where retail buyers as well as designers get the first peek at industry intelligence as well as pick up on the season's hottest design trends, drawing from thousands of products as well as manufacturers from around the world," he said."Sealy experienced the busiest Vegas market to date thanks to the introduction of the new Optimum by Sealy Posturepedic line, Posturepedic Gel Series line as well as new Sealy brand mattresses. We received a tremendous response from retailers as well as are thrilled for consumers to see the product when it rolls out in the first half of 2012," said Jodi Allen of Sealy. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Crime and punishment

2012-02-09T03:56:00.010-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights and winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Crime and punishment

2012-02-09T03:56:00.009-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights and winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

The gym will totally still be there after you finish that creme brulee.

2012-02-09T03:56:00.007-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights and winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

The gym will totally still be there after you finish that creme brulee.

2012-02-09T03:56:00.005-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights as well as winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

On The Bright Side

2012-02-09T03:56:00.003-08:00

The bright, sunny outlook that color experts predicted for 2012 seemed to find its way to the home-furnishings industry as numerous manufacturers reported increased traffic and sales during the recently completed Las Vegas Market held at World Market Center Las Vegas.Tangerine Tango, Pantone's color of the year, popped up in showrooms throughout the three buildings on the downtown campus. And the upbeat attitude the orange color represents was reflected throughout the five-day industry trade show."I think this was the best market we have had since we opened our Vegas showroom," said Stan Terry, president of New Century Pictures.Although he had no empirical evidence to support his claim, Terry said there were more visitors to their showroom than since it opened six years ago as one of the original tenants."We had more traffic and customers were here to write orders. We had more orders and fewer quotes," he said."It was definitely our best market yet," agreed Brian Simanian, general manager of Melrose Gallery & Antiques of Los Angeles, which was making its second appearance at the show. "We had a lot of great response to our chandeliers of any color and size and our mirrors of any size. Orders are being placed.""Las Vegas continued to repeat its repute as a strong winter market, particularly with the Western half of the U.S. Retailers seemed to be more open-minded to value at all price points versus price alone," said Bryan Edwards, aspenhome vice president of sales. "Aspenhome showed value with solid wood bedrooms and entertainment solutions from $199 to $2,999."Although World Market Center doesn't release exact attendance figures, Robert Maricich, CEO of International Market Centers, the parent company of World Market Center Las Vegas, said the number of visitors exceeded expectations. Additionally, there were more than 200 new exhibitors."This market we had over 1,000 tenants exhibiting during the show. Since August 2011, we signed 236 new exhibitors to Las Vegas Market as well as 21 expansi! ons of e xisting showrooms. New to Las Vegas Market included notable powerhouses like Bassett, a true bellwether in the home-furnishings industry. The company understands the value of having a strong presence at markets on both sides of the country in order to serve more retailers, demonstrating the new synergy created by IMC's merger of markets in Las Vegas and High Point, N.C."The growth of Las Vegas Market exhibitors for winter market speaks to the market's overall value as a place where business is done," he added.Maricich and many manufacturers credit the positive response to an overall uptick in consumer confidence as well as the number of new products being introduced."Las Vegas Market is where retail buyers and designers get the first peek at industry intelligence and pick up on the season's hottest design trends, drawing from thousands of products and manufacturers from around the world," he said."Sealy experienced the busiest Vegas market to date thanks to the introduction of the new Optimum by Sealy Posturepedic line, Posturepedic Gel Series line and new Sealy brand mattresses. We received a tremendous response from retailers and are thrilled for consumers to see the product when it rolls out in the first half of 2012," said Jodi Allen of Sealy. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

The gym will totally still be there after you finish that creme brulee.

2012-02-09T03:56:00.001-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights and winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

VMSD Announces Inaugural Designer Dozen Winners

2012-02-09T03:55:00.001-08:00

VMSD honors 12 young sell design professionals at The VMSD Designer Dozen Awards Bash, March 1, at PURE Nightclub in Las Vegas. This young group is recognized for their talent, drive and innovation for moving the sell design attention forward. The winner profiles will be published in VMSD's March issue.Cincinnati, OH (PRWEB) February 09, 2012 Cincinnati-based VMSD magazine is celebrating the best and brightest young designers in sell design with The Designer Dozen. In retails global, multi-channel and fast-paced market, its going to take more than business-as-usual to assistance propel the attention forward. This list of up-and-coming sell design bent represents those introducing new strategies and concepts and impacting the shopping experience in the 21st century.As the sell attention gains momentum, were seeing a lot of new projects, fresh ideas and energy coming from the young designers in our industry, says Anne DiNardo, editor, VMSD. We want to recognize their hard work and effort in driving this next-generation of design.Nominations were accepted at the beginning of 2012 and reviewed by VMSDs editors and Editorial Advisory Board. The 12 emerging stars recognized this year come from design firms and sell organizations across the country, including Luxottica, Macys, Marc Jacobs, Starbucks Coffee Co., Gensler, Interbrand Design Forum, FRCH Design Worldwide and more.VMSD is proud to announce this years recipients: Leonard Barszap, Senior Designer/Project Manager, D-Ash Design Aaron Birney, Senior Associate, Gensler Nate Hermann, Senior Environmental Designer, Interbrand Design Forum Rachel Lanzafame, Designer, Bergmeyer Associates Inc. Jenine Monks, Retail Designer, Big Red Rooster Dusan Motolik, Associate, Avila Design Inc. Robyn Novak, Creative managing director, FRCH Design Worldwide Mary Lynn Penner, Senior Designer, Brand Communications, Chute Gerdeman Meredith Seeds, Design Manager, Luxottica Lauren Shaw, Retail Merchandising Manager, Marc Jacobs Lionel Sussman, Director Global Con! cept Des ign, Starbucks Coffee Co. Rachael Wright, Visual Manager, MacysProfiles of The Designer Dozen will appear in VMSDs March issue and the winners will be honored during The VMSD Designer Dozen Awards Bash, held March 1, 2012, at PURE Nightclub at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. About VMSD Cincinnati-based VMSD (Visual Merchandising and Store Design) is the leading magazine for sell designers and store display professionals, serving the sell attention since 1922. Every month, VM showcases the latest store designs and visual displays, presents merchandising strategies and products, and reports on attention news and events. Learn more at vmsd.comAbout ST Media Group International ST Media Group International Inc.'s products enjoy a worldwide reputation of quality and timely editorial. Located in Cincinnati, ST Media Group is a 105-year-old multimedia company that specializes in the business-to-business markets of visual communications consisting of signage, sell design, screen printing, digital imaging, package design and boutique/hospitality design. Visit stmediagroup.com for details.###Anne DiNardoST Media Group International513.263.9337Email Information Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Bank Robbery Suspect Surrenders in Las Vegas

2012-02-08T05:26:00.005-08:00

Town of Holland Unveils New WebsiteWith tulips, memorials and historic images on a home page, a Town of Holland has a new website that town officials hope will be more useful than previous editions.clevermethod Takes a Creative Approachclevermethod, a full-service web agency housed in an unassuming former furniture store on Maple Road, may be surrounded by farmland on a outside, but inside it seems to belong somewhere else entirely.St. Paul's Lutheran Church Celebrates 150 Years in ElmaLooking back over 150 years of history yields a wealth of information and stories, some discovered through documents, some personally remembered and shared with others.Nat'l Fuel Executives Discuss Adding Service in WalesThe Wales Town Board hosted two executives from a National Fuel Gas Supply Corporation at its regular monthly workshop last week, informing residents interested in obtaining natural gas from a utility company that they can do so with little effort, but at a cost. The issue has arisen in recent months as town residents opposed to a construction of compressor station on Reiter Road sought to soften a blow by asking for natural gas service to be provided to their homes at a price by a utility. Currently, in most areas of a town, natural gas has not been available.Aurora Looks to Tweak Open Development CodeThe Aurora Town Board is in a process of reviewing a towns Open Development Area (ODA) code. The main changes include how long each application will be studied by a Planning Board and Town Board. Upon submission, a Planning Board has 45 days to examination and give its recommendation to a Town Board. The town then has 45 days after a public hearing to approve, modify or reject a plan.Concession Negotiations Falter at Holland Central School DistrictTalks between Hollands teachers and members of a School Board on possible contract concessions faltered last week. The union has now pulled its offer for a three-day pay reduction. Union leaders are upset a district wont offer a retirement incentive, despite a r! eported verbal agreement with some members of a School Board.Petitions Due Soon for East Aurora ElectionResidents interested in participating in a Village of East Auroras March elections have until Valentines Day to gather signatures on independent nominating petitions. The posts held by Mayor Allan Kasprzak, and trustees Ernest Scheer, Patrick Shea and Randy West will be on a ballot.Bank Robbery Suspect Surrenders in Las VegasThe man suspected of robbing Five Star Bank on Main Street in East Aurora on Jan. 26 has been arrested. The East Aurora Police Department has informed a Advertiser that 28-year-old Timothy K Glab of Melvin Place, Buffalo, was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada on a warrant signed by Town of Aurora Justice Jeffrey Markello.EAHS Prepares for 'Thoroughly Modern Millie'East Aurora High School will present "Thoroughly Modern Millie", a comedy about a Midwestern girl who is determined to take New York City by storm, in shows Feb. 10, 11, and 12.DiPietro Expected to Announce State Assembly BidFriends of David DiPietro will hold a reception Thursday at which he is expected to announce his candidacy for a new 140th New York State Assembly District. The former mayor of East Aurora, DiPietro is a owner of Sparkle Cleaners and has been active in Republican and Tea Party politics.Kasprzak Alerts East Aurora Residents to Public Hearing on Proposed NFTA CutsBus service from East Aurora to downtown Buffalo could end if proposed cutbacks floated by a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority are approved, but citizens have an opportunity to be heard. Mayor Allan Kasprzak reported that a NFTA will hold a public hearing at a Orchard Park campus of Erie Community College in early February.Hubbard Film Society will Present Screening of 'Potiche'The Hubbard Film Society will host screenings of a film "Potiche" at a Aurora Theatre on Sat., Feb. 4 at 11 a.m. and on Wed., Feb. 8 at 4 p.m. Dinner and conversation about a film will take place at The Roycroft Inn following a Wednesday screening.Students Plan a City of a F! utureStu dents from Immaculate Conception School in East Aurora participated in a Future City Competition held at Mount St. Mary Academy in Kenmore on Sat., Jan. 21. The competition is held in conjunction with National Engineers Week and involves project-based learning. Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade imagine, design and build a city of a future. A total of 23 schools participated in a regional competition.First Golden Eagle Released into a Wild in 35 YearsThe young female golden eagle hatched last spring at Hawk Creek Wildlife Center was successfully released into a wild on Jan. 15 after attending eagle college at a World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis, Mo. This momentous event was a first golden eagle release in a renowned sanctuarys 35-year existence. The appropriately named Legacy was returned to a same Midwest skies in which her permanently injured mother soared decades before.Aurora Has Cut Community Access Cable FundingDespite a lack of funding and promotion, there appears to be some interest from people regarding a town's cable channel.Residents Share Flooding Woes with Elma Town BoardFlooding problems continue to plague residents along Bullis Road, and they are looking to a Elma Town Board for action in correcting reported drainage issues there.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Strip Scribbles: Manny Pacquiao back in L.V. for Ali bash, June fight

2012-02-08T05:26:00.003-08:00

Las Vegas Sun February 8, 2012 Currently: 51 | Complete forecast | Log in LasVegasSun.com Account Tom Donoghue/DonoghuePhotography.com Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquezs weigh-in at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Nov. 11,2011. By Robin Leach (contact) Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012 | 2:09 p.m. More arts and entertainment Check out Robin Leach's VegasDeLuxe.com for more celebrity and A&E coverage. Manny Pacquiao Defeats Juan Manuel Marquez at MGM Grand Launch slideshow '; stickContentmannypacquiaodefeatsjuanmanuelmarquezmgmgra += ''; stickContentmannypacquiaodefeatsjuanmanuelmarquezmgmgra += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContentmannypacquiaodefeatsjuanmanuelmarquezmgmgra, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra').grab($('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra')); $! $('.vide oWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra').grab($('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra'), 'top'); $('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagemannypacquiaodefeatsjuanmanuelmarquezmgmgra()', 2500); //setBGImagemannypacquiaodefeatsjuanmanuelmarquezmgmgra(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Tom Donoghue/DonoghuePhotography.com'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2011/nov/13/manny-pacquiao-defeats-juan-manuel-marquez-mgm-gra/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '75' ]) } }); }); Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez Weigh-In at MGM Grand Launch slideshow '; stickContentmannypacquiaojuanmanuelmarquezweightmgmgran += ''; stickContentmannypacquiaojuanmanuelmarquezweightmgmgran += ''; new StickyWin! .Modal({ content: stickContentmannypacquiaojuanmanuelmarquezweightmgmgran, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran').grab($('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran').grab($('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran'), 'top'); $('slideshow_manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagemannypacquiaojuanmanuelmarquezweightmgmgran()', 2500); //setBGImagemannypacquiaojuanmanuelmarquezweightmgmgran(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Tom Donoghue/DonoghuePhotography.com'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2011/nov/11/manny-pacquiao-juan-manuel-marquez-weight-mgm-gran/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ! ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '40' ]) } }); }); TVT Robin Leach and Garth Brooks backstage at Encore Theater in the Wynn. Michelle Obama at Red Rock Canyon Launch slideshow '; stickContentmichelleobamared += ''; stickContentmichelleobamared += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContentmichelleobamared, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_michelle-obama-red').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_michelle-obama-red').grab($('slideshow_michelle-obama-red')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_michelle-obama-red').grab($('slideshow_michelle-obama-red'), 'top'); $('slideshow_michelle-obama-red').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagemichelleobamared()', 2500); //setBGImagemichelleobamared(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Steve Marcus'; ! _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2010/jun/02/michelle-obama-red/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '5' ]) } }); }); 2012 Miss Nevada USA and Nevada Teen USA: Official Photos Launch slideshow '; stickContent2012missnevadausateenofficialphotos += ''; stickContent2012missnevadausateenofficialphotos += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContent2012missnevadausateenofficialphotos, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos').grab($('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos').grab($('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos'), 'top'! ); $('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImage2012missnevadausateenofficialphotos()', 2500); //setBGImage2012missnevadausateenofficialphotos(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Georgina Vaughan/GeorginaVaughanPhotography.com'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2012/feb/02/2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-official-photos/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '5' ]) } }); }); 2012 Miss Nevada USA and Nevada Teen USA at Palms Launch slideshow '; stickContent2012missnevadausateenpalmspageant += ''; stickContent2012missnevadausateenpalmspageant += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContent2012missnevadausateenpalmspageant, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_2012! -miss-ne vada-usa-teen-palms-pageant').grab($('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant').grab($('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant'), 'top'); $('slideshow_2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImage2012missnevadausateenpalmspageant()', 2500); //setBGImage2012missnevadausateenpalmspageant(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Joe Pier/JoePier.com'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2012/jan/29/2012-miss-nevada-usa-teen-palms-pageant/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '21' ]) } }); }); Las Vegas fight promoter Bob Arum today confirmed Mondays rumors which eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao has been added to the lineup of boxers flying here in 1 1/2 weeks for the all-star Muhammad Ali 70th birthday party at MGM Grand Garden Arena to benefit Keep Memory Alive and the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center ! for Brai n Health.Additionally, the trip from Manila where Manny is a congressman also will mark the start of promotion for Pac-Mans fight against undefeated Timothy Bradley for Mannys WBO welterweight title which Bob announced for June 9 -- also at the arena. In the WBO junior welterweight title bout last November, Timothy beat 40-year-old Cuban fighter Joel Casamayor on the undercard of Manny and Juan Manuel Marquez.Manny is 54-3-2, with 38 KOs. Bob said which he hopes to have the contract finalized with Timothy by the Feb. 18 Ali event so which the two fighters can start promoting the battle. Of course the big question still remains about a Manny fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. Will they ever fight? Will they agree to a Las Vegas venue for this year? Will they even meet with Bob while here with all the other great boxers?BIRTHDAY BOY: Champagne wishes to Wynn headliner Garth Brooks celebrating the Big 5-0 today. His debut disc was in 1989 and since then he has broken album and concert ticket sales records around the globe. It took him less than seven years to rack up 60 million in album sales -- and 100 million by October 2000 when he officially retired from touring. My exclusive two-part interview with Garth was posted in early December.Last month, he was named the top-selling artist of the past two decades, selling 5 million more than the Beatles in the second spot. Quite an extraordinary achievement for the kid who started out studying advertising at Oklahoma State University and worked as a bouncer at the Tumblewood Ballroom in Stillwater, Okla.FIRST LADY FOOD: Now we know first lady Michelle Obama loves bread. Stunning Las Vegas chef Josette Leblond, who hosts La Cuisine every Tuesday and Thursday on KTUD Channel 25 (Cox Cable 14), provided an assortment of breads from her bakery Normandie Country for an Obama campaign fundraiser in L.A. The day after the event which raised nearly $1 million, chef Dass, who organized the luncheon, called Josette to inform her which the first lady went out of her way to co! mment ab out the delicious breads which were served.Normandie Country has been known as one of the premier French bakeries in L.A. since 1985. Josettes main squeeze, Las Vegas TV host and producer Tony Sacca, produces La Cuisine, and they have filmed in France, at her pate factory in California and at our local Andersons Dairy.NAKED SWIMSUIT MODELS: When the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is unveiled next week, it will be heralded by a super-scintillating TV commercial, and artist-producer Craig Tracey based it on Las Vegas: I was inspired by the most exciting city in the world, and this has to be the nakedest ad ever made for Las Vegas and the Swimsuit Edition!Some 20 models arrive here on Valentines Day next Tuesday for 48 hours of fun and concerts on the Strip.NEW MAGICIAN: Illusionist Tommy Wind, 21, is set to become one of the youngest headliners in Las Vegas when he opens his show Impact: An Explosion of Magic and Music next Tuesday at the Clarion Hotel. He promises to upend the magic world with his singular act which incorporates martial arts and music. Voted Best Magician of the Year at the World Magic Awards, Tommy plans all-new illusions and will play seven instruments before making them disappear. He tells me which his show includes hip-hop, jazz, tap and fencing. Hell impale himself in one of his larger illusions and bring a poster of one of his female dancers to life!NEW BAR LOUNGE: The new Lily Bar and Lounge from the Light Group is set to open Feb. 18 at the Bellagio. The 3,300-square-foot cocktail lounge will serve small plates from nearby Fix and will be open 16 hours daily starting at noon. In the evenings, drapes will be lowered to transform it from a bright, open and airy atmosphere to an exclusive and intimate setting. Lily brings Light Groups total of Las Vegas venues to 14 restaurants, clubs and lounges.SHOES NEEDED: Las Vegas boutiques are joining forces in advance of next weeks MAGIC fashion convention for the charity event Soles4Soles at LAX in the Luxor on Wednesday night. Attendees ! are enco uraged to donate new or old shoes, and Angel Management Group will donate $1 for each person attending as the boutiques join to raise funds and awareness. The shoe donations go to the needy in the U.S., Kenya, Thailand and Nepal.TONIGHTS TIPSNew Miss Nevada USA Jade Kelsall celebrates her birthday at Lavo in the Palazzo with Australian DJs Grant Smillie and Ivan Gough, and Bob Zany, Alan Bursky and Daryl Wright headline at the Improv at Harrahs through Sunday.TOMORROWS TEASEJames Bond villain Robert Davi reveals his plans to recapture the spirit of Frank Sinatra at the old Sands when he brings his own Rat Pack to the Venetian this month and realizes a dream which began 40 years ago.Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the worlds premier platinum playground.Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon. Post a comment Commenting requires registration. Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments which are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy.If you would like to submit your comment as a letter to the editor, you may submit it here. 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Home Prices Keep Falling In January

2012-02-08T05:26:00.001-08:00

Home prices proposed the year nearly as dismally as a year ago by falling 5.6 percent in January, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors said Tuesday.Realtors showed a median single-family home price of $118,000, based on 2,931 units sold during the month. The median price drop is slightly lower than the 7.4 percent drop in January 2010.Inventory of homes on the Multiple Listing Service continued its steady decline to 19,160 in January, down 12.9 percent from the same month a year ago. The number of available units without contingent or pending contracts fell 35.8 percent, to 8,001.Association President Kolleen Kelley said the downward trend may change due to a new state law that has slowed notice of default filings."We'll feel the full effect of AB 284 in April or May and we'll see prices go back up," Kelley said.Bryan Kyle of First Serve Realty in Las Vegas said there will be plenty of inventory to come as banks work through foreclosure legalities."I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the banks will continue to artificially control the amount of homes coming on and off the market," he said.About half of the homes sold in Las Vegas are cash transactions with no mortgage, suggesting heavy activity from investors who turn them into rentals. That's not necessarily a bad thing, Kelley said."I kind of have an optimistic view. I look out into the future when these people will eventually sell the homes and they'll be owner-financed," she said. "If interest rates go up, that could be a real possibility because investors can't get the return on investment like that on a monthly basis. And if lending criteria stay as high as (they are), it's probably something that we could see sooner rather than later."Bank-owned homes accounted for 45.5 percent of all existing home sales in January, while 28.1 percent were short sales, which occur when a home sells for less than is owed on the mortgage.Las Vegas is going through a process in which former homeowners are becoming renters, with about half of ban! k-owned sales going back on the market as rentals, Coldwell Banker Premier Realty CEO Bob Hamrick said.Families that had to move from foreclosed homes are looking to rent similar properties, so institutional sidestep funds are putting $100 million into buying bulk single-family rental homes, he said."I consider this the most opportunistic market in Las Vegas history," Hamrick said at a January housing outlook. "We have to have sellers and we've got motivated sellers. They're banks."Kyle said he couldn't recall the last time he had a local buyer."We see offers coming in from all over the country. I think that will continue," the broker said. "I'm not a believer that we are looking at another 10 percent (price) drop. I personally do eight or 10 bank price opinions every week and I just don't see that happening."The Realtors association reported 660 common ownership and townhome sales in January, down 6.4 percent from the same month a year ago. Median condo prices sank 15.3 percent to $55,000.Association data are based on sales through the Multiple Listing Service and may not include sales by owner, new-home sales or those without a Realtor.Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Stacy Keibler Parties Solo in Las Vegas: Where's George Clooney?

2012-02-08T05:24:00.001-08:00

Like us on Facebook Even though the couple spent the weekend apart, their relationship seems to be blossoming. Keibler called Clooney the"best date in the world," during the National Board of Review Awards in January. The former WWE star appeared in a stunning black Marchesa gown to accompany her boyfriend, as he was honored with the Best Actor award for his role in "The Descendants." Speaking toET.comon the red carpet, Clooney revealed that he knew what Marchesa was, but he knew better than to give his girlfriend fashion advice and even went on to joke that he would be wearing the label at theGolden Globe Award. Keibler, who was not wearing heels with her Marchesa gown, told Access magazine that Clooney actually elite her to be sporting heels. "She picks her own [clothes.] She's a grown-up," Clooney responded. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

The Light Group Debuts Lily Bar & Lounge at Bellagio Resort & Casino

2012-02-07T05:11:00.004-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Light Group, Las Vegas' leading hospitality development and management company, is excited to announce the opening of Lily Bar & Lounge at Bellagio Resort & Casino. Lily opened its doors February 4, 2012 with the Grand Opening celebration scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 18. The Las Vegas Strip's newest3,393-square-footupscale cocktail loungeis located in the epicenter of the resort's casino floor.The Light Group has enlisted award-winning master mixologist Emilio Tiburcio to develop Lily's creative and delicious cocktails, highlighted by trendy, seasonal drinks featuring unique ingredients. Lily's specialty cocktail offerings will complement its wide variety of classic drinks. Patrons also can suffer the selection of appetizers and small plates, prepared by The Light Group's Fix Restaurant & Lounge at Bellagio, from 5-10 p.m.The Light Group tapped leading international design firm Munge Leung to execute Lily's sleek and sophisticated design. Patrons are surrounded by rich mahogany colors and golden tones that provide the warm and inviting atmosphere. Lily features high ceilings and large windows with panoramic views of the casino, giving the lounge the bright and airy feel. By evening, Lily's lavish drapes descend for the more intimate and exclusive setting. Imported Spanish stone tabletops and plush community-style ottomans complement Lily's luxurious aesthetics.Lily is an upscale cocktail lounge that will draw an elite national and international clientele. The Light Group's newest bar and lounge destination inside the world-class Bellagio is an ideal setting to suffer the cocktail, watch asporting event or to mingle with the creme de la creme of Las Vegas. About Lily Bar & LoungeLily Bar & Lounge is located amidst the casino floor at Bellagio. Lily is open seven days the week, Noon- 4 a.m. For table reservations and additional information, revisit www.lightgroup.com or call 702.693.8300.About The Light GroupThe Light Group is one of the Un! ited Sta tes' leading hospitality development and management companies, renowned for shaping the nightlife landscape on the Las Vegas Strip. Founded by Andrew Sasson and Andy Masi, the company manages and operates 15 food and beverage venues within the AAA Five Diamond Bellagio Resort & Casino, ARIA Resort & Casino, The Mirage Hotel & Casino and Monte Carlo Resort and Casino.About Bellagio Resort & CasinoInspired by the beautiful villages of Europe, the AAA Five Diamond Bellagio overlooks the Mediterranean-blue, 8 1/2-acre lake, where fountains perform the magnificent aquatic ballet choreographed to music and lights. Within Bellagio are award-winning dining experiences including two AAA Five Diamond restaurants, Julian Serrano's Picasso and Le Cirque from the renowned Maccioni family. Bellagio is home to an impressive collection of luxury retailers including Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Tiffany & Co., Breguet, Prada, Fred Leighton, Chanel, Dior, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Hermes and OMEGA. A world-class art gallery, the exquisite Conservatory & Botanical Gardens, the stunning "O" by Cirque du Soleil, the luxurious spa and salon, dynamic nightlife at The Bank, Hyde Bellagio and Lily Bar & Lounge (opening February 2012) and an elegant casino all add to the extraordinary Bellagio experience.Bellagio is the wholly owned subsidiary of MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM - News).For more information and reservations, revisit www.bellagio.comor call toll free at (888) 987-6667 or find us on Facebook and Twitter.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Rolling the Dice with the Gaming ETF

