Print edition for June 17, 1999

Complaints rise over private mailbox rule: Bob Mosier and Ray Accetta are trying to market their Kool Kart form-fitting golf cart covers to a national market from their Las Vegas base.

Gaming exec is still in hospital: Park Place Entertainment Corp. of Las Vegas issued that surprise announcement Wednesday.

LV attorney floods court with fen-phen suits: David Strow; A flood of lawsuits over the weight loss drug "fen-phen" is hitting Clark County District Court.

UNLV volleyball team gets five transfers: The five new additions to the program are Shannon Chase, Alicia Erickson, Oge Fitz, Maria Julia Goes and Robyn Shea.

Las Vegans open hearts for Albertson's: Cheryl Miller; The fund created to aid the families of victims of the June 3 Albertson's shooting has topped $21,000 thanks to a $10,000 contribution from local Lucky supermarket workers and numerous, smaller gifts from Albertson's employees, customers and Las Vegas businesses.

Nuke panel to review proposed radiation limits: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission listened to frustrated Nevadans who fear the agency will rubber stamp a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and members promised to review proposed radiation limits.

National, America West expand in LV: It's the sixth destination for the carrier that began operations in late May.

Las Vegan to compete in X-Games: Las Vegan to compete in X-Games

Officer cleared in killing returns to patrol duty: Metro Police Officer Bruce Gentner, who was cleared in a coroner's inquest after killing an unarmed man April 12, has been returned to regular duty in southwest Las Vegas -- serving in a one-man patrol vehicle, just as he was the night of the shooting.

Rollie Fingers at Fashion Show: Rollie Fingers at Fashion Show

Greenspan suggests Fed may raise rates: "Modest preemptive actions" can prevent "developing unbalances" from threatening an economic expansion that Greenspan said so far is showing few signs of inflation, he said.

Ralph Siraco's selections for Friday's races at Hollywood Park: 1ST RACE:

Butterbean, McNeeley plan to steal show: Dean Juipe; Every now and then an undercard fight comes along that is all but certain to upstage the main event. It'll have the drama and the excitement that the headlined fight lacks.

Friday at Belmont Park: 1st race 6 fur F&M 3YO & up Alw: 1 Broken Hill (Fuller) 121; 2 Sai gone (Gryder) 114; 3 Medical Mischief (Diego) 116; 4 Twinkle Little One (Santos) 114; 5 Distinctual (Migliore) 123; 6 Doc Caselli (Smith) 109; 7 Blues Sistah (Espinoza) 121; 8 Dr. Distinctive (Velasquez) 114.

Columnist Janie Greenspun: New pet standards applauded: Janie Greenspun; A public hearing was held Tuesday to amend Title 10 of the Clark County Code, Chapter 10.04, to add sections and chapters with a whole lot of numbers after them, which basically "define professional animal handlers and set minimum standards for professional facilities which house, care for and offer animals for sale to the public. ..."

Friday at Hollywood Park: 1st race 6 fur 4YO & up Clm: 1 CJ's Ransom (Garcia) 115; 2 Pennysaver (Flores) 116; 3 Dave's Prize (Black) 116; 4 Prized Policy (Ramsammy) 121; 5 Retsina Queen (Culberson) 116; 6 Bean Sum Fun (Valdez) 116.

Community briefs for June 17, 1999: Metro Police and the Nevada Highway Patrol will compete in several unusual events tonight for charity.

American Legion Baseball Standings: (Through July 15)

Fight schedule: At Youngstown, Ohio, (ESPN2), Hector Camacho, Orlando, vs. P.J. Goossen, Hollywood, 10, junior middleweights.

Make Room for Emmy: Erin Neff; Esther Jane Paul has become something of an awards show pro.

Columnist Joe Delaney: Recapping a long, working European vacation: Joe Delaney; After three years teaching in Montreux in January, spring and the flowers that abound everywhere -- especially on the walk around Lac Leman -- should have been a big improvement, weatherwise, had it not rained almost every day.

Friday at Golden Gate Fields: 1st race 6 fur 4YO & up Clm: 1 Intimidate (Meza) 119; 2 Space Groom (Barton) 119; 3 Dancewithooooslady (Lopez) 119; 4 Sojourn (Baze) 119; 5 Dave's Moment (Gonzalez) 117; 6 Star Wind (Castro) 119.

