By David Porter, AP

NEWARK, N.J. — A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt another defeat to New Jersey’s yearslong attempt to legalize sports betting, setting aside the state’s challenge to a federal betting ban.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling invalidated a law passed by New Jersey in 2014 that would have allowed sports betting at casinos and racetracks. The court found New Jersey’s law repealing prohibitions against sports gambling violated the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which forbids state-authorized sports gambling.

“Because PASPA, by its terms, prohibits states from authorizing by law sports gambling, and because the 2014 law does exactly that, the 2014 law violates federal law,” the court wrote.

Currently, only Nevada offers legal sports betting on individual games. Delaware offers multigame parlay betting in which players must pick several games correctly to win. Both were given exemptions when PASPA was passed.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and supporters in the state Legislature have sought to legalize sports gambling to help prop up the struggling casino and horse racing industries. It’s estimated up to hundreds of billions of dollars are bet illegally on sports annually in the U.S.

The dispute has a lengthy legal history. The four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA sued the state in 2012, after New Jersey voters approved sports gambling the previous year. The leagues claimed the expansion of legal sports betting to New Jersey would damage the integrity of their games and lead to more game-fixing.

After the 3rd Circuit rejected the state’s constitutional challenge to PASPA, Christie signed a bill into law in the fall of 2014 that repealed prohibitions against sports gambling at casinos and racetracks. That tactic — repealing prohibitions instead of approving gambling — was seen as a way to get around the federal law.

Though each court ruling has gone against the state, there have been dissents in two previous three-judge rulings at the 3rd Circuit.

One of the judges who dissented in an earlier ruling also wrote a dissent Tuesday. Judge Julio Fuentes wrote that New Jersey’s repeal meant it wasn’t actually authorizing sports gambling.

“I do not see how a partial repeal of prohibitions is tantamount to authorizing by law a sports wagering scheme in violation of PASPA,” Fuentes wrote.

The Aug. 9 ruling came after a hearing by the full 3rd Circuit, called an en banc hearing. In an earlier iteration of the case, the 3rd Circuit declined New Jersey’s request in 2013 for the full circuit to rehear the case.

The state can appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, which has already declined to hear the case once before. Messages left with Christie’s office and the state attorney general’s office weren’t immediately returned Tuesday.

Through a spokesman, the NFL declined comment.

Sports betting supporters have called the leagues’ stance hypocritical, saying the leagues condone and profit from sports fantasy leagues in which participants assemble rosters of players from different teams and compete against others.

By Patricia Cohen, New York Times 

Steven Oshins, a Las Vegas lawyer who specializes in estate planning, has never met the wealthy software entrepreneur Dan Kloiber, but he is nonetheless intensely interested in Kloiber’s contentious divorce.

“I have had a Google news alert on that for a couple years,” Oshins said as he discussed the case from his office in a squat pink complex about a 20-minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip. What animates Oshins is not the juicy marital feud, but the legal arcana governing a trust in Delaware where the Kloiber family parked assets worth hundreds of million of dollars, sheltered from estate taxes.

Oshins, with a gleeful grin spreading across his face, relished the thought of the no-longer-beloved wife of Dan Kloiber busting through the trust and exposing a potential chink in the formidable trust protection armor promised by Delaware — which just happens to fiercely compete with Nevada for the lucrative business of shielding assets owned by the superrich.

Although most out-of-town visitors are drawn to the city’s roulette wheels and slot machines, Oshins and a battalion of tax lawyers, accountants, advisers, trust administrators and bankers cater to an elite clientele that insists on a much more reliable way to build a fortune.

With their backing, Nevada has stoked an aggressive rivalry among a smattering of states to baby-sit the wealth of the nation’s top 1 percent, pressing public officials to pass laws, streamline regulations, lower fees and replace DMV-level service with concierge treatment.

Read the whole story

By Associated Press

With all their modern scientific equipment and state-of-the-art computer models, researchers trying to better understand the effect of algae growth in Lake Tahoe are searching for new tools to aid in their mission — old photo albums.

