Print edition for December 2, 2007

Robbye's story: By Timothy Pratt; A painting that hangs on Robbye Wright's living room wall shows a black woman reaching for a ray of light beaming out of a Bible.

Letter: Who's running this nation? Us or China?: Who is paying the bill for these unusable products to be unloaded from ships, transported to stores, put on display, sold, recalled, pulled from shelves and disposed of and for the money being refunded to consumers? I think those costs are being passed along to none other than the consumer. How lucrative could that possibly be for our retailers?

Letter: Moon camp proposal far too ambitious: NASA is having problems with the space shuttles now, but somehow it claims it'll be able to surmount all these problems in 2020. I believe this is a giant boondoggle, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, keeping NASA's scientists and engineers occupied with a make-work project with little hope of success.

Editorial: Close, but no citizenship: One last detail - a name check by the FBI - is the source of the holdup.

FLASHPOINT for Dec 02, 2007: Newmont Mining Corp. on Friday agreed to sell its royalty assets and other "noncore investments" to Franco-Nevada Corp., Reuters reported. The value of the deal: $1.3 billion. On the same day, Franco-Nevada announced a $1 billion-plus public offering. These numbers are astonishing in the wake of the state's budget problems. I understand that mining money has paralyzed legislators in D.C. and Carson City. It's silly to think the miners, who wrote the state constitution to make it very tough to tax them, would consider contributing more. If they did, the miners, who love Sen. Harry Reid only slightly more than ...

Schools down to last $175 million: By Emily Richmond; Schools down to last $175 million

Jeff Simpson responds to readers who oppose his stance on illegal immigration, and to the Republican presidential candidates who are taking a hard line: Their e-mails and phone calls - and letters to the editor - let me know that people are reading the Sun and my column, and are interested enough to respond.

Jon Ralston on why only a select few have enough pull with our imperial governor to persuade him to bring Nevada in out of the rain: By Jon Ralston; Après Gibbons, le deluge?

Tension builds as Gibbons cloaks budget cuts in secrecy: By Jeff German; With a deadline approaching this week for state agencies to submit proposals to cut their budgets by 8 percent, concern is mounting over the lack of transparency in Gov. Jim Gibbons' push to eliminate a $285 million fiscal shortfall.

Editorial: Scientific data tainted: That official, Julie MacDonald, resigned as interior deputy secretary in May after the department's inspector general found that she routinely pressured Fish and Wildlife Service biologists to alter scientific reports.

A MOMENT CAPTURED: Tiffany Brown, Las Vegas Sun; As the day goes dark outside, Cicely Valenti finds a few quiet moments to herself in the soft glow of a studio at Sherry Goldstein's Yoga Sanctuary on West Sahara Avenue.

Editorial: Applying public pressure: What is aggravating about these homes is that they continually fall out of compliance with federal regulations but usually manage to provide the minimum care necessary to remain eligible to bill Medicare and Medicaid for their patient services.

Step by step, weaned off public housing: By Timothy Pratt; At one point, 16-hour days piled on and Hattie Johnson felt like turning up her strong hands and saying, no, I can't do this anymore.

Secrecy backed by regents is 'self-serving': Regent James Dean Leavitt tried to get his colleagues to focus on the big picture Friday when he opened a debate on whether records of university faculty members' outside income should remain hidden from the public.

LOOKING IN ON: EDUCATION: By Emily Richmond; To force the state's labor board to question whether Clark County's teachers union really represented the majority of the School District's licensed personnel, Ron Taylor figured he needed at least 4,000 of his fellow educators to sign a petition calling for action. He got 75.

CELLO, A CHOICE FOR LIFE: By Charlotte Hsu; WHAT: An Evening of Spanish Cello Music featuring UNLV associate professor of music Andrew Smith on the cello and Alfredo Oyaguez-Montero on the piano. Admission is free.

Letter: Those who pay the bills have right to search: I believe in constitutional limits on the government. However, my children's room can be searched by me any time, because I own the room and pay the bills. These welfare recipients are not paying their own way; we the taxpayers are.

WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON, D.C.: By Lisa Mascaro; WASHINGTON - More often than not, it's the story behind the story that says so much about what's going on in Washington. This week we have three stories.