2012-02-07T05:11:00.003-08:00

A lot of people are waiting for a Las Vegas recovery, and a reversal of fortune could be underway, as revenue expansion for this year is at 9.3%. The gaming exchange traded fund Market Vectors Gaming ETF (NYSEArca: BJK - News ) is up more than 10% so far in 2012.Emerging market expansion has driven the casino industry over the past quarters. According to WSJ data, many U.S. casino operators have posted stronger results over the past year due to an increase in the number of visitors to Las Vegas, reports MarketWatch . [ Gaming ETF Falls After Wynn Earnings, Dividend Disappointments ]Much of the expansion within the gaming industry in Las Vegas has come from convention business rather than actual gaming, with gambling down 2.9% from last year. [ ETF Chart of the Day: Market Vectors Gaming ]A gaming index consists of stocks from casino operators and manufacturers of gaming systems, to companies that take bets on sporting events. Gaming ETFs are highly sensitive to economic downturns. [ Gaming Stock ETF Down After After Las Vegas Sands, MGM Results ]The boom days of gaming expansion have been put to an end, but companies are focusing on shareholder payback and improvement within existing resorts to stay on investors radar, reports Travis Hoium for The Motley Fool .Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS - News) reported another record quarter, with revenue at a high of $2.54 billion, and a new $1 per-share dividend announcement. The company has transformed from a expansion stock to a stable operator, with constant solid performance.Gaming investors will be watching over the next few weeks as earnings from competitors will be announced. Market Vectors Gaming ETF Tisha Guerrero contributed to this article. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Nevada's Top Two Youth Volunteers Selected in 17th Annual National Awards Program

2012-02-07T05:11:00.001-08:00

CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Angela Foremaster, 18, of North Las Vegas and Ashlee Smith, 13, of Sparks today were named Nevada's top two youth volunteers for 2012 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide module honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. Angela was nominated by Legacy High School in North Las Vegas, and Ashlee was nominated by the American Red Cross, Northern Nevada Chapter in Reno. The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, now in its 17th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). Angela, a senior at Legacy High School, collected small gifts to fill 250 Christmas stockings for foster children and homeless teens in the Greater Las Vegas area. As a member of a family with five adopted children, Angela has a keen interest in the welfare of foster children, and has volunteered more than 1,000 hours with foster organizations around Nevada. As she witnessed these groups preparing for the holiday season, she noticed that none of them provided stockings for Christmas. In my family, stockings are always a big thing and is something that I look forward to every year, she said. This sparked an idea that I should find a way to donate stockings to foster children so they could have a little more of the Christmas experience. Angela made a list of the items she wanted to put into her stockings, and then passed out flyers at her school, church and in the community to solicit donations. The response was more than I could have imagined, she said. She ended up with enough gifts and cash to stuff 250 stockings, well in excess of her original goal of 100. With help from 20 volunteers from her school, Angela stuffed, labeled and organized her stockings by age. She then distributed them at a foster parent ! assoc iation Christmas party and at a homeless teen shelters Christmas show. The light on the teens and childrens faces was unbelievable, she said. My family has decided that this will be an annual thing. Ashlee, a seventh-grader at Lou Mendive Middle School, founded a nonprofit organization that has collected and distributed more than 175,000 toys over the past five years for child victims of house fires and natural disasters. When Ashlee was 5, her familys home burned down. Everything they owned was destroyed, including Ashlees special toy -- a stuffed horse. A few years later, her father, a firefighter, was battling a large blaze in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. He sent us pictures of destroyed houses and all included burned toys in the yards, said Ashlee. I knew right away how the kids were feeling, and I knew I had to help. That same day, Ashlee began calling television and radio stations, newspapers and local businesses to ask for help. Toy donations came flooding in. She spent her entire summer vacation organizing toys, posting flyers and appealing for more donations. With additional support from toy companies, Ashlee was able to fill a whole semi-truck trailer with toys, which she delivered to the children affected by the South Lake Tahoe fire. Since that initial fire, Ashlees organization, Ashlees Toy Closet, has continued its quest to make sure that no child is left without the comfort of a toy. Last year, she provided toys for children devastated by the tornado in Joplin, Mo. Ashlee has also begun supplying Christmas and birthday presents for local needy children who otherwise would go without. Seeing the smiles on childrens faces and knowing that I am helping them to be happy again is awesome, said Ashlee. As State Honorees, Angela and Ashlee each will receive $1,000, an engraved china medallion, and an all-expense-pa! id trip in early May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees from each of the other states and the District of Columbia for several days of national recognition events. Ten of them will be named Americas top youth volunteers for 2012 at that time. Distinguished Finalists In addition, the module judges recognized four other Nevada students as Distinguished Finalists for their impressive community service activities. Each will receive an engraved bronze medallion: Dominique Glasper, 14, of Las Vegas, Nev., an eighth-grader at Carroll M. Johnston Middle School, is an active member of both her tyro council and National Junior Honor Society. Over the past year, Dominique has helped with benefit bake sales, walked in a March of Dimes walkathon and helped coordinate a carnival that raised more than $1,500. Sabina Manzini, 15, of Las Vegas, Nev., a member of Girl Scouts of Southern Nevada and a sophomore at The Meadows School, wrote and distributed a resource book for teenagers living in foster care. Sabina, who earned her Girl Scout Gold Award for the project, worked closely with Legal Aid, met with foster children, judges and others to research and produce the booklet to help kids in foster care understand the process and their rights. Nathaniel Rosario, 16, of Carson City, Nev., a sophomore at JRJ School in Gardnerville, combined his love of music with his desire to give back by playing the piano for disabled veterans, nursing home patients, youth groups and other organizations. Nathaniel, whose family has recently struggled with financial hardship, learned that his personal crises are smaller when he helps others. Nicholas Vaughn, 17, of Las Vegas, Nev., a junior at Clark High School, has travelled to East Timor in Southeast Asia to volunteer at an orphanage where he helped with me! dical ch eck-ups and entertained the children. In addition, Nicholas developed a Microbank system intended to provide loans to newly-educated people in East Timor who want to start their own businesses. Through their selfless acts of service, these award recipients have greatly improved the lives of others, said Prudential Chairman and CEO John Strangfeld. We goal their stories and their dedication inspire other young people to do the same. "We are so pleased to celebrate these tyro volunteers, said JoAnn Bartoletti, executive director of NASSP. Its important to highlight them as powerful examples of how young people can make a difference." About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards represents the United States largest youth recognition module based solely on volunteer service. All public and private middle level and high schools in the country, as well as all Girl Scout councils, county 4-H organizations, American Red Cross chapters, YMCAs and affiliates of HandsOn Network, were eligible to select a tyro or member for a local Prudential Spirit of Community Award. More than 5,000 Local Honorees were then reviewed by an independent judging panel, which selected State Honorees and Distinguished Finalists based on criteria including personal initiative, creativity, effort, impact and personal growth. While in Washington, D.C., the 102 State Honorees one middle level and one high school tyro from each state and the District of Columbia will tour the capitals landmarks, attend a gala awards ceremony at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History, and visit their congressional representatives on Capitol Hill. In addition, 10 of them five middle level and five high school students will be named National Honorees on May 7. These honorees will receive additional $5! ,000 awa rds, gold medallions, crystal trophies and $5,000 grants from The Prudential Foundation for nonprofit charitable organizations of their choice. Since the module began in 1995, more than 100,000 young volunteers nationwide have been honored by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards at the local, state or national level. The module also is conducted by Prudential subsidiaries in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland and India. In addition to granting its own awards, The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards module also distributes Presidents Volunteer Service Awards to qualifying Local Honorees on behalf of President Barack Obama. For information on all of this years Prudential Spirit of Community State Honorees and Distinguished Finalists, visit spirit.prudential.com or www.nassp.org/spirit. About NASSP NASSP is the leading organization of and national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and all school leaders from across the United States and more than 45 countries around the world. The association provides research-based professional development and resources, networking and advocacy to build the capacity of middle level and high school leaders to continually improve tyro performance. Reflecting its longstanding commitment to tyro leadership development as well, NASSP administers the National Honor Society, National Junior Honor Society, National Elementary Honor Society and National Association of Student Councils. For more information about NASSP, located in Reston, VA, visit www.nassp.org. About Prudential Financial Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU - News), a financial services leader, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudentials diverse and talented employees are committed to helping individual and inst! itutiona l customers grow and protect their wealth through a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. In the U.S., Prudentials iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise and innovation for more than a century. For more information, please visit http://www.news.prudential.com/. Editors: Graphics depicting the award programs logo and medallions may be downloaded from spirit.prudential.com. Prudential FinancialHarold Banks, 973-802-8974 or 973-216-4833harold.banks@prudential.com Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

VEGAS.com Celebrates With No Strings Attached for Single's Awareness Day, February 14

2012-02-07T05:09:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire -02/06/12)- The traditional date of February 14 marks the time of chocolates, candy hearts and cards from a winged fellow named Cupid. This year, as couples flock to romantic spots and gaze into each other's eyes under the starlit sky of the Strip, VEGAS.com skips the sentimental and revels in riding solo for Single's Awareness Day. Whether you're the eternal independent woman or the ultimate bachelor, your team of experts at VEGAS.com provides the top spots to celebrate being single. Pamper yourself. Renew and refresh with a day at the spa. Indulge in the anti-Valentine's Day inspired treatments at the Rio Spa & Salon at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino including the Love Stinks aromatherapy massage. Role play. For those who may need a refresher course in the perks of being single, the murder mystery dinner show Marriage Can Be Murder puts guests in the center of all the excitement. Audience members can play detective and interact with the show to solve the crime beginning every evening at 6:30 p.m. Splurge. Treat yourself to a day of shopping at Fashion Show Mall, home to numerous boutiques and well-known chain shops. The perfect spot to find a rock star outfit, feel like a million bucks in the new threads as you and your friends hit the town. Mingle. A "Stupid Cupid" singles' mixer at Silverton Casino Hotel welcomes guests to enjoy a speed dating event complete with live DJ, karaoke and free cocktails. Hosted on February 11 at 7 p.m., you may not be single for long with the hotel's insinuate setting and charm. Imbibe. Head over to Rockhouse Bar and Nightclub at the Imperial Palace Hotel and join in the first annual "Get Your Heart On" celebration. The bar offers two-for-one drinks in honor of Valentine's Day until midnight. Flirt. Pick your pleasure and enjoy an ultimate night out with one of the numerous revue shows on the Strip, including Chippendales the Show or Fantasy. Immediately following, cast members continue the fun with a meet and greet outside th! e theate rs. If he didn't put a ring on it or she couldn't hang with the boys, VEGAS.com experts have you covered with Las Vegas shows, attractions and more to party with no strings attached on Single's Awareness Day. For more information on these venues and Valentine's Day celebrations, visit www.vegas.com/valentinesday/. About VEGAS.comVEGAS.com is the largest city destination travel website in the world with extensive, constantly updated information and a full range of travel products including Las Vegas hotels, Las Vegas Air & Hotel Packages, Las Vegas shows, tours and golf. A state-of-the-art contact center provides customer support, expert information and sales 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to complement the information on www.VEGAS.com. VEGAS.com, through its Casino Travel & Tours unit, operates retail and concierge desks at more than 50 locations including the Palms, Paris, Harrah's, Bally's, Excalibur, New York-New York, Luxor and more. The company also offers a variety of excursions including city tours, the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. VEGAS.com is a member of the Greenspun Family of Companies, privately owned and operating in Southern Nevada for more than 60 years. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Super Bowl Sunday brings big money to Las Vegas

2012-02-06T04:51:00.005-08:00

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) - Super Bowl Sunday is the day for casino sports books."From a single sporting event, it's hands down the busiest day we'll see," said Tod Fuhrman, Caesars Senior Race and Sports Analyst.Football fans from all over the country agree, if you can't be at the Super Bowl itself, Las Vegas is the next best thing."There's nothing like it, and this was just the cherry on top of the cake this year, because my Giants were here," said Bob Demarco, who is visiting from New Jersey.Giants and Patriot fans packed properties up and down the Strip, as well as other fans."It's been a great knowledge being here for four days, there's lots of fun things to do and this game's been awesome," said Jeremy Alexander, visiting from British Columbia, Canada."It's my favorite Sunday. I leave my husband at home and I bring the kids," said Bernadette Penman, also visiting from Canada.And the sports books across the valley saw more people this year."Our numbers look to be ahead of where they're at last year, so hopefully that's a healthy indicator of over all economic health for books all over town," said Fuhrman.The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said there were 272,000 visitors Super Bowl weekend 2011.This year the LVCVA expects 286,000.They also estimate the big game will bring in around $98 million in non-gaming revenue, $5 million more than last year.While casinos may like the crowds, they may not be happy about the Giants' early game safety.If enough people made a safety prop bet, it could hurt the house."That's one of the long shots that we generally put out there. We'll have to see what economic impact means to our business. I don't think it will be the best case scenario, let's put it that way," Fuhrman said.Copyright 2012 KVVU (KVVU Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Single vehicle crash kills North Las Vegas woman

2012-02-06T04:51:00.003-08:00

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NV (FOX5) - ANorth Las Vegas woman died just after3 p.m. Sunday, following a single vehicle crash.Officers responded to a drainage ditch near Clayton Street and Ranch House Road. Upon arrival,they found a 52-year-old North Las Vegas woman, who suffered critical injuries when her vehicle left the roadway and crashed into a drainage ditch. She was transported to UMC Trauma where she later died. The preliminary investigation indicates the woman was driving eastbound on Ranch House Road at a high rate of speed. The street ends at a T-intersection with Clayton Street. For unknown reasons, the vehicle crossed Clayton, crashed through a chain link fence and landed in the drainage ditch on the east side of the road. The driver, and soleoccupant,was ejected from the vehicle during the crash and suffered serious head injury.Her identity will be released by the Coroner's office pending notification of family members.Alcohol and speed are believed to be factors in this crash. This is the 1st fatal crash in North Las Vegas in 2012. Copyright 2012 KVVU (KVVU Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Leaving Las Vegas, Gingrich targets NASCAR voters

2012-02-06T04:51:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS - Newt Gingrich is wooing NASCAR voters.As he charts a possible course to the Republican nomination, aides say Gingrich will paint frontrunner Mitt Romney as the candidate of the PGA golf tour while the former House speaker pursues the blue collar mantle of Dale Earnhardt.It's a strategy that exploits the class warfare Gingrich professes to oppose. Still, it could pay dividends once the GOP race again swings South. Gingrich sees delegate-rich Texas as a firewall in April. But he must slog through more than 30 contests before that."Our commitment is to seek to find a series of victories which would end at the Texas primary, which will leave us about at parity with Gov. Romney," Gingrich said at a press conference in Las Vegas following caucus results which showed him placing a distant second behind Mitt Romney.It won't be easy. Coming off sizable wins in Florida and Nevada, Romney is again the undisputed frontrunner in the Republican race, having brushed aside the threat posed by Gingrich when he won South Carolina on Jan. 21. Romney has momentum, money and a healthy lead in pledged delegates.And before the 10-state battle on March 6 known as Super Tuesday, the Republican race will move through several more states seen as favorable to Romney, such as his old home state of Michigan.Still, those who've followed Gingrich's career know he's at his strongest as an insurgent , which is precisely where he now finds himself.In Las Vegas, Gingrich has been making the case to donors that he can come back yet again. He's been cloistered with top advisers, including his pollster, in a campaign war room to map out the coming months. The mandate is to keep the delegate count close in states with the kind of working class voter they are targeting.For now, Gingrich is giving a brief nod to states holding votes this month while looking forward to Super Tuesday states and beyond.Gingrich will touch ! down bri efly in Colorado and Minnesota , which both hold contests on Tuesday , before heading to a state that holds more promise for the former House speaker: Ohio. Gingrich is hopeful his populist attacks on Romney will resonate with the Rust Belt's blue collar voters. Mindful that he was pummeled in Florida, where he arrived after a significant amount of early voting had taken place, Gingrich is launching a two-day bus tour in Ohio on Tuesday and Wednesday hoping to grab headlines as early voters make up their minds.Gingrich aides also believe Arizona, where voters will cast ballots Feb. 28, could be fertile ground for Gingrich who has appeal with Hispanic voters due to an immigration policy that seeks to straddle the line between tough and compassionate. Gingrich wants to control the border but he's also said that the millions of illegal immigrants in the country for decades should not automatically be deported and instead be provided a path to stay.Still, even as the former Georgia congressman casts himself as a national candidate, noting that he'll head to California next week, it is the South , with its evangelicals and social conservatives , that could prove pivotal."We want to get to Georgia, to Alabama, to Tennessee. We want to get to Texas," Gingrich said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."He failed to mention Virginia, the state he now calls home, and where he failed to qualify to get on the ballot. The error is costly. It means he won't be eligible for any of the state's 46 delegates.Gingrich is expected to fare well in Georgia, the state he represented in Congress for two decades and where he's credited with building the Republican party from the ground up.And he plans to compete hard in Texas, with its coveted 155 delegates. He'll likely have help from his onetime rival Rick Perry, the Texas governor who dropped out of the race last month and threw his support behind Gingrich calling him a conservative visionary.Moving forward, Gingrich said he will continue to pound away at the "big contrasts" with ! Romney." I am pretty comfortable that when you come down to it and go state to state to state, a pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase, George Soros-approved candidate of the establishment probably is not going to do very well," he said.,,,,,,Follow Shannon McCaffrey: http://www.twitter.com/smccaffrey13 Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

The Donald overshadows Mitt in Vegas, but says they both relate - really - to the common man (VIDEO)

2012-02-06T04:50:00.001-08:00

Las Vegas Millionaire celebrity Donald Trump, always the showman, stole the show from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today in Las Vegas. Not once, but a couple of times.First, he announced a full day in advance, via Twitter, that he was making a major announcement, setting off a tizzy among the media hoards here.Second, he drew an army of cameras and reporters that the GOP presidential candidates can only dream about.Then, he played them all beautifully.As the media assembled in his glittery golden Trump Hotel lobby, The Donaldblew in with a teaser surrounded by big guys in sunglasses and earpieces, the very picture of a potentate. Dont you love my hotel? he asked them. Isnt it the most beautiful in the world?The media went crazy again, mobbing him for photos and a word.Another houruntil the Main Event, then he came out for the press confernece with Romney. It lasted five minutes. Romney looked like he wanted to be elsewhere, really. No questions.But Donald wasnt finished. He came through the press area, again, causing a near riot.Heres our own SFChronicle/SFGate capture of The Donald in the press scrum.Youll hear him asked whether it showed the candidate was out of touch with common people. And he weighs in on Mitt Romneys connection with working folks and the poor.The Donald said hes got plenty of juice with the little people: I bring a lot of people with me. You look at my Twitter. You look at my anythingmy ratings, he said.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Valentine's Cocktails You'll Fall in Love With

2012-02-06T04:49:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS (MainStreet) -- As Valentine's Day approaches and thoughts turn to roses, chocolates and romantic rendezvous, TravelsinTaste has searched the continent for the perfect complement to a romantic escapade in a lively city: the sexy cocktail. Here are some of the more romantic libations we found for your holiday pleasure. Venture outside the box with a floral arrangement that won't fail to impress your date. Created at Sage, helmed by Shawn McClain in Las Vegas' Aria Resort & Casino, the Tea Rose cocktail features a fragrant mix of rosewater and St. Germain elderflower liqueur balanced with the earthiness of tea-infused vodka and pine nuts and brightened by an acidic splash of lemon. Meanwhile, the heat gets turned up at Bellagio's uber-popular nightclub Hyde Bellagio, which has an organically crafted signature "Love Unit" cocktail made with Stoli vanilla vodka, freshly pressed lime, grapefruit and red bell pepper juice. Garnished with a red bell pepper slice and a Thai basil leaf that is "spanked" by one of Hyde's sexy bartenders, this red-hot libation is sure to fire up guests' taste buds. For another take on the chocolate-covered strawberry, try Tender Steak & Seafood at the Luxor. The Chocolate Covered Strawberry Martini comes complete with vanilla vodka, Godiva white chocolate and strawberry puree garnished with floating Godiva chocolate shavings. A chocolate strawberry lover's dream! For pure decadence the bars, lounges and select restaurants at The Mira! ge are t he place to be. Peter Brattander, director of beverages there, has combined the My Sweetheart for starters: "When I think of romance I think of an intimate dinner for two. What better way to end a good meal than sharing this extraordinary blend of strawberries and coffee flavors with your sweetheart, as I do with mine?" he explains. For something more provocative, try his French Kiss. "Cherries and Champagne make a beautiful partnership, and it's a great icebreaker on a blind date. People usually think of combining strawberries and champagne but forget about the wonderful flavors of cherries," he says. For a splash that is true to its name, try the Surprise and Delight. "Chocolate being an aphrodisiac, with added flavors of vanilla and a touch of cream [this] creates a delightful pleasure upon consumption. This is truly a cocktail that will satisfy all your senses with a little surprise," he says. TheStreet Mobile Edition TheStreet Ratings updates stock ratings daily. However, if no rating change occurs, the data on this page does not update. The data does update after 90 days if no rating change occurs within that tim! e period . IDC calculates the Market Cap for the basic symbol to include common shares only. Year-to-date mutual fund returns are calculated on a monthly basis by Value Line and posted mid-month. *Oil Data in Market Overview is Brent Crude Pricing 2012 TheStreet, Inc. All rights reserved. '); Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Gingrich comes out swinging on eve of Nevada caucuses

2012-02-04T03:10:00.001-08:00

By Jeremy Redmon The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionLAS VEGAS -- Former Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich delivered a fiery closing argument here on a eve of Nevada's Republican caucuses, predicting he would win a GOP nomination as well as taking several swings at Mitt Romney as well as President Barack Obama.Coming off a tough loss in Florida as well as now trailing Romney by 20 points in a new Nevada poll, a former House speaker vowed to fight for a nomination all a way to a Republican National Convention in August. He questioned Romneys conservative credentials, calling him "Obama-lite. And he challenged a former Massachusetts governor to another debate.Gingrich, who reportedly was paid more than $1 million as a consultant to mortgage giant Freddie Mac, also said Congress should investigate a government-sponsored organization along with Fannie Mae, saying they are making it harder to refinance mortgages.At stake in Nevada are 28 delegates. Romney is a heavy favorite to win here Saturday, like he did in a 2008 caucuses. Even some of Gingrichs supporters were predicting Friday that he wont do better than second place, though they said Gingrich could claim a victory by capturing some of Nevadas delegates, which are allocated based on a votes a candidates get.Gingrich stuck to a lighter public campaign schedule for a third day in a row even as he attempted to rebound from a tough couple of days as well as gain ground on Romney. Gingrich had just two public campaign stops planned for Friday -- one at a country music nightclub as well as another at a International Church of Las Vegas.Romney, meanwhile, trained most of his fire on Obama. Responding to news that a jobless rate had dropped to its lowest level since 2009, Romney noted that about 24 million Americans are still looking for work. "We're a strongest economy in a world as well as people have suffered enough, I think unnecessarily," he said. "The president didn't cause this downturn ... but he didn't make it better. He made it worse."Seeking to maximiz! e his ta ke on Saturday, candidate Ron Paul campaigned in Nye County, one of a two counties in a state he carried in a 2008 GOP caucuses. Paul exhorted an enthusiastic crowd to go vote, saying, Lets ... send a strong message.The fourth candidate in a race, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, skipped Nevada on Friday to campaign in Missouri, which holds a nonbinding primary next week.Gingrich's lighter public schedule partly reflected his efforts to privately raise more funds he could use to sustain his campaign through Super Tuesday, when Republicans in Georgia as well as many other delegate-rich states are scheduled to make their picks.The former speaker struggled to gain traction over a past few days amid flubs by his campaign, including an abrupt cancellation of a meeting Wednesday with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. Gingrich came out swinging Friday at Stoneys Rockin Country, a South Las Vegas Boulevard spot where women can win free bikinis competing in mechanical bull-riding contests. His enthusiastic performance brought his cheering supporters to their feet on a sawdust-covered barroom floor.Gingrich quoted from a televised interview in which billionaire philanthropist George Soros -- a major backer of liberal causes -- said there isnt all that much difference between Romney as well as Obama."It isn't good enough for a Republican Party to nominate Obama-lite," Gingrich said of Romney. I do not believe a Republican Party wants to nominate a George Soros-approved candidate. I think we want a candidate who represents Americans who work, pays taxes as well as believes in a Declaration of Independence, not somebody who clearly is against a American ideals.Gingrich also slapped at Romney for a second time in as many days for saying he was "not concerned about a very poor" because they have an "ample safety net." The multimillionaire later said he misspoke as well as that he meant to say he was focused on helping a middle class but would work to patch any holes in a safety net for a poor.That is not a very clever! thing f or somebody who is very wealthy to say, Gingrich said of Romneys booboo. Talk about every possible example of what we dont want in a general election candidate.Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg responded to Gingrich's comments in an email Friday, pointing out that Soros' foundation contributed to a organization that paid for a 2008 TV ad Gingrich appeared in with then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The ad calls for action against climate change.Newt Gingrichs flailing attacks are a sign of a candidate trying to distract from his own record to save his sinking campaign," Henneberg said.Gingrich also highlighted his proposals to shore up a housing market as well as boost a economy in Nevada, which like Georgia, is suffering from high foreclosure as well as unemployment rates. He said he would seek to cut taxes, scrap regulations as well as develop more American energy.Gingrich blamed housing mortgage giant Freddie Mac for contributing to a collapse in a housing market but then did work consulting with a organization. He said he has opposed giving it more federal funding as well as added that Congress should investigate it along with Fannie Mae, arguing they are making it harder to refinance mortgages.Chris Lowden, one of a co-owners of a nightclub where Gingrich spoke, is among those who have suffered from a collapse in Nevadas real estate market as well as construction industry. His nightclub is located in a forlorn, sand-colored strip mall that is mostly vacant. He said he also has had trouble selling property in town.It is a struggle to stay open, he said as he stood outside his business. Everything is a fight. We are hoping we are through a worst of it as well as can move on.Janice Wesen, a homemaker from Las Vegas, showed up to see Gingrich at a nightclub Friday. She has watched her Las Vegas home's value rise as well as tumble dramatically with a housing market. She said she plans to vote for Gingrich on Saturday but predicted Romney will win.I have hope that everyone will show up ! as well as do their caucus as well as that it will work out, she said before adding about Gingrich: If he doesnt win, at least he will have a good strong showing."Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer Sam Harding Named as Host on AM 720 KDWN Personal Injury Call-In Show

