By David Ferry, Outside

Ian McIntosh was maybe five turns into a first descent of a jagged Alaskan peak when things went wrong. The 34-year-old Canadian pro skier was filming a segment for Teton Gravity Research and carving down a face the film crew dubbed “Daybreak Spines.” The light was playing tricks on him, and early-morning shadows made a long spine look easy to cross over. It wasn’t. McIntosh hit it hard and dropped five feet into a trough he didn’t know existed. Then he started rolling.

McIntosh says he was immediately certain of one thing: “I knew I was going to the bottom,” he says. “I knew I was going for a ride.” Then all he could think was, Am I going to get traumatically injured by tomahawking down this mountain? andPlease be over.

You probably know this already—the whole Internet seemed to see McIntosh’s epic 1,600-foot tumble, which was caught on film during a shoot for the upcoming ski flick Paradise Waits. The clip went viral this week because of the spectacular nature of the fall—McIntosh plummets ass-over-heels down the height of the Empire State Building for more than 25 cringe-worthy seconds—but also because after coming to a stop he emerges on top of the snow, unbelievably fine. “I’m OK! I’m OK!” McIntosh says in the video.

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By Drew Champlin, AL.com

UAB’s students showed out in full force in the Blazers’ 82-70 win over Rice Thursday, but Bartow Arena was far from a sellout.

The win gave the University of Alabama at Birmingham 20 straight at home, a school record, and improved UAB’s record this season to 16-3, 6-0. The team is in first place team in Conference USA.

Head coach Jerod Haase, a graduate of South Tahoe High School, has started to fulfill most of the goals he set out when he took the job in the spring of 2012. UAB’s roster is arguably the best and deepest in Conference USA. It won an NCAA Tournament game ahead of schedule with a lineup of mostly freshmen and sophomores last season. UAB’s academics are atop Conference USA and the Blazers are among the top teams in the country in community service hours.

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Kyla Long is looking for a home for these dogs because their owner died last fall. Photo/Provided

For more than two months Aggie and Olivia have been waiting for their next forever home.

The two dogs lost their owner when she died in a mobile home fire in Stateline in November.

“I’m trying to keep them together. I’m not sure how long I’ll wait before I split them up,” Kyla Long told Lake Tahoe News.

Long runs Tahoe Tails and Trails on Lower Kingsbury Grade. While this type of service is not part of her business, she has placed 11 dogs in the last 6½ years.

Aggie and Olivia were brought to Long by a neighbor of the deceased woman in the hopes of finding someone to take them in.

Both are active – having been used to multiple walks a day, are good off leash, and play well with children of all ages. They get along with other dogs. Aggie, though, likes to chase cats. Both are spayed and are current on vaccinations.

Aggie is about 50 pounds and is 3 years old. She is a Lab mix – with some pit pull and Catahoula.

Olivia will be 8 in February and weighs 100 pounds. She is a Great Pyrenees with some Lab.

For now their home is at the doggie day care center; they even have a private room.

Anyone interested in adopting the animals should call Long at 775.580.7121.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Associated Press

CARSON CITY — Supporters of a proposal to gradually raise Nevada’s hourly minimum wage to $13 are clear to start gathering the thousands of signatures needed to get the measure on the November ballot.

Carson City District Judge James Wilson sided with supports of hiking the minimum wage on Wednesday and ruled that the petition language doesn’t need to be changed. The measure is backed by a group called the Committee to Raise the Minimum Wage in Nevada.

Opponents included Las Vegas and Reno-Sparks chambers of commerce, who sought to disqualify the petition on technical points. They argued that the petition language doesn’t explain the harsh consequences in store for businesses that violate the wage rule, even by accident.

Opposition lawyer Kevin Benson told the newspaper he’s not sure yet whether his clients will appeal the judge’s ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Nevada’s minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, or $7.25 if an employer offers health insurance. The measure would raise the rate to $9.25 in late 2018, then increase it by 75 cents each year until it reaches $13 in 2024.

The measure proposes that all subsequent minimum wage hikes in Nevada be tied to growth in the federal rate or to a cost-of-living index. It would also remove the lower-tier minimum wage rate for employers who offer insurance, and it would cut out a measure that exempts teenagers from minimum wage rules if they’re working for nonprofits on a short-term basis.

Backers must gather more than 55,000 signatures to put the proposal on November’s ballot.

Officers on the ballot measure committee include the Rev. Neal Anderson of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada, who said in November that the measure was about lifting families from poverty, bringing wages in line with increasing costs and affirming human dignity.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage say it would hurt entry-level workers, whose jobs would be replaced by automation and whose employers would go out of business.

The proposal is more modest than the $15 an hour sought by fast food workers who have been staging strikes in Las Vegas and elsewhere. It comes after a bill that would have raised the state’s minimum wage to $9 died at the end of this spring’s legislative session, and after a proposed constitutional amendment raising the wage to $15 made even less progress.

Source: Douglas County

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – In an attempt to encourage investment in the Stateline area, Douglas County commissioners on Thursday unanimously agreed to create a redevelopment agency.

It essentially will encompass the casino core east to Kahle Drive. From Lake Park Way only the property on the north side of Highway 50 to Kahle is included.

Mike Bradford was the only person from the public to comment. Representing the South Tahoe Alliance of Resorts, he told the board the redevelopment agency will help with implementing aspects of the South Shore Vision Plan. In particular he mentioned the loop road and creation of a permanent entertainment venue.

Redevelopment agencies are a product of the state, with certain criteria needing to be met to create such an entity. One of those is determining that there is blight.

The main issue that was brought up at the Jan. 21 meeting was how tax increment can impact other entities that receive property tax distribution. Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District was singled out.

