Las Vegas

In city after city, Kenny Dorsey's name has been tied to major drug operations. Suspected as one of the nation's top cocaine distributors, he nevertheless managed for years to elude dozens of police, prosecutors and federal agents.Hardly anyone even knew what he looked like.But because of an old traffic ticket, an arrest in Las Vegas and the work of a Maryland drug agent, Mr. Dorsey is in jail, waiting for federal marshals to escort him to Baltimore later this month for a drug trial, prosecutors announced yesterday.

LAS VEGAS -- As a middling player in the world of professional bodybuilding, Craig Titus stood out more for his snarling bad-boy image than for the few awards for his chiseled physique. "I'm like a Rottweiler in a land of golden retrievers," he told a Florida newspaper five years ago. But whatever act Titus might have cultivated in his competitions, he now stands accused, along with his bodybuilder wife, of a real-life gruesome killing. In a lurid murder case here, both are charged with stun-gunning, drugging and suffocating their live-in personal assistant, then stuffing the body in their Jaguar and setting the car aflame with charcoal lighter on a desert highway outside the city, apparently an effort to make the crime look like an accident.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Real estate mogul Donald Trump received another last-minute reprieve from the Atlantic City Casino Control Commission Thursday, allowing him to continue operating his financially troubled Taj Mahal Hotel on the Boardwalk.But the smart money has it that Trump's days as a fight promoter competing with the owners of big Las Vegas hotels ended with last night's Evander Holyfield-George Foreman heavyweight championship match at Convention Hall.Trump had put Atlantic City on the boxing map with a number of multimillion-dollar matches in the past four years, including Mike Tyson's brief encounters with Michael Spinks and Carl Williams and Foreman's knockout of Gerry Cooney.

Las Vegas is home to Charles Anthony. It's a place where he grew up and went to school, a place where his mother still lives and his friends still gather.It's just not where he wanted to play professional football.Anthony, a halfback, could have signed with the expansion Las Vegas Posse this summer, but instead will enter Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday night as a member of another first-year organization, the Baltimore CFLs.Receiver Chris Armstrong will be there, too. Like Anthony, he has ties to the state of Nevada, having spent time in the Posse's training camp.

LAS VEGAS -- The fortune teller peers into her crystal ball and confidently responds to questions about the Middle East crisis, the budget crunch and Elvis' latest sighting. But she shakes her head when asked to predict the winner of tonight's James "Buster" Douglas-Evander Holyfield heavyweight championship match at The Mirage."Such a big question for such a little ball," the gypsy says.Yes, so many questions:* Was Douglas' upset of Mike Tyson in Tokyo last February a one-fight fluke?* Is Holyfield an overblown cruiserweight masquerading as a heavyweight?

SURROUNDED by whirring slot machines and the clink, clink, clink of coins, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was in some version of alternate reality. But the guv didn't spend nearly three days in Las Vegas last week to do hands-on investigation into how to finally push through slots legislation. "Las Vegas is Las Vegas. Nobody wants to bring Las Vegas to Maryland," he said in a phone interview when asked if he was jealous of the one-armed bandits. His trip was a little more mundane: He attended the International Council of Shopping Centers meeting, a four-day extravaganza that drew more than 40,000 people.

The execution was there in both instances -- at the end of regulation and overtime -- for the BayRunners yesterday against the Las Vegas Silver Bandits at Baltimore Arena. It was just that the shots rimmed out for Shawnta Rogers, both times. The latter sealed the BayRunners' 104-103 loss, their seventh in a row. BayRunners coach Herb Brown designed plays for Rogers to get open for what would have been the game-winning shots. The shot in regulation came from behind the three-point line with the game tied at 97 and 1.8 seconds remaining.

After spending more than three years touring a dozen North American cities in search of an attractive location for a Canadian Football League expansion team, sportsman Nick Mileti finally settled on Las Vegas."

LAS VEGAS - At 8 a.m Thursday before the start of the NCAA basketball tournament, more than 300 bettors have lined up at the windows at the MGM Grand. More than a dozen are waiting by the $500 minimum-bet cage. A guy in a jumpsuit is flashing a wad of bills."I like the challenge of matching wits with the professionals who set the odds," said Mike from Phoenix, who would lighten his bankroll considerably by backing Duke against Eastern Michigan, a 3 1/2 -point underdog that won by 15."Usually, I stick to betting the pros.

The extremely tall gentleman was not a good blackjack player -- and the woman from San Antonio, Texas let him know it.He laughed off her good-natured teasing and everyone within earshot shared the guffaws. Finally, she said: "You know, a guy as big as you should have learned to play basketball. You should just give up on blackjack." The dealer and the pit boss nearly fell down laughing.He was basketball legend Wilt Chamberlin.Las Vegas has that way of throwing people off guard. There's a lot more -- or less -- to it than meets the eyes in the mix of tourists from across America and beyond.