A video from 2001 involving Douglas County sheriff’s Capt. Dan Coverley has resurfaced in the four-way race for sheriff.

In a statement Coverley said this of the episode, “For the incident in 2001, I was disciplined and suspended for one day for using an improper lifting technique. The incident was investigated for excessive use of force and I was cleared of those allegations. The case was reviewed by a federal judge who said that he had been involved in excessive use of force cases and this was not that. Furthermore, when I was accepted to the FBI National Academy my entire personnel file and this incident was reviewed page by page and they.”

He is alleging one of his opponents is behind circulating the video as well as still photos from the incident.

LTN asked Coverley if he wanted to comment further. His response, “No, I don’t. I have commented several times. The matter was settled in 2004.”

The video shows Coverley choking a suspect as another officer stands by.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers

State Sen. James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, says he plans to seek the leadership role of the Republican Senate caucus for the 2019 session of the Nevada Legislature.

“I am going for leadership, and we’ll have that vote after the election to determine who will be the best to lead us during the session,” Settelmeyer said Thursday on Nevada Newsmakers.

Read the whole story

By Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee

El Dorado County had the highest median home sales price in the region last month, at $486,000. Placer’s median home price in April was $482,000. Both were up substantially over the past year.

The median price has now risen every month in the last six years, hitting $357,000 in April, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data company. That’s 12 percent higher than the $317,000 median sales price a year ago.

Read the whole story

By KTVN-TV

Placer County Sheriff’s Office reports that two Concord men were arrested on charges of burglary and vehicle theft, after a multi-agency investigation.

Placer County Sheriff’s deputies stopped a truck speeding through Carnelian Bay in North Lake Tahoe on May 15 and found stolen construction tools and equipment. They say some of the equipment was covered in shards of auto safety glass, and the vehicle had just been stolen from Incline Village.

At the same time, a number of window-smash burglaries were being reported in Washoe County.

Read the whole story

By Tami Luhby, CNN Money

The economy may be chugging along, but many Americans are still struggling to afford a basic middle class life.

Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released this month by the United Way ALICE Project.

That’s 43 percent of households in the United States.

Read the whole story

By Adam Ashton, Sacramento Bee

Firefighters can’t say they weren’t warned.

A new professional standards program at CalFire is giving the department a mechanism to hand down discipline in a consistent manner across the state for the first time in its history.

It’s racking up pay reductions, suspensions and dismissals at a rate that rivals scandal-plagued 2014 – the year when an instructor at its fire academy murdered his mistress and brought intense scrutiny on the department.

Read the whole story

By Sam Gross, Reno Gazette-Journal

In an approximately 31-minute timef rame, somewhere along the Amtrak route through the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno and Truckee, Aaron Salazar mysteriously disappeared from his moving train.

Ten days after the 22-year-old Portland State University student was found critically injured feet from the train tracks on the edge of Truckee, his family remains at odds with Amtrak’s police force, which is handling the investigation.

His family says Salazar, a gay man, was attacked — the victim of a hate crime.

Read the whole story

By David Crary and Wayne Parry AP

For sports leagues and gambling industries, the imminent expansion of legalized sports betting promises a bonanza. For the experts and organizations already concerned about pervasive problem gambling, it promises a whole new roster of worries.

Much of the apprehension relates to the prospect of myriad forms of online sports betting — accessible to gamblers at any time and location via their mobile phones. There’s particular alarm over the anticipated explosion of so-called “in-game wagering” in which gamblers bet, often at a rapid pace, on play-by-play developments — for example, will the next football play be a run or a pass.

Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week, only four states were allowed to offer sports betting and only Nevada offered betting on single games. Now that the court has lifted those bans, there are expectations that most states will offer sports betting within a few years in a play to raise tax revenue.

Read the whole story

A cyclist was hurt in a hit-and-run accident on Wednesday in Crystal Bay.

The cyclist was going north on Highway 28 at 4pm May 24 when he was struck by a vehicle going south. The vehicle, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol, turned left at Stateline line Road right into the cyclist.

The bicyclist struck the right front of the vehicle and was ejected, landing on the asphalt. The vehicle fled the scene.

The cyclist and witnesses described the vehicle as a blue/tan Subaru Outback (or similar type vehicle) with Nevada license plates. The driver of the vehicle is described as a white male adult, approximately 65 years of age with a white “bushy” mustache.

Anyone with information is asked to call 775.687.9600.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Reuters

U.S. travelers will hit the roads, rails and airports this Memorial Day Weekend by the largest numbers in more than a decade, despite the highest gasoline prices in four years, the nation’s largest automotive advocacy group said on Monday.

More than 41.5 million Americans will travel 50 miles over Memorial Day weekend, the highest travel volume since 2005, when there were some 44 million travelers, according to the AAA, or American Automobile Association.

The holiday period, which traditionally marks the start of U.S. summer vacations, is defined this year as May 24-28.

Read the whole story