Deep in the basement of the Regional Justice Center lies a relic of the past: a large computer developed in the 1980s that runs the Clark County courts case management system.

"We're not feeding it index cards like the old days, but we might as well be," court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said.

The old and often fussy system, which is incapable of dealing with a growing influx of users, is being replaced with a large network of servers that will help create a more efficient judicial system, starting Monday.....

The current court case management system, known as Blackstone, provides the public access to court calenders and information on civil and criminal cases.

Blackstone has drawn two major complaints within legal circles: the system doesn't provide access to case filings, such as complaints, outside the courthouse, and it can be slow when overused or even can go comatose. You plug in a case number and click, and then the screen freezes....

Davis said he hopes that in early 2007, Family Court also will be online on Odyssey. Probate, civil and criminal courts will follow.

Volunteer lawyers want to give a voice to the infants at Child Haven.

The county bar association and county legal services asked local attorneys to volunteer their time. This morning was the first training to help the lawyers understand the family court system.

The idea is to have one lawyer represent every child, 2 years old and under, in Child Haven. At the moment that's 55 kids who have to rely on the system to help them out. Today, most of them have a new advocate.

The infants in Child Haven can't feed themselves, dress themselves, or speak for themselves. If they could, they might tell you they want out of Child Haven.

"These are babies. These kids need a voice," Kathleen Paustian, an employment attorney, says.

Paustian will be that voice for one infant girl born in January. She joins 47 other attorneys who will represent a toddler in Child Haven for free.

"It really does give you a feeling of commitment and being a contributor," she says. The goal is to get infants into a stable, loving home, with one on one attention so they can develop normally.

Clark County's problem-plagued Department of Family Services is seeking permission to take a $2.4 million step forward on the road to reform.

On Tuesday, the Clark County Commission will be asked to approve and fund 80 new positions within Family Services. The new jobs are aimed at addressing chronic problems related to the child abuse reporting hotline, the response to weekend and overnight service calls, the foster care program, department record-keeping and staff training.

The proposal marks the launch of the Safe Futures plan, which ultimately could be a $30 million overhaul of the local child welfare system.

The need to know is part of what's driving the civil lawsuit filed Tuesday against Clark County's Department of Family Services and eight staff members, the couple said. They both think that civil litigation can shake loose information that will aid the North Las Vegas police in the investigation.

The couple's attorney, Greg Mills, said he plans to depose those named in the lawsuit as soon as possible and make the information available to investigators.

"Somebody has to know something," Olivas said. "Maybe someone has her now. We just want her back. She's our precious little girl. We're her mother and father, and no one loves her more than we love her."

The other purpose of the lawsuit is hold county officials accountable for the circumstances that led to Everlyse's disappearance. Mills said that it is vital to repair the system that failed Everlyse.

Mills also said the faults cited in the civil lawsuit mirror state and federal findings about shortcomings in county Family Services. Before Everlyse disappeared, Clark County was being called upon to account for poor record-keeping within the department, infrequent home visits made by case workers to foster homes and a failure to conduct home safety assessments in cases where suspicious child deaths had occurred.

The civil lawsuit alleges that Everlyse's well-being was not monitored on a regular basis and that the department did not pursue reunification efforts with the family as required by law.

Police found two people dead in the apartment from apparent gunshot wounds. The little girl, who was unharmed, was there too, said Lt. Lew Roberts with the homicide unit.

The girl, who is between 4 and 6 years old, might have been inside the apartment with the bodies for a day and a half, Roberts said.

"She wasn't disheveled, but it was clear that she hadn't eaten anything in a while," Roberts said.

Police fed the girl and then took her to Child Haven, the county's emergency shelter care center. The girl is in good physical condition, police said.

Four hundred people will be arrested early this evening for blocking Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport, in what could prove to be one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the city's history.

At least that's how the script reads....

If the event goes as envisioned, organizers say, it will be a highly choreographed episode of street theater, timed for news broadcasts and peaceful enough to persuade but not enrage the public.

The Los Angeles Police Department has been involved at nearly every stage, advising organizers on how to proceed without endangering public safety. Experts say the close cooperation with law enforcement reflects a more powerful and mature labor movement, and a city government that is far friendlier to labor than its predecessors.

Organizers obtained a permit this week for 1,000 to 2,000 marchers. About 400 of them have signed forms pledging to be arrested and have taken a mandatory class that taught them how to remain calm even when screamed at or insulted.

The driver's license numbers and other personal information of those volunteer arrestees have already been passed on to the LAPD to expedite processing. (Police sent word that six of the volunteers should rethink their participation; though no official reason was given, the six may have outstanding warrants, union officials said).

