By Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal

A leading association for the gambling industry is hopeful that a Trump administration will be huge for gaming.

Increased mainstream acceptance of gambling, combined with the results of the presidential election, represent an opportunity to push key goals for the industry on a wide range of issues, including regulations and sports betting, said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, during a Tuesday conference call with media.

“We have a former casino owner elected as the next president of the United States,” Freeman said. “We are better positioned than at any time to achieve our objectives.”

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·       The Crossing in South Lake Tahoe is gradually filling up with new tenants. Besides Sierra-at-Tahoe, expect Lake Tahoe AleWorX Taproom & Pizzeria, Elevate Wellness Center, and Omni yoga plan to have storefronts.

·       The 24-year-old Bookshelf bookstore in Truckee is closing Dec. 29. However, the town won’t be without a bookstore for long. In the spring, Bug’s plans to open on Church Street.

·       Dirt Nasty plus Speaker Child and B3 the Shark will be at Whiskey Dicks in South Lake Tahoe on Dec. 28. Doors open at 9pm. Must be 21. Tickets are $20 that night.

·       South Lake Tahoe Windjammers Yacht Club has new officers: Kurt Rasmussen, commodore; Shari Young, vice commodore; David Young, rear commodore; Diane Martin, secretary; and Dale Herman, treasurer.

·       Delta Air Lines’ Reno-Atlanta route resumed this week. There will be three flights a week through Jan. 3. Then it will be Saturdays only through March.

By Paul McHugh, Sacramento Bee

I suspect Frosty the Snowman is not in truth a jolly, happy soul. Parts of him look stiffened by frostbite, others thoroughly deadened by hypothermia. He must’ve spent a cold night out. That could also explain his frozen grin and blank stare.

In a gift-giving season, we all should understand that the very best present we can ever hope to award our loved ones is making it back home – hopefully, with all our fingers and toes intact. That means taking steps to ensure we don’t end up like Frosty.

Each winter, skiers and boarders duck under resort boundary ropes, and/or get disoriented and lost in whiteouts. Other folks, overly confident about the abilities of their SUVs, drive too far into places they should never go and bog down on remote roads.

But for people brought nose-to-nose with hostile winter conditions, a few simple measures could make all the difference between mild discomfort and full-scale disaster. Start off by admitting that it’s indeed possible to have a problem. When you do, whether or not it turns into a major problem is largely up to you.

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Otto test-runs an 18-wheeler on Interstate 80 outside Reno. Photo/Otto

By Dan Michalsky, Las Vegas Sun

Founded by a group of former Google engineers, self-driving trucking startup Otto blazed through Nevada in 2016 and left behind some serious tread.

Otto launched in January, and by May the San Francisco-based company had conducted the first-ever test run of an 18-wheeler, on an interstate outside of Reno, with no one on board.

The company heralded the drive as a huge success in a video posted on YouTube, and three months later Uber bought Otto for $680 million.

But the historic ride may also have been the first moving violation committed by a driverless vehicle in Nevada.

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By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – While there are 178 thresholds the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is trying to achieve, it was traffic-transportation that garnered the most discussion this month.

The Governing Board adopted the 2015 Threshold Evaluation Report at its meeting last week. Within all of those standards are nine categories: air quality, water quality, soil conservation, vegetation, fisheries, wildlife, scenic resources, noise, and recreation.

“We need to start formulating a traffic management standard to get a handle on this. We need to understand how traffic works,” board member Clem Shute said.

Vehicle miles traveled – or VMT for short – is what TRPA and many other entities use when it comes to traffic. This was originally devised as an air quality tool. It’s a traffic count method.

Traffic at Camp Richardson on July 3, 2016. Photo/Bill Kingman

Board member Jim Lawrence is not convinced VMT should be used for all things the agency uses it for. He said transportation is too important to rely on one metric that might not be doing the job everyone says it does.

Executive Director Joanne Marchetta agreed that a better understanding of VMT is needed.

Anyone who drives in the basin knows traffic can be an issue. During peak periods with tourists it becomes a problem.

