Three Bay Area residents were arrested early Saturday morning in Stateline on burglary charges.

The three were allegedly breaking into a vehicle in the parking lot at MontBleu at 1am Dec. 16.

Arrested were Sandra Vilchis-Toledo, 25, Emmanuel Fonseca, 32, and Sonia Chavez, 28 – all from the San Francisco area.

South Lake Tahoe detectives were contacted to serve a search warrant on a room at Motel 6. There officials said they located a significant amount of property that had been stolen in Douglas County.

The two law enforcement agencies are seeking the public’s help with identifying the stolen property.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal

When Gov. Brian Sandoval goes looking for solitude once he’s term-limited out of office next year, there’s a chance you’ll see him at Walker River State Recreation Area, one of three new facilities being preserved that in the future will attract millions of tourists from all over the world.

Sandoval addressed nearly 350 tourism professionals from across the state this month in one of the closing sessions of the two-day Governor’s Global Tourism Summit at the Flamingo.

For Sandoval, addressing the annual conference was a 180-degree turn from the first one he hosted in 2010, when the state was in the depths of the Great Recession, money was tight and the state’s primary mission was diversifying the economy and adding jobs.

This time he was able to talk about investing in new attractions that will complement the state’s rural attractions.

Read the whole story

A 4-year-old boy was found unresponsive in a hot tub at MontBleu on Sunday.

Douglas County sheriff’s officials said the incident is believed to be an accident. They were called to the Stateline casino about 1:30pm Dec. 17. First responders tried to revive the boy.

The Redwood City toddler was transported to Barton Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

El Dorado County sheriff’s coroner is handling the death investigation.

More information has not been released.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

A South Lake Tahoe house was severely damaged Saturday when a tree fell on it.

No one in the Saddle Road residence was injured in the Dec. 16 incident. The winds that night were strong and sustained.

The renters living there stayed the night with the hole in the roof. They have since been temporarily relocated.

Authorities didn’t know about the tree until Sunday.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The Nevada Department of Transportation last week completed the second construction season of the Highway 28 bike path near Incline Village. The entire project is anticipated to complete in late 2018 or early 2019.

Lane closures in place through the summer and fall have now been removed. Crews may conduct minor preparation and staging along the path during winter months if conditions allow; creating periodic daytime lane closures during off season. Major construction is scheduled to resume in the spring, with lane closures between Sand Harbor State Park and Ponderosa Ranch Road.

This season, major rock scaling and retaining wall construction to protect the existing roadway and future path work occurred along the hillside near Lakeshore Boulevard. Pathway bridge foundation installation also began with utility work, sewer line and water quality enhancements.

The approximately $36 million project by Granite Construction will result in numerous safety improvements, congestion reduction measures and water quality upgrades.

By Adam Ashton, Sacramento Bee

Every time you pay more at California’s gas pumps to fill your tank, you’re feeling the price to fix the state’s roads.

But are you feeling the improvement?

California’s newly paved roads are built to standards of smoothness that are the strictest in the country. With that standard comes high costs that have surprised contractors, who are fighting for reimbursement and bitterly condemning a level of smooth they say no driver would ever notice.

At least one major contractor also contends the smooth pavement is dangerous, arguing that corrective measures he takes to hit the target actually shave features that are supposed to keep roads safe in wet weather.

Read the whole story

By Jessie Bekker, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada ranked 37th in the nation this year in health, dropping two rungs from last year in an annual ranking by a health care company.

A UnitedHealthcare annual report showed that Nevada’s greatest challenges include high rates of violent crime rate and the uninsured and a dearth in primary care.

It also ranked last among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in public health funding, at $41 per person, compared with $296 per person in the No. 1 state for such funding, West Virginia.

Read the whole story

A tree went into a South Lake Tahoe house on Dec. 16. Photo/SLTFD

Thousands of customers on both sides of the state line are without power on the South Shore, along with residents in Carson City.

It meant eating by phone flashlight for some people at Freshies in South Lake Tahoe when the lights went out just before 9pm Dec. 16.

Initially, NV Energy reported 8,363 customers without power when the incident occurred at 8:45pm. Fifteen minutes later that number was 4,468.

Kristen Saibini, with NV Energy, as of 9:40pm Saturday told Lake Tahoe News she didn’t know what caused the outage. Still, the company is expecting power to be back by midnight.

Liberty Utilities, which gets much of its power from NV, is saying it could be 8am Sunday before power is restored. No one from that company was available for comment.

Wind has been an issue Saturday evening. A tree fell onto a house on June Way in South Lake Tahoe. Damage was minimal.

Firefighters were called out to Ironwood Cinema in Minden for reports of smoke. No fire was reported.

In South Lake, two people had to be rescued from a elevator at the Tahoe Beach Retreat when the power went out.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Bart Jansen, USA Today

A record 107.3 million people will travel to celebrate year-end holidays, braving higher gas prices than last year and roads in some spots threatening three times the normal traffic congestion, according to a AAA forecast Thursday.

Holiday travel already set records this year for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving, according to AAA. The projected 3.1 percent increase in travel from Dec. 23 through Jan. 1 would represent the ninth consecutive year-end rise, according to AAA.

Most travelers will jump in cars, with 97.4 million projected to hit the road.

Read the whole story

El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office is partnering with Lyft to encourage residents to not drink and drive this holiday season.

Between now and Jan. 1, Lyft will provide discounted rides throughout El Dorado and Placer counties. New users may enter the code RIDESAFE2018 in the app for $5 off their first 10 rides, and existing users may claim 10 percent off two rides with code RIDESAFECA.

According to the DA’s office, impaired driving remains a serious problem throughout the state and in El Dorado County, which was fourth worst in total fatal and injury collisions in 2015. In California, there were 17,390 injury collisions involving alcohol in 2015 alone. That same year, there were 122 alcohol‐involved injuries or fatalities in El Dorado County.