For its part, Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers in Southern California, has arranged for parking, storage of the arrestees' car keys, lawyers to defend them, crews to clean up after the event and vans to pick up the protesters from jail.

Upon release from jail, expected within 24 hours, each protester will receive a meal (burritos and bottles of water) and a souvenir (their protest sign reading "I Am A Human Being").

"We don't want any surprises," said Paulina Gonzalez, a Unite Here staffer who is handling communications for the event. "We want nobody to get hurt. We want the most peaceful event possible."

An after-school fight that started with a shove between Martin Middle School students Tuesday afternoon, ended with a sixth-grader stabbing two classmates a few blocks from campus.

The assailant stabbed one student in the side and the other in the hand, said Lt. Ken Young of the Clark County School District police. Both were taken to University Medical Center and were treated, he said, adding that neither wound appeared to be life-threatening.

The student who stabbed the other students was taken to the Clark County Juvenile Detention Facility and faces charges of battery with a deadly weapon, Young said. The student was not identified.

Home prices nationwide declined last month for the first time in more than a decade, raising new concerns about the real estate slump and the damage it might do to the rest of the economy.

The 1.7% decline in the median price of existing homes sold in August was the first year-over-year drop since April 1995, the National Assn. of Realtors said Monday. Also, the number of houses sold fell for a fifth straight month and the supply of unsold homes on the market rose to a record....

But the real estate boom of the last decade has been unprecedented in size and scope, which raises the risk that the downside also could exceed forecasters' best guesses, said Eric Belsky, executive director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

After any boom, "there's a tendency to predict a more gradual unwinding than actually occurs," he said.

Housing's troubles pose two main threats: one to millions of jobs directly dependent on the business, the other to homeowners' willingness and ability to spend if they feel poorer because of the trend in property prices.

About 10 million jobs are tied directly to residential real estate, from construction workers to escrow agents to the clerks at the local hardware store, Goldman Sachs estimates. That's about 7% of total U.S. employment. Some analysts believe the total is closer to 10%.

On the battlefield or during a natural disaster, there may be many more wounded than medical resources to treat them. If there are a hundred injured soldiers and only the manpower and supplies to treat ten of them, then some terrible decisions have to be made. Who do you treat, and who do you let die?

The process of sorting and selecting the wounded is called "triage." The goal of the effort is to save the maximum total number of lives, and this involves parcelling out resources in an often brutal way. The lightly wounded soldiers are probably going to be set aside, at least for now, because they will probably live even without treatment. The most gravely wounded soldiers might also be left alone, because they are likely to die even with treatment. Furthermore, a massively wounded soldier is probably going to require huge resources that might save several others.

Who you end up treating are a certain middle class of "severe, but saveable" patients who would die without treatment but whose wounds require only moderate resources to repair.

You will see the word "Triage" at the first nurse's station you encounter in a big-city emergency room. This nurse takes your blood pressure, asks you some questions and makes a quick decision about your condition. They have the power to wheel you immediately into the trauma center or make you sit for hours in the waiting area.

Outside of emergency rooms, triage is often forgotten, but in fact it is a key component of any humanitarian effort we may engage in. It is a noble sentiment to want to "save the children," but the question must then arise, "Which children?"

The risk of appearing foolish, [Henry James] believed, was the least of the dangers. There was also the risk of failing to investigate the world in all its dimensions, or making it appear smaller and less interesting than it really is. He worried about a time when people would become "indifferent to science because science is so callously indifferent to their experiences." He worried that a close-minded community of science could become a kind of cult itself, devoted to its own beliefs and no more.

At any given time, Muto said, there are about 18 children in the shelter and 24 in the organization's foster homes. In addition, through various parenting courses, Girls and Boys Town reaches about 500 children each year, she said. She noted the group has a five-year goal of serving more than 5,000 children.

Most of the children are in the range of 10 to 17 years old, she said, and the agency hopes to build a home that would serve children age 9 and younger.

Indeed, beneath the cold, impersonal case numbers and the dry, abstruse arguments and the technical points of law, there are endless complex morality plays overflowing with the conflict, passion and suspense of people victimized, and of their victimizers. Stories of murderers and swindlers, of corporate power plays, of police misdeeds and government conspiracies, many filled with pathological and sociological behavior, human suffering and human indifference.

We think that it is symbolic of the man: thick, pompous and clueless about the principles of law.

