IN BRIEF

State energy office will grant rebates for appliance upgrades

The Nevada State Office of Energy will begin awarding rebates Saturday to residents looking to upgrade their appliances.

Rebates will range from $100 to $200, and will cover purchases of dishwashers, washing machines, freezers or refrigerators. To qualify for the money, consumers must replace an old appliance with an Energy Star model.

The program will give out $2.4 million in rebates. That will cover 14,700 new appliances, the Office of Energy estimated. The idea is to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and stimulate retail sales. Money for the rebates comes from federal stimulus funds allotted by 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

To reserve a rebate, visit www.nevada
appliancerebate.com, or call 877-273-6213 on or after 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Participants have two weeks to shop for an appliance and four weeks to fill out and return the required paperwork. Consumers who don't snag a reservation can go on a waiting list.

For information on participating retailers, visit www.energy.state.nv.us. Click on Incentives/Rebates, Appliance Rebate Program and Appliance Rebate Flier.

ATLANTIC CITY

Trump Entertainment formula: more cash, more Ivanka

About to leave its third bankruptcy behind, Trump Entertainment Resorts has a simple formula for the future in the cutthroat Atlantic City casino market: less debt, more cash and more Ivanka.

It also plans to expand beyond New Jersey.

A federal bankruptcy judge on Monday chose bondholders led by New York-based Avenue Capital Group and Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka to buy the company out of bankruptcy for $225 million. Their bid topped a rival one from billionaire Carl Icahn, who wanted to swap the $486 million mortgage he holds on Trump Entertainment for ownership of the company.

When Trump Entertainment emerges from bankruptcy court later this year, its debt will be cut to $334 million, from nearly $1.8 billion. And that, Donald Trump says, is why the company will succeed where it failed three times before.

"This time we really cut the debt," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Work starts on $165 million renovation of Tropicana

Owners of the Tropicana have begun a $165 million renovation of the Strip resort that will include a redesigned facade, new rooms, new restaurants and other attractions.

Work is expected to be completed in a year and will give the resort a South Beach Miami theme.

"We are changing everything," said Alex Yemenidjian, chairman and CEO of Tropicana Las Vegas. "This transformation will revitalize our brand."

The first of the new hotel rooms will be unveiled on April 23 in the Paradise Tower.

The conference center has been remodeled to give the property 100,000 square feet of meeting space.

The Tropicana was bought last year by an investment group led by Canadian private equity firm Onex Corp. and Yemenidjian, a former MGM Grand Inc. executive.

NV Energy chairman receives
top honor from peer group

NV Energy Chairman Phil Satre is one of six corporate directors nationwide to earn a top honor from a peer group.

The Outstanding Directors Exchange recognized Satre as an outstanding director. The group chooses its annual honorees for the key roles they played during a crisis, business transformation or turnaround. The Outstanding Directors Advisory Board makes its selections after researching candidates' companies and careers.

Satre joined NV Energy's board in 2005, and became chairman in 2008. He also served as chief executive officer of Harrah's Entertainment from 1993 to 2003, and was a director of the gaming company from 1988 to 2004.

SAN FRANCISCO

Increased technology spending sends profits surging at Intel

Intel Corp. said Tuesday its net income in the first quarter nearly quadrupled over last year and reflected an overall bump in spending on technology by companies.

Intel became the first major technology company to report earnings for the first quarter when it said after the market closed Tuesday that it earned $2.4 billion, or 43 cents per share, in the quarter ended March 27.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting profit of 38 cents per share.

In the same period last year, Intel earned $629 million, or 11 cents per share. At the time Intel was muddling through the recession, but CEO Paul Otellini predicted that personal computer sales had "bottomed out" -- an early forecast that proved true.

Intel's revenue in the latest period rose 44 percent to $10.3 billion, ahead of analysts' forecast for $9.8 billion.

PALO ALTO, Calif.

Facebook 'Safety Center' offers new channel to report threats

Facebook has launched a revamped internal site designed to help people stay safe and report threats while on the popular online hangout.

Facebook's "Safety Center," which features new tools for parents, teachers, teens and law enforcement, is the first major endeavor from the social networking site .

The company unveiled its Safety Center a day after meeting with child advocacy officials in the United Kingdom, who had been pushing the company to install a so-called "panic button" on the site for some time, following the kidnapping and murder there of a teenager by a man she encountered on Facebook.

Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, or CEOP, had wanted Facebook to install a prominent link on U.K. users' profile pages that would take them to CEOP's own safety site designed to help children deal with online threats.