Rep. Jim Gibbons hung on to become Nevada's governor-elect after he was accused of assaulting a cocktail waitress in the last days of the fall campaign. |
- Take one cocktail waitress. Add a gubernatorial candidate. Splash with a generous jigger of the alcohol of choice. Combine with legal spin from masters of the game and you have the recipe for one of Nevada's headiest elections ever. Jim Gibbons' quest to be governor looked like it could be derailed by Chrissy Mazzeo's allegations that he assaulted her, but Gibbons hung on to beat Dina Titus. The elections also saw Nevadans enact a smoking ban, the end of Lynette Boggs McDonald's career on the Clark County Commission, a slew of Democrats in constitutional offices, and a new sheriff in town.
- In the midst of staging a political comeback, Kathy Augustine, the first impeached elected official in Nevada history, became a homicide case. The suspect: her fourth husband, Chaz Higgs.
- Politics and corruption go together like meat and potatoes in Nevada. Case in point: Former Clark County Commissioners Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, who were forced to pay the price for supplementing their official intake with greenbacks from a former strip club owner.
- "To Protect and Serve." The mission of local law enforcement cost police officer Henry Prendes his life when a domestic violence call turned into a shootout with a wannabe rapper.
- A healthy share of political power and glory came to rest on Searchlight boy-turned-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid when fortune bestowed favor on Democrats in November's national elections.
- Clark County Family Services turned out to be as dysfunctional as the families it serves when children in its care disappeared, died or stacked up in hospitals while waiting for foster home placements.
- The body of a 3-year-old girl garbed in pink hearts and marked by abuse was found in an apartment trash bin. The prolonged police quest to name Jane "Cordova" Doe and identify her killers grabbed the local and national spotlight.
- The self-described prophet didn't see it coming. Warren Jeffs, the head of a polygamous sect who was on the FBI's Most Wanted list, was captured north of Las Vegas during a routine traffic stop.
- Thousands of Las Vegas schoolchildren, illegal immigrants, naturalized citizens and the descendants of immigrants rose up to protest federal policy proposals to classify illegals as criminals and to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
- What happens in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas when it involved a pack of Hunnish young men beating and pillaging their way around the MGM Grand, a local convenience store and a city park. MGM security video caught part of the crime spree on tape, which was broadcast again and again on national news.
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