Next Vegas attraction will be mob museum

Next Vegas attraction will be mob museum

LAS VEGAS — Say hello to your new little museum.

The Las Vegas City Council unveiled the name of its planned mob museum this week, along with logos resembling court documents with material blacked out — The (redacted) Museum: The Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.

The first redaction obscures the word “mob.”

“I don’t think anybody is able to do tongue-in-cheek the way Las Vegas can do it,” said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former criminal defense lawyer who represented organized crime figures before representing voters in City Hall.

The museum showcasing southern Nevada’s colorful and storied Mafia past is expected to open in spring 2010 in downtown Las Vegas, at the site of a former federal courthouse where Goodman tried his first case.

As city officials unveiled the plans, council members tossed around T-shirts that said: “There is no such thing as a mob museum nor have I ever been there.”

Salma Hayek fights tetanus in moms, babies

GENEVA — Hollywood mom Salma Hayek is lending her star power to a UNICEF campaign to eradicate tetanus in mothers and babies around the world within four years.

Hayek, a paid spokeswoman for Pampers’ tetanus vaccine program, recounted her experiences during a recent trip to the West African nation of Sierra Leone, where she met with tetanus victims.

“One of the things that was very moving about the trip was to see 15-year-old girls, really young, taking responsibility for their lives and their children before they’re born by saying ’I am going to be healthy, I am going to take this vaccination,”’ she told journalists at the United Nations on Thursday.

“I had no idea how much this was going to really personally move me,” added the 42-year-old star of films including “Desperado” and “Frida.”

The Pampers-UNICEF partnership has already provided over 50 million vaccines to mothers and babies in developing countries, where tetanus kills up to 140,000 infants and 30,000 women each year, according to the U.N. agency.

Pampers, owned by Procter & Gamble Co., said it would give UNICEF the money for one tetanus vaccine for every pack of specially marked diapers it sells before the end of the year. It expects that to produce 70 million more vaccinations.

Today’s birthdays

Singer Chubby Checker is 67. Magician Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy is 64. Singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac is 59. Actor Jack Wagner is 49. Drummer Tommy Lee (Motley Crue) is 46. Singer Gwen Stefani is 39. Singer Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys is 37. Singer G. Love is 36. Actress Neve Campbell is 35. Singer India.Arie is 33. Actor Seann William Scott (“Dukes of Hazzard,” “American Pie”) is 32. Singer Ashlee Simpson-Wentz is 24.