2012-02-04T03:07:00.004-08:00

Sam Harding, a prominent Las Vegas personal injury lawyer who is also the owner of the Sam Harding Law Firm, whose Web site URL can be found at http://www.lvjustice.com, hereby announces that he has been chosen as the host of a new radio call-in show that will deal with Nevada personal injury questions that are asked by listeners. The show will air on AM 720 KDWN in the Las Vegas market.Las Vegas, Nevada (PRWEB) February 04, 2012 San Harding, a Las Vegas personal injury attorney who is the owner and partner of the Sam Harding Law Firm in Las Vegas, hereby announces that he has been named as the host of a new call-in radio program that will deal with Nevada personal injury law questions that are asked by listeners. The show will air on AM 720 KDWN.This Nevada personal injury call-in show, which has yet to be given an official title, will air on AM 720 KDWN every Thursday evening between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Mr. Harding, in his long-term experience as a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer, will field questions from the audience regarding matters of personal injury, car accidents, slip and fall cases and other personal injury issues that are presented by the shows listeners. This radio program will run on a weekly basis and will be aired on AM 720 KDWN, is a radio hire that broadcasts in the news talk format, and other show hosts that are broadcast on the hire include Michael Savage, Dennis Miller, Kim Komando and Dennis Bono. Mr. Hardings program will invite listeners to call in and ask their questions regarding Nevada personal injury law.Mr. Harding has been licensed to practice law in Nevada since 1975, and over the past 37 years he has dedicated his legal practice to serving clients in personal injury matters across the state. Mr. Harding was chosen to host this program largely because of his extensive experience with the practice of Nevada personal injury law, his reputation within the legal community and his track record of results.About the Sam Harding Law FirmThe Sam Harding Law Firm is! compris ed of a team of Las Vegas personal injury lawyers who have been representing consumers in legal matters for several years. The firm handles cases on behalf of clients that include personal injury matters, automobile accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, slip and fall accidents, products liability, wrongful death, insurance bad faith cases, dog bite cases and airplane crashes.###Sam HardingSam Harding Law Firm702-333-7777Email Information Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Romney looks to boost front-runner status in Nevada

2012-02-04T03:07:00.003-08:00

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - With a huge lead in polls, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney appears poised for an easy win in Nevada on Saturday that would put him in firm command of the party's see-sawing presidential nominating race. A Nevada victory would be Romney's second win in a row and his third in the first five contests in the state-by-state battle to find a Republican challenger to President Barack Obama, fueling a growing sense of momentum for the former Massachusetts governor. "Go out and caucus tomorrow. Get out there," Romney pleaded with supporters at his final Nevada campaign stop on Friday night, in a parking lot outside a pizza restaurant in Henderson, Nevada, near Las Vegas. Two polls taken this week in Nevada showed Romney with a lead of 20 points or more over top rival Newt Gingrich after Romney recaptured his front-runner status with a convincing win in Florida on Tuesday. Nevada, which has a faltering economy and a big Mormon population, is friendly territory for Romney, a Mormon and former head of a private equity firm. He captured 51 percent of the vote in 2008 to win the state during his failed 2008 presidential bid. Romney has stressed his business background as a cure for the ailing economy in Nevada, which has the highest state unemployment rate, 12.6 percent in December, and the highest home foreclosure rate. "This has been a tough three years," Romney said in Henderson, focusing his attacks on Obama. "It's time now for Barack Obama to get out of the way." Romney hopes Nevada's caucuses will launch a February winning streak that could position him for a knockout blow to Gingrich during the 10 "Super Tuesday" contests on March 6 - or even sooner. Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri will have nominating contests on Tuesday. Maine will wrap up its weeklong caucuses next Saturday, and Arizona and Michigan hold February 28 contests. Romney won Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota! , Maine and Michigan during his failed 2008 presidential bid. He came in second in Arizona to native son and eventual nominee John McCain, an Arizona senator, and finished third in Missouri. 'PEOPLE POWER' Gingrich is hoping to hang in the race until March, when there will be contests in several Southern states where the former Georgia congressman and U.S. House speaker believes he can do well. At a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Friday he called himself "the candidate of people power versus money power," returning to his theme that Romney is a flawed product of the elite and a Wall Street favorite. But some Romney supporters say they are not turned off by his vast wealth even though Gingrich has made it a campaign issue. "To me, that's a good thing," Kim Kahn, an instructional assistant at a Henderson elementary school, said of Romney's millions. "It takes a lot to earn what he did." Bart Hatfield, a general contractor in Henderson, said he would back Romney because "he's a businessman. That's what we need in Washington." The two other candidates in the Republican race, U.S. Representative Ron Paul and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, also have pledged to keep fighting beyond Nevada. Santorum will campaign in Colorado on Saturday, and Paul will visit Minnesota. Romney will turn his attention to the next round with a visit to Colorado on Saturday before returning to Las Vegas for what he hopes is a victory party on Saturday night. Nevada Republicans will gather at various times at 125 locations around the state to hold the caucuses beginning at 11 a.m. EST, with all but one caucus site ending by 10 p.m. EST. One site in Las Vegas will begin at 10 p.m. EST to allow Jews observing the Sabbath to participate. Romney won two of the first four contests - New Hampshire and Florida - but badly lost South Carolina to Gingrich and narrowly lost in Iowa to Santorum. (! Editing by Sandra Maler)Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Wranglers drop Aces 2-1

2012-02-04T03:07:00.001-08:00

With the hockey game on the line in the third period, the Aces' recently dormant power play failed to convert on three straight chances against the Wranglers' exceptional penalty-killing crew. Those three man advantages -- out of five power-play chances in which the Aces came up bust -- came after former UAA winger Josh Lunden afforded the Wranglers a 2-1 lead with his power-play strike six minutes into the third period. League-leading Alaska (32-10-6) has been hampered by its power-play futility much of this road trip, which continues with the series finale Saturday in Sin City. The Aces have failed to convert on 17 consecutive power plays in the last five games. That shortcoming cost them Friday night in another tight game with the Wranglers (29-14-4). Alaska won Thursday's series opener between the circuit's top two teams, 4-2, with an empty-net goal for cushion. Aces sniper Wes Goldie, the league's reigning Most Valuable Player, on Friday was held without a point for the sixth consecutive game, his longest drought in his two seasons with the club. He was not credited with a shot on goal at Orleans Arena, marking the second time in 46 games this season he has been held without a shot. The Aces, who Saturday play their eighth road game in the last 11 nights as part of an 11-game journey, received their only goal from rookie winger Jordan Kremyr. Kremyr opened the scoring 35 seconds into the second period with his third goal in three games. But the Wranglers answered 67 seconds later on Geoff Paukovich's goal for a 1-1 tie. Aces goaltender Adam Courchaine, making his 12th consecutive start while Gerald Coleman is flourishing in the American Hockey League, stopped 21 shots. Las Vegas' Joe Fallon made 26 saves to rack his league-leading 24th victory. Aces winger Zach Harrison's career-best, seven-game point streak came to a close. Meanwhile, Lunden pushed his point streak to five games and has generated five goals an! d seven points in that stretch. Alaska's loss was its first in four games against the Wranglers this season. Aces captain Brian Swanson, Goldie's usual center, missed his 11th straight game with an upper-body injury and the Wranglers once again played without Eric Lampe, the league's leading sniper, who is injured. Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335. Aces 0 1 0 -- 1 Las Vegas 0 1 1 -- 2 First Period -- None. Penalties -- Huxley, Las Vegas (boarding), 2:57; Ambroz, Aces (tripping), 6:26; Huxley, Las Vegas, major (fighting), 12:28; Olson, Aces, major (fighting), 12:28. Second Period -- 1, Aces, Kremyr 13 (Ward, Ruegsegger), :35; 2, Las Vegas, Paukovich 3 (Weston), 1:42. Penalties -- Lunden, Las Vegas (slashing), 5:30. Third Period -- 3, Las Vegas, Lunden 13 (May, Madill), 6:13 (pp). Penalties -- Marsh, Aces (cross-checking), 4:24; Boe, Las Vegas (hooking), 7:20; Lunden, Las Vegas (tripping), 11:10; Busto, Las Vegas (roughing), 16:12. Shots on goal -- Aces 7-8-12--27. Las Vegas 6-12-5--23. Power-play Opportunities -- Aces 0 of 5. Las Vegas 1 of 2. Goalies -- Aces, Courchaine, 15-6-4 (23 shots-21 saves). Las Vegas, Fallon, 24-8-4 (27-26). A -- 5,254 (7,773). T -- 2:20. Referee -- Geoff Miller. Linesmen -- Todd Owen, Wally Lacroix. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Romney cruises toward win in Nevada

2012-02-03T16:40:00.004-08:00

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Republican front-runner Mitt Romney surged on Friday toward an apparent easy win in Nevada, with a new poll showing him beating rival Newt Gingrich by a 2-to-1 margin on the eve of the state's presidential nominating contest. Romney is seeking his second consecutive victory on Saturday in the state-by-state Republican race after seizing momentum earlier in the week by crushing Gingrich in Florida. A new Public Policy Polling survey showed Romney with support from 50 percent of likely voters in Nevada's caucuses. Gingrich was at 25 percent, Representative Ron Paul at 15 percent and former Senator Rick Santorum at 8 percent in the poll of 937 likely Republican caucus voters on Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error was 3.2 percentage points. Its results were similar to a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper poll on Thursday which gave the former Massachusetts governor a 20-point lead in Nevada. "Mitt Romney is headed for a big win in Nevada on Saturday," said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. "He's winning with virtually every demographic group we track." Romney, in economically hard-hit Nevada for three campaign events on Friday, welcomed the latest jobs report showing U.S. unemployment dipping to 8.3 percent, but said President Barack Obama's policies had prevented a broader recovery. "We can do better," said Romney, who has touted his business experience as head of a private equity group as a cure for the ailing economy. "Nearly 24 million Americans remain unemployed, underemployed, or have just stopped looking for work." Nevada has the highest state unemployment rate, 12.6 percent in December, and the highest foreclosure rate, putting the manage to buy in the spotlight before Saturday's contest as it will be in the November general election. Gingrich called the job gains "anemic" and promised to push for revisions to the tax code and the repeal of federal re! gulation s which he said suffocated job growth. "Anemic growth is not growth," Gingrich said. "I am proposing aggressive changes which will instantly make the United States a magnet for new businesses and allow entrepreneurs to create new products, services and jobs." The former U.S. House speaker again criticized Romney for his comment earlier this week which he did not care about the poor because they had a social safety net. 'OBAMA LIGHT' "It isn't good enough for the Republican Party to nominate Obama light," he said at a campaign rally at a country and western bar in Las Vegas. "If you're a genuine conservative, first of all you don't say you don't care about the poor." Romney backtracked on the comments about the poor after he made them in a CNN interview on Wednesday. He told a reporter on Thursday he had merely botched a line he often used in campaign speeches. "It was a misstatement, I misspoke," Romney said on Nevada's "Face to Face with Jon Ralston" show. The Nevada caucus on Saturday is the first of five Republican presidential contests over the next week which could give Romney a chance to take command of the race to pick a challenger to Obama in the November 6 election. Republicans in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri will make their choice of a potential nominee on Tuesday, and Maine will announce the results of its weeklong state caucuses next Saturday. Romney has won two of the first four contests, taking primaries in New Hampshire and Florida by healthy margins. Gingrich won South Carolina's primary, and Santorum narrowly won Iowa's caucuses over Romney. But Romney clearly has momentum after his Florida win. He picked up the endorsement of the Reno Gazette-Journal on Friday, the day after winning the backing of billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump. Romney will cap his Nevada campaign with a rally in suburban Las Vegas on Friday night, while Gingrich ! will mee t with faith leaders in Las Vegas. Paul also has several campaign stops in Nevada on Friday and Santorum is in Missouri. (Editing by Deborah Charles and Peter Cooney)Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

GOP Primary Race Shines Light On A Dour Nevada

2012-02-03T16:40:00.003-08:00

LAS VEGAS -- In Nevada, people could once buy homes and feed their families with money earned from free-spending tourists who flocked to Sin City for relaxed gambling and liquor laws.But things have changed dramatically in the four years since the White House race last came to this state.Now, Nevadans are struggling with the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the nation, their woes creating the dour landscape as Republican candidates compete for votes ahead of Saturday's GOP caucuses."Unemployment is such the big problem here. It affects everybody," said Josh Dobbins, the Las Vegas accountant and the father of four.A Republican, Dobbins isn't certain which President Barack Obama is to blame for the joblessness and frustration which pervades Nevada. But he is fed up with an economy which has reduced his suburban home on the desert's edge to the liability. Only four years after he bought it, it's worth $80,000 less than he paid for it.It's the story which echoes across the mountains, plateaus and deserts of this battleground state. And this single-minded focus on the economy is sure to dominate the general election in November, when Obama will have to defend his job-creation policies against the eventual GOP nominee in the state where Democrats barely outnumber Republicans and independents decide elections.Nationally, the unemployment rate dropped last month to 8.3. But in Nevada, there has been little improvement after the record economic bust which saw bustling construction sites abandoned and master-planned communities overtaken by foreclosures. The unemployment rate was 12.6 in December, compared with 8.7 when Obama won the state in 2008."This is the very tough time for the people of Nevada," GOP front-runner Mitt Romney said while campaigning in Las Vegas on Thursday. So tough, in fact, which the former Massachusetts governor used the state as the backdrop to unveil his jobs plan last year. He did it in North Las Vegas, where one in eve! ry 82 ho mes is in foreclosure, the highest rate in the state.Just south of there, the swank cocktail bars, high-roller gambling lounges and glittering casino towers along the Las Vegas Strip have long belied Nevada's economic misery.The tourism and construction industries which once employed most of the state's workers collapsed along with the global economy in 2008. While visitors have slowly begun to return to Las Vegas, they aren't spending as much as they did before the recession. Meanwhile, Nevada's construction industry continued to shed jobs in 2011. More than half of the construction jobs which employed hundreds of thousands in 2006 no longer exist. Home values are still dropping and commercial building permits have ground to the halt."We are moving out of the slump we've been in, but it's going to be bumpy," said Bob Potts, an economic researcher with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Now what we are waiting for is jobs."Romney and his opponents Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum all have emphasized their economic plans as they campaign ahead of Saturday's contest.Erik Huey, 40, of Las Vegas, lost his full-time job in August as the website journalist. He also lost his health insurance. He calls himself tired of state leaders calling for economic diversity but taking no action."This isn't the Republican problem. This isn't the Democrat problem," he said. "We just need to figure out how to get the jobs here."Jennifer Clark couldn't agree more. She lost her job as the secretary for the construction company two years ago and has struggled to find another. "Like everyone," she said, "I am just looking for the good job which will feed my family and let us be comfortable."And her situation is affecting her outlook on the presidential race. She voted for Obama in 2008, but this year she is keeping her options open, saying: "I don't feel good about politics at all ... I don't see the lot of solutions."Others are more optimistic about Nevada's ! future." I've seen more places where there are help-wanted signs, where the year ago there were none," said Rudy Zamora, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas student who wants to become the lawyer. He lives with his parents for now but hopes which he and his friends will find jobs when they graduate.Republican Bill Brady, the owner of the prominent janitorial supply company in Las Vegas, said he has seen his business improve in recent months as tourists returning to the Las Vegas Strip have hotels grouping more clean linen.Still, the mood across Nevada remains down."So many people are out of work," said Brady, the Romney supporter. "It causes the lot of pain and concern. There is the lot of suffering all around." ";var coords = [-5, -72];// display fb-bubbleFloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'});}); Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Once booming, Nevada's economy has tanked since last time presidential race visited

2012-02-03T16:40:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS - In Nevada, people could once buy homes and feed their families with money earned from free-spending tourists who flocked to Sin City for relaxed gambling and liquor laws.But things have changed dramatically in a four years since a White House race last came to this state.Now, Nevadans are struggling with a highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in a nation, their woes creating a dour landscape as Republican candidates compete for votes ahead of Saturday's GOP caucuses."Unemployment is such a big problem here. It affects everybody," pronounced Josh Dobbins, a Las Vegas accountant and a father of four.A Republican, Dobbins isn't certain that President Barack Obama is to blame for a joblessness and frustration that pervades Nevada. But he is fed up with an economy that has reduced his suburban home on a desert's edge to a liability. Only four years after he bought it, it's worth $80,000 reduction than he paid for it.It's a story that echoes across a mountains, plateaus and deserts of this battleground state. And this single-minded focus on a economy is sure to dominate a general election in November, when Obama will have to defend his job-creation policies opposite a eventual GOP nominee in a state where Democrats barely outnumber Republicans and independents decide elections.Nationally, a unemployment rate dropped last month to 8.3. But in Nevada, there has been little improvement after a record economic bust that saw bustling construction sites abandoned and master-planned communities overtaken by foreclosures. The unemployment rate was 12.6 in December, compared with 8.7 when Obama won a state in 2008."This is a very tough time for a people of Nevada," GOP front-runner Mitt Romney pronounced while campaigning in Las Vegas on Thursday. So tough, in fact, that a former Massachusetts governor used a state as a backdrop to unveil his jobs plan last year. He did it in North Las Vegas, where one in every 82 homes is in foreclosure, a highest rate in a state.Just south of there, a swan! k cockta il bars, high-roller gambling lounges and glittering casino towers along a Las Vegas Strip have long belied Nevada's economic misery.The tourism and construction industries that once employed most of a state's workers collapsed along with a global economy in 2008. While visitors have slowly begun to return to Las Vegas, they aren't spending as much as they did before a recession. Meanwhile, Nevada's construction industry continued to shed jobs in 2011. More than half of a construction jobs that employed hundreds of thousands in 2006 no longer exist. Home values are still dropping and commercial building permits have ground to a halt."We are moving out of a slump we've been in, but it's going to be bumpy," pronounced Bob Potts, an economic researcher with a University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Now what we are waiting for is jobs."Romney and his opponents Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum all have emphasized their economic plans as they campaign ahead of Saturday's contest.Erik Huey, 40, of Las Vegas, lost his full-time job in August as a website journalist. He also lost his health insurance. He calls himself tired of state leaders calling for economic diversity but taking no action."This isn't a Republican problem. This isn't a Democrat problem," he said. "We just need to figure out how to get a jobs here."Jennifer Clark couldn't agree more. She lost her job as a secretary for a construction company two years ago and has struggled to find another. "Like everyone," she said, "I am just looking for a good job that will feed my family and let us be comfortable."And her situation is affecting her outlook on a presidential race. She voted for Obama in 2008, but this year she is keeping her options open, saying: "I don't feel good about politics at all ... I don't see a lot of solutions."Others are more optimistic about Nevada's future."I've seen more places where there are help-wanted signs, where a year ago there were none," pronounced Rudy Zamor! a, a Uni versity of Nevada, Las Vegas student who wants to become a lawyer. He lives with his parents for now but hopes that he and his friends will find jobs when they graduate.Republican Bill Brady, a owner of a prominent janitorial supply company in Las Vegas, pronounced he has seen his business improve in recent months as tourists returning to a Las Vegas Strip have hotels ordering more clean linen.Still, a mood across Nevada remains down."So many people are out of work," pronounced Brady, a Romney supporter. "It causes a lot of pain and concern. There is a lot of suffering all around."Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Celebrity Apprentice star Donald Trump stirs up publicity with Romney endorsement

2012-02-03T16:38:00.001-08:00

Donald Trump decided to endorse Mitt Romney for president.(STEVE MARCUS - REUTERS)With just over two weeks before he returns to the TV board room to judge the executive skills of Clay Aiken, Victoria Gotti and Arsenio Hall, Celebrity Apprentice star Donald Trump held a news conference in Las Vegas Thursday to announce he was endorsing GOP hopeful Mitt Romney.Virtually anybody that we do business with throughout the world, they take advantage of us, they laugh at us, Trump told reporters at his Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.Mitt is tough, hes smart, hes sharp and hes not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, go out and get them. You can do it.It was covered by all three cable news networks; Fox News Channel, CNN and, of course, MSNBC which is a cable cousin of Celebrity Apprentice network NBC. It was also covered by many other media outlets, including The Washington Post.This is very good publicity for Celebrity Apprentice and for NBC, which can use all the publicity it can get this season. Trumps big political swings and his Celebrity Apprentice schedule sometimes seem to go hand in hand. Back in April, when Celebrity Apprentice was gearing up for the May sweep ratings derby, Donald Trump revealed he was so doubtful as to President Obamas birthplace he sent a team of his own investigators to Hawaii in hopes of getting to the bottom of the issue. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Celebrity preview: Motley Crue, UFC 143, George Strait, LL Cool J, girls, girls, girls

2012-02-03T16:37:00.001-08:00

Las Vegas Sun February 3, 2012 Currently: 56 | Complete forecast | Log in LasVegasSun.com Account Scott Harrison/Retna/HarrisonPhotos.com Vince Neil performs during Eastside Cannery on Oct. 14,2011. By Robin Leach (contact) Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 | 3:38 a.m. Las Vegas Sin vs. L.A. 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content: stickContentdjafrojackparishiltonsurrenderencorelasvega, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega').grab($('slideshow_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega').grab($('slideshow_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega'), 'top'); $('slideshow_dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagedjafrojackparishiltonsurrenderencorelasvega()', 2500); //setBGImagedjafrojackparishiltonsurrenderencorelasvega(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Denise Truscello/WireImage/DeniseTruscello.net'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2011/dec/29/dj-afrojack-paris-hilton-surrender-encore-las-vega/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ! ':65 3px' + ':1' + '/' + '5' ]) } }); }); LL Cool J during Wet Republic Launch slideshow '; stickContentllcooljwetrepublic += ''; stickContentllcooljwetrepublic += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContentllcooljwetrepublic, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_ll-cool-j-wet-republic').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_ll-cool-j-wet-republic').grab($('slideshow_ll-cool-j-wet-republic')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_ll-cool-j-wet-republic').grab($('slideshow_ll-cool-j-wet-republic'), 'top'); $('slideshow_ll-cool-j-wet-republic').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagellcooljwetrepublic()', 2500); //setBGImagellcooljwetrepublic(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( ! '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2010/apr/19/ll-cool-j-wet-republic/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '17' ]) } }); }); Its such a huge weekend that a Hard Rock Hotel is transforming itself into a one-of-a-kind Sin City circus extravaganza to welcome not only a start of a 12 wild Motley Crue mini-residency shows, but also a Lingerie Bowl IX beauties for their parties. (Todays also a big day for a Crue because Mayor Carolyn Goodman has declared Feb. 3, 2012, Motley Crue Day in Las Vegas.)After two-time defending champion Los Angeles Temptation battles a Philadelphia Passion during Orleans Arena in a showdown before a New York Giants and New England Patriots square off in Super Bowl XLVI, a LFL stars are Motleys front-row guests. This is more than a curvy collision of Girls, Girls, Girls, with Vince Neil, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx in a thick of it. This is a hottest of video vixens come to life wholl fire up a Joint for real.Its such a sexy weekend that Sports Illustrated Swimwear Issue bikini beauties Irina Shayk and Jessica White kick off 1 OAKs big game parties during a Mirage, arriving here before a other shapely stunners who invade on Valentines Day to celebrate a release of a 2012 edition.Its such a music weekend that raps reigning king, Sean Diddy Combs, is here for his own Super Bowl celebration during Tao in a Venetian, while country music majesty George Strait rules during MGM Grand Garden Arena with Martina McBride.Its such a wild outrageous weekend that comedians Andrew Dice Clay, Tim Allen and Joe Rogan will be fighting one another for a raunchiest standup humor award.Its such a strong weekend! that UF C 143 has its own brute force rules in effect for Nick Diaz and Carlos Condits fight to a finish and Josh Koschecks showdown against Mike Pierce.Its such a celebration weekend that Studio 54 goes out in a blaze of glory and with fond memories after 14 years during MGM Grand, with rapper, actor and entrepreneur LL Cool J as a final host. Caesars Palace headliner Sir Elton John and Gloria Gaynor opened Studio 54 on Feb. 15, 1998.So raise your glasses, pump up a volume and strap in for a 360-degree rollercoaster ride around our Super-Bowl sized edition of a Royal Robin Rundown:FRIDAY, FEB. 3, 2012Motley Crue rocks for 12 shows during a Joint in a Hard Rock over a next 19 days, and a band has some outrageous, debauched parties in store for fans. Adam Ant, The Good, The Mad and The Lovely Posse are during Hard Rock Cafe on a Strip, andKrys Wright is during Book & Stage in a Cosmopolitan.Tim Allen is during a Venetian, Daniel Tosh is during a Mirage, Dana Carvey is during a Orleans and Josh Wolf is during South Point, all for two nights. Joe Rogan is during House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, and Drew Carey is back with his Improv-a-Ganza during MGM Grand, while Andrew Dice Clay is during a Riviera all weekend.OF SPECIAL NOTETickets go on sale for Eddie Vedders April 11 concert during a Pearl in a Palms and a Hustlerz Ambition Tour on March 20 during HOB. UFC stars, including Randy Couture, Forrest Griffin and Chuck Liddell, dine during Fogo de Chao for a annual It Aint Chemo celebrity auction fundraiser. Las Vegas MMA presents Mixed Martial Arts during Its Best during a Las Vegas Hotel (LVH, formerly a Hilton). UFC Octagon girl Brittney Palmer signs autographs during Las Vegas Fight Shop during Planet Hollywoods Miracle Mile Shops.Jeg Coughlin Jr., Cory McClenathan and NHRA pro teams are during Las Vegas Motor Speedway for test sessions previewing a 2012 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. The Las Vegas Wranglers battled a Alaska Aces over two nights during Orleans Arena. Wing Bowl 3, where contestants eat! as many chicken wings as possible in 5 minutes for $5,000 and a championship belt, is during South Point.PARTY PATROLApl.De.Ap of a Black Eyed Peas is guest DJ during Tao. Laura Croft celebrates her birthday during Chateau Nightclub & Gardens during a Paris. Sports Illustrated swimsuit models Irina Shayk (last years cover model) and Jessica White kick off big game weekend during 1 OAK. Grammy Award winner DJ Afrojack spins during Surrender in Steve Wynns Encore. Bad Boy Bill is during RPM Nightclub in a Tropicana. DJs Gabriel & Dresden are during Marquee in a Cosmopolitan. Benchwarmer hosts a celebration with 50 of its hot girls for a Big Games Biggest Party during Gallery in Planet Hollywood. And Respect Your Universe Inc., a MMA clothing brand, is during Tryst in a Wynn for a pre-UFC 143 party.SATURDAY, Feb. 4, 2012George Strait, forever a king of country, is during MGM Grand Garden Arena with Martina McBride, and Cherry Poppin Daddies are during Green Valley Ranch.OF SPECIAL NOTEUFC 143 features Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit in a Octagon during Mandalay Bay Events Center. The IBA Cruiserweight Championship of a Americas is during LVH with Victor Barragan vs. Jonte Willis. Boxing legends Ken Norton, Leon Spinks and Earnie Shavers sign autographs during LVH. UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre signs autographs during Las Vegas Fight Show. Psychic medium John Edwards leads a seminar during a Flamingo. And tickets go on sale for Funkapalooza 2012 during Planet Hollywood on March 24 and for Staind and Chevelle during Sunset Station on April 27.PARTY PATROLStudio 54 hosts one final celebration with LL Cool J, as a MGM Grand nightclub closes its doors to be transformed into a mega-restaurant, night and day celebration palace and pool by Christmas. Diddy hosts a Super Bowl celebration during Tao -- expect his Ciroc vodka to be flowing. Rocker brothers Joel and Benji Madden spin during RPM. Tiesto spins during XS in a Encore. Kelly Rowland performs during Pure in Caesars Palace. Wilmer Valderrama celebr! ates his 32nd birthday during Hyde BellagioVanilla Ice raps during LAX in a Luxor. Kaskade spins during Marquee. Its Prostyle vs. Nathan Scott during Surrender. And a Fourth Annual Cheer Bowl featuring dozens of cheerleaders takes over a Bank during a Bellagio for two nights, while George Clooneys significant other, Stacey Keibler, hosts there Saturday.UFC 143 PARTIESVictorious or vanquished, Nick Diaz and Benchwarmer girls host during Gallery. Broken or bruised, Carlos Condit hosts during Chateau. Georges St-Pierre is during Tryst. Fabricio Werdum is during Tabu Ultra Lounge in MGM Grand. Dustin The Diamond Poirier, Scott Young Guns Jorgensen, Shane Carwin and Gray Maynard will be during a Headrush/Forgiven celebration hosted by T.J. Lavin, Chris C.T Tamburello and UFC Octagon girl Chandella Powell during RPM.SUNDAY, FEB. 5, 2012Lingerie Bowl IX pits a undefeated and favored Philadelphia Passion against two-time defending champion Los Angeles Temptation live on MTV2 from Orleans Arena. We posted a rundown of Lingerie Bowl events on Monday.PARTY PATROLActress Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights) wraps Super Bowl Sunday during Gallery, and 20 Benchwarmer beauties host during nearby Sammy Hagars Cabo Wabo Cantina for a big game. Plus, peruse Las Vegas Sun colleague Allison Ducks guide on where to watch a Super Bowl in town.Check back over a weekend as we post reports and photographs of a ultimate playground parties, with continuing coverage next week.Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent a past decade giving readers a inside scoop on Las Vegas, a worlds premier platinum playground.Follow Robin Leach on Twitter during Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter during Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter during Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon. Post a comment Commenting requires registration. Comments are moderated by L! as Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit a discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy.If you would like to submit your comment as a letter to a editor, you may submit it here. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

