Las Vegas

Because two hours of auditions last night weren't enough, the "America's Got Talent" season 7 premiere continued into Tuesday night. Tonight, we're in San Francisco, so naturally Nick Cannon has to introduce the show by yelling atop the Golden Gate Bridge (last night, he yelled ferociously atop a desert mesa). San Francisco Auditions First up: David and the CMYK's, an aptly named group. They somehow manage to break dance to some Mozart while beautifully painting a huge canvas with the composer's face.

A headstone for Chubby of "Our Gang" is front page news in The Sun while a $2 billion bank loss only makes page 16 ("Morgan's $2 billion loss stuns Wall Street," May 11). Banks return about two tenths of 1 percent in interest on deposits, while charging 4 percent to 8 percent interest on money they lend. Instead of encouraging deposits with higher interest rates, they put the difference into a gambling pool and wager on things like credit default swaps. JP Morgan has amassed over $200 billion to gamble with.

At the end of a mud-and-gravel driveway on the edge of the Patapsco Valley State Park, Timothy and Joyce Foresman are restoring their latest dream home.The Foresmans already have left behind a string of houses they renovated themselves in Southern California, Kentucky, Las Vegas and Key West, Fla. Some they sold, others they still own.Now, under a curatorship program with the state Department of Natural Resources, they are restoring a state-owned 1872 Victorian farmhouse in Elkridge, expecting to spend more than $76,000 of their own money on the project.

Because two hours of auditions last night weren't enough, the "America's Got Talent" season 7 premiere continued into Tuesday night. Tonight, we're in San Francisco, so naturally Nick Cannon has to introduce the show by yelling atop the Golden Gate Bridge (last night, he yelled ferociously atop a desert mesa). San Francisco Auditions First up: David and the CMYK's, an aptly named group. They somehow manage to break dance to some Mozart while beautifully painting a huge canvas with the composer's face.

A headstone for Chubby of "Our Gang" is front page news in The Sun while a $2 billion bank loss only makes page 16 ("Morgan's $2 billion loss stuns Wall Street," May 11). Banks return about two tenths of 1 percent in interest on deposits, while charging 4 percent to 8 percent interest on money they lend. Instead of encouraging deposits with higher interest rates, they put the difference into a gambling pool and wager on things like credit default swaps. JP Morgan has amassed over $200 billion to gamble with.

Sometimes it's the steady march of footsteps that irrevocably changes a place. Other times it's a single man with a vision and a mission who leaves big footprints.In the case of Las Vegas, it is Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, whose legacy survives in Nevada's Mojave Desert. The renowned mobster's Flamingo Hotel, which opened in 1946, set Las Vegas on its way to becoming glitter gulch and the fastest-growing American city in the second half of the 20th century.Two events greased the wheels for Siegel's vision -- the legalization of gambling in Nevada in 1931 and the gusher of electricity that began to flow out of Hoover Dam's power plant five years later.

Roughly translated, Las Vegas, according to our server, means "the suburbs. " The Las Vegas in Nevada pretty much started out that way, as a stopover and R&R locale for the folks working on the Boulder Dam. Our local Las Vegas is also in the 'burbs. In Jessup, on Route 1, just south of Route 175, next to a Burger King. Indeed, you can't get much more "modern" suburban than locating your eatery in a strip center. Co-owner, manager, cook and all-around general factotum Tomas Cruz, a native of San Salvador, opened this 70-seat, south-of-the-border themed restaurant in April 2009.

DON'T ASK FOREVER : MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ELVIS. By Joyce Bova, as told to William Conrad Nowels. Kensington Books. 386 pages. $20HIS WAS a love that could destroy the object of its desire.She, Joyce Bova, was the object of Elvis Presley's desire for three years, beginning in 1969 when they met in Las Vegas. The book, "Don't Ask Forever: My Love Affair with Elvis," is her version of "The Victor King and I."It is corny, verbose and self-conscious. To make matters worse, the ghostwriter, William Conrad Nowels, never saw an adjective he didn't like.

The building binge in Las Vegas is coming to fruition, with two mega-playgrounds having opened last month and another, the 5,000-room MGM Grand Hotel, Casino and Theme Park, set to debut Dec. 18.Luxor Las Vegas, a 30-story pyramid fronted by an obelisk and a sphinx larger than Egypt's, opened Oct. 15. Treasure Island, a casino with a buccaneer theme park, opened Oct. 26.Other new entries this year are Grand Slam Canyon, a 5-acre amusement park at Circus Circus,...