Project lead attorney Stephanie Charter appeared before Clark County Family Court Hearing Master Frank Sullivan on Friday and declared the group's intention to represent infants and toddlers in 10 abuse or neglect cases connected by one factor....

Deputy District Attorney Amy Mastin Jelinek objected to the project's motion of intent to represent the minors, saying client-directed advocacy is impossible in these cases because the children are nonverbal. "They can't be the mouthpiece of children who can't speak," Jelinek said.

Jelinek also pointed out that the court maintains oversight of the cases in question with regular status hearings. In some cases, children at Child Haven are there because the court has ordered them not to be returned home in the interest of their own safety.

Charter said she was surprised by Jelinek's opposition, adding that the project's only goal is to obtain for the children what they are legally entitled to: a family environment.

Sullivan said he will take up the issue with Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle. He also said he believed that all children, and all parents, who come to Family Court should have legal representation.

The project plans to schedule hearings for all the children in its target group and schedule court hearings to identify deadlines that the county will have to meet in finding them family placements. If the deadlines are not met, Charter said, attorneys will seek contempt of court charges against the county, if appropriate.

In addition to the seven attorneys on the project staff, Charter said 15 private attorneys have volunteered to join the effort, and Charter is hoping that at least 15 more attorneys will step forward to take on a Child Haven case.

Two 17-year-old students from Canyon Springs High School were arrested Friday in connection with the gang-related shooting into a school bus a day earlier.

One of the students was arrested on campus about 2 p.m., and the other was arrested at his home in the afternoon, said Lt. Ken Young of the Clark County School District Police....

One of the teens will be charged with possessing a dangerous weapon on school property. The second will be charged with firing into an occupied vehicle.

They were booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center. Police did not release the students' names, citing their ages.

SACRAMENTO — Saying that "a society is judged by how well we treat our most helpless," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signed eight bills aimed at making California a better parent to roughly 75,000 foster children.

He also signed a bill that makes it a crime to leave a pet in a hot car.

Cheered by several dozen foster children at a Capitol ceremony, Schwarzenegger enacted a measure to help foster youth stay in touch with their adopted brothers and sisters...

Las Vegas housing analyst Dennis Smith expects to see some fairly significant price cuts in the resale segment of the market in the next few months to move some of the 20,384 homes listed for sale in the valley.

The median price of a resale in August was $289,000, down $1,000 from July. Since January, the resale median has increased $4,000, or 1.4 percent.

"The good news is we're getting closer to the bottom," Smith, president of Home Builders Research, said Thursday. "That means it's going to start going up sooner rather than later. I'm looking at 2007. I think '07 is going to be flat. You're going to see some products come on line in '07 that will do well because of lower pricing."

The number of existing home sales dropped in August to 3,641, compared with 5,786 in the same month a year ago.

Smith counted 3,278 new home sales in August, bringing the year-to-date total to 24,776, a 3.1 percent increase from a year ago. The median price of a new home has remained flat for five straight months. The August price of $325,544 is up slightly from $324,517 in July after peaking at $328,702 in April.

In solidarity with Harry Potter, I have decided to blow up the Family Court.

The whole thing: KABOOM! It deserves to go. It causes too much pain.

I realize in saying this that I may be violating Nevada Revised Statute 202.448, which says, in essence, “Thou shalt not make terrorist threats.” It is the same statute Harry Potter was arrested under.

“Harry” is a 14-year-old who looks every bit like the youthful wizard. And I mean the young Harry in the first movie not the post-pubescent one in the latest.

Harry stood quivering before Judge Voy three weeks ago, in shackles and an orange detention sweatsuit, charged with dedicating his MySpace homepage to the Columbine massacre and emailing an erstwhile friend, “'Would you be down for some Columbine-like shit?”

Harry is a terrorist.

Las Vegas police have issued an arrest warrant for the mother of twin 8-month-old infant girls found abandoned Aug. 30 in a medical school restroom.

Detricia Miller, age unavailable, is wanted on one count each of willful infliction of child endangerment and willful infliction of child medical neglect for leaving the twins in the bathroom at the University of Nevada School of Medicine on Maryland Parkway.

When they were found, the infants were hungry, thirsty and wearing soiled diapers, authorities said. The girls also had two medical conditions, severe club feet and umbilical hernias, officials said....

The warrant stated the state's Safe Haven Law, which allows mothers to abandon newborn infants under certain circumstances, does not apply in this case because the children were older than 30 days and they were not left in a hospital, obstetric center or emergency medical care center, nor were they left with a firefighting agency or law enforcement agency, as required under the law.