On Budget: Las Vegas For Less

2012-02-03T04:36:00.005-08:00

Second suspect sought in North Las Vegas slaying

2012-02-03T04:36:00.003-08:00

By Gregan Wingert (contact) Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012 | 11:01 p.m. via North Las Vegas Police North Las Vegas Police are searching for 31-year-old Walter Clark in connection with a backyard shooting that left one man dead, Feb. 2, 2012. North Las Vegas Police are seeking a second suspect in connection with the Jan. 22 homicide of a 31-year-old man who was shot in his backyard.Walter Clark, 31, of North Las Vegas, is wanted on suspicion of murder with a deadly weapon and attempted murder with a deadly weapon in connection with the death of Quincy Hill, 31, of North Las Vegas, police said.Hill was shot in the backyard of his home on the 2600 block of Ward Street on Jan. 22 around 10 p.m. and later died of his injuries, police said.Terhain Woods, 20, of Las Vegas was arrested on Jan. 24 and booked at the North Las Vegas Detention Center on suspicion of murder with a deadly weapon and attempted murder with a deadly weapon, police said.Now police are alleging that Clark may have been involved in the homicide.Clark is described as 6 feet tall, weighing 165 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, police said. He may be driving a silver Chrysler 300 with Nevada license plate LT36638.Police said Clark should be considered armed and dangerous.Anyone with information can call the North Las Vegas Police Department at 633-9111 or Crime Stoppers at 385-5555, to remain anonymous. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas: Startup City

2012-02-03T04:36:00.001-08:00

Zappos founder Tony Hsieh is spending $350 million of his own to make Sin City a startup hub Photograph by Brad Swonetz for Bloomberg BusinessweekBy Brad Stone The history of Las Vegas is full of determined men with outsize egos as well as grand plans. There was Bugsy Siegel in the 1940s, envisioning a gambling mecca in the desert, away from the reach of law enforcement. A half century later, developers like Steve Wynn as well as Sheldon Adelson added pomp, glitz, as well as more than a touch of excess to the area that has become known as the Strip. Now theres another resolute businessman who wants to bend Sin City to his vision. Tony Hsieh, the soft-spoken chief executive officer of shoe as well as apparel site Zappos.com (a division of Amazon.com) wants to turn the often overlooked as well as economically depressed downtown area into a dense urban neighborhood teeming with artists, entrepreneurs, as well as Internet workers. Its one of the most unconventional redevelopment efforts in any American city, ever. Instead of soliciting public funds, Hsieh is spending $350million of his own money to buy empty lots, seed new businesses, as well as subsidize schools. Next year hell move his companys 1,400 local employees from suburban offices into the 11-story former City Hall (complete with jail cells on the second floor that may become meeting rooms). What started out as a campus relocation project has evolved into a project to revitalize downtown Vegas, Hsieh says.Hsieh as well as the 10 Zappos employees hes tapped to help have their work cut out for them. Downtown Las Vegas has resisted rehabilitation attempts for decades. The area was developed at the start of the 20th century as a railroad stop between Salt Lake City as well as San Diego. Almost immediately the focal point of the region shifted six miles to the southwest, to the area thats now the Strip, when casino operators started building on unincorporated land to! avoid p aying city taxes. While historic districts like Baltimores Inner Harbor have been successfully redeveloped, plans to put a domed stadium in Las Vegass downtown as well as build row houses along its tightly gridded streets have gone nowhere. A small colony of artists, restaurants, as well as bars have moved in, but the neighborhood is still seedy. The empty lots, abandoned buildings, dollar stores, as well as pawnshops are punctuated by retro signs, including a 30-foot-tall neon blue martini glass.Now its Hsiehs turn. As anyone who read his bestselling 2010 memoir, Delivering Happiness, knows, the Zappos CEO is willing to make big personal bets. Bucking investor skepticism as well as economic turmoil after the first dot-com bust, he invested his fortune from the sale of a previous Internet company as well as built a successful online shoe retailer. In 2009 he sold Zappos to Amazon for $850million. Last year, Hsieh started thinking about where to move his company, which is straining the capacity of the three nondescript office buildings it occupies in nearby Henderson, Nev. (Hsieh moved Zappos from San Francisco in 2004, in part to take advantage of the relatively inexpensive labor market for call-center employees.) At first he considered building an enclosed corporate campus like Apples digs in Cupertino, Calif., or the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.our own little paradise, he says.Then he started to spend time downtown with the residents as well as local business owners who had rejected Las Vegass addiction to McMansions as well as ritzy shopping destinations. Hsieh started to think about Zapposs geographical decision differently. According to Triumph of the City, a 2011 book by Harvard professor Edward Glaeser, when cities grow, productivity increases because of the serendipitous connections between people. When companies grow, they tend to become stodgy as well as bureaucratic. We decided on an approach that was more like NYU [New York University], where the campus blends into the city as well as ! you dont know where one begins as well as the other ends, Hsieh says. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

UFC boss says top contender Alistair Overeem unlikely to be pulled from title fight

2012-02-03T04:32:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS UFC president Dana White doesn't anticipate having to find the new heavyweight contender the week after the current one was charged with misdemeanor battery. White said today that it's his understanding that the charge arose when Alistair Overeem was confronted outside the restroom of the popular Las Vegas club. "I don't think he's in that much trouble," White said. "This isn't the situation where he beat somebody up; I don't think that's the case." A citation issued by Las Vegas police in the early hours of Jan. 2 stated that Overeem "pushed or shoved" the woman in the face at XS nightclub in Wynn Las Vegas. Overeem was not arrested at the time of the citation. He is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 21, and if convicted, he faces the maximum of six months in county jail and the $1,000 fine. White said he wasn't intimately familiar with the case but was told second-hand about the incident. "He had to use the restroom this is my knowledge of what happened (and) security was going to take him," White said. "He said, 'I don't need security,' and sure enough he goes over there, and his side of the story is some lady started yelling at him and swinging at him and everything else." If Overeeem (36-11 MMA, 1-0 UFC) were to be convicted, it would surely scratch the heavyweight title fight planned for this summer. Champ Junior Dos Santos (14-1 MMA, 8-0 UFC) is set to resume training soon after undergoing knee surgery, and the UFC expects him to meet Overeem. White said he hasn't considered the possibility of Overeem being forced out of the fight. "We're going to have to figure that out, but I'm planning on Alistair Overeem," he said. Overeem's representatives could not be reached for comment by MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) at the time of this writing. (Pictured: Alistair Overeem)Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas Sands Calls at Three-Year Low Before Earnings

2012-02-02T04:49:00.004-08:00

February 02, 2012, 3:48 AM ESTBy Jeff Kearns and Nikolaj Gammeltoft(Adds Macau January casino revenue in seventh paragraph.) Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp. options traders are making the fewest bullish bets in three years on speculation that revenue growth may slow in Macau, which accounts for about half of the casino companys sales. The ratio of outstanding calls to buy versus puts to sell has dropped to 1.02-to-1, the lowest since October 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Las Vegas-based company, which reports earnings today after U.S. exchanges close, rallied 1.4 percent to $49.81 at 11:42 a.m. New York time and has risen 17 percent this year. Traders are buying puts on speculation that casino revenue in Macau, the worlds largest gambling hub, cant sustain last years growth, according to Joe Kunkle, founder of OptionsHawk.com, a Boston-based provider of options-market analytics. Casino revenue growth in the former Portuguese colony slowed to 42 percent last year from 58 percent in 2010, according to Macaus Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. We continue to remain cautious on the Macau gaming market, given slowing growth, Cameron McKnight, a New York- formed analyst at Wells Fargo & Co., wrote in a report today. Sales may fall as Chinas expansion diminishes, said Cameron, who has a market perform rating the stock. Put trading on Las Vegas Sands jumped to 68,514 contracts yesterday, the highest since May, while the ratio of puts changing hands versus call volume was 2-to-1, the highest since February 2010. Analyst Estimates The company may report fourth-quarter profit excluding some items of 57 cents a share, according to the average of 23 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit in the prior quarter beat projections as growth in both Singapore and Macau continued. Macau accounted for 49 percent of revenue in the third quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue at casinos in Macau jumped ! 35 perce nt to 25 billion patacas ($3.13 billion) in January, according to Macaus gaming bureau. That was higher than the median estimate of 24 billion patacas from seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The International Monetary Fund said Jan. 24 that it cut its forecast for Chinas estimated expansion this year to 8.2 percent from a 9 percent forecast in September. Sands China Ltd., the Macau-based unit of Las Vegas Sands that trades in Hong Kong, said yesterday that it will pay its first dividend and that it has enough cash to fund expansion plans in the region. The payout will occur on or about Feb. 28, Sands China said in a statement to Hong Kongs stock exchange.--With assistance from Vinicy Chan in Hong Kong and Joshua Fineman and Beth Jinks in New York. Editors: Joanna Ossinger, Nick Baker-0- Feb/01/2012 16:28 GMTTo contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Kearns in New York at jkearns3@bloomberg.net; Nikolaj Gammeltoft in New York at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.netPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Republican candidates make the rounds in Las Vegas

2012-02-02T04:49:00.003-08:00

Republican candidates make the rounds in Las Vegas By Molly Waldron CREATED Feb. 1, 2012 Tweet Share Email Print Las Vegas, NV(KTNV)-- Mitt Romney won the Nevada Caucus four years ago, but the candidate who came in second says he's got a chance to beat him this time. All four remaining presidential hopefuls are spending time in Las Vegas in preparation for Saturday's caucus.Ron Paul spoke in Las Vegas on Wednesday, laying out his plans for the nation's troubled economy. He appealed to the 60,000 Republicans eligible to vote in Saturday's caucus.During a morning speech, Ron Paul spoke in front of the bipartisan Hispanics in Politics group. Later, he spoke to a closed group at the Four Seasons Hotel.Meanwhile, GOPfront-runner Mitt Romney spoke to a group of workers at Brady Industries, a wholesale company that provides equipment to properties on the Las Vegas Strip.Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum spent Tuesday in Las Vegas, appearing at a rally at his campaign headquarters. He traveled to Colorado on Wednesday to accept an endorsement and plans to head back to Las Vegas on Thursday morning for a rally near Boulder Highway and Russell Road.Newt Gingrich spent Wednesday in northern Nevada to meet with voters in the Reno area. He also stopped by the Great Basin Brewery. Gingrich plants to attend a Hispanic round table meeting in downtown Las Vegas on Thursday.Action News will provide complete coverage of the Nevada Caucus this Saturday. We'll begin at 5 p.m. with a special edition of Action News, then track any early returns during our regular newscast at 6 p.m., followed by a full hour of caucus coverage beginning at 7 p.m. We'll wrap things up with a complete recap on Action News Live @ 11. Next Article in Local News: GOP race turns to Neva! da 0 COMMENTS ADD A COMMENT Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas Sands Profit Rises on Asia; $1 Dividend Approved

2012-02-02T04:49:00.001-08:00

February 02, 2012, 3:48 AM ESTBy Beth Jinks(Adds Singapore, Macau starting in eighth paragraph.) Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp., the U.S. casino company expanding in Macau, said fourth-quarter profit rose 17 percent on growth in Singapore and China. The company also declared its first common stock dividend. Net income increased to $320.1 million, or 39 cents a share, from $273 million, or 34 cents, a year earlier, the Las Vegas-based company said today in a statement. Profit excluding some items was 57 cents, matching the average of 23 analysts estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The company will pay an annual dividend of $1 a share, according to the statement. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Adelson said in a September interview the board was considering a payout, as cash generated by growth in Asia outpaces capital needs. Hong Kong-listed Sands China Ltd. said this week it will pay an interim dividend of 58 Hong Kong cents (7.5 cents). Fourth-quarter revenue gained 26 percent to $2.54 billion, exceeding estimates of $2.47 billion. Cash flow, measured as adjusted property earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, rose 30 percent to $960.6 million, beating analysts projections of $884.4 million. Las Vegas Sands fell 1.9 percent to $49.25 in extended trading after gaining 2.2 percent to $50.18 at the close in New York. Sands China added 0.8 percent to HK$26.45 in Hong Kong. Las Vegas Sands Venetian and Palazzo resorts on the Las Vegas Strip reported Ebitda was little changed at $80.9 million. Vegas Recovery Las Vegas is recovering from a record drop in gambling and conventions. Strip-wide betting revenue increased 9 percent in November, the Nevada Gaming Control Board said on Jan. 11 Cash flow at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore jumped 40 percent to a record. Singapore has authorized just two casinos, which Las Vegas Sands and Malaysias Genting Bhd. opened in the first half of 2010. The comp! anys Mac au cash flow jumped 27 percent as VIP and mass-market gamblers played more. Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, saw total gambling revenue climb 42 percent last year, to 268 billion patacas ($33.5 billion), according to Macaus Gaming Inspection & Coordination Bureau. Las Vegas Sands, through Hong Kong-listed unit Sands China, is developing casino resorts in Macau to add to its existing properties, the Venetian, Four Seasons and Sands. The first phase of Sands Cotai Central is on track to open in about eight weeks, the company said today. Macau, about 40 miles west of Hong Kong, surpassed the Las Vegas Strip as the worlds biggest casino revenue hub in 2006.--Editors: Rob Golum, Cecile Daurat-0- Feb/01/2012 21:34 GMT-0- Feb/01/2012 21:59 GMTTo contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at bjinks1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.netPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Restaurant Report

2012-02-01T04:34:00.005-08:00

Aromi D'Italia Cafe, Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood Resort, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received 18 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included food item not reheated to proper temperature. GRADE: BBarcelona Tapas, 10690 Southern Highlands Parkway, received 20 demerits Jan. 17. Violations included food stored uncovered. GRADE: BChina Garden, 2263 N. Green Valley Parkway, Henderson, received 40 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included meat and shrimp improperly thawing on counter. GRADE: CCue Club snack bar, 953 E. Sahara Ave., received 18 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included unlabeled drink pour containers. GRADE: BEl Santaneco, 4632 S. Maryland Parkway, received 43 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included no sanitizer detected at three-compartment sink. GRADE: ClosedEl Segundo Sol main kitchen, Fashion Show mall, 3200 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received 19 demerits Jan. 17. Violations included expired honey mustard. GRADE: B. The facility was reinspected Jan. 20, received six demerits and was upgraded to an A.Eureka Saloon & Gambling Hall bar, 595 E. Sahara Ave., received 15 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included glasswasher not sanitizing properly. GRADE: BFive Star Tavern, 1905 N. Decatur Blvd., received eight demerits Jan. 23. Violations included inadequate hot water temperature. GRADE: Closed. The facility was reinspected the same day, received zero demerits and was upgraded to an A.Goldilocks Restaurant, 2797 S. Maryland Parkway, received 23 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included raw fish improperly thawed. GRADE: CGreek Grill Cafe, 7871 W. Charleston Blvd., received 40 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included food not protected during storage and preparation. GRADE:CLittle Dumpling, 1420 Nevada Highway, Boulder City, received 34 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included foods held at improper temperatures. GRADE: CMarket Street Cafe, California Hotel, 12 E. Ogden Ave., received 28 demerits Jan. 18. Violations included yogurt cups past expiration date. GRADE: CMcDonald's, Walmart, 201 N. Nellis Blvd., ! received 34 demerits Jan. 17. Violations included roaches observed in facility. GRADE: CMGM Grand Studio Cafe hot kitchen, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received 19 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included foods held at improper temperatures. GRADE: B. The facility was reinspected Jan. 20, received five demerits and was upgraded to an A.MGM Grand Studio Cafe prep kitchen, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received 16 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included multiple pans of uncovered food. GRADE: B. The facility was reinspected Jan. 20, received four demerits and was upgraded to an A.Mi Familia Mexican Food, 2800 E. Tropical Parkway, received 20 demerits Jan. 23. Violations included prepared food items kept past seven-day shelf life. GRADE: BMix Zone Cafe, 2202 W. Charleston Blvd., received 16 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included no soap available at hand sink. GRADE: BOlive Garden restaurant, 6850 W. Cheyenne Ave., received 15 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included high level of chlorine strength in sanitizer buckets. GRADE: BPho So I restaurant, 4745 Spring Mountain Road, received 29 demerits Jan. 17. Violations included prepared foods not dated. GRADE: CRed Rock Country Club restaurant, 2250 Red Springs Drive, received 20 demerits Jan. 18. Violations included container of chili improperly cooled. GRADE: B. The facility was reinspected Jan. 19, received one demerit and was upgraded to an A.Roberto's Taco Shop, 4604 E. Sunset Road, Henderson, received 17 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included uncovered foods in storage. GRADE: BRoberto's Taco Shop, 2151 N. Rancho Drive, received 18 demerits Jan. 23. Violations included food item improperly cooled. GRADE: BRoberto's Taco Shop, 1220 E. Harmon Ave., received 29 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included food not protected during storage and preparation. GRADE: CRoberto's Taco Shop, 4886 W. Lone Mountain Road, received 20 demerits Jan. 20. Violations included bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food. GRADE: BSubway/Winchell's, 7660 W. Cheyenne Ave., received 11 demerits Jan. 18. Viola! tions in cluded an employee did not follow proper hand-washing procedures. GRADE: B. The facility was reinspected Jan. 19, received three demerits and was upgraded to an A.Sushi Factory East sushi bar, 10720 S. Eastern Ave., Henderson, received 19 demerits Jan. 19. Violations included no thermometers available in coolers. GRADE: BWendy's, Showcase mall, 3785 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received 30 demerits Jan. 18. Violations included unlabeled sanitizer buckets. GRADE: CThe following restaurants have been reinspected:China Kitchen, 4985 E. Craig Road, received dual demerits Jan. 11 and was upgraded to an A.Hookah Palace bar, 1030 E. Flamingo Road, received nine demerits Jan. 18 and was upgraded to an A.Japan Cafe, Las Vegas Premium Outlets, 755 S. Grand Central Parkway, received zero demerits Jan. 12 and was upgraded to an A.La Salsa Cantina Mexican Fare, Showcase mall, 3785 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received seven demerits Jan. 18 and was upgraded to an A.Lucio Ristorante, 8615 W. Sahara Ave., received eight demerits Jan. 9 and was upgraded to an A.McDonald's, 5811 E. Charleston Blvd., received six demerits Jan. 12 and was upgraded to an A.McDonald's, Fitzgeralds, 301 Fremont St., received three demerits Jan. 19 and was upgraded to an A.Office Bar, 4608 Paradise Road, received 21 demerits Jan. 19 and was downgraded to a C for repeat violations.Quiznos Subs, 9210 S. Eastern Ave., received three demerits Jan. 12 and was upgraded to an A.Roberto's Taco Shop, 6355 N. Commerce St., North Las Vegas, received three demerits Jan. 12 and was upgraded to an A.Starbucks, Mandalay Bay, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South, received zero demerits Jan. 23 and was upgraded to an A.Starbucks, Smith's, 8050 S. Rainbow Blvd., received zero demerits Jan. 12 and was upgraded to an A.Taco Bell, 1491 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway, received eight demerits Jan. 9 and was upgraded to an A.Tea Time Cafe, 5590 Painted Mirage Road, received seven demerits Jan. 17 and was upgraded to an A.Teriyaki Stop, 3000 W. Ann Road, received nine demerits Jan. 20 and was up! graded t o an A.Weiss Deli Bakery, 2744 N. Green Valley Parkway, Henderson, received dual demerits Jan. 9 and was upgraded to an A. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Home Prices Continue To Drop

2012-02-01T04:34:00.003-08:00

WASHINGTON -- U.S. home prices fell for the third straight month in Las Vegas and in nearly all other cities tracked by the major index. The declines uncover that most homeowners are not reaping the benefits from an improving housing market.Prices dropped in November from October in nineteen of the 20 cities tracked, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday. The steepest declines were in Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit. Phoenix was the only city to uncover an increase.The declines partly reflect the typical fall slowdown after the peak buying season.Still, prices fell in 18 of the 20 cities in November compared to the same month in 2010. Only Washington and Detroit posted year-over-year increases.Prices in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa fell to their lowest points since the housing crisis began, according to the national survey, and prices have fallen 33 percent nationwide since the housing bust, to 2003 levels.However, Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research reported the opposite -- the median existing-home price of $114,000 in November, up from $110,000 in October. The new-home median was $204,221, compared with $196,360 in the previous month.The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors also reported median home prices increasing from $121,000 in October to $125,000 in November, based on sales from the Multiple Listing Service.Data can vary based upon methodology, Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said.He doesn't doubt the methodology used for the Case-Shiller survey, but said his data, collected from recorded escrow closings at the Clark County assessor's office, uncover areas of Las Vegas where home prices have stabilized or improved in the last year."Prices will vary from month to month, up and down," Smith said Tuesday, noting that December's resale median dropped back to $110,000."We're bouncing along that bottom," he added. "Resale prices could continue to soften the little, but new home prices have been the same for the year an! d the ha lf."The Case-Shiller index covers half of all U.S. homes. It compares price with those in January 2000 and creates the three-month moving average. The November data are the latest available.Dave Guarino, director for Standard & Poor's in New York, said the index includes only single-family homes, and does not include condos, multifamily or new-home construction. Also, foreclosure sales are included only if the sale occurred on the open market.Home Builders Research uses data for all residential unit sales in Las Vegas, including condos and apartment conversions.If there's the large change in prices of the sales pair relative to all price changes in an area, it's possible the home was remodeled, rebuilt or neglected in some manner between the first and second sale, Guarino said.Home values remain depressed despite some hopeful signs at the finish of last year.Sales of existing homes rose in the last three months. Homebuilders are more optimistic after seeing more people express interest in buying this year. And home construction picked up in the final quarter of last year, that helped housing contribute to broader economic growth."People are waiting until the market gets better. That's the chicken and the egg," said Gary Painter, research director at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate. "What we are also observing is the dearth of normal inventory as people move up the ladder. Those moves aren't there, so the inventory isn't there."Home prices tend to follow sales, that remain below healthy levels. And the large number of vacant homes are sitting idle on the market, that means prices will likely stay unchanged for several years, Capital Economics senior U.S. economist Paul Dales said."The most likely scenario in the U.S. is that in 2012 prices will bob around the bit, with one month's gain being reversed the next month," Dales said. "But in general, over the next couple of years, house prices will do nothing more than remain broadly stable."Dales said prices might not r! ise cons istently until 2015. He said lower unemployment and better pay raises are essential to the full housing rebound.Among other improvements needed: The supply of homes for sale must decline further. The inventory fell in November to the seven-month supply, although the healthy supply is about six months. Sales need to rise consistently and more first-time buyers must drive the increases. First-time buyers stay longer and invest in their homes, that helps neighboring home values rise. More young people and immigrants must buy. Declining immigration and the rise in renting has hampered home sales. More than the million homes at risk of foreclosure must be cleared from the market. Many are in limbo because the government investigation into questionable mortgage lending practices, that has dragged on for more than the year. Banks must further loosen lending requirements.Conditions are improving for those in position to buy the home. Job growth is up, prices are down, mortgage rates are at record lows and rental prices have risen sharply since the housing bust.But many people can't afford to buy or are unable to qualify for mortgage. Some people in position to buy are holding off, worried that prices could fall even further."The trend is down and there are few, if any, signs in the numbers that the turning point is close at hand," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee.Many economists say the United States could be experiencing what similarly occurred in Britain in the 1990s, when it took four years for home prices to rise again after falling prices left homeowners with little financial equity in their homes.Las Vegas Review-Journal writer Hubble Smith contributed to this report. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Commercial Truck Dealers Convene in Las Vegas for ATD Convention

