A dragon dance will be real, but fireworks will be by virtual display on the Viva Vision canopy when city officials and the downtown Las Vegas casino district mark the start of a five-day Chinese New Year celebration.

Officials say the 6 p.m. Tuesday event will be a first for the Fremont Street Experience. The dragon dance will be performed by the Las Vegas Lohan School of Shaolin.

Las Vegas casinos have made the New England Patriots favorites to win the Super Bowl thanks to their national following, a decade of winning and the playoff mystique of quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick.

In odds posted Sunday night by Cantor Gaming, the Patriots opened as three-point favorites over the New York Giants after New York beat San Francisco 20-17 in overtime in the NFC championship game, Race and Sports Director Mike Colbert said.

Bruno Mars, who found himself in a legal hassle last year after pleading guilty to cocaine possession in L.A, was cleared of the felony charge on Wednesday.

The case was dismissed by Clark County District Court Court Judge Jessie Walsh, after the pop star’s attorneys told a state court judge that the Grammy-winning singer stayed out of trouble and met other conditions of a plea deal reached almost a year ago.

Mars, whose real name is Peter Gene Hernandez, didn’t appear in person for the brief hearing in Las Vegas, New York Daily News reported.

The Las Vegas-area home-building industry likely bottomed out in 2011, when new home sales fell to a 30-year low of 3,894, an analyst says.

“2011 was the most difficult year the home building industry has ever been through,” Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research Inc., said in his monthly “Las Vegas Housing Market Letter” issued over the weekend.

A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to three years and one month in federal prison Friday for siphoning some $650,000 from his northwest Las Vegas parish to support his gambling habit. More >

Hampton Adams has been one of CES’ most loyal devotees for 15 years. But unlike a good chunk of the 140,000-plus who descend on the world’s largest technology showcase every January, the portfolio manager is less keen on fiddling with cutting-edge technology than picking winners.

A Samsung 55-inch super OLED TV is displayed during a press event for the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world’s largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 10-13 and is expected to feature 2,700 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 140,000 attendees.

The International Consumer Electronics Show kicked off on Tuesday with a dazzling array of high-tech gadgetry including ultra-thin laptops, snazzy smartphones, iPad rivals and flat-screen and 3D TVs.

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. will begin serving 90 days in a county jail in Las Vegas on June 1 for his guilty plea in a domestic violence case involving an attack on his ex-girlfriend while two of their children watched in September 2010. Earlier, he was expected in jail as early as Friday.

A judge last month ordered the undefeated 34-year-old prizefighter to turn himself in for a three-month sentence that Las Vegas police say could end up being about 60 days with good behavior and work time.