| All-Star events bring big crowds, big sales to stores along the Strip
As president of Front Row Sports, Jim Simonson had courtside seats to the retail frenzy that beset Las Vegas with the weekend arrival of the National Basketball Association's All-Star Game.Customers at Front Row, a sports memorabilia store inside Fashion Show mall on the Strip, were scooping up as many as 40 commemorative All-Star T-shirts at a time, Simonson said. The store boosted the number of employees on duty from the 10 workers it had during the busy New Year's weekend to 25 workers during All-Star Weekend. Front Row had to close several times on Saturday after crowds filled it to capacity. And Simonson had stocked up on $3,500 leather jackets featuring NBA team logos, expecting to sell about 10 of the items between Saturday and Sunday. He sold 45. “I have never seen as many people, not only in our store but in our mall," Simonson said.
More spa getaways for Mother's Day
SHOW your mum how much she means to you on Mother's Day buy offering to whisk her away from it all with a pampering spa break. In part two of our guide, we visit Carden Park in Chester for a little TLC. Where will we stay? In a hotel on a 750-acre estate in the heart of the Cheshire countryside that took us 40 minutes to get to from Manchester What's it like? Very relaxing. You really feel like you're getting away from it all as you drive up the mile-long drive surrounded by greenery with wonderful views of the Welsh hills until the hotel appears from across a lake on the golf course. Ask for a room overlooking the golf course. And if I have just one treatment? Mum had a two-hour long hot stones massage, which involved a preliminary body scrub followed by laying on of hot stones which are gently massaged into the body.
Wilkes and Foggo plead not guilty
Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes accused federal prosecutors of trying to punish him for refusing to admit to crimes he didn't commit and guaranteed he would be cleared of charges that he bribed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. "I never bribed Duke Cunningham or anyone else," Wilkes wrote in an e-mail message sent to the media yesterday hours after he appeared in court. "He (Cunningham) never 'demanded' or asked for a bribe from me, and neither he nor anyone else in Congress ever helped my companies with projects for any reason other than their merits." Wilkes, who pleaded not guilty in federal court in the morning, said the San Diego U.S. Attorney's Office "intimidated and coerced people to say things that were not true and hid the truth from the grand jury." .
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