2012-02-01T04:34:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --U.S. medium- and heavy-duty truck dealers will convene in Las Vegas for a American Truck Dealers (ATD) Convention and Expo Feb. 3-6, which is being held for a first time in conjunction with a annual convention of a nation's new-car dealers.(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120201/DC45546LOGO )(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120104/DC30041LOGO )More than 20,000 new-car and -truck dealers, industry executives and exhibitors, including 1,500 general dealers from 36 countries, are expected to attend a 2012 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) and ATD conventions.Keynote speakers at a 49th annual convention embody ATD Chairman Kyle Treadway; Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Trucks North America; Michael Card, president of Combined Transport Inc.; and retired Navy Captain and best-selling author Gerald Coffee. Ford dealer Richard Witcher, president of Minuteman Trucks Inc., in Walpole, Mass., will begin a two-year term as ATD chairman upon Monday, Feb. 6.Dealers will also have an opportunity to meet face-to-face with manufacturer executives at 12 franchise meetings and with suppliers in a sold out exhibit hall. Twelve workshop sessions will be offered for dealers and their managers to learn ways to improve their business operations.ATD attendees can also attend any of a NADA workshops and general sessions, featuring keynote speakers Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, NADA Chairman Stephen W. Wade and incoming NADA Chairman Bill Underriner.Here are some highlights:Workshop Program Focuses upon Federal Policy Changes, Boosting ProfitabilityThe ATD workshop program kicks off at a Las Vegas Convention Center upon Friday, Feb. 3, with a presentation by Eric Starks, president of FTR Associates, upon a state of a blurb vehicle industry, followed by several sessions over a weekend upon topics, such as CSA compliance, alternative fuels and technician apprenticeships. The convention will also feature two sessions for medium-duty truck dealers upon leasing a! nd manag ing salespeople.NextGen ATD to Host Reception for Future DealersNextGen ATD, a professional development network for a association's future leaders, will host a reception at a Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (formerly a Las Vegas Hilton) upon Saturday, Feb. 4, from 5-6 p.m. Eric Guenther, general marketing manager for Ford Fleet and Commercial Trucks, will be a featured speaker. NextGen ATD is designed to help prepare future dealers through networking opportunities and meeting dealers with similar backgrounds.Winner of National Truck Dealer of a Year Award Announced SaturdaySeven blurb truck dealers from a United States and Canada were nominated by their peers for a national industry award presented by ATD and Heavy Duty Trucking magazine. The winner will be announced during a opening general event at a Las Vegas Hotel upon Saturday, Feb. 4.The 2012 nominees are John C. Arscott, president and CEO of a Pete Store, LLC, in Baltimore, Md.; Steve Bassett, president of General Truck Sales, in Muncie, Ind.; Terry L. Dotson, president, chairman, and CEO of Worldwide Equipment Enterprises, Inc., in Prestonburg, Ky.; Eugene W. Hieber, president of Bucks County International Inc., in Langhorne, Pa.; Brent Leach, president of Custom Truck Sales, Inc., in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; Trey Mytty, president and CEO of Omaha Truck Center, Inc., of Omaha, Neb.; and Timothy E. Reilly, president and dealer principal of Miami Valley International, in Dayton, Ohio.ATD Commercial Truck of a Year Winners Announced SundayThe winners of a ATD Commercial Truck of a Year will be announced at a Las Vegas Hotel upon Sunday, Feb. 5. The award recognizes a top truck entries in a heavy- and medium-duty categories. Nine trucks were nominated for a award.The heavy-duty (Class 8) truck entries are Freightliner 114SD conventional dump truck, International ProStar+ tractor with MaxxForce 15 engine, Kenworth T660 Regional Hauler with Paccar MX engine and Peterbilt 587 SmartWay conventional tractor. The medium-duty (Class 3-7) truck entries are a! Fuso Ca nter FE160 low cab forward, Isuzu NPR-HD Gas, Kenworth T440 Conventional, Peterbilt Model 210 low cab forward and UD 2600 low cab forward.Trucks were judged upon overall appearance, cab comfort, noise levels, roominess, ease of getting in and out of a truck and convenience of maintenance.Incoming ATD Chairman to Outline Plans for Future upon MondayIncoming ATD Chairman Richard Witcher will discuss ATD's 2011 accomplishments and a association's legislative and regulatory goals for 2012 during a general event at a Las Vegas Hotel upon Monday, Feb. 6. Witcher is president of Minuteman Trucks Inc., in Walpole, Mass.For more information about a 2012 NADA-ATD convention, visit www.nadaconventionandexpo.org.About ATDThe American Truck Dealers represents about 2,000 medium- and heavy-duty truck dealers. ATD members share in NADA's programs, services and benefits. ATD hosts an annual convention and expo for dealers and dealership managers. For more information, visit www.atd.org.The NADA StoryThe NADA story began in 1917 when 30 auto dealers traveled to a nation's capital to convince Congress not to impose a luxury tax upon a automobile. They successfully argued that a automobile is a necessity of American life, not a luxury. From that experience was born a National Automobile Dealers Association. Today, NADA represents nearly 16,000 new-car and -truck dealerships with 32,500 franchises, both domestic and international. For more information, visit www.nada.org.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Gop Presidential Campaign Rolling Into Nevada

2012-02-01T04:27:00.001-08:00

Five days of nonstop Republican presidential campaigning in Nevada kicks off today with Ron Paul holding a "campaign call to arms" rally in Henderson and Rick Santorum wooing conservative tea party members in Las Vegas before watching the Florida primary returns come in.GOP front-runner Mitt Romney will roll into Las Vegas on Wednesday evening for a rally at Brady Industries, a wholesale distribution company that specializes in cleaning products.Newt Gingrich, who appears headed for a loss to Romney in Florida, will hit the campaign trail by Thursday in Nevada as he seeks to stretch out the nomination contest through the spring.With the Silver State GOP caucus set for this Saturday, the Republican presidential race remains so volatile that voters who meet the final four candidates this week could shift the tide.Nevada offers a proving ground for whether Gingrich has any staying power with Romney heavily favored to win here. Paul is a big factor, having finished No. 2 behind Romney in the 2008 GOP caucus in Nevada."There are a lot of people who are undecided," said Jeri Taylor-Swade, co-founder of a tea party organization where Santorum skeleton to speak to conservatives and other members of the public. "If they get a chance to meet a lot of candidates, it may make a difference in how they vote."Gingrich also may visit the new office of TRUNC -- Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives -- according to Taylor-Swade, who said the schedule isn't confirmed yet.The group skeleton to hold its Tuesday event under a tent in the parking lot behind the offices, according to Taylor-Swade, who said up to 200 people may show up to hear Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania who is not well-known in Nevada. A larger crowd is anticipated if Gingrich drops by, given the former House speaker's celebrity status among conservatives, Taylor-Swade said.Paul's campaign expects a large crowd, likely several hundred, as the Texas congressman addresses supporters inside a ballroom at the Green Valley Res! ort in H enderson. He also skeleton to campaign in Elko, Reno and Pahrump this week, according to his office.Paul also is set to address an influential Southern Nevada Latino group Wednesday morning, apparently the only presidential candidate to reach out to Hispanics in Politics.Hispanics make up 26 percent of the state's population and about 15 percent of the electorate, but most are Democrats."Only one of these four candidates has taken the initiative of seeking the support of the state's Latino Republican voter," said Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics. "This candidate came in second in Nevada's 2008 presidential caucus. And now he's aiming for Numero Uno."Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow @lmyerslvrj on Twitter. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas Real Estate Market Starts 2012 on 10-Year High of 48,186 Home Sales According to LasVegasRealEstate.org

2012-01-31T04:20:00.005-08:00

Las Vegas Real Estate Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) January 31, 2012 Homes for sale in Las Vegas hit record high all-cash purchases in buying spree from from institutional and private investors. Las Vegas real estate is currently #1 in the US for price-to-rent ratio creation it possibly the best rate of return on cash-flow properties in America. LasVegasRealEstate.org reports that Las Vegas real estate market prices have reached 20-year lows as Nevada led all states with foreclosure sales accounting for nearly 50% of the 48,186 purchases in 2011. Ashley McCormick of Realty One, Nevada's number one Las Vegas real estate company, says that even the most most discerning buyers are running the numbers and embracing Las Vegas. She notes that people who went through a foreclosure or short sale more than three years ago are starting to re-enter the market. Money that has been sitting on the sidelines for years is creation its way into the Las Vegas residential market buying mostly Las Vegas foreclosures with over $720 Million just in the last 90-days. McCormick says that the strong rental market is backed by the service industry that is directly tied to tourism. According to the annual tourism report the average Las Vegas tourist spent more and stayed longer compared to a year earlier. Visitors stayed an average of 4.6 days with the average cost of a vacation package since 2010 at $651 and holding thru 2011. February is expected to post record numbers as Las Vegas is the number one choice for Super Bowl Parties followed by Las Vegas Valentine's Day events and weddings. Vegas is know for it's incredible deals on travel, entertainment and now buying second homes, Las Vegas high rise condos or immediate cash-flow investment properties. While the foreign! buyers and investors are taking advantage of the current Las Vegas real estate investing trends, McCormick says that US-retirees are also getting in on the deals as Sun City Las Vegas homes for sale in active adult communities are starting at $100K. McCormick has not long ago added a new toll-free number to accommodate the increased interest at 1-888-920-2292. Over 10,000+ homes for sale in Las Vegas to including Las Vegas foreclosures can be viewed online at http://www.LasVegasRealEstate.org ### Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Pull Up A Chair And Gear Up For Gifts

2012-01-31T04:20:00.003-08:00

Expect to see more present equipment coming out of a Las Vegas Market in a future.As a furnishings design industry descended on a World Market Center for opening day of a winter 2012 Las Vegas Market, center CEO Bob Maricich said a fastest-growing segment is gifts.Nationally, home gifts is a $60 billion industry, and Maricich sees an opportunity to add to a Las Vegas Market's product mix, which is heavy with furniture, sleep products and home decor."There are seven small, regional markets for gifts West of a Mississippi and they're all failing. There's really a demand to have one regional market," Maricich said. "Our research tells us that should be Las Vegas. We're putting a lot of resources into that."Maricich said he thinks he can grow a present business "dramatically" in coming years. He said that in a last six months he's been able to secure eight new present tenants for a World Market Center.Winter market runs through Friday in 5.1 million square feet of showroom, event and seminar space. The World Market Center does not release attendance, but company representatives said it's up a "couple of percentage points," based on opening day traffic. Maricich said most buyers come for three days at a time.About 800 permanent tenants are exhibiting and about 200 are renting space during market. In all, 50 permanent, new showrooms opened with a winter market, but a center doesn't list closures that might balance a newcomers."That's by far a most new showroom openings we've had," Maricich said.The 200 renting exhibitors come in, pay for a booth during a show, then leave, as at most trade shows. The rest are signed to a three- to five-year showroom lease, which is a fundamental difference between a market and a trade show.In past years a outlook for interior design hasn't been so bright; cost-cutting and layoffs were more a norm."It's been a brutal recession in a furnishings space," Maricich said. "Even a tiny uptick has people investing in inventory and buying."While banking on hope, there are sales f! igures t o back up those tingly feelings.The Las Vegas Market is a first furniture uncover of 2012, and retail furniture sales in December were strong. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported $7.7 million in December retail sales for furniture and home furnishings stores, up 5.6 percent year-over-year."I think we're really feeling that," Maricich said.At a First Look trends session Monday morning, buyers were told to look out for vivid oranges and eye-popping blues, which are highly prevalent in showrooms, mixed with varying arrays of beachy, tropical-inspired looks.Monica Pedersen, a designer on HGTV, and Julie Smith Vincenti, home trends editor for Nine Muses Media, led a session. The duo mentioned a Emma at Home line, with 25 new pillow designs, as one to watch.Emma at Home President Patrick McDarrah said his line, which also features rugs, debuted in Las Vegas in August."We find a Las Vegas Market buyer is good for us," he said, adding that Emma at Home partnered with 15 dealers as a result of a August market."The traction we got here was great," McDarrah said.Pedersen and Vincenti also told their audience that ikat designs have gone mainstream, as have Southwest loom styles reminiscent of traditional Native American patterns."These are also on a trend radar for 2012," Vincenti said.Worth noting was a streamlined look of Palliser's male-driven designs that incorporate black leather sofas and chic charcoal gray reclining sectionals."It's a very lovely collection," Vincenti said.Contact reporter Laura Carroll at lcarroll@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4588. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

CIGIREX(TM) Sponsors Annual AWMA Conference in Las Vegas

2012-01-31T04:20:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CIGIREX(TM), the #1 electronic cigarette brand chosen by smokers, will sponsor the AWMA Conference and Expo in Las Vegas February 15-17, an annual convention held by The American Wholesale Marketers Association. CIGIREX(TM) will exhibit its products on the AWMA Show floor and hold meetings with national retailers and distributors. CIGIREX(TM) is available across the country and is projected to be in over 6,000 retail locations nationally by end of Q1 2012. CIGIREX(TM) is proud to be the only FDA-compliant e-cigarette company exhibiting at this year's AWMA convention and will continue to maintain the highest level of satisfaction by not offering flavors in its products.CIGIREX(TM) along with "Together Against Cancer," invites you to take the CIGIREX(TM) challenge to live a tobacco and tar-free life. Thousands of smokers have tried and adopted CIGIREX(TM) as a safe, healthy and enjoyable alternative to smoking cigarettes.For more information about how to become a Retailer for CIGIREX(TM) please contact:CIGIREX, LLC708 Third Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017Telephone: (909)510-3780 or Email: chris@cigirex.comwww.cigirex.comFor all press inquiries:RAP NYTelephone: (917) 445-4426 or Email: allison@runawayproducts.comThis information was brought to you by Cision http://www.cisionwire.comhttp://www.cisionwire.com/run-away-products/r/cigirex--sponsors-annual-awma-conference-in-las-vegas,c9213103The following files are available for download:Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Wolfgang Puck receives James Beards Lifetime Achievement Award

2012-01-31T04:19:00.003-08:00

Las Vegas Sun January 31, 2012 Currently: 49 | Complete forecast | Log in LasVegasSun.com Account Keep Memory Alive Wolfgang Puck and Larry Ruvo during a Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for BrainHealth. By Robin Leach (contact) Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 | 1:57 p.m. More arts and entertainment Check out Robin Leach's VegasDeLuxe.com for more celebrity and A&E coverage. 2010 Wolfgang Puck Meals on Wheels Fundraiser in L.A. Launch slideshow '; stickContent2010wolfgangpuckmealswheelsfundraiser += ''; stickContent2010wolfgangpuckmealswheelsfundraiser += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContent2010wolfgangpuckmealswheelsfundraiser, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser').grab($('slideshow_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, ! destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser').grab($('slideshow_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser'), 'top'); $('slideshow_2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImage2010wolfgangpuckmealswheelsfundraiser()', 2500); //setBGImage2010wolfgangpuckmealswheelsfundraiser(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'TVT'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2010/sep/27/2010-wolfgang-puck-meals-wheels-fundraiser/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '27' ]) } }); }); Wolfgang Puck during Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health Launch slideshow '; stickContentwolfgangpucklouruvobrainhealth += ''; stickContentwolfgangpucklouruvobrainhealth += ''; new StickyWin.Modal({ content: stickContentwolfgangpucklouruvobrainhealth, closeOnEsc: false, hideOnClick: true, ! width: 1000, height: 600, onClose: function(response){ $('slideshow_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health').setStyle('display', 'none'); $('slideshow_inline_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health').grab($('slideshow_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health')); $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); }, destroyOnClose: true, onDisplay: function(response){ $$('.videoWrapper').invoke('toggle'); $('slideshow_holder_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health').grab($('slideshow_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health'), 'top'); $('slideshow_wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health').setStyle('display', 'block'); //setTimeout('setBGImagewolfgangpucklouruvobrainhealth()', 2500); //setBGImagewolfgangpucklouruvobrainhealth(); //$('gallery_left').setStyle('background', '#000'); var galPhotoCredit = 'Keep Memory Alive'; _gaq.push([ //console.log( '_trackPageview', '/photos/galleries/2010/sep/20/wolfgang-puck-lou-ruvo-brain-health/:' + 'inline' + ':' + slugify(galPhotoCredit) + ':653px' + ':1' + '/' + '14' ]) } }); }); Tiffany Brown Chef Wolfga! ng Puck and his wife, Gelila, stop on a red carpet on a way into a 13th Annual Power of Love Gala during a Bellagio in Las Vegas on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009. TVT Robin Leach and Wolfgang Puck during Puck's 2010 Meals on Wheels two-day fundraiser in Los Angeles. The James Beard Foundation announced today that Las Vegas restaurateur and celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck, hailed for his contributions to a culinary industry, has been named a recipient of its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. Wolf will be honored during a Foundation Awards, which recognizes food and beverage industry professionals, during New York Citys Lincoln Center on May 7.For a first time, a foundation will make known a final nominees for all award categories during a press brunch during a Venetian and Palazzo on March 19. Nominations will be posted simultaneously via Twitter @beardfoundation.Each year, a Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed upon someone whose body of work has had a positive and long-lasting impact on a way a public eats, cooks and thinks about food in America.It recognizes passion, inspiration and a commitment to doing good work that goes beyond any individuals contribution, said Susan Ungaro, president of a James Beard Foundation. This year, as we celebrate 25 years of a James Beard Foundation, Im honored to commemorate Wolfgang Pucks remarkable achievements in our industry.He is a only person to win Outstanding Chef twice, Ungaro said. Wolfgang has not only demonstrated to a industry his incredible talent, but he has helped shape a industry by revolutionizing how American chefs think about food.What sets Wolfgang apart, however, is that his creativity takes him beyond our industrys walls. As a former Humanitarian Award recipient, he has shown that a culinary industry can improve a lives of others and benefit society as a whole. We look forward to following his achievements in our industry and beyond for years to come.W! olf said , Receiving a James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award is a tremendous honor. It was a pleasure to be a first chef to cook during a Beard House, and my relationship with a foundation has been one Ive cherished ever since.To be recognized by such a prestigious organization with this esteemed award could not have been possible without a talented individuals that Ive had a pleasure to work with, mentor and befriend in my 30 years, including James. I take great honor in accepting an award that represents a lifetime of accomplishment for a work I take great pride in doing each and every day.Wolf has been a culinary icon for more than 30 years, and a celebrity he gained from his restaurant Spago, which opened in 1982, escalated him from fame to stardom. He became a first name-brand chef to open a restaurant in Las Vegas, Spago in a Forum Shops during Caesars Palace, blazing a trail for other chefs and restaurateurs to follow.Five more Las Vegas restaurants followed to critical acclaim. A longtime friend of mine, Wolf is a big supporter of our Keep Memory Alive galas that raise money for a downtown Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.Today, Wolf has 20 fine-dining restaurants stretching around a world from Las Vegas to Singapore to London. Adding to his ever-growing empire based in Las Vegas and L.A. with Las Vegas partners Tom Kaplan, David Robbins, Joe Essa and Lee Hefter, a critically acclaimed steakhouse CUT debuted in a Beverly Wilshire Hotel in 2006 and now includes outlets in a Palazzo and London.Wolf has won multiple James Beard Foundation Awards. In 1991, he became a first James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef honoree and to date is still a only person to be awarded that honor twice. He has received a foundations Outstanding Restaurant Award for his Spago in Hollywood and has collected some of a foundations most notable honors, including induction into a Whos Who of Food and Beverage in America and a Humanitarian Award.He also has been an honoree during a foundations Chefs &! ; Champa gne party in a Hamptons, has received five Restaurant and Chef awards and served as a James Beard Foundation Awards host in 2010.It all represents a lifetime of achievement from a man whose motto is, Do what you love. Work hard. Be patient. And, with a little luck, you could succeed.Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent a past decade giving readers a inside dip on Las Vegas, a worlds premier platinum playground.Follow Robin Leach on Twitter during Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter during Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter during Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Super Bowl events in Las Vegas

2012-01-31T04:19:00.001-08:00

Super Bowl events in Las Vegas By Joyce Lupiani CREATED Jan. 20, 2012 Tweet Share Email Print Las Vegas, NV(KTNV) -- Several events will take place all over Las Vegas to help locals as well as tourists alike enjoy Super Bowl on February 5.America inside New York-New York will host a Showdown Sunday Party with packages starting during $65 per person as well as include reserved seating, a buffet as well as beverages throughout a game. The $65 package includes beer as well as wine; a $75 package includes house cocktails; as well as $90 package features premium cocktails. All packages include a buffet with classic tailgate foods such as buffalo wings, sliders as well as fries, prohibited dogs, Italian-style subs, beef chili, vegetable curette, chicken tenders, chips as well as salsa, mixed salads, as well as potato chips. 702-740-6019.Boulder Station, Railhead viewing party, doors open during 2 p.m. The Super Bowl viewing party will feature $6 wings, $5 nachos, $5 sliders, $3 prohibited dogs, $4 chili dogs, $2 chips, $4 cheese as well as pepperoni slices, $20 100 oz. Bud Light beer towers, $5 16 oz. aluminum beers, as well as $5 Cazadores shots as well as cocktails. 702-432-7777Cabo Wabo Cantina during Miracle Mile Shops will host a viewing party beginning during 2:30 p.m. The $55 package includes an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring wings, prohibited dogs, nachos as well as tacos. The $155 ticket includes all-you-can-eat buffet featuring wings, prohibited dogs, nachos as well as tacos as well as all-you-can-drink well drinks as well as drafts. Coor Light buckets will be available for $20. Coor Light giveaways will be awarded each quarter. 702-385-2226Crazy Horse IIIs party will be hosted by Jenny Hendrix. Cost is $30, which includes VIP entry, snacks as well as a first quarter open bar. Partygoers will also have a chance to win a 46-inch flat-screen TV. 702-673-1700Fiesta Henderson, Amigo's Mexican Restaurant's Tacos & ! Tequila Tailgate Party will start during 2 p.m. The party will feature an all-you-can-eat as well as drink buffet with nachos as well as salsa, beef as well as chicken tacos, Cholula chicken wings, taquitos, beef as well as chicken fajitas, rice as well as beans, churros, as well as sopapillas. Cost is $24.99 with Boarding Pass or $34.99 without. 702-558-7000Fiesta Henderson, Sports Book, will have $1 prohibited dogs, $1 Buds, buffalo wings for 50 cents each, cheese or pepperoni half-pizza for $4, $3 nachos with jalapenos as well as $1 jumbo cookies. 702-558-7000Gilleys Saloon as well as Dance Hall during Treasure Island will host a viewing party starting during noon. Admission is $99. Price includes BBQ pig sliders, prohibited dogs, popcorn, Southern-style chicken wings as well as more. There will also be prizes as well as giveaways throughout a game. 702-894-7111The Gold Coast will offer two free viewing parties in their Nevada as well as Arizona ballrooms. Food as well as drink specials will be available. 702-367-7111The Gold Spike will host a Big Gaming party featuring an all-you-can-eat buffet with prohibited dogs, chicken wings, chips, salsa as well as beans, as well as draft beer for $8.95 from 3 to 6 p.m. There will also be $2 PBRs for sale during a bar. Drawings as well as giveaways of Bud Light as well as Gold Spike merchandise during a game. 702-384-8444Jerrys Nugget will host a viewing party. Betting windows open during 6:30 a.m. Admission is free with a $20 wager. Free donuts as well as coffee. Beginning during 1 p.m., there will be $2 sandwiches, $2 quesadillas as well as $1 Budweisers. The Budweiser Girls will make an appearance during a game in a Race & Sports Book from 2:30 p.m. until halftime as well as will be giving away prizes. 702-399-3000Insert Coins on Fremont Street will host a Big Game Day Party featuring drink specials from Stoli, Budweiser as well as Red Bul as well as an all-you-can-eat buffet provided by Slidin Thru. Watch a game on a massive projection screen or one of a dozens! of TV s creens throughout a bar. Doors open during noon. Cover charge is $30. 702-477-2525.The Red Roosters 9th annual party will begin during 1 p.m. There will be tons of food, prizes as well as contests. The menu includes BBQ chicken, prohibited dogs, burgers, fruit as well as veggie platters, macaroni salad, cole slaw, as well as much more. Single women will be admitted free, $30 for couples, $40 for single men, $20 for military. 702-451-6661The third annual Lavo Bowl will take place during a Lavo Nightclub during The Palazzo. Cost is $175. Doors open during 2 p.m. Ticket price includes an open bar as well as an Italian buffet from 2 to 5 p.m. There are more than 20 TVs to watch a game on.The Lounge during The Palms. Doors open during 1 p.m. Admission is free. There will be a tailgate buffet, $3 16 oz. Miller Lite drafts as well as $2 shots of Jagermeister. First come, first served. 702-791-1800The Joint during a Hard Rock Hotel will host a Super Sunday Party. Tickets are $49 as well as include third floor seating, buffet stations, as well as six-bottle bucket of beer. A wristband can be purchased during a Hard Rock Store. 702-693-5000Olympic Gardens will host a viewing party. For $25, you will receive guaranteed VIP admission, two drink tickets, a complimentary buffet, as well as a chance to win many raffle prizes including a 2011 BMW G650 GS. A $99 Super Weekend Package includes a free limo ride, free admission to a Super Sunday Party, as well as two drinks. 702-385-9361PBR Rock Bar & Grill during Miracle Mile Shops will host a Big Game Party. Watch a game on 105 HD TVs. Tickets are $100. Open bar featuring domestic drafts as well as well drinks. Special food menu. For a $200 minimum purchase of food as well as drink from a regular menu, guests will have a guaranteed seat to watch a game. 702-750-1685.The Pub during a Monte Carlo will host a viewing party that will feature buffet-style food stations, build-your-own cocktail bars, giveaways each quarter for bar tabs, jersey giveaways as well as much more! . Cost i s $39 for all-you-can-eat; $79 for all-you-can-eat as well as drink; as well as $250 for all-you-can-eat as well as drink as well as front-row seating. 702-730-7974Diablos during a Monte Carlo will feature $15 pitchers of Tecate as well as Dos XX, giveaways during a game for Best Buy gift cards, t-shirts, hats as well as table seating for a UFC closed-circuit event, as well as a half-time prohibited wing eating contest. 702-730-7979Brand Steakhouse during a Monte Carlo will feature sofa seating, stadium food seating, $4 Budweisers, $5 Heineken as well as Coronas, as well as $4 Skyy vodka cocktails. 702-693-8300The Rhumbar during The Mirage will host a viewing party on its patio. Doors open during 1 p.m. Cost is $150. Food as well as drink specials prohibited links, nachos, prohibited dogs, Rhumbars Bloody Marys as well as more. 702-792-7615The Rockhouse Bar & Nightclub in front of a Imperial Palace will host a viewing party. Cost is $100 for all-you-can-drink. Add delicious chicken wings, prohibited dogs as well as fries for $25 more. Table reservations as well as bottle service is available. The Rockhouse has 28 HD TVs. Doors open during 9 a.m. 702-731-9683Sapphire will host a party for a Super Bowl. Admission is $75 as well as will include VIP seating, complimentary transportation, front-of-the-line admission, a tailgate buffet, a raffle as well as prizes.702-796-6000The 6500 Tavern, 6500 W. Sahara Ave., is having its sixth annual bowl bash beginning during 2 p.m. The party will feature two-for-drinks, half-priced tapas from Sammys, cash prizes as well as NFL merchandise drawings.The South Point will host 3 parties for a big game. They will take place in a showroom, Grand Ballroom as well as Napa Ballroom. Admission is free. Drink prices range from $3 to $15 with $4 Crown Royal as well as $4 Captain Morgan. Food specials range from $1 to $4 featuring $1 prohibited dogs, $3 Big Game nachos as well as $4 boneless buffalo wings. 702-796-7111The Society Caf during Encore will host a party featuring unl! imited f ood for $95 per person. The caf has created a special tailgate menu as well as will also have drink specials. 702-770-7000Spearmint Rhinos viewing party will feature massive HD TVs, a huge buffet, as well as raffles with prizes. Four packages are available: For $50, you will receive free limo transportation, VIP back door entry, no cover charge for one person, VIP seating, massive HD viewing screens, one drink, as well as a buffet; The single bottle package for $400 includes free limo transportation, VIP back door entry, no cover charge for 5 people, one premium bottle, exclusive VIP seating, premium table, massive HD viewing screens, lavish buffet, raffles as well as prizes; The double bottle package for $650 includes free limo transportation, VIP back door entry, no cover charge for 8 people, 2 premium bottles, exclusive VIP seating, premium table as well as seating, massive HD viewing screens, lavish buffet, raffles as well as prizes; as well as a MVP Star Package for $12,500 includes free limo transportation, VIP back door entry, no cover charge for 8 people, 5 bottles of Cristal, 5 bottles of Belvedere, 1 bottle of Louis XIII, as well as premium table as well as seating. 702-966-2702If you would like to add your party to this list, please send info to desk@ktnv.com. 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Feeling like getting trashy for spring break? Men's magazine says Las Vegas is the place

