Tag Archives: first

Fortunes Fade for Macau’s Casino Kings

For most of the past five years, the Chinese gambling mecca of Macau seemed a sure bet. After the local government ended a decades-old gaming monopoly in 2002, some of the biggest casino and hotel operators in the world rushed in with new projects, eager to tap into the hoards of wealthy Chinese who increasingly flocked to the “Asian Las Vegas.” The first American company to enter the market was Las Vegas Sands, which opened the Sands Macau casino in 2004 — and earned back its $285 million investment in only a year. U.S

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Review: ‘Terminator’ full of noise and action, signifying nothing

Remember when the original Terminator — Herr Schwarzenegger in the role that made him a movie star — devastated an entire police station? Subsequent films in the series have upped the ante in terms of action and spectacle, but they have never topped the shock and awe of that comparatively simple sequence, when we realized what a formidable adversary this thing really was. Although “Terminator Salvation” recovers some of the ground ceded in the campy “Rise of the Machines,” this half-smart fourth installment has nothing to compete with that scene in “The Terminator,” not even when it features a 50-foot model

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Terminator Salvation Review: Sensory Overload

From the beginning, when cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger first arrived in our present — nude, greasy and heralded by what now seems like a very quaint series of lightning strikes — it was a bad idea to dwell on the time-traveling twist that has him pursuing a target, John Connor, who is still unconceived yet also alive in the future.

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Charles Bolden: The Next Boss at NASA?

The man at the controls of the space shuttle Discovery when it deployed the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 now appears poised to steer NASA into its post-shuttle orbit. Former astronaut and retired Marine general Charles Bolden Jr. is President Obama’s likely nominee to head the space agency; the two are expected to meet at the White House May 19 for a formal interview.

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Supreme Court issues setback for female workers

Decades-old time off given women for pregnancy leave cannot be counted when deciding pension eligibility, the Supreme Court decided Monday. The ruling is a setback for a relatively small class of women, many in or approaching retirement, who took maternity leave before a federal law went into effect prohibiting workplace discrimination. That 1979 statute, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, said companies had to treat such time off just like any disability, and it would be credited toward retirement.

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Italian giants Juventus sack coach Ranieri

Serie A giants Juventus have sacked coach Claudio Ranieri following a weekend that saw Inter Milan clinch a fourth successive Scudetto in Italy. Former Chelsea chief Ranieri took charge of the Turin club in 2007 and Sunday’s 2-2 home draw with Atalanta left Juventus three points behind second-placed AC Milan with two games left. The club have now gone seven league matches without a win and Ranieri’s departure came in a Web site statement.

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Understanding America’s Shift on Abortion

The abortion debate is a shape shifter, its contours twisted by politics, culture, timing and the very language pollsters use when they ask people how they feel. So when the folks at Gallup announced that for the first time more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice, there are all kinds of ways to misunderstand what that means. First and foremost are the labels, which cloud the issue by oversimplifying it — that’s why the advocates picked them

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