IN BRIEF
arson fire
Seven businesses damaged in blaze
At least seven businesses near Rancho Drive and Washington Avenue suffered extensive fire, smoke and water damage early Friday morning, Las Vegas Fire Department officials said.
The fire, which caused more than $1 million in damage, has been ruled an arson, Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said.
Further details about how it started were not available.
A passer-by reported flames coming from the middle of the Twin Lakes Plaza Shopping Center about 2 a.m. The blaze moved quickly to other units.
It took crews about an hour to squelch the flames.
No injuries were reported.
1997 DEATH
Girl's body exhumed for woman's retrial
The Clark County coroner's office performed an autopsy on a 14-month-old girl Friday morning more than a decade after her death.
The autopsy on Kierra Harrison was conducted to find whether the girl sustained severe head injuries, but results won't be ready for weeks.
The day-care worker accused of killing Kierra, Alica Wegner, 44, is set on go to trial next year.
The coroner's office exhumed Kierra's body from Palm Mortuary on Eastern Avenue. The coroner will keep Kierra's body for about a week before reburial.
Wegner was convicted of killing Kierra in 1998, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the conviction. Wegner has been free on bail pending a new murder trial.
Kierra died in March 1997, two days after being under Wegner's care.
Experts who testified during Wegner's trial said Kierra probably was hurt when she was with Wegner. But an expert for Wegner's defense testified that the girl might have been hurt several days earlier.
RENO INCIDENT
Bank robber might have fled on bicycle
Reno police are looking for a bank robber who might have fled the scene near Meadowood Mall on a bicycle.
Police say a white male entered the Wells Fargo on Neil Road about 10:30 a.m. Thursday morning and handed the teller a note that said he had a gun and wanted money.
A witness reported possibly seeing the suspect riding a bicycle shortly afterward.
The suspect is described as being in his late 30s or 40s, between 5-foot-10 and 6-foot-2 with a medium build.
MEDICAL SPENDING ON INMATES
Testimony heard in prison crowding trial
California's spending on inmate medical and mental health care has surged 554 percent since 1995, dwarfing the increase in inmates during that same period, a state defense witness testified Friday during a prison crowding trial.
In proceedings that could lead to release of many thousands of inmates, a special three-judge panel this week began considering whether California's overcrowded prisons are causing substandard medical and mental health care.
The Schwarzenegger administration said the increased spending shows the state is making a good-faith effort to improve medical care that federal judges have declared unconstitutional. But the panel of judges expressed serious skepticism about the argument.
