• Gathering at the Gatekeeper’s fundraising dinner and auction for The North Lake Tahoe Historical Society is from 4-8pm on July 15. The event includes an auction with packages such as “Dinner party with Mark Twain” and “High Tea with Stella Watson at Watson Cabin.”  Tickets are $65 at can be purchased online or at the Gatekeeper’s Museum in Tahoe City. Proceeds from the go to operate the Gatekeeper’s Museum, Watson Cabin and cultural events. For more information, visit the museum online call (530) 583.1762.

• Here is the Caltrans roadwork schedule for El Dorado-Tahoe  and Sierra for the coming week.

•The 23rd annual Foam Fest beer and music festival featuring Johnny “Guitar” Knox and the Rockin’ Blues of Ro Harpo and the Blues Busters is set for 6pm on Sept. 2 on the KT sundeck of the Olympic House at Squaw Valley. Concert plus five brews is $25 or a suggested donation of $10 for concert only. Proceeds go to helping disabled people ski. For more information, email info@dsusafw.org.

By Jennifer A. Kingson, New York Times

Many of them have carpeting, heating and air-conditioning, indoor and outdoor lighting, elaborate music and entertainment systems. Some are even eco-friendly, with solar panels or planted green roofs.

Take, for instance, the Palladian-style mini-mansion that Glenna and Ed Hall bought at a charity auction three years ago for about $300. With Jeffersonian columns that match the ones on their home in Roanoke, Va., the two-foot-tall doghouse makes a perfect accent for the garden. No one seems to mind that the garden is off-limits to Maggie May, their 28-pound whippet-borzoi mix — least of all Maggie May.

“We bought the house because it looks a lot like our house,” said Mrs. Hall, 66, a retired interior designer. “Maggie’s never been in it. She’s a house dog.”

Traditionally, doghouses were where dogs actually lived, separate from the family. But now that dogs are increasingly considered members of the family, their homes are becoming more like second homes — and in some cases, they’re entirely ornamental. Sure, there are still plenty of doghouses built for dogs to live in. But there are also an impressive number built the way Christian Louboutin makes shoes: you can walk in them (sort of), but clearly that’s not the point.

Read the whole story

Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, vice chair of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, criticized the California legislature’s vote to authorize approximately $8 billion for California’s High Speed Rail Project last week.

“The Democrats just passed another budget that is billions of dollars out of balance and now they are threatening to cut billions more from our schools unless they get a massive tax increase in November,” said Gaines in statement. “And they think this is the appropriate time to sink a fortune into a high speed rail project that is doomed to failure? Those half-empty train cars will be a monument to misplaced priorities and fiscal recklessness.”

The bill passed the Assembly on Thursday and passed in the Senate on Friday, with all 15 Republican senators voting against the measure.

“This project will push California over the fiscal cliff and it will be a legendary waste of taxpayer money,” said Gaines. “It will require endless subsidies and will blast a massive hole into our budget. Our dollars would be better spent on our schools, public safety, or more effective infrastructure projects.”

Gaines represents the 1st Senate District, which includes all or parts of El Dorado and Placer counties.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kenneth Lieberthal and Michael O’Hanlon, Las Vegas Sun

Drones, kill lists, computer viruses and administration leaks are all the rage in the current political debate. They indeed merit serious scrutiny at a time when the rules of war, and technologies available for war, are changing fast. That said, these issues are not the foreign policy centerpiece of the 2012 presidential race.

Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the pre-eminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen was fond of saying, national debt has become perhaps our top national security threat. And neither major presidential candidate is doing enough about it. This issue needs to be framed as crucial not just for our future prosperity but for international stability as well.

The United States has been running trillion-dollar deficits, resulting in a huge explosion in the country’s indebtedness. Publicly held debt now equals 70 percent of gross domestic product, a threshold many economists consider significant and highly worrisome. Making matters worse, half of our current deficit financing is being provided by foreigners. We are getting by with low interest rates and tolerable levels of domestic investment only because they find U.S. debt attractive, which may not last.

Read the whole story

Nutrition science researcher Kimber Stanhope will present a study on the metabolic effects of sugar consumption at the University of California Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center monthly lecture.

The study was recently featured in the CBS News 60 Minutes investigative report with Sanjay Gupta, which will re-air Aug. 5.  

The event is being held at 6pm on July 26 on the Sierra Nevada College’s Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village.

By Kathryn Reed

TRUCKEE – A ski slope out the back door. That is how the eight townhomes under construction at Northstar are being sold.

East West Partners, which has come out on the other side of bankruptcy, is back in the game at this Truckee resort. While the developer has the rights to more than 1,000 units, build-out isn’t even in sight.

On the other side of the ski hill is Martis Camp, a private gated community on 2,177 acres that accesses the ski resort by the private Martis Camp Express Lift. DMB/Highlands Group is the developer on this project.

Vail Resorts put in $30 million worth of improvements that skiers could use last ski season, but does not have any capital upgrades for the upcoming season.

Plenty of windows let in natural light in the Home Run townhomes. Photo/Provided

Instead, it’s all about developers creating homes for potential skiers to live in.

The remaining 58 cabin home sites at Martis Creek were released this summer; ranging from $500,000 to $2.8 million.

