Print edition for January 7, 2006

Hold tight to the vision: Molly Ball; Eye doctors call it the "silent thief": By the time your peripheral vision starts to shrink and you find out you have glaucoma, it is probably too late. There is probably nothing you can do to prevent total blindness.

Rawls flirted with hotel ownership: There is no question singer Lou Rawls made a good living on stages in Las Vegas and throughout the world.

Editorial: Criticism of mad cow rules: According to the Associated Press, comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration say stricter measures are needed to prevent infected meat from getting into the food supply for cattle, which are then consumed by people. The FDA has proposed new guidelines for safe feeding of cattle that fall "woefully short" of what is needed, according to critics that include seven scientists and McDonald's Corp.

Loss of an Icon a threat to market: Jennifer Shubinski; While the Related Cos.' vaunted Icon towers will never cast a shadow over the Las Vegas Strip - their demise is casting a shadow of a different kind.

Editorial: County comedy of errors: The Las Vegas Sun reported Friday that Clark County Business License officials cited the theater in December for presenting a gay-themed comedy that included glimpses of male nudity. It's a tragic sort of comedy in a city where sex and nudity in many forms and configurations are hawked on everything from taxicab placards to billboards in full view of a public that may or may not want to see it.

Akron's Sanchez accepts Rebels post in a zip: Mario Sanchez didn't hesitate when UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick called Tuesday to offer him the job as coach of the men's soccer team.

Letter: Grudge should not come before safety: Las Vegas continues to be the largest growing area in the country and has the largest tourist population in the entire United States.

Columnist Tom Gorman: One man's view of Las Vegas in 20 years: You probably heard the news that Boyd Gaming wants to replace the venerable Stardust with a $4 billion complex featuring 5,300 hotel rooms, shops, restaurants and convention space, to be called Echelon Place. It's supposed to open in about five years.

Nevada Cancer Institute looks at expansion plans: By Ed Koch; The American Cancer Society says 11,120 new cancer cases were diagnosed in Nevada last year.

Flashpoint for Jan. 7, 2006: Grover Norquist loves Danny Tarkanian. So we learned Friday when Tarkanian, who wants to be secretary of state, announced he had signed Norquist9s nationally circulated pledge to "oppose any and all efforts to increase taxes." I don't mean to pick on Tarkanian - although the job he is seeking has nothing to do with tax policy -- but to make this point: How asinine. This is the dumbing-down of politics epitomized by such meaningless pledges. Not only is it ludicrous for any candidate to sign such a pledge- who knows what circumstances will arise? But none will be able to ...

Letter: RTC working hard to satisfy traffic needs: Gil Eisner writes about a nonproductive bureaucracy controlling traffic signals in a Jan. 5 letter and refers to an earlier letter to the Sun by Richard Law about the same. Neither apparently spent time talking to the RTC about traffic light synchronization.

Coach is bullish on Toros: John Kennedy's thick accent hits a listener like a pint of Skullsplitter Strong Ale, a distinctive brew with a powerful kick from his native Scotland.

Editorial: Cosmic time capsule returns: The Stardust spacecraft is to jettison a capsule that is scheduled to land just before 2 a.m. on Jan. 15 in a remote region of Utah's western desert. It will end a historic mission to bring to Earth samples of dust from areas of deep space that lie beyond the Earth-moon orbit -- a first for the United States.

Flu hits hard in the West: During the last week of 2005, roughly eight out of every 100 patients seeing doctors or arriving at clinics in the Las Vegas Valley had flulike symptoms.

Letter: 'Brokeback' a hit at box office, actually: The second week "Brokeback Mountain" ended up No. 8, showing on only 69 screens -- by far the smallest number of screens of movies in the top 10. After four weeks and expanding to just 269 theatres, "Brokeback Mountain" is still the top grossing movie per screen of the top 20, with $18,020 per screen. It is far from a box-office flop.