By Todd Shields, Bloomberg

President Obama called for the “strongest possible rules” to protect the open Internet, advocating stricter controls than a regulator he appointed and causing shares of Comcast Corp. and other broadband providers to drop.

“I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization,” Obama said today in a statement, referring to so-called fast lanes for preferred Web traffic. His comments tilt the White House against positions advocated by broadband providers and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, who said the president’s vision has potential legal and policy pitfalls.

Companies led by Comcast, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. argue that only light regulation is needed to ensure providers don’t block or slow Web traffic, and they say strict rules would squelch investment. Public policy groups want tough regulations that guarantee all websites are treated equally and can be accessed by people increasingly reliant on the Internet.

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By Danielle McCreaTuesday, Las Vegas Sun

With state approval recently of dozens of medical marijuana licenses, a native Nevadan with two decades in the gaming industry is laying the groundwork for the new industry’s next steps.

Heidi Cook, managing partner of Regulated Employee Resources, is creating an education program to ensure businesses keep up with state and county regulations.

Her company is developing a virtual school that will teach licensees and their employees all the rules to legally operate, relate best practices from out-of-state industry leaders, and provide access to a network of local business lines, from banking to insurance to security.

Cook, who was an account manager with IGT for more than 20 years, said the gaming industry’s evolution in Nevada correlates to medical marijuana now in that the state took a “back-door” business into the “regulatory sunlight.”

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By Jacob Adelman, Bloomberg

Oceanographers have detected isotopes linked to Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant off California’s coast, though at levels far below those that could pose a measurable health risk.

Volunteer ocean monitors collected the samples that tested positive for trace amounts of the isotope cesium-134 about 100 miles  west of Eureka, the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said this week on its website.

Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which released “unprecedented levels” of radioactivity during the March 2011 accident, was the only conceivable source of the detected isotopes, Woods Hole oceanographer Ken Buesseler said in the release.

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Wesley Shira and his dog Loci are sleeping outside in South Lake Tahoe until he finds a job to afford a roof over his head. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Wesley Shira had a bedroll, some other belongings and his dog to keep him warm last night. The expected low in South Lake Tahoe was 30 degrees.

He called it camping. Others would call it being homeless.

“In this town it’s really hard to come up with any kind of long-term solution for something like that,” El Dorado County sheriff’s Lt. Pete Van Arnum told Lake Tahoe News. “Over the years there have been numerous homeless people we have found deceased in the meadows.”

Members of Lake Tahoe Collaborative are looking to create a warming room in South Lake Tahoe that might be open six months a year at night when the temperatures drop below freezing.

The Collaborative is a group of leaders of mostly nonprofits and government social service departments who meet monthly to bring awareness to the needs of their respective populations and to help find solutions so efforts are not duplicated and resources not wasted.

The Collaborative’s subcommittee working on the warming room has gained traction with the Salvation Army, Del Oro Division, which represents this area. Nicole Zaborsky is talking to the folks off the hill this week about the proposal that has been submitted. The Collaborative is working with Barton Foundation on the proposal.

“They will see what they can assist with,” Zaborsky, who is on the subcommittee, told Lake Tahoe News.

The main reason such a facility has not been started sooner on the South Shore is that no entity wants to be the lead agency, plus there is no one to foot the bill. But South Lake Tahoe isn’t alone; there is no shelter for the homeless anywhere in the basin.

Red Cross has said it can provide cots and emergency supplies if the Collaborative opens a warming room.

Leanne Wagoner, who is also on the subcommittee, foresees needing a place for about 20 people. She added it could be in the industrial area, and most likely not in a residential area. It will also need to be on a bus route.

The subcommittee is assessing whether a permanent bathroom or port-a-potty would be best. Should men and women be in the same room? What about kids? Pets? Security? People to supervise? Food?

All of those questions and more still need answers.

But for Shira and his dog Loci they wish the warming room were a reality.

“I don’t have a place to stay. I really could use a place,” the 32-year-old Shira told Lake Tahoe News as he stood Tuesday at the driveway entrance to Safeway holding a sign asking for work. “I have my ServSafe card. I can cook and handle food at any restaurant. But a lot of people don’t want to give people like me a chance.”

He has found work here before so he hitched a ride and returned.

