John Katsilometes gives the results of his phone checkup with U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter, who has recovered after spending 11 days in September in the hospital

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

As Jack Carter grinned and gripped during an appearance at the fourth anniversary of First Friday in the Arts District, a woman approached him to report, "I heard you had a heart attack."

Not so. But the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate's extended stay at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center last month has led to concern about what it was, exactly, that knocked him off the campaign trail for much of September. (Carter was admitted on Sept. 7 and released Sept. 17.) Carter's official condition was described as colitis, an inflammation of the large intestine. But after a battery of tests conducted by several infectious disease doctors, Carter said over the weekend that food poisoning triggered the symptoms.

"The net result of it was that they suspect it's some sort of food poisoning," Carter said during a phone conversation (which included his wife, Elizabeth, who joined in via speaker phone) on Saturday. "I had eaten some spinach in Las Vegas and had no problem, and had a sushi roll up in Reno that was shared by other people who had no problem. I don't want to point fingers, but it was something I ate." (Elizabeth Carter added that her husband ate a microwaved breakfast sandwich at a convenience store during his trip through rural Nevada, a quick snack that could conceivably be the culprit.)

Carter spent nine of his 11 days at Summerlin Hospital in intensive care, and during that stay his condition was serious enough that his parents, former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter, flew out to be at his side. But he says he feels great now and is back at full strength. "You have to deal with this stuff, having your health out there for speculation," he said. "But I am fine now."

NoteMart

Wynn Las Vegas officials offered no information in the face of a report Monday by the New York Post that on Friday night Steve Wynn accidently put his elbow through a $140 million Picasso during a cocktail party in his hotel penthouse. The paper reports that the painting was from Picasso's Blue Period, a piece that Wynn had "just sold to hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen." Wynn is said to have remarked, "I'm glad that was me," and had the canvas sent off (probably to a specialist in New York) for repairs. (Fine-art experts say that it is highly unlikely Wynn would have hit the painting hard enough to break through the canvas, and probably he merely rubbed the paint or created an abrasion.) ...

The Killers are big in Britain; the Las Vegas band's album "Sam's Town" has debuted at No. 1 on the new U.K. sales charts, as reported Monday by Billboard.com. The album has sold 268,000 copies in a single week (before getting too excited, know that the Brits' discriminate tastes in pop music have pushed David Hasselhoff's new single "Jump in My Car" at No. 3 as the country's hottest single) ...

Spotted in the crowd at Saturday's Stanford-Notre Dame football game: County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who spent the weekend celebrating homecoming at her former institution of higher learning ...

Word from the MGM Grand is that the "Andre Agassi Grand Slam for Children" has a home there for as long as it wants, including next year. All 11 Grand Slams have been held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena; more than $60 million has been raised for the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation ...

The terms "Wilmer Valderrama" and "accomplished restaurateur" might seem oddly paired, but the former star of "That '70s Show" told Celebrity Week on Friday night during an appearance at Tangerine (Treasure Island) that he will open a restaurant in Las Vegas, a steak house with Pure Management Group to be called Aspen. A Pure spokesman (that means a guy speaking for Pure, not necessarily a pure individual) confirmed this bit of info Monday; we still aren't sure where or when this haven of cleaved cow will open ...

Ghosts in the machine: Doing repair work on a couple of items from last week, the ticket prices for Sandy Duncan's appearance in "The Glass Menagerie" at UNLV in February are $25, not $35; and in the item reporting Heidi Harris' departure from KXNT 840-AM, KXNT is not K-NEWS. that's KNUU 970-AM. Sorry for the confusion this might have caused ...

You know the drill: Reader spots a plate at the UNLV School of Dental Medicine reading INDEBT.