2012-01-30T05:13:00.001-08:00

MTV Wiz Khalifa is met with approval at a Palms pool and bungalows during spring breakcelebrations. By Sun Staff (contact) Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 | 2:01 a.m. Attribute it to a alcohol-infused pool party scene, a skimpy nightclub attire and the, shall we say, limited dress code at Las Vegas strip clubs.Whatever a reasons, Coed Magazine made Las Vegas its No. 1 pick for trashiest spring break destination.The lists authors described its ranking best: Lets be real, anything involving MTV Spring Break is bound to bring out a trash in anyone. Last year, MTVs Spring Break set up shop at a Palms, bringing to town Pauly D from a Jersey Shore, Wiz Khalifa and Pitbull, among others.Plus, Las Vegas somewhat reasonably priced hotel rooms make it an ideal getaway for a quintessential broke college student, a authors said.Other hot spots that made a list include Key West, Fla.; South Padre Island, Texas; Daytona Beach, Fla.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Miami Beach, Fla.; Panama City Beach, Fla.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Lake Havasu City, Ariz.; and San Diego.Its safe to say all locations include an unhealthy dose of college shenanigans. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Charity in the Las Vegas Valley

2012-01-30T05:11:00.005-08:00

Monday30 January 20122 a.m. A rundown of Las Vegas Valley business' charitable efforts:Employees of MGM Resorts International raised $4.6 million last year in support of more than 1,000 community-based nonprofit organizations in Nevada, Michigan and Mississippi, as well as other regional and national nonprofit organizations. The MGM Resorts Foundation, the companys employee-directed nonprofit entity, supports community charities by distributing individual donations designated by employees and by issuing grants to community nonprofits selected by its employee grants council. MGM Resorts covers all of the administrative costs required to raise and disburse the funds.Four Clark County School District librarians were honored in December as librarians of the week by SuperPawn employees, who reviewed nomination letters submitted by their peers. They will each receive the $1,000 cash award from SuperPawn to be used to enhance their school library, along with the piece of fine jewelry from National Jewelry Liquidation Center.The honorees are: Rebecca Hunt, C.T. Sewell Elementary School; Tiffany Swallia, Jessie D. Scott Elementary School; Michelle Zamora, Lois Craig Elementary School; and Sharon Thomas, Katz Elementary School.Communities In Schools of Nevada raised $5,000 at the Dec. 4 event at Stella McCartney inside Crystals at CityCenter. A portion of the days purchases were designated to helping the organization in its mission of serving at-risk children in Nevada.For the second year in the row, Panattoni Development Company donated an 11-week lease to the City Mission of Las Vegas, for use in storing and organizing non-perishable items for holiday food drives. The nonprofit delivered more than 700 boxes of food to local residents during the holidays.Celine Dion, Caesars Entertainment and AEG Live collaborated on Jan. 15 to produce Play Without Pain: Childrens Sickle Cell Benefit. The benefit raised $1 million to help to help fight sickle cell anemia. Th! e benefi t included the special presentation of Celine Dions current show at Caesars Palace and the reception at PURE Nightclub sponsored by Southern Wine & Spirits.Some 50 homeless youths became rock stars Dec. 10, when they were transformed by hair stylists and make-up artists, then photographed professionally, all by local professionals volunteering their time. The event was organized by HELP of Southern Nevada and held at the Shannon West Homeless Youth Center, and was part of Help-Portrait, the global movement of photographers using their time, equipment and expertise for charitable purposes.Professional rodeo competitor Trevor Brazile and the United States Marines teamed up with Western lifestyle manufacturer Pro Equine Group to benefit the Marine Toys For Tots Foundations charity during rodeos championship competition at National Finals Rodeo. Toys For Tots focuses on needy children during the holiday season.Feed The Children collaborated with Speedway Childrens Charities and Las Vegas Motor Speedway to deliver two truckloads of food and essentials to The Shade Tree on Dec. 13. An estimated 800 families received food and items designed to help the family of four for the week and was part of the nationwide effort by Feed The Children and Speedway Childrens Charities to help families in need.Golden Rainbow has received the $25,000 grant from MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund. The funds will be used to support the HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations Affordable Housing Program, which is designed for people living with HIV/AIDS in Southern Nevada who would otherwise be homeless. Share Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Southwest-AirTran merger looking like a blessing for Las Vegans

2012-01-30T05:11:00.003-08:00

Steve Marcus Las Vegas Strip casinos are viewed from the window of a Southwest Airlines passenger jet as it takes off from McCarran International Airport on Dec. 9,2011. By Richard N. Velotta (contact) Monday30 January 20122 a.m. Richard N. Velotta Airline mergers and consolidations usually mean bad news for the cities served by the merging partners.Not only do consumers have one less choice when making comparisons among carriers, but some flights simply disappear as the emerged airline makes business decisions on where to commit aircraft.But thats not always the case, and Las Vegas has tended to benefit when airlines merge.Delta Air Lines, for example, currently operates 40 flights a day between Las Vegas and the various hub airports it feeds into the Delta network Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York Kennedy, Memphis, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City.Back in 2007, Delta and Northwest Airlines, which merged a year later, had a combined 29 daily flights.The jury is still out on the result for Las Vegas of the United-Continental merger. According to McCarran International Airport statistics, Continental now has 16 flights a day while United has 27. In January 2007, Continental had 16 and United 38, an strong de-emphasis that isnt complete.But a recent announcement by Southwest Airlines regarding progress in its merger with AirTran gives reason for optimism that Las Vegas not only would get additional seats to the market but a new list of cities with nonstop or direct service by the Dallas-based carrier, the busiest during McCarran with 194 flights a day.(A little statistical disclosure here: Southwest counts its daily flights differently than McCarran. If Southwest operates a flight six days a week, it considers it daily while McCarran breaks down the totals with decimal points.! )The Jan . 20 announcement, which didnt get much play in Las Vegas because it doesnt really directly affect us for now, was Southwests cut list which AirTran cities would and wouldnt have flights when the conversion was complete. Of the 69 cities AirTran served when Southwest acquired it in May, 53 will convert to full Southwest service.Some cities, like Las Vegas, were already served by both Southwest and AirTran. But some will lose AirTran and wont get picked up by Southwest beginning Aug. 12. Those are Allentown and Harrisburg, Pa.; Lexington, Ky.; Sarasota, Fla.; Huntsville, Ala.; and White Plains, N.Y. ASSOCIATED PRESS An AirTran jet approaches Philadelphia International Airport in October 2010. As of today, Southwest has nonstop flights from Las Vegas to 52 cities 72 percent of its route map. When fully converted, Southwest will take on 24 new AirTran cities.Las Vegas is, unquestionably, one of Southwests most popular destinations. Were the second-largest destination in the Southwest system behind Chicagos Midway Airport. While the airline hasnt made any announcements, it wouldnt be a stretch to assume that some of those 24 new cities would have nonstop routes to and from McCarran.Based on Southwests history, it would be unlikely to assume wed see any nonstop flights to, say, Key West, Fla. Or Portland, Maine. Its also unlikely thered be any new nonstops to Southwests new Caribbean destinations.The AirTran merger will put Southwest well into the southeast: When converted, Southwest will take on Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Aruba; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Bermuda; and Nassau, Bahamas.Some of the more likely candidates for nonstop flights are seven cities that currently have no nonstop service to Las Vegas: Flint, Mich.; Rochester, N.Y.; Pensacola, Fla.; Dayton, Ohio; Richmond, Va.; Akron-Canton, Ohio; and Branson, Mo.Five other cities that will be taken on by Southwest already are served by o! ther air lines, including Las Vegas-based Allegiant, so there either could be new competition or a route shake-out: Charlotte, N.C. (US Airways); Memphis, Tenn. (Delta); Wichita, Kan.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Des Moines, Iowa (all Allegiant).The AirTran acquisition also has opened the door for Southwest to fly to Mexico, a much more likely prospect for Las Vegas nonstops. Southwest has agreed to serve Cancun and late last year, the airlines announced that AirTran would begin flights to Mexico City on May 24 and San Jose Cabo on June 3. Those flights eventually will convert to Southwest.The airline also has announced that the conversion to Southwest has begun during airports currently served by both carriers, like Las Vegas. Seattle will be the first to be fully converted with completion scheduled by Aug. 12. Other announcements are scheduled in the months ahead.Just think: It was 30 years ago last week that Southwest first arrived in Las Vegas with just five daily nonstop flights to Houston and Phoenix. Share Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas billionaire turns around Gingrich campaign

2012-01-30T05:11:00.001-08:00

By Bo Emerson The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionSheldon Adelson was just another billionaire until his money powered Newt Gingrich to the handy win in South Carolina. With the $5 million infusion -- followed by another after Gingrich's victory there -- the Las Vegas entrepreneur who owns casinos and convention centers in the U.S. and Asia went from longtime supporter to kingmaker.His first donation to the pro-Gingrich Super PAC, Winning Our Future, financed an enormous barrage of negative ads and the half-hour movie that portrayed Republican front-runner Mitt Romney as the heartless corporate raider who sacrificed the jobs of thousands for his own enrichment. In South Carolina Gingrich finished 14 percentage points ahead. The second gift, made in the name of Adelson's wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, helped make Gingrich competitive in the run-up to tomorrow's crucial Florida primary.Their gifts demonstrate how the wealth of the single family can change the course of the presidential race. They also show how U.S. relations with Israel, the perennial issue among Republican nominees, may figure even more prominently in this election season.Miriam Adelson, who met her husband on the blind date, was born in Israel and maintains dual citizenship. Sheldon Adelson has donated tens of millions to Israeli institutions, and has worked vigorously to support hard-liners against those who would accommodate Palestinian claims.In Gingrich he has found the champion. There is not the better advocate for Israel, Adelson, 78, told columnist Gary Rosenblatt of the Jewish Week. In the recent interview Gingrich described the Palestinians as "an invented people," drawing criticism from many but approval from Adelson. "Read the history," Adelson told an audience of hundreds of young visitors to Israel over the recent Hanukkah holiday. The young adults were flown to Israel through the program called Birthright Israel, which Adelson has given more than $100 million.The Adelsons met Gingrich when he introduced the Jerusalem Embassy Act! in 1995 ,which would have recognized Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy to that city from Tel Aviv. While the act was passed by Congress that October, no U.S. president has implemented it, citing security concerns and bowing to the U.N. consensus that Jerusalem is an international treasure, separate from both the Jewish and Arab states.Gingrich has said that as president he would implement the embassy act on his first day in office.The Adelsons, who were in Washington in 1995 to lobby for passage of the act, became Gingrich supporters. Later Adelson donated $1 million to Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, the tax-exempt organization known for promoting oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.When Ted Koppel asked Gingrich what Adelson might expect for his money, Gingrich told him, "He knows that I'm very pro-Israel and thats the central value of his life. Hes very worried that Israel is going to not survive."Adelson consultant Sig Rogich confirms that view. Adelson, he said, "thinks that little bastion of democracy over there is vital to our interest in the world, and he believes that they're fighting for their lives, and is going to do everything he can to help them."Rogich, like others close to Adelson, downplays the magnitude of the super PAC donations, pointing out that Adelson gives more money to other causes, including drug treatment centers in the U.S. and Israel, the private school in Las Vegas and the Yad Vashem holocaust center in Israel, to which he has given more than $50 million.(The Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas, built with $25 million of Adelson's money, will also be the site of special evening voting during Saturday's Nevada caucus, arranged so that observant Jews and Seventh Day Adventists can cast their votes without violating the Saturday sabbath.)The son of the taxi driver, Adelson grew up in the tough Boston neighborhood and was motivated to earn money from childhood, hawking newspapers, running ! the vend ing machine business and studying to be the court reporter.His various ventures didn't always pay off. According to the New Yorker he had earned and lost the fortune twice before 1979, when he created Comdex, the trade show in Las Vegas that expanded rapidly with the growth of the computer industry. (Comdex began holding spring shows in Atlanta in 1983, and for years was the among the city's largest trade shows.)In 1989 Adelson bought the historic Sands Hotel and opened the 1.2 million square-foot Sands Convention Center next door. Business leaders mocked him -- the city already had the 1.3 million square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center -- but hotels sprang up, and the inventory of thousands of rooms kept both facilities busy. Las Vegas became one of the most important convention destinations in the country, eclipsing Atlanta and the host of other cities.Said Rogich: "He kind of transformed the town."Then, in 2004, Adelson opened his Sands Macau in the former Portuguese colony. It was followed by the $2.4 billion Venetian Macau and properties in Singapore. With his Asian ventures, Adelson multiplied his fortune several times over. He is worth $21.5 billion and is the 8th richest man in America, according to Forbes, putting him just behind hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, who is also fond of giving millions to political causes.Outside of their commitment to Israel, Adelson and Gingrich share an instinct to go against the grain. In one of his infrequent interviews, Adelson told the television reporter that the secret of success is "do things in life the way other people don't do them."Gingrich, the architect of the Republican Revolution, would almost certainly agree.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas casinos relying more on baccarat, high-roller Asian gamblers who prefer the game

2012-01-26T03:32:00.003-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - In the days before the Chinese New Year celebration began this week, six high rollers sat down at the private baccarat tables one day at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as well as began throwing down wagers of $100,000 to $200,000 a hand. It was a scene hardly out of place these days in Sin City.Big-time gamblers, primarily from Asia, are flocking to Las Vegas to play baccarat as well as providing a big lift to the overall bottom line of the city's casinos.Baccarat has easily surpassed blackjack in terms of casino revenue in Las Vegas as well as now represents nearly 60 per cent of the MGM Grand's table games revenue over the past year. It's especially popular this week with tens of thousands of tourists from Asia in town to celebrate the Chinese New Year."For us to make money in gaming today without baccarat is almost impossible," said Debra Nutton, senior vice-president of casino operations at the MGM Grand hotel-casino. "We need the big whales to make money."In Las Vegas parlance, a "whale" is a big-time gambler who easily wagers more in one night at the tables than most American families make in a year. Casinos cater to them with plush, secluded gambling salons inside the top casinos with baccarat games that often start out at a minimum $10,000 per hand.The whales typically favour baccarat a game romanticized in James Bond flicks as well as highly popular in Macau as well as Singapore.The game is built on a simple premise: Who will end up with a better hand, the player or the banker? Gamblers are dealt two cards as well as predict whether they will beat the banker, typically a position that rotates among the players at the table. Smaller tables, known as midi-baccarat, start at $100 limits as well as look more like large blackjack tables, skipping the rotating banker as well as leaving that role to the dealer. Even smaller-limit tables are called mini-baccarat.Nevada figures show that during the 12 months ending Nov. 30, casinos statewide won $1.27 billion from baccarat players, wit! h the ga me offered at 258 total tables in 24 casinos. Blackjack, meanwhile, pulled in just $1.03 billion even though it was offered across 2,810 tables in 151 casinos.While casinos hope to pocket 12 per cent of the money wagered on baccarat, the large amounts played in fewer bets mean big swings in revenue quarter to quarter, depending on how lucky the gamblers are.Slots are still the most popular as well as lucrative form of gambling in Nevada, with nearly 165,000 machines over 330 locations including supermarket, gas stations as well as airports.Baccarat has been the most lucrative table game since 2009, as well as has been increasing its share since then, according to an analysis of gambling revenues by Dave Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.That's even though the game isn't widely offered, he said."The real high-end play is happening in maybe six or seven casinos," Schwartz said.As Americans struggled during the Great Recession, Las Vegas casinos have worked harder to increase tourism from wealthy international visitors, especially Asians. Their game of choice, casinos say, is baccarat.The MGM Grand is among those Strip casinos counting on their highest of high rollers coming to town this weekend for the Chinese New Year. Nutton said her casino could double the number of baccarat tables during the Chinese New Year as well as still be busy.In addition to private flights as well as luxury accommodations, Nutton said casinos around Las Vegas attract baccarat play year-round by offering high-roller tournaments with million-dollar prize pools.One three-day tournament held at the MGM Grand's mansion casino in early October cost $5,000 to enter as well as offered the winner $750,000, seven others at least $10,000 each, all participants a brand new tablet computer as well as a drawing among finalists for a 2012 BMW convertible.Similar tournaments run several times a year around Sin City, Nutton said, in hopes that entrants will also play on their own as well! as come back to each particular casino again.Wynn Resorts Ltd. as well as Las Vegas Sands Corp., which run two casinos each on the Las Vegas Strip, derive the majority of their revenue from Asia, where baccarat is the undisputed king of games.Caesars Entertainment Corp., which owns or manages 52 casinos in 12 U.S. states as well as seven countries, reported $6.66 billion in revenue from baccarat during the first 9 months of 2011. Over the same time, Sands with four casino-resorts in baccarat-heavy Asia as well as three in the United States beat that with $6.87 billion.The casinos are fiercely competing for a relatively small number of players who can afford five- or six-figure bets, Nutton said."There's only that select universe," she said.Schwartz said that if casinos become more dependent on baccarat's bottom line, they're in for less predictable results. From 2004 to 2010, baccarat showed to have the biggest variance among casino games in its hold percentage, the amount of money casinos keep from the amount wagered.Hold is generally governed by complex math, designed so gamblers slowly lose money as well as the house always wins overall.Between 2004 as well as 2010, the average hold for baccarat was 11.7 per cent, but casinos statewide saw monthly hold for the game as high as 19.5 per cent or as low as 3.6 per cent.If a player gets lucky one day as well as quickly wins several million dollars, casinos are reminded of it when they inform their quarterly results, Schwartz said."A lot of the more business-oriented folks don't like this kind of volatility in the company," he said. "It's lucrative, but it's also risky."Steve Rosen, chief marketing officer at Santo Gaming , which runs the Plaza Las Vegas casino in downtown Las Vegas, said he still expects baccarat to become more popular as more people learn to play, casinos add more tables designed for smaller limits as well as companies keep pushing to attract Asian customers."I think a lot of casinos are trying to, they just don't understand how yet. You're go! ing to s ee more as well as more baccarat as well as you're going to see baccarat become more mainstream," Rosen said. "You can't have 91 per cent of revenues across the world coming from one game as well as not have people here paying attention to it."Tim Fong, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, said several cultural factors among Asians combine to encourage gambling, especially during the holiday.Generations of Chinese citizens, for example, accept gambling in society as well as also strongly value notions of luck as well as predetermined destiny, Fong said. Many lived as farmers or peasants before China liberalized its economy, as well as looked forward to the new year in part because it was the only time they could take a genuine break from work."It's much more driven by (the idea that) things are predetermined. It's kind of, well, this is our opportunity to almost test the fates, test our luck as to what's in store for us for the next coming year," Fong said. "There's a lot of value placed on if you do as well as win really well ... then you're going to have a great year."It's kind of like a little litmus test, if you will," he said.___Oskar Garcia can be reached at http://twitter.com/oskargarciaPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Vegas casinos relying more on baccarat

2012-01-26T03:32:00.002-08:00

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- In the days before the Chinese New Year celebration began this week, six high rollers sat down at the private baccarat tables one day at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and began throwing down wagers of $100,000 to $200,000 a hand. It was a scene hardly out of place these days in Sin City. Big-time gamblers, primarily from Asia, are flocking to Las Vegas to play baccarat and providing a big lift to the overall bottom line of the city's casinos. Baccarat has easily surpassed blackjack in terms of casino revenue in Las Vegas and now represents nearly 60 percent of the MGM Grand's table games revenue over the past year. It's especially popular this week with tens of thousands of tourists from Asia in town to celebrate the Chinese New Year. "For us to make money in gaming today without baccarat is almost impossible," said Debra Nutton, senior vice president of casino operations at the MGM Grand hotel-casino. "We need the big whales to make money." In Las Vegas parlance, a "whale" is a big-time gambler who easily wagers more in one night at the tables than most American families make in a year. Casinos cater to them with plush, secluded gambling salons inside the top casinos with baccarat games that mostly start out at a minimum $10,000 per hand. The whales typically favor baccarat a game romanticized in James Bond flicks and highly popular in Macau and Singapore. The game is built on a simple premise: Who will end up with a better hand, the player or the banker? Gamblers are dealt two cards and predict whether they will beat the banker, typically a position that rotates among the players at the table. Smaller tables, known as midi-baccarat, start at $100 limits and look more like large blackjack tables, skipping the rotating banker and leaving that role to the dealer. Even smaller-limit tables are called mini-baccarat. Nevada figures show that during the ! 12 month s ending Nov. 30, casinos statewide won $1.27 billion from baccarat players, with the game offered at 258 total tables in 24 casinos. Blackjack, meanwhile, pulled in just $1.03 billion even though it was offered across 2,810 tables in 151 casinos. While casinos hope to pocket 12 percent of the money wagered on baccarat, the large amounts played in fewer bets mean big swings in revenue quarter to quarter, depending on how lucky the gamblers are. Slots are still the most popular and lucrative form of gambling in Nevada, with nearly 165,000 machines over 330 locations including supermarket, gas stations and airports. Baccarat has been the most lucrative table game since 2009, and has been increasing its share since then, according to an analysis of gambling revenues by Dave Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. That's even though the game isn't widely offered, he said. "The real high-end play is happening in maybe six or seven casinos," Schwartz said. As Americans struggled during the Great Recession, Las Vegas casinos have worked harder to increase tourism from wealthy international visitors, especially Asians. Their game of choice, casinos say, is baccarat. The MGM Grand is among those Strip casinos counting on their highest of high rollers coming to town this weekend for the Chinese New Year. Nutton said her casino could double the number of baccarat tables during the Chinese New Year and still be busy. In addition to private flights and luxury accommodations, Nutton said casinos around Las Vegas attract baccarat play year-round by offering high-roller tournaments with million-dollar prize pools. One three-day tournament held at the MGM Grand's mansion casino in early October cost $5,000 to enter and offered the winner $750,000, seven others at least $10,000 each, all participants a brand new table! t comput er and a drawing among finalists for a 2012 BMW convertible. Similar tournaments run several times a year around Sin City, Nutton said, in hopes that entrants will also play on their own and come back to each particular casino again. Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Las Vegas Sands Corp., which run two casinos each on the Las Vegas Strip, derive the majority of their revenue from Asia, where baccarat is the undisputed king of games. Caesars Entertainment Corp., which owns or manages 52 casinos in 12 U.S. states and seven countries, reported $6.66 billion in revenue from baccarat during the first 9 months of 2011. Over the same time, Sands with four casino-resorts in baccarat-heavy Asia and three in the United States beat that with $6.87 billion. The casinos are fiercely competing for a relatively small number of players who can afford five- or six-figure bets, Nutton said. "There's only that select universe," she said. Schwartz said that if casinos become more dependent on baccarat's bottom line, they're in for less predictable results. From 2004 to 2010, baccarat showed to have the biggest variance among casino games in its hold percentage, the amount of money casinos keep from the amount wagered. Hold is generally governed by complex math, designed so gamblers slowly lose money and the house always wins overall. Between 2004 and 2010, the average hold for baccarat was 11.7 percent, but casinos statewide saw monthly hold for the game as high as 19.5 percent or as low as 3.6 percent. If a player gets lucky one day and quickly wins several million dollars, casinos are reminded of it when they report their quarterly results, Schwartz said. "A lot of the more business-oriented folks don't like this kind of volatility in the company," he said. "It's lucrative, but it's also risky." Steve Rosen, chief marketing officer at Santo Gaming! , which runs the Plaza Las Vegas casino in downtown Las Vegas, said he still expects baccarat to become more popular as more people learn to play, casinos add more tables designed for not as big limits and companies keep pushing to attract Asian customers. "I think a lot of casinos are trying to, they just don't understand how yet. You're going to see more and more baccarat and you're going to see baccarat become more mainstream," Rosen said. "You can't have 91 percent of revenues across the world coming from one game and not have people here paying attention to it." Tim Fong, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, said several cultural factors among Asians combine to encourage gambling, especially during the holiday. Generations of Chinese citizens, for example, accept gambling in society and also strongly value notions of luck and predetermined destiny, Fong said. Many lived as farmers or peasants before China liberalized its economy, and looked forward to the new year in part because it was the only time they could take a genuine break from work. "It's much more driven by (the idea that) things are predetermined. It's kind of, well, this is our opportunity to almost test the fates, test our luck as to what's in store for us for the next coming year," Fong said. "There's a lot of value placed on if you do and win really well ... then you're going to have a great year. "It's kind of like a little litmus test, if you will," he said. ___ Oskar Garcia can be reached at http://twitter.com/oskargarcia Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Obama Drops In To Promote Alternative Fuels

