WEEK IN REVIEW: Top News

Sen. John Ensign announced that he would not seek re-election in 2012.

At a Las Vegas news conference Monday, the U.S. senator said he didn't want to put his family through an ugly campaign. He said his opponent would run TV ads focusing on his decline from a Christian conservative and rising GOP star to a man who cheated on his wife with the couple's friend.

Ensign's mistress worked for him in Washington, D.C., alongside her husband.

"I know that God has forgiven me, and so has my wife," Ensign said with wife, Darlene, at his side.

But it seemed increasingly likely that voters and campaign donors would not.

Although contrite about his affair, Ensign, 52, remained defiant in the face of a related Senate ethics investigation, saying he neither broke the law nor violated Senate ethics rules.

Monday

Trial delayed a year

District Judge Donald Mosley ordered a yearlong delay in the trial of Dr. Dipak Desai and two nurse anesthetists charged in the 2007 hepatitis C outbreak.

The trial was set to take place on March 14 for nurses Keith Mathahs and Ronald Lakeman without Desai, who has been found incompetent to stand trial.

But Mosley continued the trial until March 12, 2012, after hearing that prosecutors and defense lawyers still must review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from the investigation.

Tuesday

Deep cuts at UNLV

The philosopher Aristotle once said, "All men by nature desire knowledge."

Soon, though, UNLV students may have to look elsewhere for such wisdom.

To meet proposed budget cuts, the university would eliminate 33 degree programs and 12 entire departments, -- philosophy among them -- killing 315 jobs, UNLV President Neal Smatresk announced.

Women's Studies and Social Work also would go under Smatresk's proposal, which ultimately would require approval from the higher education system's Board of Regents.

Wednesday

Malpractice murder?

A Las Vegas doctor who prescribed deadly amounts of painkillers to a patient over a five-year span was arrested on a murder charge Wednesday in connection with her death.

Richard Sy Teh, 49, an internist at Sun City Medical Group in northwest Las Vegas, was arrested by a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer.

Murder charges are almost unheard of against doctors, who usually face discipline through suspension or loss of medical licenses when patients die because of their actions.

Thursday

Fewer workers, jobless

Joblessness in the Silver State eased off of its record levels from December to January, falling from 15.1 percent to 13.7 percent in Las Vegas and from 14.9 percent to 14.2 percent statewide.

It marked the first time since March 2010 that local unemployment fell below 14 percent.

But the gains came not from job growth, but from steep drops in the number of workers seeking jobs in Nevada.

Friday

Sahara to be deserted

The Sahara is "no longer economically viable" and will close May 16, a Los Angeles-based ownership group announced.

The nearly 60-year-old Strip resort, which employs 1,050 people, will remain shuttered while other plans for the site are explored.