Those cases were handled by 45 different case workers. In terms of background, 16 percent of them were licensed social workers while 84 percent were unlicensed.

About 56 percent of those involved in cases that should have been investigated for abuse or neglect did not have master's degrees.

Morton also stressed to the panel that the 79 deaths have not been found to be the result of caseworker action or inaction.

CARSON CITY -- The problem of children dying because of neglect or abuse might be greater in rural Nevada and Washoe County than in Clark County, a state lawmaker said Wednesday.

A new state analysis shows 34 additional children in Washoe County and 14 in rural Nevada might have died of maltreatment between 2001 and 2004, according to Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

Deaths of only 12 children in the two areas previously had been reported as having been caused by abuse or neglect.

"This is horrifying," said Buckley during a meeting of a special subcommittee studying the safety and welfare of children. "We have a systemic problem. We are not identifying statewide children dying of abuse or neglect."

Critics of the system say children are dying because of a lack of shelter space and qualified foster care homes, deficient family services, overburdened case workers and little or no oversight and accountability. Still, those committed to change believe the system can be fixed.

The Child Death Review Panel gathered Thursday to fine-tune its action plan; a 66-page document full of recommendations to fix an overcrowded child welfare system that lacks resources and oversight leaving too many children to fall between the cracks.

According to the annual study by the Violence Policy Center, the Silver State ranked fifth in the nation of women murdered by men. Believe it or not, that's actually an improvement.

The positive news in this study is Nevada's ranking for women murdered by men fell from number 2 in the nation last year to number 5 this year.

But local domestic violence advocates say these numbers don't mean much because they fluctuate all the time.

It is like when you go to a big department store before Christmas, and they have Santa there, or at least this fat guy in a Santa suit, and the kids are all lined up with their Christmas lists to sit on his lap for 15 seconds, while their parents get to pay eight bucks to have their kid's picture taken with this clown. Maybe you march into the store thinking you're going to pull the beard off this phony. You say to yourself, "I'm going to expose this fraud. There ain't no Santa, kids! It's all a big capitalist sales device!" But then you get in there, and you see the looks on the kids faces, the genuine sense of anticipation and wonder, and you just can't do it.

There were a lot of caseworkers at the meeting, apparently all in support of the Plan, and you can see that everybody's hurting. Everyone wants the nightmare to end. Even if there are hard times ahead, maybe it is okay to believe in Santa for a while. Maybe it is okay to have a little faith and optimism in this holiday season.

Clark County's government Tuesday unveiled the first phase of a plan for overhauling its troubled child welfare agency, hoping to mend a system that faces the loss of federal funding for inadequately protecting endangered children.

The plan designed by new Department of Family Services Director Tom Morton calls for 150 more social workers, graveyard shifts for Child Protective Services workers, reduction of population at the crowded Child Haven facility and expanded recruitment of foster care families.

Full implementation of Morton's plan would cost at least $25 million, officials said, plus funding for hiring the new social workers to expand the agency's staff to about 650.

County commissioners lavished praise on Morton's ideas but said talk is cheap when it comes to fixing a broken system linked to four child deaths last month.

Amy McNair, who last week recanted the accusations of domestic battery she made against boyfriend and Clark County Family Court Judge Steven Jones, probably will not face charges stemming from her self-confessed perjury.

Deputy City Attorney for Henderson Dave Mincavage said that his office will not prosecute McNair for flipping on the stand after being called as a witness against Jones.

During the Henderson Municipal Court proceeding that took place Wednesday and Thursday, McNair said her anger at Jones' desire to end the relationship and her chronic drinking drove her to make false accusations. She supported her account of being chucked down the hall by Jones by inflicting rug burn on her face and blackening her eye with her thumb.

"In the past, we have prosecuted people for making false reports, but it wasn't an effective practice and it didn't last very long," Mincavage said. "In this case, who knows what really happened."...

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said his office would not pursue a perjury case against McNair unless police conducted an investigation and submitted it to his office. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said no such investigation was under way.

Stephen Stein, McNair's attorney, said he advised her that admitting to perjury could have consequences but she insisted on vindicating Jones.

"It was completely her decision," he said. "She insisted that she wanted to clear her conscience and make sure that an innocent man was acquitted."

First, the Supreme Court will implement a formal process to evaluate the performance of the state's senior judges — on-call jurists who are paid by the hour, have typically retired from the bench and are farmed out to assist with a growing workload in the court system....

Second, Rose said, senior judges will be subjected in some cases to peremptory challenge — the right of a party in a court case to seek a judge's removal. Currently, senior judges are immune from such challenges, unlike regular judges....

