Top News

A valley-based shoe and clothing retailer could give downtown Las Vegas a welcome kick in the economy.

Zappos has announced plans to move its corporate headquarters from Henderson to the current Las Vegas City Hall, which will be vacated when the city's new downtown offices open in 2012.

The move will bring 1,000 jobs to a downtown hungry for new investment, not counting the jobs associated with remodeling City Hall to fit the online retailer's needs.

A city spokesman predicted that Zappos could employ as many as 3,000 people downtown within 10 years.

Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen said Zappos' decision to stay in the valley takes much of the sting out of the retailer's pending departure from Nevada's second-largest city, where it moved in 2004.

Monday

Vandals hit Rock art

A $2,500 reward was posted for information leading to the conviction of vandals who used spray paint to deface prehistoric rock art that has overlooked Red Rock Canyon for as much as 1,000 years.

Those responsible may have bought themselves more trouble than expected. Damaging the petroglyphs and pictographs carries a penalty of up to $100,000 and five years in prison for violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.

Tuesday

Project in deep trouble

For the second time in six months, excavation was halted on the $700 million third intake project at Lake Mead when water and mud filled the underground cavern.

Southern Nevada Water Authority officials said it could take several months and "a few tens of millions of dollars" to get the job back on track.

The intake originally was set to go on line in 2013, allowing the flow of water to continue even if Lake Mead shrinks enough to shut down one of the two existing straws. A series of delays has pushed the completion date into 2014.

Wednesday

'No longer a target'

The Department of Justice has informed Sen. John Ensign that it has no plans to charge him with crimes related to the fallout from an extramarital affair with his campaign treasurer, an attorney for the Nevada Republican said.

The Federal Election Commission cleared Ensign on Nov. 18.

He remains under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, which could decide to dismiss the matter outright or recommend that the full Senate consider censure or expulsion.

Thursday

Mammoth discovery

Paleontologists showed off the 16,400-year-old fossilized tusk of a Columbian mammoth, which they say illustrates the need to protect a fossil-rich site at the north end of the Las Vegas Valley.

Scientists have found 438 sites where ice age fossils poke from the surface in the Tule Springs area of the Upper Las Vegas Wash.

Conservation groups, scientists, politicians and even leaders at Nellis Air Force Base support a plan to turn the area into a national monument.

Friday

Yucca still dead

President Barack Obama told newly elected governors he would not reconsider his decision to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

That was the word from Nevada Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval, who was in Washington to meet with various federal officials.

Sandoval called it a "fast exchange" but said it reaffirmed that "the president will not be supporting the long-term storage of nuclear waste in Nevada."