Reporter’s Notebook

SEN. HARRY REID APOLOGIZED FOR BEING LATE Tuesday to a conference call with news media and higher education leaders. Reid said he had been working on the country's economic problems, but wasn't getting any help from the Republicans.

"I got a feeling you will get it worked out," said Jim Rogers, higher education chancellor. "Yeah," Reid said, sounding morose, "famous last words."

RICHARD LAKE

THE UNVEILING OF THE REMODELED FIFTH STREET SCHOOL in downtown Las Vegas was all class, anchored by a display of historic photographs and moving performances by the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the violin ensemble from the Nevada School of the Arts.

So, naturally, Mayor Oscar Goodman had to crack a mob joke.

Goodman noted that the School of the Arts students would be using the performance hall where the unveiling ceremony took place.

"Just imagine, in Las Vegas, Nevada, 300 teenagers walking around with violin cases -- with violins inside," he said.

ALAN CHOATE

ESTABLISHING ARTIST STUDIOS IN DOWNTOWN'S Neonopolis mall is similar to what other cities have done to encourage redevelopment in their urban cores. But those other cities are a little different from Las Vegas. They actually have old, abandoned buildings that artists can take over and reinvigorate.

Not so much the case here, apparently.

"One thing about Vegas -- there aren't a lot of abandoned buildings," said Carl Corcoran, who's heading up the Southern Nevada Center for the Arts. "They blow them all up."

ALAN CHOATE

FANS OF THE 1988 COMEDY "THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD!" couldn't help but smile during O.J. Simpson's robbery trial in Las Vegas when a tape recording of the alleged crime was played in court.

Simpson played a detective in the movie, which stars Leslie Neilsen as a bumbling police lieutenant who, in one scene, forgets to remove his clip-on microphone and ends up drowning out a news conference with sounds of himself at the urinal.

Something similar happened to Thomas Riccio, who used a hidden audio recorder to secretly tape the Palace Station meeting he set up between Simpson and two sports memorabilia dealers.

Riccio also captured irrefutable evidence of something else: his own trip to the toilet before the confrontation.

BRIAN HAYNES

MORMON CHURCH ELDERS WOULD BE PROUD.

President Bush, congressional leaders and the presidential candidates gathered around a long conference table at the White House on Thursday to discuss the financial bailout. Coffee cups were distributed.

As captured by photographers along one side of the table, the coffee cups were upturned in front of all the participants, except for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Reid is an observant Mormon who does not drink caffeine.

STEVE TETREAULT