Experts at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center want to better understand the trend in long-term algae growth.

“Everyone wants to know if there’s more of this stuff, but we don’t know,” said Geoff Schladow, a professor of water resources and environmental engineering at UC Davis.

Researchers study algae growth because it is linked to high levels of nutrients, which enter the lake atmospherically and through stormwater runoff. Fertilizer, for example, contains nutrients and can find its way into the lake when it rains, thus contributing to algae growth.

Despite a reduction in the amount of sediment entering the lake last year because of the ongoing drought in the West, the concentration of nitrate is actually higher.

The problem is scientists don’t have much historical data about algae.

“What we’re left to use is anecdotal data,” Schladow said. “We also ask for old photos, so if anyone has some they’d like to share, unfortunately that is the only older data we have.”

Scott Hackley, a staff research associate at UC Davis, said he’s worked with archivists at UNR to find old photos, but he and his team are hopeful that the community can help as well.

“It’d be nice to get some old photos with the year, time of year and the location to fill in some of the historical gaps,” he said.

By Margo Bartlett Pesek, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Bowers Mansion, one of Nevada’s most famous residences, memorializes the first fabulous Comstock mining era that brought Nevada Territory to statehood during the Civil War. A visit to this handsome dwelling is a fascinating side trip into history.

The elegant home, which now anchors a popular Washoe County regional park, was built in 1863 by the Silver State’s first mining millionaire couple, Lemuel “Sandy” Bowers and Eilley Oram Bowers.

The mansion frequently hosted parties, picnics and balls in the 1870s and nowadays welcomes crowds for weekend house tours, summertime swimming, picnics and special events.

Read the whole story

By Sean Whaley, Las Vegas Review-Journal

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Constitution gives citizens the right to weigh in on public policy issues through the use of ballot initiatives and referendums.

The petition process, which dates nationally to the populist era of the early 20th century, lets the public put measures to the voters directly, bypassing the legislative and executive branches of government.

But having the right to petition is a far cry from successfully navigating the many hurdles to limit ballot access.

Many people try to put measures on the ballot, and many fail.

Read the whole story

By Jane Braxton Little, High Country News

Looking north from Blue Canyon near Shaver Lake, copper-colored forests blanket mountain slopes that stretch ridge after ridge to the horizon. The patches of fading green that dappled these hillsides last fall have merged into an unbroken cover of rust-needled pines.  At dusk, when the winds die down, an eerie stillness gives way to the muffled sound of munching as beetles chomp through one tree after another, thousands after thousands.

This is the look — and the sound — of drought.

Four consecutive winters with little to no snowpack, followed by four dry summers, have devastated California’s southern Sierra Nevada. At least 66 million trees are already dead statewide, and millions more are expected to die as the drought persists into a fifth summer.

On the Sierra National Forest, up to 90 percent of the mid-elevation ponderosa pines are dead.  Weakened by drought, oaks are succumbing to sudden oak death along the central and northern coast, and the disease has moved into the

And the bark beetles that caused this desolation? They’re reproducing at triple the normal rate. Forest ecologists used to consider them a natural part of the forest dynamic — and they are. Stressed by drought and decades of air pollution in overcrowded stands, however, the natural chemicals trees pitch out in self-defense can’t keep up with the onslaught of bugs.  No one is calling what’s happening here natural anymore.

Read the whole story

·       Labor Day fireworks on the South shore will be shot off Sept. 4 at 8:30pm.

·       First 5 El Dorado’s Executive Director Kathleen Guerrero and El Dorado County Child Care and Education Planning Council’s Coordinator Elizabeth Blakemore were recognized by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson for their work with the Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge Grant.

·       TRYP is having a mixer Aug. 10 from 6-9pm at the Coachman Hotel in South Lake Tahoe and Aug. 16 from 5:30-8pm at Jack Rabbit Moon in Incline Village. TRYP members are free and non-members are $10.

·       Douglas County commissioners extended Larry Werner’s contract as interim county manager through December. The contract will remain the same at a fixed cost of $14,333 per month with a $700 per month car allowance.

