The Local Newsroom
Transportation
For RTC, an Appealing Advance
October 11th, 2012
RTC Ride Tracker uses GPS and “predictive scheduling” to determine a bus’ arrival time. The mobile site is built on Google Maps, and it presents the buses in their exact positions on the streets. You can refresh the site to watch them “move.” I would have been thrilled with an app that simply produces updated arrival times, but actually seeing your bus on the map and knowing that it’s two blocks away is pretty damn cool. Read more »
Economy
And Now, a Health-Care Downturn?
October 11th, 2012
A strong dose of fear can either motivate or paralyze. And there’s plenty of fear-peddling these days, especially when it comes to the economy and health care. There are fiscal cliffs, trillion-dollar deficits no one knows how to repay and now Medicare cuts potentially adding another half million to the unemployment ranks in 2013. Read more »
Health
Cuts and Scars
October 11th, 2012
Indigent Southern Nevadans who suffer from mental illnesses are losing another place to get help. The local Salvation Army is sharply reducing its adult mental-health services because of a multimillion-dollar gap in funding. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
The Experience of Fremont
October 4th, 2012
Safety, comfort and a can’t-miss attraction: the Fremont Street Experience “solved” what everyone in Las Vegas thought were the biggest problems facing downtown. But it couldn’t address the bigger problems of broader local and regional competition facing downtown in the 1990s, just like it can’t do much about the deflated gaming economy today. Read more »
Compassion, Awareness and Pinkwashing
October 4th, 2012
More insidious is the possibility of pinkwashing: exploiting a noble cause for commercial purposes. Most of the advertisements in the pink paper had some direct relationship to fundraising, patient support or research, but a couple gave me a queasy feeling—such as one casino’s emphatic half-pager prompting readers to earn enough points for a pink-ribbon charm bracelet by playing slots. Read more »
About Town
A Tale of Two Health Clinics
October 4th, 2012
Meet Zubin Damania and Florence Jameson: Two physicians with plans for much-needed health clinics in downtown Las Vegas, whose respective business models reveal two distinct visions of the area—two different downtowns, for that matter. Read more »
Latest
Walking while distracted
October 4th, 2012
In August, Consumer Reports reported on a study in which 34 percent of pedestrians observed using a cellphone stepped in front of a moving vehicle while doing so Read more »
Real Estate
Payback Time at Vantage Lofts
September 27th, 2012
It was a sort of recession rite of passage. Richard Crighton describes the past few years as living lean, keeping overhead low and debt minimal, while saving aggressively from property flips and other sales at their brokerage. The group recently closed a deal on a Vons-anchored shopping center in Boulder City and put together a huge land assemblage in downtown Las Vegas. The partners also own about 1,000 apartment units and other commercial buildings in town. Read more »
Vegas Seven Wins 21 State Awards
September 25th, 2012
The annual Nevada Press Association Convention came to The D on Fremont Street on Sept. 21-22, and it proved to be a fruitful weekend for Vegas Seven. The magazine won 21 awards, bringing its total in less than three years of publication to 43 statewide awards (to go with 11 nominations for the prestigious regional Maggie Awards). Read more »
A Fix for Car Fixers?
September 20th, 2012
Computers are in charge of almost every aspect of your vehicle these days, from telling the transmission when to shift to controlling the door locks. When something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, who has the specialized, sometimes proprietary, knowledge and tools to fix the problem? The dealer who sold you the car, of course. But as a 2009 Consumer Reports survey found, motorists aren’t always satisfied with the service they get at dealers. They want choices. Independent garages want the business. Competition benefits everyone. Read more »