Third, Rose said, the Supreme Court will issue a communique to all of the state's district court judges reminding them of their ethical obligation to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Following an exhaustive, top-to-bottom review, Clark County officials today unveiled the first phase of its “Safe Futures” plan to overhaul the child welfare system and create a safer community.

At the same time, the County Commission today was expected to approve a resolution calling upon the state legislature to change the law to allow greater disclosure of information about child abuse and neglect, including fatalities and near fatalities.

The multifaceted plan includes 109 strategies. To fully implement them, it would minimally cost an estimated $25-30 million in local, state and federal resources. It also would require more than 150 new personnel. The county is expected to return to the County Commission in two weeks with proposals for new staff and funding and an analysis of available funding sources.

Once resources are identified, the Family Services Department will prepare a work plan containing steps to be taken, assigned responsibilities and timeframes for completion, said the plan’s author, nationally respected child welfare expert Thomas D. Morton, who became the new Family Services director in July.

The 18-page Safe Futures plan presented to the Commission today...

As I watch some divorces unfold in court, I often wonder: How could a relationship this bad have gone on for so long?

The answer often involves a certain fallacy that is common to investors everywhere. You see it all the time in our fine casinos. A gambler has already lost a huge amount of money on the slots or roulette tables, but because they have already "invested" so much, they feel compelled to continue.

The more you have invested in a certain venture in the past, be it a business, a marriage, a hobby or even a personal opinion, the more you feel compelled to "stay the course" to justify your past investment. To "cut and run" seems like a defeat, because it means that all of your prior investments were useless.

Psychologists call this the "sunk-cost fallacy." You have already "sunk" a substantial amount of your resources into a project, and this creates an ego-investment in the outcome that can cloud your reasoning. To abandon the investment now would result in a huge immediate hit to ones self-esteem. Of course, the only problem with not accepting the painful loss now is that you might have to accept an even bigger loss later.

On Tuesday, the head of Clark County's Department of Family Services, Tom Morton, is expected to present his plan to improve the child welfare system.

Some of the ideas will be his others will be mandates from the state and the federal government. For the last two years, the feds have pushed the state to require the county to do a better job for our kids. And in an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, a high-ranking federal official tells the I-Team that push has come to shove.

Eyewitness News I-Team reporter Colleen McCarty flew to San Francisco for an exclusive interview with Commissioner Joan Ohl.

Commissioner Ohl didn't pull any punches. She believes the state has failed to oversee the system in Clark County and as a result children have died. She says if the state won't do its job, her agency will hold it accountable and withhold millions in federal funding.

But reality morphs in Washington, where federal funds are disbursed and the national media are ever-eager to trumpet alarms about youth. Bratton was one of many police chiefs at the Washington forum who played the "youth card" to pitch for more money and officers even as their departments' statistics show much calmer realities back home.

"We are turning the country over to our young people, and they are killing each other," said Providence, R.I., Police Chief Dean Esserman, claiming a spike in robbery shootings. "Violence has become gratuitous."

But crime statistics posted on the websites of the Providence Police Department and the Rhode Island State Police reveal that violent crime rates and juvenile violence arrests in Providence fell in the years 2003 to 2005, including for robbery, compared with what they were in the previous three years.

In city after city where police and news stories proclaimed soaring juvenile gunplay, official crime statistics showed nothing of the sort. In fact, tabulations of arrestees by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center show that in 2004 and 2005, criminal arrestees were older than in the past. The median age of a violent felon nationally in 2004 was 30, the oldest level in half a century, up from 27.8 in 1990 and 26.3 in 1975. The latest FBI crime clearance statistics show juveniles committed fewer than 5% of the nation's homicides, the smallest proportion ever recorded.

Los Angeles County provides a stark contrast: 35,000 juvenile felony arrests in 1975, 26,000 in 1995, 18,000 in 2005. Their over-40 parents' generation has gone the other way: 9,000 felonies in 1975, 24,000 in 1995, 35,000 in 2005. How can law enforcement, interest groups, academics and the news media continue to ignore such striking trends?

The subterfuge is accomplished simply: Even when crime is down and youth arrests are plummeting, there is always some offense in some city in some year that rose when compared to some previous year. For example, Los Angeles' teenage homicide and assault rates dropped sharply from 2004 to 2005, and robbery arrest rates have plunged 50% in the last decade — but robbery rates did rise by 3% in 2005.

