Las Vegas

The call to the online shoe retailer lasted more than 10 hours. For one thing, the customer on the line wanted to know how the Zappos employee likes living in Las Vegas. The conversation even ended with a sale of Uggs boots.

Culpo is the first American to win the crown in 15 years. Former Miss Pennsylvania, Sheena Monnin, loses a defamation lawsuit for making false statements that the Miss USA pageant was rigged.

The Republican Governor's Association is meeting this week in Las Vegas. Republicans lost seats in the House, Senate and the presidential race. But the GOP gained one more state, North Carolina, to put the number of Republican governors at 30. The governors say there's nothing wrong with the party that a few changes around the margins won't fix.

In 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. On Sunday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, he did it again. At age 89, he climbed in the back seat of an Air Force jet. The plane ripped past the speed of sound, 65 years to the minute after Yeager first did it.

Caesars Palace just spent $17 million on a new buffet, featuring hundreds of high-end food items.

What happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas for the nearly 28-year-old son of Prince Charles and Diana. Photos from his "strip billiards" game are now all over the Web.

DefCon Kids grew out of the largest, most important gathering of computer hackers on the planet. This camp encourages kids to take a hard, skeptical look at the machines that surround them, and teaches them to hack apart everything they can lay their hands on.

Denny's Corp. is opening a flagship restaurant in downtown Las Vegas. It will take up 6,400 square feet and include a full bar and wedding chapel. And of course, it will be open 24-7.

This week Las Vegas saw the world's largest hacking party — and it was all legal. The gathering was designed to bring together cybersecurity experts — including the top hackers in the business — to expose vulnerabilities before criminals uncover them. The big focus this year was on mobile phones.

Will the administration's health law survive the Supreme Court? A majority of bettors think not. Over at Intrade, a "prediction market" for current events, the betting gave chances of about 58 percent that the court will disallow the mandate.