Print edition for December 21, 2007

Schools cut, leaders collect big paychecks: By Charlotte Hsu; Click here for a printable graphic.

Last of dam builders dies, but Boulder City ethos remains: By Mike Trask; Boulder City has plans for creating a solar industry and is becoming a hub for outdoors enthusiasts, but its lore is still inexorably linked to Hoover Dam and those intrepid souls who helped create it. The last of those gritty men who had lived in "the city that built the dam" passed away last week. There's no resident left who can tell you firsthand what it was like to mold the concrete or blast away the solid earth.

Letter: What Nevada needs is a state lottery: The majority of people in this state would support a lottery.

Greenspun joins board of media conglomerate: Brian Greenspun, editor of the Las Vegas Sun and chairman of the family-owned Greenspun Corporation, was elected Thursday as a director of the Tribune Co., a media conglomerate that owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and about 30 other newspapers and TV outlets across the country.

Project would give artists a home, a workplace, a world: By Joe Schoenmann; You don't expect someone at 79 to speak in superlatives. You expect him to be measured and circumspect, rocking forward and back as he nods in bemused acquiescence to the wild-eyed ideas of the younger generations.

'We can change the world': Michael J. Mishak; Ryan Williams is living out of his car.

Criminal pasts may leave families homeless: By Timothy Pratt; More than 140 families may soon wind up on the streets, months after they were swept up in the Las Vegas Valley's largest-ever federally ordered eviction from public housing.

Paychecks, then perks and perks: By Charlotte Hsu; Besides the pay, they get the perks.

Editorial: A shortsighted policy: A story Wednesday by the Las Vegas Sun says Aumagher imposed the policy on students from Dyer, a small farming community about 70 miles west of Tonopah.

Editorial: Closed-door budget: Gibbons had asked state agencies to submit proposals to cut the budget, and the Reno Gazette-Journal asked for those proposals. After being refused, the newspaper sued and asked Russell to order Gibbons to turn over the proposals so they could be made public.

THE READERS SOMETIMES E-MAIL: Readers have opinions and fill my e-mail box, letting me know when mine are right (sometimes) and wrong (often). From time to time,I'll share their comments.

Letter: Salaries, not steroids, are the real shockers: It was recently reported that the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez negotiated a 10-year, $275 million contract. That is what is unfair, and downright obscene, considering how the state of our education system could be improved with the money these entertainers are being paid.

Jeff Haney on how a tourney grew despite Web crackdown: Right behind those behemoths, nestled at No. 3, comes the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Classic, which concluded Tuesday night at the Bellagio.

Editorial: Long-term fix needed: Just before the Thanksgiving travel period started last month, President Bush announced that federal officials were opening up military air space to commercial jetliners during the holiday travel period to help avoid hours-long waits on runways and in airports.

Letter: Criticism of religious values is off base: The bloody religious conflicts in Europe were over by the time America was founded. But in 1793 the blood being shed was on the guillotine, when extremists worshipped the Church of Reason but executed clergymen and other innocent victims. And let's not forget the utopian communists who persecuted religion and annihilated millions to construct a new world.

Young talent gets a pat on back, a helping hand: By Kristen Peterson; Hal Weller is navigating his car through a snowstorm in Flagstaff, Ariz. His passenger is 18-year-old Krzysztof Rucinski, a violinist from Poland who is performing in Flagstaff and Sedona before arriving in Las Vegas for an evening soiree. Rucinski is in Weller's car because Weller, founder and former music director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, saw Rucinski performing on YouTube and contacted him.

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