IN BRIEF

Culinary, MGM Mirage still in contract talks

A week after reaching a new five-year collective bargaining agreement with Harrah’s Entertainment, representatives of Culinary Workers Local 226 were meeting Friday with MGM Mirage.

The gaming company has 21,000 workers covered by a contract with state’s largest labor union, a deal that expired May 31. The two sides have met several times in both small and large negotiating groups since March.

Five-year contracts covering some 50,000 Strip and downtown hotel-casino workers expired May 31. After the contracts expired, companies extended the old agreements until new pacts could be negotiated.

Ex-USA Capital exec put into bankruptcy

A bankruptcy judge on Friday put Tom Hantges, formerly a top executive at USA Capital, into involuntary bankruptcy and planned a trial over the involuntary bankruptcy petition against Hantges’ associate Joe Milanowski.

USA Capital, which handled $962 million in loan investments for 6,000 investors, became insolvent in April 2006 and filed for bankruptcy protection. Many of the debtor’s assets were sold to Compass Partners, a New York private equity firm, but attorneys representing the interests of former investors are seeking to recover additional sums from Hantges and Milanowski.

Bankruptcy Judge Linda Reigle put Hantges into involuntary bankruptcy by default, because Hantges did not respond in time.

LINCOLN, Neb.

Regulators stick to fine against company

State campaign finance regulators are not budging in their two-year-long effort to get a Las Vegas casino company to pay a $97,000 fee for filing a campaign report late.

The Accountability and Disclosure Commission on Friday approved a hearing officer’s recommendation that it continue to levy the same fee it did in 2005 against Coast Casinos.

The Las Vegas company spent $970,000 on a 2004 ballot initiative campaign to legalize gambling in Nebraska, a proposal voters turned down.

The commission determined in 2005 that the fee owed by Coast, which Boyd Gaming Corp. acquired in 2004, for filing a spending report more than four months late was equal to 10 percent of the $970,000 worth of political contributions it failed to report on time, or $97,000.

Bond prices increase as stocks head down

Treasury prices ended higher Friday, benefiting from falling stocks and some buying related to investor positioning.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the 10-year Treasury note was up $4.38 per $1,000 in face value, or 0.44 points, from its level at 5 p.m. Thursday. Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction, fell to 5.14 percent from 5.20 percent.