Redevelopment agencies receive their funding from what is called tax increment. When the assessed value of a property goes up – aka tax increment – all that money stays with the redevelopment agency. This means public agencies will not get those dollars.

Bradford assured the board and fire district that “public safety will not be compromised.”

Estimates are the redevelopment agency through the tax increment would collect $47.2 million in 30 years.

The redevelopment agency, of which the commissioners are the board of directors, will also have the power of eminent domain.

The documents say, “The agency is authorized to demolish and clear buildings, structures and other improvements from any real property acquired in the redevelopment area as necessary to carry out the purposes of this plan.”

The second reading to create the agency will occur in February.

California did away with redevelopment agencies effective in 2012, which forced South Lake Tahoe to dissolve its agency and sell off property it owned.

·       Tickets are on sale for El Dorado Winery Association’s 25th annual Passport Wine event. The event is April 9–10 and April 16–17, 11am–5pm. For more info, go online.

·       Steve Hemphill has returned to Sierra-at-Tahoe as the director of marketing and sales. He was previously employed at Sierra as the communication manager before leaving to work at K2 Sports. In 2014, Hemphill was recognized by Ski Area Management magazine as a top individual in the snowsports industry younger than 30.

·       Chris Pavich, who was born and raised in South Lake Tahoe and went to Whittell High School, has opened Kingsbury Chiropractic.

·       Placer County’s vaccination rate increased from 86.4 percent to 88.8 percent for the 2015-16 school year. Kindergarten personal belief exemptions are down from 8 percent to 5.96 percent.

·       Nevada Division of State Parks is seeking grant applications for the 2016 federal funding round of the Recreational Trails Program. Nevada could potentially receive $1.1 million in grant funds. Grants may be awarded to counties, municipalities, state and federal agencies, private organizations, nonprofits and Native American tribal governments for the purpose of providing outdoor recreational trail activities. The full application is online.

On Feb. 2, a panel will discuss transit plans for the Lake Tahoe Basin, the challenges and opportunities for improving transit, and the North Shore Transit Vision.

Panelists include Sandy Evans-Hall, executive director of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association; George Fink, transit system program manager for the Tahoe Transportation District; and Jaime Wright, executive director of the Truckee North Tahoe Transportation Management Association.

The talk is from noon to 1:30pm in the Tahoe City Public Utility District Board Room, 221 Fairway Drive.

By USSA

KITZBUEHEL, Austria – It’s the biggest weekend in ski racing, and a couple new faces are not only soaking in the experience, but stepping up their game to come away with valuable World Cup points at the Audi FIS Ski World Cup combined Friday. Bryce Bennett (Squaw Valley), who has enjoyed a breakout season this year, finished ninth, while Drew Duffy (Warren, Vt.) scored his first World Cup points in 27 at the alpine combined event.

“It’s just awesome to be here … this is the biggest one, definitely a cool weekend,” said Duffy, who is planning to return to the NorAm and Europa Cup circuits and then off to Russia for the World Junior Championships for the remainder of the season. “I don’t know if I was more scared for the super G or the slalom. There were definitely some nerves, but I’m definitely excited on how I’m skiing.”

France swept the combined podium, which consisted of a morning super G and afternoon slalom, with Frenchmen Alexis Pinturault, Victor Muffat-Jeandet and Thomas Mermillod-Blondin going one-two-three. Pinurault also won the combined event at Kitzbuehel last season.

Bennett scored World Cup points for the fourth time this season with two solid runs, on a technical, icy track.

“It feels real good to get some second runs, get into the top 30, score some points, have some good results and feel OK about yourself,” Bennet said, knowing that the biggest race of his young World Cup career is Saturday in the Hahnenkamm downhill. “I’m doing (the Hahnenkamm) for the first time. I can see the line that you need to take, but I’m on the fence about committing to it, especially for the first time, so we’ll just see what happens in the morning.”

Austria’s Marcel Hirscher was looking to make up ground on overall World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal, who won the morning super G, but was disqualified for missing a gate in the slalom. Svindal is the odds on favorite to win Saturday’s downhill and extend his overall World Cup lead, which is currently 107 points ahead of Hirscher, who sits in second. Svindal also went out second run after straddling and losing his ski.

Seven Americans are scheduled to start Saturday’s downhill, including Bennett, Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley), Jared Goldberg (Holladay, Utah), Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah), Wiley Maple (Aspen, Colo.), Marco Sullivan (Squaw Valley) and Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, N.Y.), who finished second in Friday’s super G.

By Jacqueline Palank, Wall Street Journal

CHICAGO—Continued sparring over an investigation into dealings between Caesars Entertainment Corp. and its bankrupt operating unit could torpedo the unit’s restructuring, a bankruptcy judge suggested Wednesday.

Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago on Wednesday warned Caesars, its bankrupt unit and others fighting over which details of the investigation have to be made public. If the fight isn’t resolved, “then this case is going to take rather a different turn from the one that I imagine the debtor and its parent and its affiliates would like to see,” he said.

Rather than allowing the unit’s current management to remain in charge, Judge Goldgar listed a number of other paths the Caesar unit’s chapter 11 case could take.

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By John Myers, Los Angeles Times

In a short speech with a long view of California, Gov. Jerry Brown used his State of the State address to challenge lawmakers to better balance the cyclical nature of success and setback that has dominated state government for the better part of two decades.

“The challenge is to solve today’s problems without making those of tomorrow even worse,” the governor said in his annual speech delivered from the Assembly chamber Thursday.

Brown, interrupted by occasional applause from legislators, touched on themes that included California’s drought and the challenges of income inequality and terrorism.

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