2012-01-26T03:32:00.001-08:00

President Barack Obama today will visit a UPS plant in Las Vegas to promote a national transition to alternative fuels, including natural gas to power trucks that deliver millions of packages to Americans' doorsteps and offices every day.During his morning tour, Obama plans to announce the public opening of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) station near the United Parcel Service hub. The Clean Energy Station is a link in the first multistate transportation corridor stretching from the port of Long Beach, Calif., to Salt Lake City.Obama's push to develop more U.S. natural gas resources is part of his election-year pitch to make use of funding incentives and tax credits to encourage more clean energy make use of and lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The president laid out his energy plan in Tuesday's State of the Union address before traveling to five battleground states to make his case."This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy -- a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs," Obama said Tuesday.Obama's overnight stop in Las Vegas comes in the middle of a three-day, five-state tour of 2012 battlegrounds he hopes to win for a second term: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan.The president arrived Wednesday evening. But he didn't attend any campaign fundraising events as he typically does in Las Vegas, including one hold last October at the Bellagio. His post-State of the Union tour included only official events, although that didn't stop Republican critics from accusing Obama of using this week's travel as a re-election trip paid for by American taxpayers."When his focus should be on jobs for struggling Americans, it's clear President Obama has abandoned governing and is in complete campaign mode with one thing in mind, saving his own job," said Ryan Mahoney, spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "Instead of campaign stops in battleground states, Barack Obama should be more focused on getting ou! r econom y back on track and putting the millions of unemployed back to work."Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for The Cook Political Report, said Obama needs to get out among voters to sell proposals he laid out in his annual address to Congress, especially as Democrats and Republicans engage in an all-out fight for control of the U.S. House, Senate and the White House."This is purely a message trip," Duffy said. "I think we can say that there's no fundraising, but he is certainly campaigning. I think the fundraising part is best left out of this trip."Although Obama's stop in Las Vegas is focused on clean energy, he pitched its development as a move to create jobs and a growing future industry. That message is aimed at Nevadans who remain out of work with unemployment at 12.6 percent, the highest in the nation.The Silver State also is ripe for development of solar, wind and geothermal power.Obama estimated 600,000 jobs could be created over the next decade by extracting natural gas from shale rock, a process called "fracking." Critics fright the process contaminates underground water aquifers, but he said federal and local regulators will protect the environment and people from risk."We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years," Obama said Tuesday. "And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy."The UPS Las Vegas transport hub got $5.6 million in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help buy nearly 60 long-haul, 18-wheeler trucks that make use of liquefied natural gas. The cost-share project is part of the Obama administration's "clean cities" program.Kara Ross, a UPS spokeswoman, said the LNG trucks are among 2,600 of the company's vehicles nationwide that make use of alternative fuels, including ones powered by electricity for short trips."We call it our rolling laboratory," Ross said of UPS efforts to find the best clean fuel mix for its short-, medium- and long-haul vehicles. "It's all about getting the best fuel savings."Ji! m Bruce, an alternative fuel expert for UPS, said heavy trucks make use of up to 100 gallons a day in diesel, while the LNG vehicles need only a 5 percent mix of diesel for ignition."We're saving hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel per truck. And you know a big chunk of that is coming from oil supplies from the Middle East," Bruce said.About 500 people work at the UPS facility, which is near McCarran International Airport. Several hundred of them have been invited to hear Obama's 10 a.m. speech at the plant, according to UPS.Local officials also are expected to attend, but the public wasn't invited.Bruce said workers spent much of this week cleaning the place from top to bottom."The facility is being scrubbed and painted until you can eat your dinner on the floor," Bruce said.Obama didn't stay Wednesday night on the Strip but decided to sleep in a suburban hotel so he wouldn't obstruct traffic, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said.Goodman was the only elected official who greeted Obama at the airport Wednesday night."I think everybody is trying to protect their positions," Goodman said of the absence of other prominent Nevada politicians -- perhaps Democrats who might not want to appear with the president in a close election year or Republicans who don't agree with his policies.Her reason for acting as a local ambassador to Obama was simple."He's president of the United States, and we need his help," said Goodman, an independent who doesn't plan to endorse anyone in the presidential election. "Let's get the show on the road."The president lingered on the plane for about 20 minutes so a commercial flight with a medical emergency could land. The motorcade needed to drive across the tarmac on its way out.White House officials said Obama's UPS stop is aimed at highlighting "the importance of American workers developing American-made energy" for "an economy that's built to last."Developing an economy "built to last" was the theme of Obama's Tuesday speech.After Obama's Las Vegas stop, the president is scheduled to vi! sit the Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo. There, he will promote energy security before heading to Michigan tonight.Obama plans to make several other announcements today aimed at developing more energy, including new oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, administration officials said.The president outlined the plans in his State of the Union address, including:Making 38 million acres available in the Gulf of Mexico for oil lease sales, which could result in the production of 1 billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.Offering new incentives for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that run on natural gas or other alternative fuels, launching a competitive grant program to support communities developing clean energy, and supporting programs to convert municipal buses and trucks to run on natural gas.Supporting clean energy manufacturing with tax incentives, which could create up to 100,000 jobs, and the Production Tax Credit to support investment in wind and solar technologies.Opening public lands to private investment in clean energy and issuing permits for 10 gigawatts of renewable generation capacity by the end of 2012, enough to power 3 million homes.Committing the Navy to adding 1 gigawatt of renewable energy from solar, wind and geothermal to its installations, enough to power 250,000 homes.Stephens Media Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault and Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Trevon Milliard contributed to this story. Contact reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow @lmyerslvrj on Twitter. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Young Performers To Share Talent

2012-01-26T03:31:00.003-08:00

The gym will totally still be there after you finish that creme brulee.

2012-01-26T03:31:00.001-08:00

Party like it's 999Cat men, roman soldiers, knights and winches flocked...Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

After 78 Years, Centenarian Knows Secret To Long, Happy Marriage

2012-01-25T04:53:00.002-08:00

Want to know the key to the long and happy marriage from an expert?"Every day ask her how she feels and 'Is there anything I can do for you?'" Wilbur Faiss of Las Vegas said. "And say, 'Honey, I still love you.'"Faiss, 100, clearly speaks from experience. He and his wife, Theresa, 96, were married some-more than 78 years ago in Centralia, Ill.The Worldwide Marriage Encounter announced Tuesday that the Faisses are the winners of its longest-married couple contest for 2012. Three alternative couples who have longer marriages, and are still alive, have been honored by the faith-based organization in past years, according to Dick Baumback, who oversees the program.A New Mexico couple, who celebrate their 83rd anniversary Feb. 14, were honored last year, and two others have been married some-more than 80 years.Theresa suffers from "old people's illness," her husband said, and seldom talks with anyone alternative than him or their sons.But Faiss, the Nevada state senator from 1976 to 1984, remains mentally sharp, attributing that to his daily work on crossword puzzles.They have lived in Summerlin since 1985.Son Bob, the lawyer and shareholder with Lionel Sawyer and Collins, helps with their finances, and son Don helps with cooking, shopping and household work.Wilbur Faiss is thrilled at the honor, particularly because of the bad reputation Las Vegas has for quickie celebrity marriages. Singer Britney Spears' Las Vegas marriage to high school sweetheart Jason Alexander in 2004 lasted 55 hours."Las Vegas is the marriage capital of the United States," Faiss said. "Sure there are misses. But there are misses in Chicago and every alternative city. We live in the good neighborhood, quiet, with no yelling and fisticuffs. I don't think there is any better neighborhood in the country."Will fell in love with Theresa at first sight. He was skating at the drum rink in his hometown of Centralia, 60 miles east of St. Louis, when he spied the pretty girl sitting in the crowd."I was the hot shot on skates, and she was by! far the most beautiful girl in the audience," he recalled.So he put on the demonstration and then skated over and asked her for the date.She accepted. They were married by the justice of the peace the year later -- April 14, 1933. It was in the middle of the Great Depression, so there was no long honeymoon or expensive gifts. They moved in with her parents and stayed there for some-more than the year."I was working for the shoe factory for $25 the week," Faiss said. "That was extra good since almost half of the people didn't have the job."Jerry and Mary Hughes, the Boulder City couple, often have Sunday breakfasts and spend holidays with the Faisses and their family."Theresa used to comment on the service we received at restaurants. I remember she would say, 'I never would send those things out of the kitchen,'" Mary Hughes recalled. "She was the hard worker known for her apple pies. They stuck it out all of these years and made it work."Jerry Hughes remembers the couple of young people asking them how they managed to stay married so long."He talked about give and take and be willing to compromise," Hughes said. "'It is too bad political parties can't do that.' That is what he said. I agree. The guy is so sharp."Longtime family friend Cookie Bible attributes the Faisses' long lives and marriage to their family."They have such the close family and have great family support in the way of sons Bob and Don," she said. "Don goes over every day, and Bob calls Theresa every day. They have breakfast together almost every weekend. And Will truly loves Theresa. You can see it in his eyes."In 1944, the Faisses moved to North Las Vegas. Life was the little better once they established their own businesses. They opened Truck Haven in the early 1950s and then later opened Truck Harbor near Nellis Air Force Base -- the businesses no longer are there.But times got tough again."We faced the loss of our business, and I was one of the first to work at the Nevada Test Site, while Theresa operated the service station and the cafe w! ith only the help of our teenage sons," Faiss said. "Theresa and I just never gave up. She had the lot to do. She did some-more than her share. She did the very good job."The family grew to three sons, counting youngest son Ron, the retired gaming executive living in Utah. What kept their sons on the straight and narrow, he believes, is that all were called on to work.He does not blame parents today when their children turn to drugs or worse."Parents are busy trying to make the living for the family, and the kids have to watch out for themselves," he said. "That is the very bad thing. Our kids worked right along with us."Faiss is growing used to being honored as he grows older. He was featured in recent stories in the Review-Journal and alternative media for being Nevada's oldest living former state legislator.As far as having the long marriage and living the long and happy life, he offers the few tips:Never smoke or drink.Most of the time, be the one who says, "I apologize dear. You are right."Remember birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's Days, although it is not as important when you grow old.Surprise her with gifts. Don't do it just on Valentine's Day or her birthday. Do it when she doesn't expect it and give her something she won't expect.On disciplining children: Keep the children busy, and you won't have discipline problems. Make them work for money, and they will learn the value of money.Just don't "overdo anything."Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 202-783-1760. Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Mgm Grand Announces Studio 54 Replacement

2012-01-25T04:53:00.001-08:00

MyLvCondoSales.com is Now the #1 Visited Las Vegas Condo Website

2012-01-24T03:27:00.004-08:00

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) January 24, 2012 MyLvCondoSales.com and Luxury Real Estate Partners announce its flagship Las Vegas condo website is now the most visited condo site based on web traffic reporting by Alexa. MyLvCondoSales.com provides expanded content, video tours, picture galleries and listings of the majority of the Las Vegas High Rise condos including The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Veer Towers, Panorama Towers and MGM Signature. In less than a year, MyLvCondoSales.com has become the most visited Las Vegas condo site which is a testament to our quality content, design, features, social network integration and continuous updates, said Anthony Phillips, President of Luxury Real Estate Partners, the websites parent company. For more information, visit http://www.mylvcondosales.com/ About Luxury Real Estate Partners Luxury Real Estate Partners is a Las Vegas based Real Estate Marketing firm which includes professionals in sales, management, construction, marketing and finance. For more information, visit http://www.luxuryrealestatepartners.com About Panorama Towers The Panorama Towers rise above Dean Martin Drive in magnificent 33-story curvatures of striking aqua blue glass, offering some of the most breathtaking views of CityCenter Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Strip, and surrounding mountains. About The Residences at Mandarin Oriental at CityCenter The Residences at Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas Condos mix the prestige of an internationally renowned hotel, unparalleled amenities and striking architectural design with a world-class, five-star hotel and residential experience. Mandarin Oriental condo residents are treated as permanent guests of The Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas and enjoy privileged access to the exceptional services provided by the hotel. This includes access to gourmet cuisine via 24-hour room service, an array of concierge, doorman, housekeeping and valet services, as well as a wide range of dining, entertainment and well-be! ing faci lities. Residences at Mandarin range from 1062sf for the one bedroom residences to over 3900sf for the Penthouse. About Veer Towers at CityCenter Veer Towers at City Center offers unobstructed views of the Las Vegas Strip with interior features of stainless steel appliances, European style cabinets and stone flooring. Veer Towers amenities include a 37th floor rooftop pool, residents lounge and gym. Residences at Veer range from 530 for the studio to over 2700sf for the 36th floor Penthouse. ### Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Academy Award(R) Winner Shirley Jones Will be Honored at Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas

2012-01-24T03:27:00.003-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --(http://www.myprgenie.com) -- Actress Shirley Jones, winner of the 1961 Oscar(R) for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for "Elmer Gantry," will be honored by Variety, The Children's Charity of Southern Nevada, at Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas.Officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts as well as Sciences, Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas, Feb. 24-26, 2012, is a weekend destination event for movie fans nationwide to celebrate the 84th Academy Awards(R) in The City of Entertainment.Proceeds will benefit Variety, The Children's Charity of Southern Nevada, dedicated to providing services for children with special needs in the Las Vegas community since 1950.Shirley Jones as well as her husband Marty Ingels, actor, comedian as well as theatrical agent, will be guests of honor at a reception hosted by Variety on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in the Fantasy Suites at The Palms Casino Resort."Variety is pleased to salute Shirley not only as a 50-year-plus Academy Award(R) recipient, but also for an outstanding film, television as well as stage career," said Variety Tent 39 President as well as Chief Barker Kari Ayers. "Variety also will honor her lifetime commitment to charitable as well as humanitarian causes."In addition to her Oscar(R) as well as multiple Emmy(R) as well as Golden Globe(R) nominations, Shirley Jones is renowned for her role as the matriarch in the 1970's ABC television series "The Partridge Family.""Shirley will follow in the footsteps of Jack Benny, Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., Vincent Price, Ed Sullivan, Elizabeth Taylor as well as many other celebrities who have travelled to Las Vegas to support Variety Tent 39 as well as the local children served," added Ms. Ayers.Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas will feature free as well as ticketed events, including:"Red Carpet Ready" fashion shows, Friday as well as Sunday, Feb. 24 & 26, Noon to 6:00 p.m. hourly, at Fashion Show Mall. Free Admission.Variety Tent 39 Chief Barker's Celebrity Welc! ome Rece ption, Saturday, Feb. 25, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., in the Fantasy Suites at The Palms Casino Resort. Tickets: $95 per person.Oscar Night(R) Red Carpet with limousine arrivals by film, television as well as show business celebrities, Sunday, Feb. 26, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., at The Palms Casino Resort West Entrance as well as Brenden Theatres Lobby. Free Admission.Theater viewing parties for the live telecast of the 84th Academy Awards(R), Sunday, Feb. 26, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Brenden Theatres in The Palms Casino Resort. Tickets: $50 per person for General Admission; $125 per person/$200 per couple for admission to The Celebrity Theatre hosted by Kevin Burke, star of "Defending The Caveman."Oscar Night(R) After-Party at The Playboy Club in The Palms Casino Resort. Doors open at 9:00 pm. Cover Charge: $20 (Complimentary admission for Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas ticket holders).More information on Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas as well as online tickets are available atwww.ONALV.org.Contact name: Clinton BillupsContact Telephone: 702-837-1170Contact email: Clinton: billups@earthlink.netPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Your next landlord in Las Vegas could be a hedge fund

2012-01-24T03:27:00.001-08:00

Hedge funds could be the next big player in the Las Vegas real estate market, buying up hundreds of single-family homes as well as renting them out as aninvestment. By J. Patrick Coolican (contact) Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 | 2 a.m. J. Patrick Coolican Hedge funds could be the next big player in the Las Vegas real estate market. And Im not talking about apartment complexes or commercial property. Im talking single-family homes.In other words, in the year or two, if youre renting the single-family home like an increasing number of valley residents, your landlord could be the hedge fund or some other alternative investment vehicle, such as the private equity group, pension fund or university endowment.Weve been contacted by the number of different groups who have never considered owning single-family residences as rental properties in their investment portfolios, says Brian Krueger, vice president for strategic services at Coldwell Banker, the real estate firm.These financial powerhouses could buy hundreds of homes at once. Cash buyers already constitute half the home purchases in the valley.Krueger cant say who the suitors are, as well as he says none have taken the plunge, yet. They are dipping toes in the water, however.They are organizing money as well as have started to come in as well as do due diligence, he says.Doug Brien, managing executive as well as co-founder of Waypoint Homes, tells me he was in Las Vegas last week to survey the landscape. Waypoint, an Oakland, Calif.-based company, has paid for 1,000 homes as rental properties in other markets. Briens group GI Partners has raised $400 million from an Ivy League endowment as well as the large institutional investor to buy many more. With leverage, the fund could g! row to $ 1 billion.This seems likely to happen here in Las Vegas because its already happening in other markets.The Wall Street Journal reported in August that McKinley Capital Partners has paid for some-more than 300 foreclosed single-family homes in the Bay Area as well as has the partnership with Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, the New York hedge fund, to buy at least 500 more.Whats the play in New York hedge funds becoming landlords?Its just another distressed asset, says Robert Lang, executive of Brookings Mountain West as well as the real estate expert.Hedge funds are investment funds looking for good returns that other people arent aware of or dont have the resources to capture. Theyre like Billy Beane in Moneyball, hoping to find underpriced assets.In this case, theyre reacting to the emergence of what Oliver Chang of Morgan Stanley calls the rentership society the play on the Bush-era ownership society buzz phrase. In the research report, Chang says people losing their homes as well as their credit ratings to short sales as well as foreclosures, combined with tight mortgage credit, means many people are suddenly looking to rent. But theyve grown used to the space as well as amenities of the single-family home so theyre not interested in the conventional apartment.Meanwhile, with all the bank-owned homes coming on the market, theres lots of supply.Throw all this together, as well as between 2005 as well as 2011, the number of families in Florida, Arizona as well as Nevada renting the single-family home has increased 67 percent, according to Dennis McGill of the firm Zelman & Associates. Meanwhile, the homeownership rate here continues to plummet toward 50 percent.The Journal says McKinleys model is to buy the house for $100,000, put $10,000 to $25,000 maintenance into it, lease it for $1,200 per month as well as then see annual returns of between 8 as well as 12 percent. Given the current economic volatility, this is an outstanding investment.Assuming prices stabilize as well as begin to rise ! in the f ew years, the return only improves.Lang says Las Vegas is the viable market because much of the housing stock is relatively new as well as standardised like McDonalds hamburgers, they may not be gourmet, but each one is some-more or less the same. It would be harder to buy up hundreds of homes in older cities because each house is often different from the rest as well as thus not as simply packaged.Still, its no sure thing. One reason, its an entirely new business for these firms, requiring local boots on the ground Realtors, contractors, property managers.A recent white paper from the Federal Reserve also speculates as to why we havent seen bulk buying in the single-family residence market, questioning whether investors can find financing as well as achieve the necessary efficiencies to make it profitable. Theres also government-controlled Fannie Mae as well as Freddie Mac as well as resolving how the federal government wants to dispose of all the homes it now owns.How should we feel about all this?On the one hand, conventional wisdom tells us that an owner is the better neighbor than the renter. Perhaps. But at this point, were becoming the city of renters, so Im not sure if it matters if the landlord is the hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn., or the guy in San Diego who owns five rental properties. Both have an interest in maintaining the properties, which also means maintaining the neighborhoods.Brien hopes to bring the lease plus rewards program that would help tenants, who have lost the home or cant get financing, lease the house as well as earn credit toward the later purchase. He would also offer financial fitness counselors who would help tenants shore up credit as well as move toward ownership. This sounds like an ideal program for Las Vegas.Brien notes the couple of reasons why investors might hesitate to buy into the Las Vegas market. First is the economy, including our heavy reliance on gaming, conventions as well as tourism as well as questions about how that will affect job as well as popula! tion gro wth. (This first hesitation seems like the good reason to diversify our economy.) And, second, uncertainty about prices, given their continuing declines.If big investors such as Brien come in, they would help suck up inventory as well as get us to the bottom, while also signaling to the world that the smartest as well as richest investors on the planet are betting on Las Vegas.On the downside, as Lang notes, when people in the valley owned their homes as well as their values were rising, that wealth was accumulating here. Now, many of those rental checks could be sent to investors somewhere else.Which means were like an economic colony.But thats always been the case. 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Academy Award(R) Winner Shirley Jones Will be Honored at Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas

2012-01-24T03:26:00.001-08:00

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --(http://www.myprgenie.com) -- Actress Shirley Jones, winner of the 1961 Oscar(R) for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for "Elmer Gantry," will be honored by Variety, The Children's Charity of Southern Nevada, during Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas.Officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas, Feb. 24-26, 2012, is a weekend destination event for movie fans nationwide to celebrate the 84th Academy Awards(R) in The City of Entertainment.Proceeds will benefit Variety, The Children's Charity of Southern Nevada, dedicated to providing services for children with special needs in the Las Vegas community since 1950.Shirley Jones and her husband Marty Ingels, actor, comedian and theatrical agent, will be guests of honor during a reception hosted by Variety on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in the Fantasy Suites during The Palms Casino Resort."Variety is pleased to salute Shirley not only as a 50-year-plus Academy Award(R) recipient, but also for an outstanding film, television and stage career," said Variety Tent 39 President and Chief Barker Kari Ayers. "Variety also will honor her lifetime commitment to charitable and humanitarian causes."In addition to her Oscar(R) and multiple Emmy(R) and Golden Globe(R) nominations, Shirley Jones is renowned for her role as the matriarch in the 1970's ABC television series "The Partridge Family.""Shirley will follow in the footsteps of Jack Benny, Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., Vincent Price, Ed Sullivan, Elizabeth Taylor and many other celebrities who have travelled to Las Vegas to support Variety Tent 39 and the local children served," added Ms. Ayers.Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas will feature free and ticketed events, including:"Red Carpet Ready" fashion shows, Friday and Sunday, Feb. 24 & 26, Noon to 6:00 p.m. hourly, during Fashion Show Mall. Free Admission.Variety Tent 39 Chief Barker's Celebrity Welcome Reception, Saturday, Feb. 25, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., in the Fantasy Sui! tes duri ng The Palms Casino Resort. Tickets: $95 per person.Oscar Night(R) Red Carpet with limousine arrivals by film, television and show business celebrities, Sunday, Feb. 26, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., during The Palms Casino Resort West Entrance and Brenden Theatres Lobby. Free Admission.Theater viewing parties for the live telecast of the 84th Academy Awards(R), Sunday, Feb. 26, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., during Brenden Theatres in The Palms Casino Resort. Tickets: $50 per person for General Admission; $125 per person/$200 per couple for admission to The Celebrity Theatre hosted by Kevin Burke, star of "Defending The Caveman."Oscar Night(R) After-Party during The Playboy Club in The Palms Casino Resort. Doors open during 9:00 pm. Cover Charge: $20 (Complimentary admission for Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas ticket holders).More information on Oscar Night(R) Las Vegas and online tickets are available atwww.ONALV.org.Contact name: Clinton BillupsContact Telephone: 702-837-1170Contact email: Clinton: billups@earthlink.netPowered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Taxation imbalance helps Las Vegas compete for Chinese New Year's traffic

2012-01-23T04:21:00.005-08:00

By Dave Berns (contact) Monday23 January 20122 a.m. The explosive growth of gambling markets in Macau and Singapore has prompted a question in Las Vegas as a Chinese New Year celebration gets under way.Why would an Asian high roller travel to a Strip to celebrate a lunar new year rather than visit a ultra-chic gambling salons of Asias gaming giants?Much of a answer can be found in a effective tax rates on gross gaming rates in a worlds three major gaming locales. It reaches 39 percent in Macau and 20 percent in Singapore, yet is only 6.75 percent in Nevada. Quite simply, a big three casino operators in those markets Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts are able to keep a larger share of their winnings in Las Vegas, and thats incentive enough for them to attempt to steer Asias biggest gamblers to a desert for a Chinese New Year.If youve got a high-end customer in Macau, it makes sense to get them to come to Las Vegas because a casino would end up keeping a much bigger chunk of a revenues, said Professor David Schwartz, director of UNLVs Center for Gaming Research.That being a case, a most lucrative two weeks for a high-end casinos of a Las Vegas Strip begins Monday when a Chinese calendar turns to 4710.The annual celebration features casino marketers, chefs and hotel executives along Las Vegas Boulevard unveiling special menus and entertainment for guests known to gamble up to six figures per hand via million-dollar lines of credit at a citys top baccarat and blackjack tables.The Year of a Dragon comes shortly after a close of a 12-month period in which Macau reported $33.5 billion in casino win, far surpassing a nearly $6 billion win expected for Las Vegas when final 2011 revenue reports are completed. The booming Singapore gambling market could generate as much as $9 billion this year.Yet Asian gamblers remain a key source of income for Las Vegas casinos.In fact, baccarat win a preferred game of Asian high rollers comprise! s a much larger share of a money lost by gamblers in Nevada today than it was in 2003, a year before a opening of Las Vegas Sands mammoth Macau resort.Nevada casinos, most of them on a Strip, won $365.9 million from baccarat players in 2003. A year later that figure jumped to $497.2 million, with a opening of Sands Macau-to-Las Vegas pipeline. During a 12-month period ending Nov. 30, baccarat players lost a record $1.3 billion in Nevada, with a Asia-to-Vegas connection in full swing courtesy of Sands, Wynn and MGM Resorts.That said, if a high-end customer wishes to travel to Macau or Singapore for Chinese New Year, a companies casino hosts will comply. Nonetheless, a upcoming festivities for Chinese New Year find some of Asias wealthiest families roving 12 hours to Las Vegas in large groups for as long as 10 days, prompting some of a citys most expensive restaurants to add larger tables to accommodate a partiers.If you have seven to 10 days to travel, customers overwhelmingly want to come to Las Vegas. They get much more value for their money, said Greg Shulman, vice president of international marketing for MGM Resorts International. When a guests travel 7,000 to 8,000 miles, theyre really focused. They dont have much time.Among a attractions awaiting visitors this year: An estimated 2,600 of MGM Resorts best casino customers, along with their family and friends, will gather Wednesday in a Bellagio ballroom for a 10-course banquet, entertainment and raffle with high-end cars as prizes. Asian restaurants throughout a companies' Strip properties will offer a variety of fresh seasonal dishes designed to appeal to a holiday travelers, especially a variety of noodle dishes, which represent a healthy and long life. Aria hotel-casino will host a million-dollar baccarat tournament that will offer a top prize of $1 million.Its a traditional Las Vegas nexus linking gambler, casino host, food and entertainment. The key difference circa Chinese New Year 4720: a symbiotic relationship between Macau, Singapore and a Strip.In ! some sen se, Las Vegas was always a hub in a hub-and-spoke model of domestic and global gaming travel, said one international casino industry consultant. In this case, Las Vegas is a spoke. Share Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas claims all 5 of the top hardest hit zip codes

