Las Vegas firm supplied pet food companies

Officials with a Las Vegas import company said they could not say whether products the firm supplied to pet food companies were linked to any of the recent pet deaths or illnesses because of contaminated wheat gluten.

The Chinese wheat gluten imported by ChemNutra all went to companies that make pet foods, Stephen Miller, chief executive officer of the Las Vegas company, told The Associated Press.

Nearly 100 brands of cat and dog foods made with the ingredient have been recalled. FDA testing of the wheat gluten has revealed it was contaminated with melamine, a chemical with several industrial uses, including the manufacture of plastic kitchenware.

On Tuesday evening, a locked mirrored door guarded the business, in an office park on Durango Drive, north of Charleston Boulevard. The door has no sign announcing the firm's name or the nature of its business, only an address.

A Web site describes ChemNutra as an importer of nutritional and pharmaceutical chemicals from China.

"We purchase our inventory from quality-assured manufacturers in China, with whom we have strong relationships over the past 12 years," a statement on ChemNutra's Web site read.

MONDAY

Binion's losses lead to talk of sale

Losses at Binion's rose in 2006, fueling talk the owners should sell the historic Las Vegas property to a company better able to succeed in the stagnant downtown market.

MTR Gaming Group reported that earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation at Binion's were $3.1 million in the red last year, compared with a positive cash flow of $580,000 in 2005.

TUESDAY

Incumbents coast in council vote

Las Vegas City Council members Lois Tarkanian and Gary Reese, with eminently popular Mayor Oscar Goodman, clobbered their challengers to win re-election outright in the primary election.

"Truth and justice is alive in Ward 1," said Tarkanian, 72, who represents the ward. "They didn't fall for all that slime."

In the 10-person race for the Ward 5 seat vacated by Lawrence Weekly, Ricki Barlow and Stacie Truesdell won 43 percent and 29 percent of the vote, respectively, to advance to the June 5 general election.

WEDNESDAY

Gibbons vacation raises questions

Gov. Jim Gibbons and his wife vacationed in Turkey in 2000 with the owners of a Sparks-based defense contractor whose ties to the couple have raised questions, lawyers for the couple said.

Jim and Dawn Gibbons paid for their own flights and expenses on the weeklong trip they took with Fatih and Eren Ozmen, owners of Sierra Nevada Corp., and two other couples, said Andrew Blum, spokesman for Gibbons' Washington-based lawyer, Abbe David Lowell.

Jim Gibbons was a member of Congress at the time. In mid-2004, he helped Sierra Nevada get a $2 million no-bid federal contract for helicopter landing technology. Throughout that year, the company was paying Dawn Gibbons $2,500 a month as a public relations consultant.

THURSDAY

Mayor tells NBA: No gambling ban

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's written proposal to the NBA regarding Nevada's legalized betting on the sport did not change from what has been the status quo: No games, not even those of a proposed local franchise, should be banned from state betting boards.

The proposal was sent to the NBA and will be discussed when the league's owners meet April 20 in New York.

In a two-page letter also signed by Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President Rossi Ralenkotter, Goodman pointed out that in the decades Nevada has allowed legal wagers on the NBA, there never has been a hint of impropriety and, therefore, there is no need to change the system.

FRIDAY

Brother accused of rape, pimping

Police arrested a Las Vegas man on charges of raping his 36-year-old sister, who has the mental capacity of a child, and then trying to pimp her out on the Internet.

Detectives started the case against Rodney Nickerson, 34, after a tip led them to an ad on craigslist.org that read: 34-year-old male, looking for someone open-minded, straight or bisexual, into taboo, family fun.

An undercover Las Vegas police officer answered the ad, which asked that the person "be very open minded and willing to be a little forceful at first," a police report said.

COMPILED BY MICHAEL SQUIRES

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