Teamsters, Culinary contracts approved: The hard count workers voted 7-0 to join the union during a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election June 15. The union said the workers are the first gaming employee unit to join the Teamsters, and the first hard count department in Las Vegas to request union representation.

Officials hint at local CART race: Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) chairman Andrew Craig were in the same room Wednesday, but they weren't brokering a deal to bring a CART race to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas news briefs for June 17, 1999: A 75-year-old woman was found shot to death in her southeast Las Vegas mobile home Wednesday night.

State computer breakdown forces two-day gun-sale halt: By Cy Ryan; CARSON CITY -- A glitch in the state's computer system kept Nevada gun dealers cooling their heels for two days before they could sell their firearms.

Grads with B averages to get state scholarships: CARSON CITY -- The state will start giving out money next year to Nevada high school graduates who achieve a B average.

Goodman details holdings: Erin Neff; After stumping for broader financial disclosure requirements of candidates as he ran for mayor, Oscar Goodman took his own advice to heart Wednesday by releasing additional information about his real estate holdings.

Distribution center to close in Henderson: The company is changing its strategy of consolidating tire and automotive parts distribution by relocating to four sites closer to Big O retail stores. The company will open smaller facilities in Denver, Phoenix, Sacramento and Ontario, Calif.

Friend of victims describes crime scene: Bill Gang; A friend of four young men who were bound with duct tape and executed with bullets to the head told the jury at Sikia Smith's murder trial of discovering the grisly scene after the Aug. 14 massacre.

Rawson: No formal offer of dean post: Art Nadler and Cy Ryan; The main proponent of a dental school in Southern Nevada denied rumors Thursday that he has been asked to accept the prestigious deanship of the school.

Future uncertain as Mining Expo opens: Sandra Chereb; The 14th Annual Mining Expo kicked off Wednesday night with a dinner featuring Gov. Kenny Guinn. Other keynote speakers scheduled include Rob Giebel, vice president of P&H MinePro Services, Bruce Vincent, president of Alliance for America, and John Willson, chief executive of Placer Dome U.S. Inc.

Goodman holds series of meetings: Erin Neff; In the first of what will be weekly status reports, Oscar Goodman this morning discussed how he has been learning about city issues, staff and how to run council meetings as the mayor.

Gaming industry awaits release of report: WASHINGTON -- The casino industry remains cautious, but in high spirits, as the National Gambling Impact Study Commission prepares to release its long-awaited report Friday.

Wrestlers seek new site for LV resort: John Wilen; The World Wrestling Federation wants to sell the former Debbie Reynolds hotel-casino on Convention Center Drive and is considering at least three other Las Vegas sites for its wrestling-themed resort, say Debbie Reynolds time-share unit owners and a local real estate agent.

Southwest, other discount airlines taking business from rivals: Susan E. Miller; Southwest Airlines Co., the biggest low-fare airline, and smaller carriers such as Frontier Airlines Inc. gained business last month at the expense of larger rivals, in part as travelers sought lower-priced tickets.

IGT general counsel to retire: McKay, 54, has been with IGT since January, 1994. Before that, he was Nevada's attorney general for eight years. His career also included a three-year stint as partner at the Lionel Sawyer & Collins law firm in Reno.

Strip restaurant wins delay in battle over bridge: Adrienne Packer; Rosewood Grille owners took another step Wednesday to prevent their successful restaurant from being suffocated by massive hotel-casinos when they convinced Clark County commissioners to put a proposed pedestrian bridge on hold.

Arena on hold: Lisa Snedeker; Drive past the construction site of The Millennium Arena in North Las Vegas and it doesn't take a contractor to determine the doors won't be open in August for the annual Shrine circus.

Legislative hotline receives 28,000 calls: CARSON CITY -- More than 28,000 calls were received by the Nevada Legislature's hotline during the session, which ended May 31.

NLV: Council rejects proposed tavern: Sonya Padgett; North Las Vegas has too many taverns and not enough family restaurants, residents told city officials Wednesday night as it considered an application for another pub.

Regents meet to decide fate of chancellor: CARSON CITY -- University and Community College Chancellor Richard Jarvis will have to wait another week before he learns whether he will retain the job he has held since October 1994.

Senators to look at other options for burying waste: Key senators have agreed to re-examine the policy of the United States to bury high-level nuclear waste permanently, most likely 1,000 feet beneath Yucca Mountain.

Old LV avenue to get a new look: The money, provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation, will widen sidewalks and provide large canopy trees, public plazas, covered walkways, public art, decorative lighting, benches and kiosks for what the city calls its "Lewis Street Project."