And anyone who tries to ride the bus, especially on the South Shore, knows it’s not reliable and certainly doesn’t come at frequent intervals. For those don’t know what a BlueGo is, they wouldn’t even know where the bus stop is because all it says is BlueGo — no bus symbol, not even the words “bus stop”.

Austin Sass, who is South Lake Tahoe’s rep on the TRPA board and the Tahoe Transportation District, believes the Governing Board should have better communication with the TTD board and staff.

“We need funding for free transportation,” Sass said.

TTD’s proposal to achieve that goal is a regionwide sales tax increase dedicated to transit. Before voters could weigh in on this it will take both state legislatures to agree to it.

These threshold reports are compiled every four years by TRPA. Just like in 2011, this report was peer reviewed by 15 independent scientists. They found 77 of the standards to be in attainment, either at or better than target or considerably better than target. That’s up from 58 that were in attainment in 2011.

The report states, “Status continued to improve for water clarity, air quality, scenic and soil conservation. Areas needing continued focus include removal of land coverage on sensitive lands, new threats to forest vegetation, deep water plant communities, and the need for continued emphasis on water quality conditions (for) macroinvertebrates, periphyton (algae) and AIS control.”

Board members voiced concern that there are too many thresholds and wonder if looking at what is being evaluated should be a priority. This way staff time could be better concentrated on issues that are relevant and not just doing something because the Compact says to.

Updating the threshold standards is a priority of staff. It’s something that has not been done since they were adopted in the 1980s.

To the community,

The holidays are here. They are always festive and special times at Lake Tahoe. Hopefully, the snow gods continue to bless us with more white, fluffy stuff, so we can all get out and enjoy the magic of Tahoe’s snow-covered mountains. 

Now is probably a good time to talk about what else happens during the holidays when it snows. We go sledding – wherever we can find open hills with nearby parking.  When full of people, these places tend to look like resorts, the throngs screaming in delight as they shush down the hills. 

In reality, they are open spaces with very little land management. In the summer, they would just look like pretty parts of the forest. What does that mean? It means there probably won’t be trashcans nearby, there won’t be park rangers or friendly staff, and there won’t be anyone there to remind you to take your belongings with you when you go. 

Unfortunately, as we have seen in years past, at the end of the day this can mean sled hills covered in litter and broken sleds. We get it, when it is cold and your kiddo has just bonked themselves on the way down the hill it is easy to make a mad dash to the warmth of your car. If there isn’t a trash bin, it can seem fine just to leave your now mangled sled by the pile of other mangled sleds. But let’s be clear, it’s not really OK.  

It doesn’t take much to remember the principles of Leave No Trace. Take only memories, leave only sled tracks.  Please remember to take home anything you bring with you to the sled hill. Broken sleds can be easily tossed in a garbage at home. Litter can too. Don’t be afraid to speak up for the mountains and remind others of this too. If we all do our part, we can make sure our mountains feel as loved as we all do on the holidays.

While we are talking about snow, let’s also remember to pick up after Fido and Spot. Dog poop, even when buried below the snow, is not only gross to step in, but it carries harmful toxins into the lake when the snow eventually melts. So this holiday season, please do your best to be No. 1 at picking up No. 2.

For a reminder of all the things you can do to help take care of the Tahoe environment any time of year, please go online.

The Take Care Team,

Amy Berry and Diana Dorman, Tahoe Fund

Devin Middlebrook and Adam Jensen, TRPA

Marilee Movius, League to Save Lake Tahoe

Nicole Cartwright, Tahoe Resource Conservation District

Heather Segale, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center

By Christopher Cadelago, Sacramento Bee

Gov. Jerry Brown, rallying a room of scientists with his most heated rhetoric yet on the topic, suggested California would defy the federal government should President-elect Donald Trump impede the state’s efforts to thwart climate change.

“We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers and we’re ready to fight. We’re ready to defend,” he said to boisterous applause at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

Brown struck a more forceful tone than he has since the election, suggesting the energy and enthusiasm in the room for him would be needed in the “battles ahead.”

