Print edition for April 6, 2006

A woman's place: Melanie Troxel is pleasantly surprised to have advanced to all four Top Fuel finals this season and five in a row dating from last year's season finale. She's also quite happy to be leading the National Hot Rod Association's Top Fuel points standings going into this weekend's NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Letter: There's no such thing as freeway 'fast lane': As a reminder, there are no so-called "fast lanes." The posted speed limit is the limit as stated in all 50 states in their rules of the road, fast lane or not.

Angry investors form group to go after Orcutt: Leanne Njus, one of more than 500 investors in the company that built the cabins at Mount Charleston, said she and others are contributing to a legal fund. Kirk Lenhard, an attorney with high-powered law firm Jones Vargas, is working with the group.

A question of religious rights: David Kihara; Tiffany Pugh was not a good mother, and she's the first one to admit it.

Editorial: Comment is a real bomb: Still, James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, created a lingering cloud of questions by saying last week that the bomb test represents "the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons (in 1963)." This is not the type of remark that sits well in a region where people were repeatedly exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests.

Idaho band brings old-school punk to Vegas: Jerry Fink; "We're pretty much loud, fast, trashy punk rock," drummer Scott Rozell said. "A lot of people say we're older-school sound as opposed to a lot of the stuff coming out now."

Children's advocates call for openness: David Kihara; A court's decision this week to open records on child deaths doesn't go far enough, child advocates said.

Rural Nevada towns get advice on tourism promotion: AP; Roger Brooks, who has toured dozens of Nevada communities, outlined his views at the Nevada Commission on Tourism's annual "Rural Roundup" conference, cautioning against town slogans such as the one for Beaver, Okla. - "Cow Chip Capital."

Letter: Life isn't 'fair' in the real world: Mr. Lombardo apparently has made it through some college and seemingly does not yet know or understand that the United States is, for the most part, a "hire at will" economy.

John Katsilometes takes a tour of Cherry Nightclub - and waxes on about Tupac at Madame Tussauds: But there I stand, confused and bemused, and ask the man to my left why the urinals should be shaped like a female mouth.

Letter: Immigrants already here should be legal: Conservative talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity, with whom I often agree, rely almost exclusively on this point to discourage what they call amnesty. In this case, Hannity and others who rely on it are wrong.

Colorful Vegas character Wright dies at 101: "My mother would say to them, 'Honey, you look fabulous - did you lose weight?' " longtime Southern Nevada resident Mary Fox said. "It really boosted their confidence to think they could fit into smaller-sized clothes.

Making salad is art when the dressing is 'Fluxus': Each "event" - there are 12 in all - has its own instructions that Knowles is to interpret and perform before a small audience while her daughter delivers a lecture titled "The Multiple Intelligences of Fluxus."

Striking gold in Boulder City?: It's not even on the ballot yet, but if a proposed land sale reaches Boulder City voters in November, it may not be necessary to wait for exit polls to predict a landslide.

Editorial: Bush betrays Nevada again: The Energy Department, at the bidding of President Bush, proposed to do away with the current limit on how much waste can be stored at Yucca if it opens. The department wants a "standard" that says fill up the mountain with as much as can possibly be crammed into it.

Party unity comes up short: By J. Patrick Coolican; Jim Gibson trades votes for campaign money. So does Dina Titus.

April 26 execution set for Nevada death row inmate: AP; State Corrections Director Glen Whorton on Wednesday set the date for Mack's lethal injection, following an order issued last week by a judge in Reno to proceed. The execution had been scheduled for late last year but was stayed by the state Supreme Court.

Q+A STEVE YEAGER: Ron Kantowski, Las Vegas Sun; Yeager also invented the protective catcher's throat flap, an offshoot of being struck by a broken bat while standing in the on-deck circle.

Editorial: Struggling over aid for AIDS: According to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, which investigates federal programs for Congress, AIDS prevention teams in 17 of the 20 countries that receive U.S. financial aid say delivery of effective programs is difficult because a requirement to integrate such efforts with local cultural norms typically conflicts with the ideological requirements attached to the money.