New research suggests more crime near casinos: Marlon Manuel; ATLANTA -- Move a casino into your back yard and it's probably not going to kill you. But every other major crime tracked by the FBI will go up within four years after a casino comes to town, according to a study done jointly by professors at the University of Georgia and the University of Illinois.

Las Vegas airline, visitor volumes surge: Separately, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said April visitor volume of 2.8 million people increased 9.1 percent from April 1998. Driven by the opening of the Bellagio and Mandalay Bay resorts, year-to-date visitation through April was up 9 percent from 1998, the LVCVA said.

La. ban to stand: The justices did not explain their decision Monday; they simply refused to hear the case. The entire opinion read, "Denied."

Gaming chips collector show begins: Eric Feigenbaum; Most people don't care so much what their gaming chips and tokens look like, so long as they're not losing them.

B of A is hedging on privacy policy: Bank of America said Wednesday that its ban on sharing information about customers with third-party marketers will be less complete than it had previously announced.

Death of Alzheimer's patient who left nursing home probed: Angie Wagner; Authorities are trying to determine what killed a 91-year-old Alzheimer's patient whose sunburned body was found several hours after she wandered away from a North Las Vegas nursing home in triple-digit heat.

LV firm's profit increases: Revenues increased from $2.3 million last year to $3 million.

Love Shack, baby: Geoff Carter; I knew exactly two things about Love Shack before I saw the local group in action at the Shark Club.

MGM chief warns of political showmanship in wake of gambling report: Kiley ussell; The National Gambling Impact Study Commission report contains 76 recommendations, including setting a national minimum age for gambling at 21, helping problem gamblers and curbing political contributions by the gambling industry.

Summers says his challenge will be to stay the course: The committee's chairman, William Roth, R-Del., said his panel expects to vote on and approve Summers' nomination on Tuesday. "I think it would be overwhelming" Roth said of the committee's support for the nomination.

Two 16-year-olds face murder charges in death of one's father: Leddy charged Robles with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and Iverson with being a principal to murder with a deadly weapon. Both Elko teens also were charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Man killed after car chase was wanted for shooting girlfriend: The 35-year-old Sacramento man was wanted by police for shooting his girlfriend in the shoulder on May 20. It was not his first criminal act.

Laura Myers named a Washington news editor: Myers joined the AP in Reno, Nev., in 1987. She also worked in the AP's San Francisco bureau and was correspondent in San Jose, Calif., until 1992, when she joined the Peace Corps in Africa.

Nellis says military aircraft will be Y2K compliant: For three years, the Defense Department has been preparing for any computer glitches that might be encountered at the turn of the century, Avella said Wednesday.

'Tarzan': Monkey business -- rewriting the jungle book: Janet Maslin; Every age gets the "Tarzan" it deserves, from the gung-ho jungle swinger of Johnny Weissmuller's day to the culture-shocked repatriated Englishman of the 1984 "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes."

House approves measure to add two federal judges in Nevada: Nevada has four federal district court judges in addition to two senior judges who handled limited caseloads.

U2 in Vegas: A Sort of Homecoming: Geoff Carter; Bono has always been one for hiding in plain sight. Scarcely five minutes into the opening of their PopMart world tour, he let U2's mission statement slip.

Teammates to honor player who died in crash: Spencer Patterson; For Chaparral's American Legion baseball, the remainder of the 1999 summer season will be about something far more important than wins and losses.

Carson Nugget owner Howard Adams dies at 90: The brothers started their business with slot houses in Idaho and Oregon, then worked a dozen years in Las Vegas and bought the Carson Nugget in 1957. Over four decades, Howard and Hop Adams built up the small casino until it was the largest casino in Carson City.

Columnist Ron Kantowski: Regular fans counted out of De La Hoya fight: It has been said that everybody has his price, and that holds for the Las Vegas hotel-casinos that are hoarding tickets for the much-awaited Oscar De La Hoya-vs.-Felix Trinidad fight at Mandalay Bay.

Columnist Dean Juipe: Sample to take stab at knocking off Zab: Dean Juipe; David Sample has fought for a long time without making any serious headway.

Free cancer screenings set for low-income women: Saturday's free screenings will be held at the Community Health Center, Nucleus Plaza, 916 W. Owens Ave., beginning at 10 a.m. The June 24 screenings will be part of a job fair at the Primm Valley hotel-casino Conference Center from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Letter: Midwives work well with doctors when lawyers stay out: Pregnancy is not a medical condition, and birth is not a medical event. Birth is as safe as life itself.

