Judging by the voluminous options available to those seeking to inject Bovine botulinum into their wrinkles, Nevada could be the Botox capital of the country. Add to that laws and a regulatory scheme that are sorely lacking and you’ve got the makings of a nerve-paralyzing Nirvana, where medical assistants (a designation neither recognized nor regulated under Nevada law and only defined by the Nevada Administrative Code) openly break the law in any number of private settings, medical spas and doctors’ offices - including the office of Dr. Benjamin Rodriguez, who was reappointed today by Governor Gibbons to another term on the State Board of Medical Examiners.

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In mid-May Henderson police responded to a noise disturbance at the Hardwood Suites, an extended-stay hotel on Eastern. Inside one suite they found 21 Coronado high school students “chaperoned” by the mother of one of the teens and the mother’s boyfriend. A police spokesman says the mom, Cindy McCormick, admitted to buying booze for the party. McCormick, who was pregnant, was not drinking. Henderson police charged McCormick and her boyfriend with 21 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and threw the two in jail.

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Danny Gans’ friends and family maintained that the late entertainer had little use personally for prescription drugs, though his death in May was from an overdose of Dilaudid, (the generic is Hydromorphone) a painkiller. The source of the drug that killed Gans has not been identified.

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Certified letters almost always hearken bad news - in my case, usually something I’ve neglected with the potential for devastating consequences. So imagine my delight to find a certified letter in my Channel 8 mailbox that has languished there for more than a month. And imagine my relief to find it was only from the police.

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UNLV’s acting president says he wants the permanent gig. Dr. Neal Smatresk moved up the ladder from provost to president following the unceremonious dumping of former president David Ashley.

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Congressman Dean Heller says the revelation of U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s affair played into his decision not to seek U.S. Senator Harry Reid’s seat, but Heller says news of the tryst was not the deciding factor. What was?

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We hear all the time from litigants who feel they’ve been wronged in court that the judge and opposing party must have shared some undisclosed connection. The concern regarding relationships often has merit, especially in a small town like ours, where judges, attorneys and litigants are likely to have crossed paths. But whether the association colors a judge’s rulings is an entirely different matter. Judicial ethics require judges to put those relationships on the record before rendering any decisions so that litigants are fully informed and able to assess their options.

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Now that state gaming control and local business license officials are getting around to cracking down on “lewd” behavior on the Las Vegas Strip, they may want to take a ...

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Doug Hampton, the man whose wife had an affair with U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), has been the hottest “get” in news circles (with the exception of his wife, Cindy) since Ensign admitted the affair at a brief news conference last month. Well, we got him and you can watch the first of our exclusive two-part interview tonight on Las Vegas ONE, Cox Cable channel 19. The Sun will post the program to its website Wednesday, too, for those who don’t have cable.

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Cries of cronyism have long emanated from critics of Nevada’s Board of Medical Examiners. In fact, the board’s regular members were found to be so closely tied to Dr. Dipak Desai that Gov. Gibbons appointed special members to adjudicate the cases involving Desai’s endoscopy clinics. Now, those presumably independent physicians have unanimously sided with restoring privileges to Dr. Eladio Carrera, one of Desai’s partners. In exchange, Carrera promises to help make the case against Desai and others.

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