| Alabama beaches gear up for spring break despite concerns over the ...
Alabama beach resorts posted record visitor spending on lodgings last year, bouncing back three years after Hurricane Ivan left widespread wreckage on the coast. Tourism officials hope high gas prices and a slide in the national economy won't reverse those gains this year. March heralds student spring break frolics and the kickoff of get-to-the-beach tourism. Visitors driving to the Gulf Coast may notice that gasoline prices tend to bottom-out at the end of January, then start rising in March and peak on Memorial Day. Last year, the average price for regular unleaded in Alabama was $2.05 at the end of January, soaring to $3.08 on Memorial Day. It was $2.91 this January, said AAA-Alabama spokesman Clay Ingram of Birmingham. ''We're starting a lot higher than last year,'' Ingram said.
IN DEPTH: CONNECTION TO LAS VEGAS PAST: HOMEGROWN COMPANY Boyd Gaming ...
Boyd Gaming founder Bill Boyd, 76, stands Monday afternoon near the construction site of the $4.8 billion Echelon resort, which will stand on the Strip where the Stardust used to be.
Photo by Clint Karlsen.
Bill Boyd, executive chairman of Boyd Gaming, center, meets Dec. 14 with colleagues at the Fresh Market Cafe in Sam's Town, one of Boyd Gaming's original properties.
Photo by Ronda Churchill
Bill Boyd stands with Dennis O'Neill, shift manager, while making a surprise stop at a preshift meeting for dealers at Sam's Town.
Photo by Ronda Churchill
Bill Boyd points to a collection of family photographs on a wall at Sam's Town that show his father, casino pioneer Sam Boyd.
Photo by Ronda Churchill
Bill Boyd and friend Judy Vieths reminisce about the Stardust before its implosion in March.
KSM, the Victim
On Monday, some six years after 9/11, military prosecutors filed charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda's foreign-operations chief, along with five of his conspirators. They will stand before a military tribunal, and if convicted they could face execution. And as if to prove that the U.S. has lost its seriousness and every sense of proportion, now we are told not that KSM is a killer, but a victim. The victim, supposedly, of President Bush. Opponents of military commissions (including Barack Obama) want KSM & Co. turned over to the regular civilian courts, or at least to military courts-martial; anything else is said to abridge American freedoms. This attitude is either disingenuous or naïve, or both, because it is tenable only by discounting the nature of the attacks and the enemies who carried them out.
Historical Milestones
The Times publishes special stand-alone sections each day and files continuous updates for latimes.com.
September 13, 2000 Fourteen Our Times editions cease publication as The Times moves away from block-by-block coverage to refocus its local and regional coverage on major issues affecting all Southern Californians.
February 7, 2001 The Times begins a nearly two-year transition to the CCI pagination system with the conversion of the Food section. This is followed in early March by the conversion of the Travel section.
March 5, 2001 The single-copy price of newspaper increases to 50 cents from 25 cents in Southern California. The new price is consistent with that of most other major metropolitan daily newspapers.
April 16, 2001 The Times wins its 25th Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting by David Willman about unsafe prescription drugs that had been approved by the U.S.
CHIGWELL: Woman finds boyfriend almost castrated
A WOMAN on holiday in the Caribbean has spoken of her horror after she returned to her hotel room to find her fiancee semi-conscious with his penis almost sliced off. Eleanor Rothery, 21, who has been living in Chigwell during her gap year, was celebrating her engagement to Alan Reed in the Dominican Republic when he suffered the injury apparently after an unexplained attack. The couple had become separated after a night out. After several hours of searching, Miss Rothery discovered her boyfriend in their hotel room in a pool of blood. She said: "He was sprawled out on the bed in just a pair of shorts that were covered in blood when I walked in. I alerted hotel reception immediately and they phoned for an ambulance as soon as they came to the room." Mr Reed, a 33-year-old plumber, from Paddington, London, has now been operated on and told he should suffer no long-term damage.
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