Sosa's return to ring delayed: Dean Juipe; Among fighters and within the gym, Merqui Sosa is still regarded as a very tough guy.

Letter: Clinton skeptics have good reason: Where were the Clintons and the NATO peacekeepers in 1995, when over 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed by Croatia?

Editorial: Work environment is much safer today: But in the early part of this century, workers in this nation faced significant risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a study released Friday that didn't generate much fanfare, noted that changes in the workplace have resulted in a dramatic turnaround in on-the-job safety. In 1913 there were about 23,000 industrial deaths for the 38 million people in the work force, which translated to 60.5 deaths for every 100,000 workers. By 1997, however, the number of deaths fell to 5,100, or about 4 deaths per 100,000 workers.

Abiecunas shoots 71, makes move to defend Legacy title: Spencer Patterson; By the stoic look on Nancy Abiecunas' face as she walked off the course at the Legacy Golf Club Wednesday, you'd never have guessed the Colorado native just shot a two-under-par 71 at the Las Vegas Founders' junior championship.

Editorial: Placing a bull's-eye on Nevada: On Wednesday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed Murkowski's proposal that would have the government assume title of the radioactive waste, but not move it to Nevada unless a construction permit is provided for its permanent disposal. This plan was hailed by some as a "compromise" since Murkowski has been advocating that Nevada become a temporary storage site for nuclear waste (the reality being that a "temporary" repository would become a "permanent" one in short order).

Police try to identify three bodies: Detectives are also trying to identify the body of a man found in the Truckee River in Sparks on Tuesday.

Obituaries for June 17, 1999: Jerry Dean Abney, 66, of Las Vegas died Monday in Las Vegas. He was born June 2, 1933, in Tuscola, Ill. A resident for 40 years, he was retired from the mobile home industry and was a Korean War Army veteran.

Riverboat to re-open: Eighty-three rooms in the east tower will be open for the weekend. The rest of the tower will open in about three weeks, and all 115 rooms in the west tower by the end of July, Cal-Neva officials said.

Canada geese moved to new home: To try to control the geese population from getting out of hand, young birds are routinely gathered up and shipped to greener pastures.

Family mourns slain owner of Las Vegas beauty salon: In just about everything he did, Jack "Fabulous Rick" Lepgold was a perfectionist.

Head of his class: Dean Juipe; Manny Sobral's list of exceptional qualities is lengthy enough that it's entirely possible he's the least typical professional boxer in the sport.

Letter: Burros not best thing for desert: He wants us to provide them water and food so he can drive by in his car and show them to out-of-towners.

Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: Justice for state workers: THE NEVADA SUPREME Court last week sent a strong message to Elko District Court Judge J. Michael Memeo, District Attorney Gary D. Woodbury and several local people who served on a grand jury for that county. The message tells them that the laws of Nevada have to be followed even in that most northeastern section of the Silver State. The Supreme Court goes on to remind them that state employees are also citizens and can't be beaten up on just because local residents don't like the law they are enforcing.

Goodman says his clientele won't be a problem: Robert Macy; "Nobody's going to worry," Goodman said Thursday, speaking at his first news conference since being elected in a landslide June 8. "The planes are not going to stop at the state line. The cars are not going to stop at the border. The world is very senstive that Las Vegas has a new mayor, and they're taking to it like a duck to water."

Forest Service, Gibbons mix it up over Jarbidge cemetery: The agency would consider selling the land to the county or perhaps trading the 2-acre parcel for like land, Deputy Forest Service Chief Ron Stewart said today in Washington.

McCarran plans new terminal: (C) 1999 Las Vegas Sun

Defense attorney says suspect in quadruple slaying is mildly retarded: The attorney asked a District Court jury to consider Smith's mental condition and whether he knew right from wrong.

Fluoridation hot topic for Legislature: The legislation that drew the most public comment was AB284, which originally would have required fluoride be added to public water systems in Washoe and Clark counties. The amended version will put the question to Clark County voters in November and exempts the rest of the state.

Columnist Steve Carp: Mistakes still plague minor sports: Steve Carp; So, roller hockey is back? Another minor league pro basketball team wants to give it a go? And yet another pro soccer franchise thinks it can do what the others couldn't?