I am drawn to the law, even if I am not a lawyer, because it is the only social environment on earth where rational argument can make a difference. Anywhere else, if you make a thoughtful, well-reasoned appeal against the social norm, people consider you a witch and will burn you if they can. The legal system is a place where witches are at least tolerated and can sometimes even change things.
—Glenn Campbell

YOU'VE PAID $10 to get into the movie and it just plain stinks. The plot is ridiculous, the acting is terrible, the violence is excessive. But you've already watched half of it. Do you sit through the movie to the end or do you leave?

Just a month ago, you spent $2,000 getting your 10-year-old car's transmission rebuilt. Now you find out the car is leaking oil and needs a ring job. Do you spend the next thousand or buy a new car?

You've been living with your romantic partner for 10 years. The relationship has had its ups and downs, and both of you have invested a lot in keeping it going. But every day it seems to involve more work and less joy. Is it time to move on?

You work for a private equity firm and personally persuaded your skeptical partners to invest $2 million in a high-tech start-up. Now the chief executive comes to see you with the news that they've hit some snags in developing their product, and they'll need at least another million to bring it to market. Do you write the check?

We've all encountered situations like these. We make a significant investment — of money, time or emotion — in some project, relationship or business deal, and it doesn't seem to be working out. Do we continue to "throw good money after bad" or do we "cut and run" and "stop wasting time"? What's the right way to think about such decisions?

Psychologists, decision scientists and economists have an answer. They tell us that it's a mistake to continue with a project or an activity because of what you have already invested in it. The time or money you've already spent is gone. You can't reclaim it. Using a past investment to justify a future investment is what they call the "sunk-cost fallacy."

Instead of thinking about the past, what we should be doing is thinking about the future. "Will my life be better if I leave this terrible movie or if I stay to the bitter end?" "Will my car give me 20,000 more trouble-free miles if I just do this one last repair?" None of these questions have sure answers. Life is full of uncertainty. But what we can say is that if the reason for "staying the course" is past commitment — sunk costs — we need to find a better one....

We heard this argument often enough in the 1960s. As casualties mounted in Vietnam, it became more difficult to withdraw because withdrawal would have "cheapened" the lives of those already sacrificed. We "owed" it to the dead and wounded to "stay the course." What staying the course produced was thousands more dead and wounded. "Knee deep in the big muddy" is how folk singer Pete Seeger described it. The question should never have been, "What have we invested so far?" but "What are our objectives for the future and can we attain them at a reasonable cost?"...

Yet people seem willing to waste even more (time, money or lives) to justify what they have already spent and avoid that sick feeling of failure. Think about it. You haven't really lost money on a stock whose share price keeps plummeting until after you sell it. So you keep holding on, in the hope that your judgment as an investor will eventually be vindicated. And troops haven't really "died in vain" as long as you continue to press on in the fight, no matter how disastrous the results.

Jones, 48, and McNair, 34, hugged and kissed outside the courtroom after Proctor announced his decision....

McNair testified under oath during the hearing in front of McGee and accused Jones of shoving her to the ground during the dispute, which led to Jones' arrest. The woman told similar versions of the story to authorities several times after the incident.

Detective June Castro of the Henderson Police Department said she met with McNair on June 28 and recorded her statement. The audio recording was played in court Thursday. McNair told Castro that the fight with Jones ensued after he refused to buy her a taco when he went on an outing for fast food. McNair said Jones came home, went to the master bedroom upstairs and closed the door.

After McNair knocked twice, Jones opened the door a few inches. When she tried to force her way into the room, McNair said, Jones picked her up by the neck and arm and "chucked" her down the hallway. McNair told the detective that her face was injured when it struck the banister.

Although McNair refused treatment that night, she showed up at a hospital emergency room the next morning.

Denise Paup-Woodcock, a registered nurse who cared for McNair, testified Thursday that the woman's blood-alcohol level was 0.214 percent, more than twice the legal limit for drivers in Nevada. The nurse said McNair received a shot of morphine after she described her pain as a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10.

In court Wednesday, McNair said she had caused her wounds by rubbing her face against carpet. She said she made the false allegations out of anger after Jones decided to end their relationship.

McNair, who admits to suffering from alcoholism, said she is now in a rehabilitation program and has stayed sober for more than 40 days.

Mincavage said prosecutors have not decided whether they will charge McNair with perjury, although he suggested that doing so would amount to "victimizing the victim."

"He's an innocent man," said a tearful McNair, the first witness called Wednesday during Jones' hearing in Henderson Municipal Court on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge. "I feel horrible about what I've done."

She said she made the accusations against Jones because she was angry that he was breaking up with her over her drinking.

