On Monday and Tuesday, the state-appointed panels finalized their reports to lawmakers on child welfare entities in Clark County, Washoe County and the rural areas. Three common threads run through the reports: caseloads need to be smaller, oversight needs to be increased, and child welfare workers need better training.

Chief Justice Bill Maupin also told a joint panel of the Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees that a study panel has recommended 30 percent pay increases for judges -- to $182,000 yearly for members of the Supreme Court and to $169,000 for district judges, effective in January 2009.

Maupin said more funding for specialty courts is vital, especially drug courts which are seeing more and more defendants who use methamphetamines. Two-thirds of drug court defendants say "meth is their drug of choice," he said.

He knocked one bailiff to the ground, shoved away two others, and didn't stop until one bailiff jumped on his back and put him in a headlock, allowing other bailiffs to rush in and handcuff him.

As the father was hauled to jail, four Family Court bailiffs went to the hospital.

The Dec. 14 brawl highlighted a problem facing the roughly 80 bailiffs working in district and family courtrooms, said George Glasper, a District Court bailiff and president of the Clark County Deputy Sheriffs Association.

The shortfalls are the result of sluggish growth or even decreases in a key tax source for the first four months of the fiscal year compared with the same period a year ago, according to state Department of Taxation data....

Alone among Southern Nevada governments that didn't budget for significant growth in the consolidated tax is Clark County. Officials there budgeted for no increase over the actual dollars received from the prior year.

The study, which tracked the psychological well-being of more than 1,000 children, focused on a smaller subset of kids whose orthodontic needs were not extreme, but considered to be "borderline," and who did not have them treated.

Among the requests: Creating a dozen new district and family court judgeships -- 10 in Las Vegas and two in the Reno area.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy....

Galeoto, director of the Nevada Department of Public Safety and a former lieutenant with the Reno Police Department, said the teams will rely on intelligence from federal, state and local authorities.

It is, he said, "a targeted step" that must be taken in a state that leads the nation in meth use....

The bill draft, number 663 sought by the Nevada Judicial Council, the state Supreme Court's oversight panel. The bill draft would change the filing dates for judicial candidates and restrict fundraising for judges who do not have an opponent in a contested election. Rew Goodenow, president of the State Bar, said the measure is "an important first step towards de-emphasizing the influence of money in the judicial election process and the State Bar supports these proactive efforts."

The Board of Governors has also come out in support of changing the method by which state judges are selected to a "Nevada Plan".

"In layman's terms, Joshua Sharp had a prolonged infection in his ears that developed into an infection in his blood," said Samantha Charles, spokeswoman for the coroner's office. "As a result of the strain to his organs, his heart stopped and he died."

Charles said the coroner ruled that the manner of Joshua's death was natural....

Dr. Harold Naiman, a Las Vegas pediatrician and a past president of the local chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that a death such as Joshua's is extremely rare -- perhaps one child would succumb out of tens of thousands. Ear infections seldom progress in such a manner, Naiman said. And while he understands that the coroner's finding is a term of art -- natural death as opposed to homicide -- there's nothing about the death that seems natural to him as a physician.

In a case that has prompted fierce debate about ethnic and cultural bias in the U.S. judicial system, the state high court unanimously overturned a 2004 decision by a Memphis judge who removed the parental rights of Jack and Casey He. The court ruled that the couple did not willfully abandon Anna Mae, and that they were penalized because of their financial disadvantages and misunderstanding of the American legal system.

Jerry and Louise Baker, a white suburban couple who have cared for Anna Mae since she was 3 weeks old, have been ordered to give the girl up within 12 days....

The $135.6 million budget for the child welfare integration fund for Clark County includes money to hire dozens of new workers to help manage cases, to help recruit new foster parents and to help keep foster parents in the program, said Fernando Serrano, administrator of the agency.

Prosecutor Vicki Monroe showed to District Judge David Wall on Monday a photo of the dead child that investigators took in June 2005.

On Dec. 13, Copsey was driving about 60 mph on a residential street while distracted by his two passengers. Copsey said he glanced down at a CD case, and when he looked up he was running a stop sign. He then collided with a flatbed truck, killing the truck's driver, 34-year-old Brad Pidwell.

