Print edition for December 30, 2005

Prisons defend cost vs. security: David Kihara; Each year dozens of inmates walk away from their prison terms -- before they're supposed to.

Beyond the velvet rope: Liz Benston and Launce Rake; Dazzling the eye, deafening the ear and punishing the pocketbook, a new generation of nightclubs is seducing affluent partyers and winning over once-skeptical casino executives on the hunt for new profit centers.

Editorial: Stay strong on meth bill: The postponement of the Patriot Act has bought time for the drug industry and its allies in the Bush administration to water down the cold-medicine bill or perhaps kill it outright. Fearing loss of sales, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry have been successful for years in stifling similar legislation.

Editorial: Put a priority on cross-walks: The Clark County Public Works Department says the crosswalks at Decatur and Pennwood are the responsibility of Las Vegas. The city's traffic engineering division says its crews went out in September to repaint the crosswalks to the east of the intersection, but those crosswalks to the west fall under the county's jurisdiction.

Anger lingers over blasting mishap: Amid growing anger among residents over a construction blast suspected to have damaged more than 100 homes last week, Henderson officials may reissue a permit allowing the blasting to resume as early as Tuesday.

Excuse the Interjection: Ron Kantowski's take: You mean like the old days? Absolutely. I can still remember my dad telling me to shag the little 9-inch black-and-white TV from my bedroom and to stack it on top of the console, so we could watch the Cotton Bowl and the Sugar Bowl at the same time. Of course, I also think the World Series should be played during daytime.

Editorial: Are we really any more safe?: Two reports released this week, however, have cast doubt on whether the agency is really an improvement over the government's pre-9/11 organization. One report, prepared for the 13 Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, cites 33 pledges that remain unfulfilled by the department. Among them are pledges to screen for radioactive materials at border crossings and major airports and seaports, to install surveillance cameras at high-risk chemical plants and to complete emergency planning for vulnerable buildings and infrastructure.

Columnist Jeff Haney on beating the odds by using correlated parlays on this weekend's NFL games: It's usually difficult to make a case for betting a two-team parlay -- a wager involving two separate events in which both must win for the ticket to cash.

Columnist Tom Gorman: On the horrors of hosting a party. How much food and drink do you buy?: If you throw big parties at your house, tell me how you do it.

Could hot streak melt arena ice?: The moment Las Vegas Wranglers coach and general manager Glen Gulutzan began surveying his Orleans Arena locker room late Tuesday night, he liked what he saw and heard.

A clubbing New Year's Eve: In no particular order, here is a sampling of what's happening at some of Las Vegas' roughly two dozen nightclubs:

Letter: Conflict in Middle East is inevitable: Bush says we won't accept anything but complete victory. I don't know what constitutes victory in his mind, and I seriously doubt he has a clue either.

Letter: Cab drivers make an honest living: As a driver for Checker Cab, it pains me to see someone who has little knowledge about the cab industry expressing an unjust opinion about our money. Our money is regulated by the Internal Revenue Service, as a certain percentage is being taken out as per our agreement with them.

Letter: 'Brokeback' is a mountain of hype: Then I started to look at the numbers. This movie may just be the biggest box-office bomb of the year. It opened in limited release in the densely populated citadels of liberalism -- New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco (with a nationwide release slated for January). It earned $544,549 the first weekend while "The Chronicles of Narnia" earned $67.1 million. By Christmas, it had only netted a paltry $4.9 million after two weeks, while "King Kong" earned 20 times that in only eight days.