McNair recanted much of what she had said under oath in July, when she unsuccessfully sought to extend a temporary restraining order.

That order was issued after June 20, when Henderson police responded to a 911 call from the home she shared with Jones. Police arrived at the residence to find Jones alone in the master bedroom and McNair bearing the marks of recent injuries.

At the time, McNair said the injuries happened when Jones chucked her down the hall after she tried to make him open the French doors to the bedroom.

On Wednesday, McNair told the people assembled in Judge Ken Proctor's courtroom that she had inflicted the injuries on herself. She said she had rubbed the right side of her face against the carpet so roughly that she made herself vomit from the pain. She had discolored her right eye by "thumbing" herself repeatedly around the socket.

After 3 1/2 weeks in charge of the Nevada university system's fledgling health sciences center, former Clark County manager Thom Reilly is resigning to take a half-million-dollar job with Harrah's Entertainment.

Reilly left his county post and began Aug. 17 as the vice chancellor and chief operating officer of the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center.

He said Monday he has resigned effective Sept. 22 to assume the role of vice president of community reinvestment and social responsibility for the casino corporation. The new job will pay roughly double the $250,000 annual salary the university system was paying him, Chancellor Jim Rogers said.

Former Clark County Manager Thom Reilly isn't going to work for the university as planned, he's taking a job in the private sector.

Reilly has taken a job with Harrah's entertainment. He resigned from the county in August for a position as vice chancellor of UNLV's new health sciences center.

With the more serious consequences for truant students, the nation's fifth-largest district seeks $400,000 in funding to hire four officials during a two-year pilot program at eight middle schools. They would track truants, making daily contact with them. District officials said the bill should increase graduation rates while decreasing dropout rates.

But at least one official in Southern Nevada's juvenile court system said he's concerned that the proposed legislation would put too much of the enforcement burden on a court system that is already heavily taxed....

But Fritz Reese, assistant director of the Department of Clark County Juvenile Justice Services, said it's not necessarily bad news that most truant students don't go before a judge. He said juvenile courts give truants and their parents three warnings to let them know that if the student's school attendance doesn't improve, they'll have to appear in court. Court-assigned truant officers contact the student and the parents on the second warning and try to ensure that the student will be in the classroom.

"A lot of the times, those letters alone make parents say, 'Hey, why haven't you gone back to school?'" Reese said.

Reese said heavily burdened juvenile courts issued 531 citations between Jan. 4 and May 18 to truant students along with accompanying letters to their parents warning them of the possibility of a court date if the problems persisted.

Though Reese is not opposed to the district's bill, he said the court system is inundated with other, more serious juvenile offenses.

"I don't believe the court and juvenile justice system should take sole responsibility of truants," Reese said. "It's a collective process between the courts, the district and the community. ... We don't want to clog up the courts any more than they already are."

The crisis affecting Clark County's foster parents isn't necessarily the same one that public officials cite.

While new leadership in Clark County Family Services emphasizes the critical need to expand its foster parent pool by up to 500 people, individuals who already are licensed wonder why they have empty beds....

Among the candidates who attended were Undersheriff Doug Gillespie, who's running for sheriff, and Robert Beers, a Republican candidate for Assembly District 21. Four judicial candidates also participated: Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker, District judge candidate Elizabeth Halverson, Family Court judge candidate William Potter, and North Las Vegas justice of the peace candidate Chris Lee.

"This is an important issue," Beers said. "Child Haven is a disgrace. ... They're running the foster-care system the same way an HMO runs its medical benefits program."...

Throughout the forum, individuals spoke of their fear of reprisals should they disagree with a caseworker, make too many demands or publicly complain about flaws in the system.

Pauline Kennedy, who has been a foster parent for 35 years, said one of her concerns is the lack of medical information given to foster parents. Last year, she cared for an infant that died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Before that, Kennedy said she was given no medical background on the child except that he was born exposed to drugs....

Morton has agreed to meet with representatives of the Foster Care and Adoption Association of Nevada later this week.

Family Court Judge Nicholas Del Vecchio is the subject of a sexual harassment complaint filed with Clark County officials regarding his alleged treatment of a former female employee, according to a source familiar with the complaint.

"The nature of the allegation is that there was an inappropriate comment made toward an employee -- an inappropriate advance," said the source, who spoke to the Review-Journal only on the condition of anonymity....

Del Vecchio was a candidate for the Nevada Supreme Court Seat G, but he received only 13 percent of the vote in the September primary and did not advance to the general election.