Before those lots went on the market, 75 houses were under construction and 80 were being designed. Nearly $28 million in real estate transactions occurred in Martis Camp in the first half of 2012. Last year set a record for deals at $90.2 million trading hands.

The East West townhomes range between $1.645 million and $2.295 million. That includes the structure – not just a plot of dirt.

Called Home Run because the homes sit on the ski run by the same name, these eight are in various stages, with two models having just opened. All will be done this month. Two people from the Bay Area and one from Florida have already bought three of the larger townhouse.

The townhomes range from 1,900-square-feet to 3,200-square-feet. Vaulted ceilings provide an airiness. Oversized sliding doors give the feeling of being outside.

Alder is throughout.

“There are a lot of darker woods. There was a shift in design five or six years ago,” Sue Hyde with East West told Lake Tahoe News on a recent tour of townhomes.

Flooring is rustic oak wood and wool carpet, with hydraulic heating. Appliances are all Bosch.

The selling point for these eight – eventually there will be 16 units – is the ski-in, ski-out capability. Riders will be able schuss to the Ritz-Carlton gondola to be whisked to mid-mountain.

The gondola going to the Ritz-Carlton goes through the Home Run development. Photo/Kathryn Reed

These homes are being built to LEED silver specifications, just as East West did with the Village at Northstar. The LED lighting, insulation, appliances, reduced construction waste, location, and lack of need for a vehicle once on site are components of the energy efficiency.

Up the road a bit Q&D Construction crews are putting in infrastructure for the 25 home sites that are all about 1 acre. This is another East West project. Bridges have been built for vehicles, which will be tunnels for skiers. Ski ways have been incorporated throughout the area.

It will be a gated community. Hyde said she expects everyone to be second homeowners.

The home sites will go on sale after the first of the year. A price has not been established.

By KCRA-TV

CARSON CITY – A former chairman of Nevada’s Democratic Party wants to license farms where marijuana can be grown legally and certify pot dispensaries for the first time for the thousands of registered medical users in the state.

Medicinal marijuana use was legalized in Nevada in 2001. But Assemblyman Tick Segerblom says the law has never provided any legal way for medical card holders to obtain the drug.

The Las Vegas Democrat who is running for the state Senate says he asked for a bill draft that would set up the certification process, allow Nevadans to obtain medical marijuana from dispensaries in neighboring California and impose an unspecified tax on the pot.

Nevada had more than 3,000 registered users as of 2011, including people with glaucoma and cancer patients who suffer loss of appetite because of chemotherapy, said Segerblom, who was the chairman of the state Democratic Party from 1990-94.

Read the whole story

By Emily Horton, Washington Post

A couple of years ago, I worked at a greenmarket for a farmer who grows the most glorious chicories: frisee, radicchio, escarole, puntarelle. They are bitter greens whose underlying sweetness is checked by a bite that can surprise you.

One spring, we had a customer who would buy seven heads of curly endive at a time; one for each day of the week, he said. If his purchases seemed excessive, I understood his fervor. Leafy greens anchor my cooking, no matter the time of year. Summer’s offerings are a little harder to see for all the hysteria around the season’s heirloom tomatoes, but they are worth pursuing — even if your appreciation of leafy vegetables strikes a more moderate tone than my own.

Cooking with greens in the hottest months of the year takes some rethinking. If you have your palate trained on winter’s kale, collards, turnips and other cool-season leafy brassicas, summer’s holdouts can be disillusioning. Though such cold-hardy greens will produce leaves in the heat if given enough shade and water, they aren’t keen on it. You can taste their resistance in bitter, less-tender leaves that are no longer the center of the plant’s attention.

Longer, warmer days trigger plants to launch into bolting: the process of sending out flowers and producing seeds. This switch in gears, explains Gerald Brust, vegetable specialist for the University of Maryland Extension, diverts enzymes and nutrients — flavor — away from the leaves and into the immediate, more important task of reproduction.

Read the whole story

Truckee Police Department has received a new supply of gun safety kits thanks to a grant from Project ChildSafe.

The kits include a cable-style gun locking device, lock installment instructions and a safety booklet.

The safety kits are available for free and can be picked up Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm at the Truckee Police Department lobby located at 10183 Truckee Airport Road.

By Reuters

Another day of scorching temperatures blanketed the United States from Iowa to the East Coast on Saturday, but forecasters said some of the areas hit hardest by the prolonged heat wave would soon get relief.

The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for cities including Washington, where temperatures reached 103 Fahrenheit (39 Celsius) by 1 p.m., New York and Philadelphia, where temperatures hovered near or at triple digits.

“It’s hotter than hell,” said John Ghio, a tourist from St. Louis after visiting the White House. “We’re going to get a cold drink, catch the subway and go back to our hotel to cool down.”

Nearby, a family from China posed for photos in front of the U.S. Treasury. They were debating whether to go on to the Washington Monument or wait until the sun went down.

“Too hot,” said Xiao Duan, 30, of Beijing. “My father says it’s like we’re being burned by flames.”

A cold front from Canada was expected to move south and break the record-setting heat and drop temperatures to below average levels over much of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states by Monday, the weather service said.

Read the whole story