2012-01-23T04:21:00.003-08:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - The housing collapse has dramatically changed a nation's foreclosure landscape. Neighborhoods boasting modern homes, cul-de-sacs and tree-lined streets in and around Western cities now dominate a list of a top 100 U.S. zip codes hit hardest by foreclosures and claim and comprise all of a top 10 spots, according to data generated for CNNMoney by RealtyTrac. In 2011, Western states claimed 82 of a 100 misfortune hit zip codes with 38 in California and another 28 in Nevada.That's quite a departure from when CNNMoney first looked at a top foreclosure zip codes in June 2007. Back then, a auto industry's ills had turned inner-city neighborhoods in Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis into foreclosure ground zero, with a three cities claiming 25 of a nation's 100 hardest hit neighborhoods.These older working-class neighborhoods were particularly blighted with vacant, repossessed homes lining a streets. In fact, they claimed 6 out of a list's top 10 spots.These days, however, many of a misfortune hit zip codes are communities that were built in a past decade or two in and around once-rapidly growing metro areas like Phoenix, San Bernardino, Calif. and Las Vegas, now a poster child of a foreclosure mess.In fact, Las Vegas claims all five of a top five hardest hit zip codes. The number one spot goes to a neighborhood in North Las Vegas (in zip code of 89031) that recorded 2,469 foreclosure filings last year, according to RealtyTrac.In California, a towns of Lancaster (93535), in a central part of a state, and Fontana (92336), near San Bernardino, claimed sixth and seventh place -- a highest finishers for any zip codes outside of Nevada.As far as regions go, a South claimed a second highest number of hardest hit zips with 14. Georgia claimed 12 of those neighborhoods, including one in Atlanta that took 10th place. Interestingly, not a single Northeastern zip code made RealtyTrac's top 100 list.Foreclosures can devastate housing marke! ts. Prop erties repossessed by a banks, called REOs, sell for 25% to 50% less than non-foreclosures, said RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist. Yet, a single foreclosure in an differently foreclosure-free neighborhood will rarely impact surrounding values, he said."In a normal, healthy housing market an REO sale is a exception and there are many other non-distressed sales that dilute a impact," he said.It's when REO sales rise to 20% or 30% of local sales, as they do in a hardest hit zip codes, that they really begin to affect prices, he said."That's when we start to see a average discount between REO sales prices and non-foreclosure sales prices dwindle, particularly in local markets where much of a REO inventory consists of relatively new homes built in a last few years," said Blomquist. "The more REO sales dominate a given market, a more they drag down overall home prices."In a neighborhood like 32811 in Orlando, Fla., which counted 275 homes with foreclosure filings in just one month last year, home prices have plunged dramatically.One three-bedroom in a area is currently listed for just under $40,000, for example. In 2005, that same home sold for $120,900, according to real estate agent Jerome Baker.Not only that, but a listing price is "a little bit on a high end," said Baker. "We'll probably have to lower it to $29,000 to generate some interest."In Fontana, Calif.'s 92336 zip code, a average home price has been cut in half since December, 2007, according to Zillow.A four-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot house, was recently listed for $200,500, down 57% from a $465,000 it last sold for in October, 2007.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Las Vegas oddsmaker sets early line for Super Bowl, and crosses his fingers

2012-01-23T04:21:00.001-08:00

Jay Rood has posted a most important number of a year to sports gamblers in Las Vegas and throughout a country.In Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5, a AFC champion New England Patriots [team stats] are favored to defeat a New York Giants by 3 1/2 points.Also of interest, a over/under for total points in a game is 55 1/2 points.Now, Rood, vice president of MGM Resorts supervising 12 race and sports books across Nevada, including Aria, MGM Grand, Mirage and a Bellagio on a Strip, waits for another seven figures of action to come his way.Q: How did you finalize those numbers?A: "We were originally looking at a Patriots as 4- or 4 1/2 point favorites, but this Giants performance here (defeating San Francisco, 20-17, in overtime) being so dominating on a road against tough competition, while a Patriots are not looking as good as they have been, I think its a good number."Q: What are you trying to accomplish in setting these numbers?A: "The fans want to bet a favorite and a over. Im hoping to generate enough volume on a underdog and under to set that off. With a Patriots winning, going into this weekend I preferred to have a Giants as a second team to help us split a money because of all of their fans."Q: There are gamblers who bring suitcases of cash into your books to try and gut you on your Super Bowl lines. Do those people arrive immediately or bide their time to only before kickoff?A: "Both things happen. They have their opinions on a game as soon as it emerges, and if they dont like my number, theyre here right away. That could happen to us now. The Giants bettors (Sunday) only cashed a ticket, and their team looked good, so they come right back and bet a Super Bowl based on what they saw and how that team let them cash a ticket. Yet, if they think a number will come their way even more, theyll bide their time."Q: Why are a Patriots favored?A: "Theyre business-like. They take care of business and win. People like that. They won (Sunday) without (Tom) Brady playing like Brady."Q: I saw a Giants! get to as high as 80-to-1 underdogs to win a Super Bowl earlier this season. Dont you need them to lose?A: "We opened them (in future-book betting) at 30 to 1, but they didnt get a lot of support until they got to 12/1 and then recently, they opened a playoffs at 18/1 even after being 25/1 in Week 14. We wont get that hurt if they win. The Giants have been struggling a last couple years. (Coach) Tom Coughlins been on and off a hot seat. Yes, they are extremely popular, but in regard to our risk, theyre middle of a road. The (Detroit) Lions and (Houston) Texans we needed out, a (Dallas) Cowboys werent good for us, either."Q: Youre up this season?A: "We were an overall winner for a season and playoffs. It was a little disappointing we didnt do better. Quite a bit of favorites to over combinations hit, and some obvious live (under)dogs hit. Its more and more challenging. People are much more savvy about what were looking at, and its more and more difficult to manage it, to draw money on a other side (favoring underdogs and a under) without exposing yourself. The numbers moved a lot this year because of that."Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

Despite Plea, Mayweather Again Denies Punching Mother Of His Children

2012-01-19T03:32:00.001-08:00

A month after pleading guilty to battery-domestic violence, champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. said he "absolutely" did not kick or punch the mother of three of his children in 2010.For the first time since taking a plea deal to end his Las Vegas criminal cases, Mayweather on Wednesday spoke publicly about the incidents that have netted him thousands of dollars in fines, 100 hours of community service, a year of counseling sessions and a yet-to-be-served 90-day jail sentence.The former Olympian spoke with reporters after a news conference where he fulfilled a promise made last year to donate $100,000 to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to fight breast cancer. Mayweather pledged to donate that amount in October, two months before pleading guilty in the domestic violence case. He said a family relative died from the disease.Wearing a pink sweater, white pants and a wide smile, Mayweather presented an oversized check to the foundation at his gym in Las Vegas' Chinatown, near Spring Mountain Road and Valley View Boulevard.Afterward, the undefeated boxer said he pleaded guilty to battery-domestic violence and no contest to two counts of harassment in December to put "all of these negative things" behind him.He then denied that he struck Josie Harris in September 2010."You've seen the O.J. and Nicole pictures, the Chris Brown, Rihanna pictures," Mayweather said, referring to well-known cases of celebrity domestic violence. "You guys have to ask yourself, 'Where are the pictures?' But you know things happen. Do I apologize? Absolutely. Did I kick and beat her? Absolutely not."Mayweather admitted he restrained Harris after an argument and tried to calm her down. "As far as punching, kicking, or beating? No I didn't do that. Absolutely not."Mayweather said he wishes Harris "nothing but the best" and described her as a "great woman."Harris filed a criminal complaint against Mayweather after the Sept. 9, 2010, incident. She said the boxer hit and kicked her because she was dating another man. Harris! also ac cused Mayweather of threatening their children by saying he would "beat their asses if they left the house or called the police" during the incident.But as the trial date neared, Harris moved to California and couldn't be reached by prosecutors and investigators preparing the case.Harris had made a similar allegation before. In 2003, she told police Mayweather beat her during an argument over another woman. When that case went to trial in 2005, Harris changed her story and told the jury Mayweather was a "teddy bear" who had never laid a hand on her. The boxer was acquitted.By October, prosecutors believed Harris no longer was cooperating in the latest case and sought to cut a deal with the boxer. Their only leverage was that they could force Mayweather's children to testify against him, something the boxer wanted to avoid.Mayweather said Wednesday he took the plea deal because it was the best thing for him to do and he didn't want to "drag my family through a public dispute."Mayweather also scoffed at the other criminal case he settled as part of his deal with prosecutors, a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from his poking a security guard over parking citations.Mayweather denied poking Smith. He pleaded no contest to the charge in December and paid a $1,000 fine.A police report of the November 2010 incident showed that a confrontation ensued after guard Shayne Smith cited two Mayweather vehicles for violating parking rules at the Southern Highlands Estates, where the boxer owns a $9.5 million, 12,000-square-foot mansion.Police said a photo of Smith showed redness on his face. Smith is suing Mayweather over the incident.The boxer had nothing bad to say about the court system or those who would put him in jail. "When it comes to the system, it is what it is. They work the way they want to work. I can't be mad at them at all."Mayweather said he looks at the 90-day jail sentence -- which was set to start Jan. 6 but was delayed until June 1 by Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa so the boxer could fight! an unkn own opponent May 5 -- as another obstacle."The only thing I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best and continue to do what I do," Mayweather said.The boxer said he will focus on the positive until it's time to turn himself in at the Clark County Detention Center. "When that day comes, it is what it is."Mayweather still faces a laundry list of legal troubles.The boxer has been linked to, but not charged in, a shooting in August 2009 outside the Crystal Palace Skating Center on Boulder Highway near Flamingo Road.Authorities allege that Ocie Harris, a Mayweather bodyguard, shot at a BMW carrying Quincey Williams and Damein Bland as the car left the skating rink. The car was hit six times. The victims allege the shooting occurred after Mayweather in jeopardy Williams' life over insulting text messages. No one was injured.Harris faces six felonies, including attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon. A trial is set for Feb. 6.Williams and Bland have filed a polite lawsuit against Mayweather over the incident.There are several other lawsuits against Mayweather pending in polite court over allegations that his bodyguards assaulted people at casinos and nightclubs in Las Vegas.Meanwhile, representatives of the Susan G. Komen foundation said 75 percent of the $100,000 donation will be used in Las Vegas, and the other 25 percent will be used to support national research efforts.Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@review journal.com or 702-380-1039.

Las Vegas: Video of dog confronting trapped bobcat angers animal rights activists

2012-01-18T03:28:00.005-08:00

1:45 p.m. update: LAS VEGAS (AP) A member of a Clark County wildlife advisory board is taking heat for a video he posted online of his dog barking and lunging at a bobcat in a trap.Some animal rights activists are calling for the removal of attorney and trapping expert Tracy Truman. He sits on the Clark County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife, which includes farmers and sportsmen who advise the Nevada Wildlife Commission.The minute-long video shot in December in the Spring Mountains shows a dog barking incessantly at a bobcat whose front paw is caught in a toothless trap. Truman's hand is seen holding the chain to the trap and pulling it to bring the cat closer to the dog.Truman says the video was posted on a forum to show fellow trappers how a well-trained dog doesn't have to touch or maul a trapped animal during an encounter. He said he didn't authorize it to appear on YouTube."This particular video was completely taken out of context," Truman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal (http://bit.ly/yDzApW). "This was something we had taken to show other people that you didn't have to have an animal that would do damage to a trapped animal, and now, I'm sort of being painted as the cruel and inhumane one because we took the video to show something exactly the opposite."Commissioner Tom Collins says the video showed model, restrained behavior for a trapping dog.But Gina Greisen, president of Nevada Voters for Animals, called the video "cruel and barbaric." She said she and the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society will tighter rules on trapping and possibly seek a statewide ban.Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak called the video "mean" and "disturbing.""It's extremely troubling to see an animal in that type of distress," Sisolak said. "This is cause for explanation, absolutely."A meeting between the commissioners and Truman had not been set as of Monday.

Outlook for Las Vegas retail centers remains turbulent

2012-01-18T03:28:00.003-08:00

TownSquare By Steve Green (contact) Wednesday18 January 20122 a.m. The retail sector of a commercial real estate market remains choppy in a Las Vegas area.In a probable repeat of 2011, some strip malls as well as shopping centers are expected to thrive in 2012, while others will likely face financial troubles because of high vacancy rates as well as tenants struggling to pay their rent.Last year was turbulent for a local retail sector, with owners of big centers Town Square Las Vegas as well as a District at Green Valley Ranch turning them over to lenders amid financial difficulties.Yet 2011 also saw a opening of Tivoli Village in western Las Vegas, home to plans for continued expansion with a $350 million, 700,000-square-foot Las Vegas Renaissance indoor mall across Alta Drive on Rampart Boulevard.Last year also saw WinCo Foods commit to a market as well as launch construction of two storesJohn Stewart, a principal at shopping center owner Juliet Companies, said this week that as far as neighborhood shopping centers go, centers anchored by such well-known national retailers as Target, Walmart as well as Kohl's all proven drivers of traffic to shopping centers were generally doing better during a recession than properties without such nationally prominent anchors."This really has shown a flight to quality," Stewart said.In a meantime, banks continue to sue underperforming centers that cant meet loan payments, as well as bankruptcies continue locally in a sector.Local advisory firm Applied Analysis last week reported a local retail vacancy rate was 10.6 percent in a fourth quarter.Thats up from 10.3 percent in a fourth quarter of 2010, but its an improvement from a 10.9 percent measured in 2011s third quarter.Confirming Stewarts argument about centers tending to do better if theyre anchored by national tenants, Applied Analysis found a lowest vacan! cy local ly at 7.2 percent in power centers places anchored by a likes of Best Buy as well as PetSmart.Any way a numbers are analyzed, a brutal damage inflicted by a recession is obvious in a Las Vegas area, which is littered with empty big-box as well as small-store retail space.Retail vacancies in 2006 as well as 2007 ran locally at just 3.2 percent as well as 4.1 percent, respectively. That means theyve more than tripled in six years, as well as experts expect them to remain high for years to come because of broader economic problems."Although economic signals suggest an economic recovery is under way, a debt overhang primarily caused by a housing market is likely to linger over consumers for years to come. With wealth continuing to shrink due to depreciating home values as well as limited income growth, a return to pre-recession demand levels in a commercial retail real estate market remains years away," Applied Analysis Senior Manager Jake Joyce said in his companys latest retail report.Ongoing troubles in a industry were illustrated Friday when OBannon Plaza LLC filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Las Vegas.OBannon owns a strip mall at 2201-2267 S. Rainbow Blvd., north of Sahara Avenue, which includes anchor Sin City Furniture Co.The mall appears to have a good amount of vacant store space, 6,000 square feet, at 2211 S. Rainbow Blvd., which was formerly occupied by Las Vegas Golf as well as Tennis. The bankruptcy filing notes OBannon as well as Las Vegas Golf as well as Tennis have been tied up in a lawsuit since 2007 over allegations Las Vegas Golf as well as Tennis was repeatedly burglarized as well as security at a mall was not adequate to prevent a break-ins.Elsewhere around town, U.S. Bank sued two strip mall owners last month, claiming they had defaulted on their loan payments. In each case, a bank is asking that a receiver be appointed to supervise a properties as well as collect a rents while a bank pursues foreclosure.One suit was filed in Clark County District Court against ! Las Vega s Plaza Ltd. LLC as well as a sister company, owner of a strip mall called The Plaza at Charleston at 5635, 5665 as well as 5695 E. Charleston Blvd., east of Interstate 515 as well as east of Nellis Boulevard. That center, which includes Anytime Fitness as a tenant, has several vacancies. The lawsuit says a centers owners have defaulted on $4.2 million in loans.Another suit was filed by U.S. Bank against Las Vegas Center Ltd. LLC, owner of a new but unoccupied center at 5705 as well as 5735 E. Tropicana Ave., east of Boulder Highway. That suit says a center owner has defaulted on a $3.8 million loan.Neither of a shopping center owners has responded to a lawsuits. Share

Las Vegas Economy Inching Up From Bottom Rankings

2012-01-18T03:28:00.001-08:00

The Las Vegas economy is inching out of last place.That's according to a new study that ranks growth among 200 metropolitan economies worldwide.The Brookings Institution's Global MetroMonitor placed Las Vegas at No. 179, an improvement over its 2010 rank, but a reminder that the city is still in recession, with recovery a long way off."You're certainly not back to where you were, but your relative position is improving," said co-author Alan Berube, senior fellow at Brookings, a Washington think tank with a local office. "I think that reflects the beginnings of recovery in the housing market, but more than that, it signals a pretty strong bounce-back in tourism."Despite its below-average rank, Las Vegas' economic trajectory is typical nationally. The local and U.S. economies have struggled to return to prerecession performance as developing markets in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe surge, Berube said. And like the rest of the country, Las Vegas made its boom-era nut mostly on domestic consumers, selling them retail goods, housing and liberality services. When the bust vaporized U.S. consumer demand, cities nationwide felt the pinch.But none like Las Vegas.The study compared data on annual income and employment growth from three time periods, beginning with 1993 to 2007, then throwing in the worst year of the recession (it varies by city). Finally, the study accounted for 2010 to 2011.From 1993 to 2007, Las Vegas had the world's 18th fastest-growing economy."Las Vegas was growing jobs faster than almost any other place on the globe," Berube said.And at the depths of the recession, Las Vegas had the 199th worst economy, second only to Athens, Greece -- the worldwide poster child for fiscal dysfunction.From 2010 to 2011, Las Vegas had the 179th fastest-growing economy.It's tough to compare that result to the Brookings Global MetroMonitor 2010, when Las Vegas ranked No. 145 out of 150. In the latest edition, researchers added 50 cities and included new indicators, such expanded industry-tracki! ng. But Berube said Las Vegas is headed in the right direction, mostly thanks to improvements in tourism.Nearly 30 percent of Southern Nevada's economy is in retail, trade and tourism, but those sectors accounted for 90 percent of regional economic growth in 2010 and 2011, Berube said.Nor is Las Vegas still the worst-performing U.S. city. Indianapolis, New Orleans, San Francisco, Atlanta, Kansas City, Mo., and Sacramento, Calif., all fared worse than Las Vegas.Cities ranking higher included Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y.To understand how Rust Belt cities posting decades-long declines could outpace Las Vegas for economic growth in the last year, consider their busts. Their downturns trace to a slump in manufacturing, while Southern Nevada's tough times related to a construction depression. Today, manufacturing is rebounding, as businesses worldwide replenish inventories and people in emerging markets begin buying cars and other consumer goods, Berube said.Meanwhile, construction languishes, particularly here. And it will for a while, thanks to excess inventories of homes and office parks, said Stephen Miller, an economics professor and department chairman in the Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Tourism gains and construction struggles outline the path back to local growth, Berube said. Just three U.S. cities -- Houston, Dallas and Rochester, N.Y. -- were among the 50 best-performing economies. Most of the top 50 were in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. So it's essential to extend the market's reach into markets in those regions."If you rely only on consumers in Las Vegas, California and the rest of the United States, it will be a very long road to recovery," Berube said.Revival will also come slowly if the city doesn't diversify away from its traditional concentration in liberality and construction. Building a lot of houses won't be a growth recipe going forward, Berube added.Miller agreed, noting that construction isn't likely to return to prerecession levels he! re. The industry employed around 12 percent of locals at its peak in 2006; it now employs roughly 5 percent, in line with the national industry average.Brookings published a November report recommending the state lure businesses in manufacturing, aerospace and defense, information technology, health care, logistics and distribution and clean energy. Gov. Brian Sandoval's Office of Economic Development is drawing up plans to recruit new companies and help existing businesses expand.It's "not impossible" for Las Vegas to pop back into the top 50 -- if it diversifies, Berube said."You're not going to grow jobs at 6 percent a year again anytime soon, but that's OK," he said. "The question now is, what is an attainable rate of growth, and what are the strategies to get there? "Shanghai topped the Brookings list. Athens ranked last.Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.

Gordon Ramsay opening restaurant in Vegas

2012-01-18T03:25:00.001-08:00

Paris Las Vegas Details Nevada Gambling Gordon Ramsay opening restaurant in Vegas 16 January 2012By Howard StutzLAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay, known for his fiery personality on the reality television shows Hells Kitchen, MasterChef and Kitchen Nightmares, will open a restaurant at Paris Las Vegas in the spring. Gordon Ramsay Steak will be his first restaurant in Las Vegas and will replace Les Artistes Steakhouse at the Strip resort. Vegas is such a vibrant city, Ramsay said. The space is really bold and innovative, and we've put together a great team and created a contemporary, quality menu. I can't wait to open and start welcoming guests. The steakhouse will have 274 seats including a large bar area, chefs table and private dining room. Few chefs in the world have extended their reputations to as many countries and into as many homes as Chef Ramsay, said Paris Las Vegas President David Hoenemeyer. Menu selections will range from traditional steakhouse fare to Ramsays signature fish and chips and shepherds pie. Copyright 2010 GamingWire. All rights reserved.

Hundreds Of Nevada National Guard Soldiers Return To Las Vegas

2012-01-16T04:53:00.005-08:00

More than 300 Nevada National Guard soldiers returned to Las Vegas on Sunday, completing a yearlong deployment that sent them to Afghanistan where they built, installed and maintained the largest communication network in the war zone.For twins Kamee Sills and Kelsi Washington, specialists in the 422nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion, the tour was a test of their mettle and endurance.For husband and wife Spc. Brian Aleman and Sgt. Kristle Aleman, it was about working together in the combat theater even though they were stationed about 100 miles apart.And, for Spc. Shaari Roland, a single mom who left her 1-year-old daughter with relatives in Las Vegas, Sunday's homecoming at Mandalay Bay was a true mother-and-child reunion."It was a life-changer that helped me grow up," Roland, 25, said about her deployment before doors opened and families rushed to their seats while the soldiers, clad in camouflage uniforms, stood at parade rest at the front of the ballroom.Her daughter, Kaitlyn, now 2, smiled at her mom while in the arms of Roland's sister, Stephanie Stark, who struggled to keep the little girl from bolting beyond the third row during the ceremony that featured nine speakers.When the commander shouted, "Dismissed," Kaitlyn darted across the carpet with outstretched arms while her mother knelt to hug her.It was a scene repeated a few hundred times by mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, husbands, wives, grandparents and friends who packed the South Seas ballroom.Dominique McNally was anxious to see his nieces, the 22-year-old twins, Sills and Washington.Their mother, Nadine Elliott, beamed with pride."They wanted to serve the country," she said. "When they were sending both of them over, I was hesitant but they were there together."Sills was "just happy to be home" after the long, tiring tour that had some eye-opening experiences."We had a few close calls with rocket attacks," she said about their assignment in Kandahar.Her sister, Washington, agreed. "It had its ups ! and down s like everything. But you work together and eat together and stay together and cry together," she said.Said Mom: "They were ready to come home."For the Alemans, going to the war zone was a testament to their marriage. They had served for three years in the same unit before they were tied together in October 2010.For Brian Aleman, reaching the front was a goal that came to fruition. He had been ready to fight for the United States since the sixth grade, when he watched on television the airliners hijacked by terrorists crash into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.Although they hadn't yet been tied together a year when they left for training on Jan. 7, 2011, and arrived in Afghanistan on March 28, they were together only three days.Brian was sent to Zabul to conduct Task Force Mercury network operations and Kristle stayed in Kandahar to monitor the heart of the network that provided communication to all U.S. and coalition troops through phones, radios and satellite systems."Basically, if it was anything that involved talking, we supported it," Brian said.Overall, the 485 soldiers in the battalion -- including more than 120 out of Casa Grande, Ariz. -- completed 14,000 hours of work and 50 cable-installation missions, all without casualties or serious injuries.Gov. Brian Sandoval thanked them for their service and said "every soldier in this room is now a part of history.""We are so proud of you and so glad to have you back safe and sound," he said. "Today more than ever, home means Nevada."Nevada Army National Guard commander, Brig. Gen. Frank Gonzales, having been to Afghanistan, noted that the 422nd soldiers were in "some of the most miserable areas I've ever been in but they made the best of it."The battalion's overseas commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Hansen, said looking over the room at the soldiers' families and friends "gives me goose bumps. Today is a great day. We're back on American soil.""To say I'm proud of them would be grossly understated."Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjo! urnal.co m or 702-383-0308.

Las Vegas Near Top of "Most Tattooed" List

2012-01-16T04:53:00.003-08:00

LAS VEGAS --LasVegas often finds itself near the top of the lot of lists, like foreclosures or unemployment. But the recent ranking puts the city at number two for tattoos. Totalbeauty.com recently ranked American cities with the most tattoo places. With 94 shops in the city limit, Las Vegas is behind only Miami Beach, FL. The ranking doesn't surprise the owner of Las Vegas Tattoo Parlor, Marc Brattin. He says he's been in the business the long time. And he believes there's the big reason for why Las Vegas is near the top. "Absolutely the tourists," Brattin said. "We're right across from The Strip, right on the freeway, people see us." Some tourists with tattoos don't agree. Kylee Hagler is visiting Sin City from Albuquerque, NM. Shehas five tattoos, but says she wouldn't get the tattoo while on vacation. "It's kind of an art of visual expression," Hagler said."Everyone can see them, there's the whole community of tattoo culture, you have the tattoo, someone else has the tattoo, you just connect with that person, you get to meet the lot of new people that way." A tattoo is just like any other service in Nevada, and customers are charged the sales tax of 8.25 percent. And with tattoos easily running hundreds of dollars each, that means the lot of extra money into the local economy.