Earlier this year, the Review-Journal reported how Del Vecchio once was considering offering his bailiff's job to the girlfriend of former presiding Family Court Judge Steven Jones.

Amy McNair, a part-time legal secretary, was under consideration for the job, according to her attorney, Randall Roske. But after Jones was arrested on a charge of battering the woman, the job offer to McNair was rescinded.

The district attorney will not pursue criminal charges against one former and two current workers with the Clark County Department of Family Services.

Stories in the Sunday and Thursday editions of the Review-Journal misstated the role of Renee Swain before her dismissal from the Clark County Department of Family Services. As the department's caregiver services manager, Swain supervised the recruitment and licensing of foster care families. Another member of management, Department Assistant Director Ann Rubin, oversees the day-to-day case management of families already caring for foster children. The stories also incorrectly stated Joy Salmon's first name. Salmon, a former assistant director for family services, resigned last week.

District Attorney David Roger said his office reviewed the Metropolitan Police Department's investigation report but decided the workers did not leave the child inside the van intentionally.

"Detectives were unable to uncover any evidence that these workers intentionally left this child in the vehicle," Roger said Friday.

Nevada law states authorities must prove that a child was intentionally left inside a vehicle before criminal charges can be brought.

Tom Morton, director of the county Department of Family Services, said in a prepared statement that the department's policies and procedures have been changed to make sure workers do not leave children in vehicles in the future.

"We have revised our protocols and practices to prevent a recurrence and ensure that all children are safe while in our care at Child Haven," Morton said.

Police last week sent the results of its investigation to the Clark County district attorney's office for possible prosecution, said Lt. Brian Evans of the police abuse and neglect unit.

District Attorney David Roger said he will review the case and decide whether the three workers should be prosecuted. But the district attorney's office generally doesn't prosecute cases in which children are left in vehicles unless authorities can prove the act was intentional.

Two students attending an alternative program because of disciplinary problems were arrested Thursday for possessing a loaded .38-caliber handgun near school property, Clark County School District police said.

Outside pressure on Clark County officials to do right by infants and toddlers in protective custody mounted on Wednesday when the Children's Attorney Project announced its intention to individually represent at least 58 minors housed at Child Haven and local hospital nurseries. Those are children who are not receiving their rights under state and federal laws that entitle them to care in a family-like environment, said the project's lead attorney, Stephanie Charter.

"The children in Child Haven are lined up in bassinets," Charter said. "They're lined up in swings along the wall. They are not getting the consistent, one-on-one attention from a single caregiver that research has shown infants and toddlers need to grow and develop normally."

The Children's Attorney Project, a part of the not-for-profit Clark County Legal Services, plans to take action in two steps.

The first involves scheduling Family Court hearings for children in care and obtaining an order with a deadline that requires appropriate placement by a certain date.

If county officials don't meet the deadline, Charter said, attorneys will seek contempt of court charges if that's appropriate.

Police said they believe the woman left the twins at the medical school because she thought she could leave children there without penalty under Nevada's Safe Haven law, said Lisa Teele, supervisor of Las Vegas police's abuse and neglect unit.

"The Safe Haven law is truly an option, but in Nevada the age of the child can be no more than 30 days," said Teele. Under the Safe Haven law, parents won't face charges if they leave a newborn at fire and police stations or a hospital while the infant is under 30 days old.

Right now, the county has 11 bailiff vacancies because of workers migrating to other agencies.

Bailiffs are paid $35,796 to $55,481, and County Courts Administrator Chuck Short said that is about 10 percent below what other comparable law enforcement agencies in the valley are paying.

Short said he believes the county needs to raise that pay range and that doing so will ensure the most experienced law enforcement personnel available are screening for weapons and providing courtroom security.

"With 11 vacancies, I can tell you that our security here (at the Regional Justice Center) is less than adequate ... and probably will be for the next 30 days," Short said. "We are doing the things necessary to minimize the risks. It means we close down points of access into the building."

Administrators at Clark County's headquarters on Grand Central Parkway, however, have a far different take on the situation.

County spokesman Erik Pappa said the bailiff pay range is a fair compensation package, and there is a consistent pool of talented job applicants out there willing to take the bailiff jobs if vacancies surface.

The uplifting story of detention camp probation officer Sean Porter, who creates a high-school-level football team from a ragtag group of dangerous teenage inmates as a means to teach them self-respect and social responsibility. He is joined in this experiment by co-worker, Malcolm Moore. But Porter must first overcome almost universal resistance from the powers that be -- his skeptical bosses and coaches at rival high schools who don't want their players mixing it up with convicted criminals on the football field.