The Las Vegas Tribune is proud to present a new feature: “The WISE Awards.” Every week, Las Vegas school children will be given the opportunity to participate in Writing Intelligent Scholarly Expositions; registration for this competition will allow students to submit an original, informative, nonfictional exposition based on one of twenty predetermined topic-situations. Students will be grouped into one of two categories: Prodigy or Phoenix. Every week, the Las Vegas Tribune will feature articles written by two student winners. Children attending a Las Vegas elementary or middle school - grades 5 through 8 - will be gathered into our “Prodigy” group, while children attending a Las Vegas high school - grades 9 through 12 - will be categorized as our “Phoenix” group. Each week one child from each category will be selected by a panel of teachers, professors and college students, and their award-winning expositions will be featured in the Las Vegas Tribune's weekly print and Internet...

In the long range scheme of things that occur daily in Las Vegas, this case appears to contain a very unique set of circumstances. The Las Vegas Tribune has learned that Detective Gordon Martines, a 36-year veteran police officer and three-time candidate for sheriff of Clark County Nevada, rated the most experienced real live detective in the entire Las Vegas Metro Police Department, and president and co-founder of STOP DUI INC., has recently undergone heart surgery, which was performed at Desert Springs Hospital on September 8, 2011. At first glance, heart surgery does not seem all that unusual, especially since from all accounts and information, the surgery went well, without any complications, and we are happy to announce that Det. Martines, 60 years of age, is recovering well at home, getting the required and much needed rest that restricts his movements, as well as physical rehabilitation. But, that is not what makes this story unique; that is to be found in the facts and circumstances...

After several months of criticism without a real result, the Clark County School District finally and politely asked the School Police Chief to step down. Chief Filiberto (aka Phil) Arroyo's last day as the top man in the Clark County School District Police was Friday, September 30 - but he is still employed by the Clark County School District as reported by the District spokesperson, David Roddy. Captain Jim Ketsaa, Arroyo's Deputy Chief for the last eight months, has been named Acting Chief, which was publicly confirmed by the District's spokesperson Michael Rodriguez. Arroyo became the Chief of the Clark County School District Police a little more than three years ago and he is no stranger to controversy. Former school police captain William Goodwin was forced out of the department after he questioned Chief Arroyo's decision of purchasing shotguns and assault rifles, even though the equipment was not an issue to the officers. Utah authorities were complaining that after one year of being...

With most cab drivers still struggling to weather the down economy and the reduction of their tips, they are experiencing a bigger challenge than ever. Cab companies will hire more drivers more often, on a regular basis, not to give the unemployed in the valley a boost, but, according to Mr. Ogbesia, because when they get rid of the drivers they are replacing, they do not have to give them the health care insurance benefit that they qualified for after their probationary period. Mr. Ogbesia figured that this is the reason that he was actually fired - because he was due for his insurance benefit package. To Mr. Ogbebor Ogbesia, while the recession might be impoverishing and the economic recovery taking more time than expected, it was more than vexing to him that he had to be fired because of the Mandalay Bay incident with the security men and their doormen - who not only tortured and hurt him before they fabricated lies against him - but it was totally unacceptable that the security men...

LAS VEGAS - Wells Fargo customers can now access their deposits quicker and save trees and paper at the same time by using any of the firm's 166 new Envelope-Free ATMs in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Pahrump and Mesquite. Customers using the new generation of ATMs do not need to place their cash or checks in paper envelopes, or even key-in a deposit amount. Instead, the ATMs can process a stack of up to 30 bills and checks at the same time. “The ATM does the rest: sorts and counts the deposit, and converts checks into digital images, which appear on the screen and on the receipt for instant verification,” explained Doris Charles in Las Vegas, Wells Fargo's regional president for Southern Nevada. The ATM prints a receipt of the image for the customer and at the same time transmits it to Wells Fargo for processing. Customers get immediate credit for cash deposits. Checks deposited before 9 p.m. Monday through Friday are also credited to the customer's account that...