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By Associated Press

If Bode Miller wants to return to ski racing this season as he approaches the age of 40, he’s going to have to show U.S. Ski Team head coach Sasha Rearick that he’s still got the necessary speed.

“There’s always a chance with Bode — always. But at this point right now we’re not expecting a miracle return real quick,” Rearick told the Associated Press on Friday.

Still, Rearick would not rule out a return for Miller this season, saying the six-time Olympic medalist could “possibly” race in January.

Miller has won 33 World Cup races but he has never won the famed Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria, which is scheduled for Jan. 21.

While he has not raced since severing his right hamstring tendon in February 2015, Miller might be tempted to return in time for Kitzbuehel. That could enable him to qualify for the world championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in February.

The U.S. team can start only four skiers in each race at the worlds.

“He’s going to have to qualify for world championships,” Rearick said. “He would have to show me he’s ready to play or qualify straight up by criteria.”

The 39-year-old Miller did not show much speed during training at Copper Mountain in Colorado last month — trailing several teammates.

“He was not in the mix in those four-five guys, and we were ahead of the Norwegians there,” Rearick said.

The training in Copper was on a 30-second track of about 800 meters (yards), just a fraction of the distance of a full World Cup downhill or super-G.

“So you can’t go off Copper. You got to show me what’s going on right now,” Rearick said.

Miller has not had any race training since Copper, according to Rearick, but the coach said Miller will come to Europe to train early next month and then be evaluated.

At the 2015 World Championships in Beaver Creek, Colo., Miller was leading the super-G after several intervals despite not having raced all season. Then he crashed.

“That was the perfect end to this career — green light, green light, green light and then crash,” Norwegian great Kjetil Andre Aamodt said, referring to Miller’s unpredictability.

If Miller does return, he’s planning to compete on skis from New York-based brand Bomber, which he helped develop. He has asked a court to void his agreement with previous supplier Head.

Miller ended his nearly 10-year partnership with Head in 2015 and signed an agreement not to wear a different ski brand in World Cup or world championship races for the following two years.

“It’s not been decided as far as we know and we don’t know when the court will decide it,” Head racing director Rainer Salzgeber said. “Anyhow, it’s better when he doesn’t ski. That’s clear. It would be nice for the crowd. But his level of skiing in Copper was not there where we want to see Bode.”

Meanwhile, Salzgeber suggested that Lindsey Vonn — who is still supplied by Head — could return from a broken arm in Cortina d’Ampezzo in late January.

“She will start skiing hopefully beginning of January,” Salzgeber said. “Cortina should be OK.”

By Zac Mooney, KTVN-TV 

Rep. Mark Amodei, D-Carson City, was one of Donald Trump’s biggest Nevada supporters during the presidential campaign and he says he will use any favor with the new administration to help Nevadans.

He says when the next congressional session starts Jan. 3, the top priorities will be tax, health care and immigration reform. 

“I’m looking forward to, ‘Here’s what the actual proposal is. Where are we at on this? Do we support it, are we opposed to it?” says Rep. Amodei, “But at least to take it out of the whole speculation of the unknown stuff right now, which is serving to do nothing except heighten people’s fears.”

Amodei says Trump won the election because the American people want strong leadership. He blames both sides of the aisle for gridlock in Washington and what he calls “political cliche” adding that if the Republican Party can’t prevent gridlock, voters will move back to Democrats or even a third party.

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By Jane E. Brody, New York Times

Most of the Northern Hemisphere is now in the throes of the deadliest time of the year. Cold kills, and I don’t mean just extreme cold and crippling blizzards. I mean ordinary winter cold, like that typically experienced, chronically or episodically, by people in every state but Hawaii from late fall through early spring.

While casualties resulting from heat waves receive wide publicity, deaths from bouts of extreme cold rarely do, and those resulting from ordinary winter weather warrant virtually no attention. Yet an international study covering 384 locations in 13 countries, including the United States, found that cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 20 times more deaths than hot weather.

Over time, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths., a benefit that could outweigh a smaller rise in heat-caused mortality. In winter in the United States, mortality is generally 10 percent to 15 percent higher than on typical summer days.

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