WEEK IN REVIEW: Top news

An estimated crowd of 314,000 people packed the Strip as the new year dawned with an eight-minute fireworks show.

The massive street party included the usual amount of unusualness, along with plenty of alcohol, cleavage and alcohol-and-cleavage-fueled friendliness.

Downtown also filled with revelers, including Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her predecessor/husband.

Police reported a mostly orderly celebration, with the usual two dozen or so arrests for misdemeanor offenses.

But 2012 got off to a tragic start at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where a 21-year-old California man died Sunday morning in an apparently accidental fall.

It marked the second straight New Year's that a man fell to his death while celebrating at a Strip resort.

Monday

Could be worse?

The first quarter will bring middling improvements in hiring, but even those so-so gains will beat recent quarters for job growth, according to several reports predicting employment growth.

A growing number of Nevada companies say they expect to hire in the first three months of 2012, but they won't add workers quickly enough to push joblessness down substantially in the Silver State.

Tuesday

More Lawyers in love

A new twist has surfaced in the legal uproar over the romance between Family Court Judge Steven Jones and former prosecutor Lisa Willardson.

Defense attorney Louis Schneider has stepped forward to allege that Willardson tried to cover up a previous dating relationship he had with her while they sat on opposing sides in child welfare cases.

In a complaint filed against Willardson with the Nevada State Bar, the district attorney's office questioned her handling of the relationship with Schneider. The office also accused Willardson in the complaint of lying in a sworn affidavit about the extent of her romantic involvement with Jones.

Wednesday

water rate hike coming

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is considering a rate increase to help cover pricey construction projects that once were paid for with the spoils of growth.

Later this month, authority board members will consider options ranging from a new fixed fee of $5 a month for most single-family homes to a consumption-based hike that would add nearly $10 a month to the average residential bill.

Authority officials say they need $260 million to pay down debt associated with projects including the "third straw," a roughly $700 million intake now being built at Lake Mead.

Thursday

Fired nurse wins case

A federal arbitrator has ruled that a Sunrise Children's Hospital nurse fired in connection with a 2010 baby death in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit should be reinstated with back pay, a spokesman for the nurse's union said.

Spokesman Nick Di Archangel said the arbitrator ruled that Jessica May Rice should "be made whole as though nothing had happened."

Rice and another fired nurse, Sharon Ochoa-Reyes, had been called persons of interest by Las Vegas police in a criminal investigation into "intentional patient harm."

No criminal charges have been filed.

Friday

Floyd free to fight

A Las Vegas justice of the peace granted a request by defense attorneys to allow champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. to report to jail a month after his scheduled May 5 fight.

Judge Melissa Saragosa said Mayweather must report to the Clark County Detention Center on June 1 to serve a 90-day sentence stemming from a domestic violence conviction.