"I feel terrible," Copsey choked out Monday in court, tears streaming down his face. "I think about it every day and every night."

Copsey and Christian Jordan, both Bonanza High School juniors, were arrested by police after the accident. Police said the collision happened while the two teens were street racing. They've been held at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center since then. Attorneys for both defendants denied that racing was involved. The case will not go to trial since both juveniles struck plea agreements with the district attorney's office.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said Wednesday she is organizing the "Tent City" to publicize the need to provide transitional housing and mental health assistance to homeless people. She will introduce a bill to appropriate $20 million to assist homeless people, more than double the $9 million spent after the 2005 Legislature.

Federal authorities took Samaneh Rezaei, 25, back to Germany in December because her tourist visa had expired.

She's been charged with two child abuse and neglect related felonies and is accused of allowing her former boyfriend, Las Vegas resident Arash Hashemi, to beat her 3-year-old daughter nearly to death.

The bench warrant sets the stage for an international extradition, prosecutor Christopher Lalli said. He wouldn't say whether the district attorney's office would pursue the cumbersome process to bring Rezaei back to the United States.

Her attorney, Thomas Pitaro, asked Lalli to request a waiver from federal authorities to allow her to come back legally to face the charges....

Child abuse charges against Hashemi, Rezaei's former boyfriend, have been dropped; but prosecutors have notified Hashemi he faces the prospect of a grand jury indictment.

Rezaei and Hashemi took the child to Summerlin Hospital's emergency room on Aug 25. In addition to head trauma, emergency room doctors noted extensive bruising in various stages of healing on the child's body.

Those proposals would put the county in an uncomfortable spot.

The state Health and Human Services Department is asking lawmakers to require facilities such as Child Haven to obtain a license from the state. Now, state law allows local governments to decide whether to require a license, and Clark County doesn't require one for Child Haven.

Lou Palma, who manages the facility, said it already meets or exceeds licensing requirements, with one glaring exception: capacity.

Under state licensing standards, Child Haven would be allowed to house no more than 105 children.

On Wednesday Child Haven was home to 99 children, but last summer the population at the shelter surged to more than 230. That means the proposed licensing standards could leave some children with no place go after authorities remove them from dangerous homes.

The majority of the state's homeless people live in Southern Nevada.

Advocates for the homeless say people who are down on their luck often are drawn to the area by dreams of cheap living and easy-to-find, lucrative jobs. Many of them instead end up on the street....

Rezaei was to be tried in absentia on the neglect issues Monday. Before the proceeding began, Sullivan's bailiff notified members of the media that Sullivan had exercised his discretion and closed the proceedings. Reporters were not allowed into the courtroom.

But once the high is gone it leaves you on a fast track to the bottom.

Last Wednesday, one 15-year-old came into court pregnant. Another teen, a recovering alcoholic, had just gotten out of drug rehab. Almost every girl there had suffered through physical and sexual abuse at some point in her life.

Las Vegans may not want to acknowledge that a dark side has come with the city's long-standing, de facto acceptance of adult prostitution.

"Our biggest concern is not the number on the list but the amount of time they wait on the list, especially our older boys. We're very concerned about them," says Erin Cornelius, chief executive officer of the organization.

Since 1973, Big Brothers Big Sisters Nevada has matched children ages 5 to 18 with adult role models who spend quality time with them -- not necessarily quantity.

"What we ask for is a one-year commitment of having contact with a child once a week," Cornelius says. "We don't say how much time that needs to be, because it depends on the volunteer and the child."

That wasn't the case last month, when Wells attacked and fought several bailiffs after he snapped during his divorce trial.

Many of them are not quite as divorced as they think they are. Some of them, like Chan, are even accidental bigamists, carrying not only hopes and dreams but also an earlier marriage to their new one.

Tens of thousands of others have some understanding that their divorces are not done. But stumped by complex paperwork and court procedures, and unable to afford thousands of dollars for attorneys, they simply let their cases languish.