It’s not unusual for Tahoe’s homeless to be transient. They think the area, especially being a 24-hour community, is rich with jobs. They don’t know people call Lake Tahoe “poverty with a view”.

Van Arnum said his department used to have money for bus passes to send people to a warmer climate. He said the county also in the past would hand out vouchers for hotel stays, but that resource has dried up.

He regularly talks with the Tahoe Area Coordinating Council for the Disabled and the National Alliance on Mental Illness about what more can be done for the homeless in the area. Working with local churches is one option, but it is not consistent.

“A lot of times people end up in town destitute with kids and it’s heartbreaking,” Van Arnum said. “We don’t have the funding and facilities in Tahoe for that.”

By Gamaliel Ortiz, KCRA-TV

The mysteries behind the meteorites that rained over California’s gold country in 2012 are becoming a little clearer.

NASA researchers found diamonds and other treasures that provide new insight into the early workings of the solar system. The nanodiamonds, however, are too small to sparkle in a ring.

Along with the diamond, the meteorite contained matter that was present in the nascent solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists said that some of the material found in the meteorite is likely present in other primitive asteroids.

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Curt Emerie with the South Lake Tahoe American Legion speaks Nov. 11. Photo/Kathryn Reed

A hush fell over the crowd as each speaker expressed the importance of Veterans Day.

Nearly 90 people attended the South Lake Tahoe ceremony at the American Legion.

Patty Smith, whose son died in the Iraq war, spoke of how she took freedoms for granted before Timmy died. She apologized for having done so.

Mayor Hal Cole spoke of the sacrifices his 92-year-old father made fighting in World War II. He talked about his friends who went to Vietnam. Those who came back were forever changed, while many returned in a flag covered casket.

Veterans Day marks the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918. At the time it was called the war to end all wars.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Scott Sonner, AP

RENO — The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a longtime Lake Tahoe lawyer who’s been trying for a decade to gain public access to private beaches on the lake’s tony North Shore.

The high court on Monday upheld an earlier Washoe District Court ruling that the Incline Village General Improvement District has the right to restrict access to the exclusive beach property it purchased in 1968.

Steve Kroll, who lives in neighboring Crystal Bay, first filed a lawsuit over the restrictions in 2008.

He argued in his latest challenge he’s entitled to access because Crystal Bay merged with the district in 1995 and all dues-paying members should be treated equally.

The Supreme Court disagreed, citing earlier rulings against Kroll by a federal judge in Reno and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

By Adam Liptak, New York Times

WASHINGTON — When a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in California struck down bans last month on same-sex marriage in Idaho and Nevada, it was no surprise. The panel included two of the court’s leading liberals.

A group opposing same-sex marriage said the composition of the panel was also no coincidence. In an unusual accusation in a recent court filing, the group said the two judges served on a disproportionate number of cases involving gay rights.

The odds of this were 441 to 1, according to a brief filed by the group, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage. It asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to rehear the Nevada case “to cure the appearance that the assignment of this case to this particular three-judge panel was not the result of a random or otherwise neutral selection process.”

Peter Renn, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, which represents the plaintiffs in the Nevada case, said, “This conspiracy theory is more believable as the plot to a John Grisham novel than a credible legal argument substantiated by evidence.”

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By Barbara Barte Osborn, Sacramento Bee

Two Sacramento residents were arrested Saturday near Truckee after a report that a vehicle’s passenger had discharged a firearm from his window as they entered westbound Interstate 80 from Hirschdale Road.

The search for the vehicle, a late-model Chevrolet Impala, began when a citizen flagged down a Truckee California Highway Patrol officer at I-80 and Hirschdale Road at 4:46pm, authorities said. The individual told the officer he wasn’t sure if he was being shot at or if the suspect was just randomly shooting out the window.

All available CHP Truckee units joined the search and located the car on westbound I-80, west of the Donner Lake interchange.

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By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee

Seeking to add momentum to a decade-long push for hotel development in Placerville, the City Council on Tuesday will consider soliciting proposals from consultants to perform a hotel feasibility study.

The city over the years has studied and approved three sites for hotel development. Construction began on one site at the east end of town, considered the gateway to Apple Hill, but work was halted due to the recession.

Placerville is the hub for visitors headed to El Dorado County’s wineries, orchards and historic gold country, but businesses and growers say efforts to boost tourism are hindered by a lack of lodging.

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