WHAT DOES IT say about America that this year's hottest city - the nation's cultural and economic trend-setter - is Las Vegas, sprawl that only began to sprout at a desert railroad stop 60 years ago, that produces next to nothing and that profits from peddling live fantasies, increasingly sexual, to the rest of the country and world? Las Vegas is America's fastest-growing city. Each month, 7,000 more newcomers show up, driving its population toward 2 million by this decade's end. Its just-built suburbs spread endlessly across arid bleakness, their land and home values rocketing.

I have been watching the congressional hearings on the waste, fraud and abuses of public servants in the General Service Administration who spent more than $800,000 on a "conference" trip to Las Vegas. And according to the Inspector General's Office that was just the tip of the iceberg. The really frustrating aspect of this is twofold. First, this occurred in 2010 and was discovered soon after. The exact time is difficult to ascertain from the hearings since there is so much double-talk, but the Inspector General began an investigation.

It has been a tough news cycle for taxpayers. Not only did we get a real-time look on April 17 at what we donate to the government, we also are getting a harrowing look at how the government spends it. The General Services Administration, often referred to as the government's personal shopper, blew $822,000 flying 300 of its employees to Las Vegas for a four-day bonding experience that included a clown, a mind-reader and $7,000 worth of...

One in 9 housing units in the Baltimore region sat empty last year, from well-tended homes for sale to boarded-up shells, according to new estimates from the Census Bureau . That's on the high side but not nearly the highest. The agency measured vacancy for the 75 largest metro areas -- not counting vacation properties shuttered in the off-season -- and says the Baltimore region is in a three-way tie with Chicago and Pittsburgh for the 26th worst rate. (It's 11.6 percent, to be exact.)

The confetti has been vacuumed up in Indianapolis, so the sports book at MGM Grand in Las Vegas released its Super Bowl odds for the 2012 season. Apparently, their oddsmakers think the Ravens' championship window is narrowly open. Two weeks after losing a close one to the New England Patriots, 23-20, in the AFC championship game, the Ravens were given 20-1 odds to win Super Bowl 47. That's tied for 13th in the NFL with the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys, two teams that didn't even make the playoffs in 2011.

Roughly translated, Las Vegas, according to our server, means "the suburbs. " The Las Vegas in Nevada pretty much started out that way, as a stopover and R&R locale for the folks working on the Boulder Dam. Our local Las Vegas is also in the 'burbs. In Jessup, on Route 1, just south of Route 175, next to a Burger King. Indeed, you can't get much more "modern" suburban than locating your eatery in a strip center. Co-owner, manager, cook and all-around general factotum Tomas Cruz, a native of San Salvador, opened this 70-seat, south-of-the-border themed restaurant in April 2009.

Compare Yelawolf to Eminem and you could miss the point. Sure, both are white rappers with chips on their shoulders and working-class backgrounds, but it's Yelawolf's power with the pen and his tenacity on the microphone that should be drawing the comparisons. Yelawolf, the 31-year-old Alabamian born Michael Wayne Atha, can rap circles around many of his peers, all while confidently projecting a poor-boy-from-the-sticks swagger. Eminem took notice after a producer showed him Yela's video for "Pop the Trunk," a standout from last year's "Trunk Muzik" mixtape.

I expected the worst from CNN's debate Tuesday when I saw John King interviewing Wayne Newton outside the hall during "John King USA. " I know Newton is Mr. Las Vegas, but I still wondered why anyone at CNN thinks it is a wise use of one of the best political reporters in the country to have him doing pre-debate chat-ups with the likes of Newton -- unless he's talking to the veteran entertainer about the politics of too much cosmetic surgery....

I was covering motorsports for four years before I saw someone die in what might be considered a senseless crash. I didn't know Ricky Knotts, a 28-year-old driver who had spent every dime he and his parents could muster to qualify for the 1980 Daytona 500. He died on Valentine's Day in a simple crash, a crash exactly like the one that would claim seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt's life 21 years later. I was there for Earnhardt's death, too. Both of those accidents at first glance might seem innocuous, but they were both devastating, head-on collisions into the outside wall at Daytona International Speedway.