·       It’s free to visit a national park from Aug. 25-28.

Liberty Utility crews work to repair a splintered power line on Aug. 9. Photo/LTN

Updated 12:20pm: Power has been restored.

—-

The driver of a Ford Explorer had to be extricated from the vehicle early this morning after crashing into an electric pole at the corner of Pioneer Trail and Al Tahoe Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe.

The person, whose name has not been released, was flown to Renown Medical Center in Reno after the Aug. 9, 3:30am accident.

“The investigation is continuing as to what caused the crash and if any alcohol or drugs were involved,” police Lt. Brian Williams told Lake Tahoe News.

The accident initially left 2,200 Liberty Utilities customers without power. Two hundred people remain without power. It should be restored by 10am Tuesday or as soon as the new pole is in place.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The North Shore boat launches, with the South Shore boat already in the water. Photo/Provided

Lake Tahoe outrigger teams dominated the boats from the Bay Area during the annual Round the Rock Alcatraz Challenge.

Boats of six rowers raced about 10 miles from the beach near Crissy Field in San Francisco, into the bay, around the prison and back to shore.

Kawai’ulu O’Tahoe placed first and second in the coed masters division on Aug. 6. Coed teams are usually made up of three women and three men; the South Shore team had four women, two men.

On the first place North Shore crew were: John Vanon, Angela Stevens, Monica Berger, Brian Minkin, Donna Rockwood and Paul Laudenschlager.

The second place South Shore boat had: Farah Richmond, Deb Lewis, Tom Gandt, Alex Bebout, Megan Gandt and Ahna Yap.

Emma could become Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care’s first animal it keeps because with one wing it cannot be released into the wild. Photo/LTWC

By Kathryn Reed

Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care is in the process of getting its first permit to permanently care for an animal that cannot be released into the wild.

Emma – the bald eagle from Emerald Bay – came to the South Shore rehab facility last Halloween. She had a broken wrist and damage to her wing. Eventually the wing had to be amputated.

The center on the edge of South Lake Tahoe has been caring for animals since 1978. The goal is always to nurse the injured animal back to health so it can return to its natural environment. For the few that have not been able to fully mend they’ve been sent to wildlife facilities that could care for them for the long term.

LTWC when it moves into its new headquarters off Al Tahoe Boulevard intends to have an area where animals that can’t make it on their own will be housed. This will then become an educational component to the facility.

Emma is the beginning of that evolution of LTWC. For now she is still under veterinary care as she heals from surgery.

Ultimately it will be up the federal and state wildlife agencies to grant a permit to the nonprofit to care for animals beyond the rehabilitation and release stages.

LTWC founders Tom and Cheryl Millham hope to move to their new headquarters – and out of their backyard – in the near future. Money is the stumbling block. About $4 million is needed to be able to open the new site.

Incrementally they are building what is hoped to be a state-of-the-art rehabilitation and education facility.

Work on the 27-acre site started last year. At the end of June the entire underground infrastructure was completed. Foundation work should be done by Oct. 15, with framing of the 12 cages and main building starting next building season.

LTWC volunteer Alexi Haven explains to visitors what is going on inside the bear cage. Photo/LTWC

To keep the animals wild the public is kept away from them – except for the one-day annual open house.

Last weekend at the open house it was Emma who was the star – not the four bear cubs.

“Emma was the hit of the show,” Tom Millham told Lake Tahoe News.

“We started socializing her. People could take pictures of her,” Millham said of the eagle. “She will be our new ambassador for Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care.”

A team of six volunteers is working to get Emma acclimated to people. There is a set schedule for feeding, which only consists of fish. She can be fussy at times, but is coming around to her new life.

More than 900 people attended the open house. The record attendance was 1,200 in 2008 when Li’l Smokey was at LTWC.

LTWC will be adding to its bear cub collection today when another arrives from Southern California. This will be the 86th bear to come to LTWC in the time that it has existed.

To donate or for more info about LTWC, go online.