The chief executive of International Speedway Corp., which owns and operates Kansas Speedway, could only marvel at the new casino overlooking Turn 2 of the race track – a $411 million facility that has created 1,000 new jobs and is expected to attract 4 million visitors annually.
“All the different screens, all the colors,” Kennedy said. “I’m blown away.”
Kennedy is gambling on the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, which celebrated its grand opening on a rainy Friday morning, to generate interest, drive ticket sales and increase revenue for ISC during a sluggish time for motorsports.It’s a bet she’s confident will pay off.
“Anything we can do to bring more entertainment to the area, and also for our fans, will help not only us but the overall region,” Kennedy said. “The group here has been so supportive and so interested in bringing tourism that it’s made it really easy.”
Long lines of cars snaked out of the parking lots and along the access roads running parallel to the backstretch in anticipation of the opening. After a ribbon was cut and Sprint Cup drivers Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne threw the ceremonial first dice, people began streaming through the doors and taking up seats at slot machines and blackjack tables.
The casino, a partnership between ISC and Penn National Gaming, is the first to open in the Kansas City market in 15 years, and the first land-based, Las Vegas-style casino in the area.
All of the gaming is on a single, 95,000-square-foot floor, with a bar and restaurant that overlooks Turn 2 of the speedway, providing a unique vantage point for its two race weekends.
The first is in late-April, when the Truck Series and Sprint Cup Series visit the track. The second weekend, in mid-October, brings an ARCA race, the Nationwide Series and one of the Chase races that make up the Sprint Cup playoff system.
“I get to do this for a living and we’ll open several new facilities this year, but you can imagine the creativity that comes with opening a venue like this,” said Peter Carlino, the chief executive of Penn National Gaming, which owns and operates casinos across the country.
The casino is only the latest development on the Kansas side of Kansas City.
The speedway, which opened in 2001, served as the cornerstone of a building boom that took advantage of good economic times. Several outlet stores, theaters, a minor league ballpark and the new stadium for MLS team Sporting Kansas City have popped up around the facility.
But the economic downturn has hurt motorsports, and suddenly it’s become tougher to sell the 80,000-plus seats at Kansas Speedway, along with a dozen other tracks that are owned and operated by International Speedway Corp.
Kennedy believes unique entertainment options like the casino can help bring people back to the track. In places where gambling may not work, it could mean shopping and restaurant projects, concert venues and general upgrades to facilities such as Phoenix that have seen better days.
“We have a certain amount of capital each year for all our tracks,” she said, “and we’ll take a look at those that are ready for the next step.”
Kennedy said she couldn’t have envisioned setting foot inside a casino at Kansas Speedway five years ago. The truth is that nobody could have.
It wasn’t until 2007 that the legislature passed a bill authorizing the construction of casinos in four areas of Kansas to generate additional revenue, one of them near the speedway.
Under the bill, the games themselves are owned by the state.
There’s more to the facility than just gambling, though. A steakhouse offers fine dining, a buffet on the casino floor caters to nearly 300 at a time, a coffee bar and VIP lounge offer more dining options, and the place to be on race weekends is the patio overlooking the track.
“It’s truly brought Las Vegas to Turn 2 of this race track,” said Bowyer, who grew up in Emporia and considers Kansas Speedway his home track. “Can you imagine what the atmosphere is going to be like on race weekend?”
Everything inside the facility is modeled after the golden age of Hollywood.
There are soaring columns with ornate scrollwork, video screens rolling historic clips of Grace Kelly and James Stewart, and vintage movie posters of Steve McQueen in Le Mans and James Garner in Grand Prix, a nod to the motorsports element of the unique partnership.
“Any time we can bring more things to the race track area and offer more entertainment, we’d definitely look at that,” Kennedy said. “The casino happens to work for this property. Obviously it’s available here in the area. But we would look at this or any other types of things that would add an extra boost to the economy and to the experience.”

What doesn’t change about Italy is that it’s always changing. In 2012 some long-closed doors are opening again. Historic sights, newly scrubbed and restored, are coming out from behind scaffolding. A few more monuments are still under wraps, but getting closer to completion. Italy is revealing itself anew (or molting).In Rome, the Colosseum is being cleaned from top to bottom and given permanent lighting. For the first time, tours are being offered to previously restricted areas underground passageways and the third-floor parapet. This behind-the-scenes tour is available only by booking a 90-minute tour at least a day in advance with Pierrici, a private company.
At Rome’s Palatine Hill, you can now tour the House of Livia, the home of the wife of Emperor Augustus. Guided visits, which are included with admission, take 20 people in every half-hour to tour the site and its newly restored frescoes. As surviving Roman wall paintings are rare (these date back to the first century B.C.), it’s worth the trouble.
A few doors are better left closed: Rome’s Mamertine Prison is no longer worth a visit. Until recently, it was a charming and historic sight. Today its artifacts have been removed, and a commercial tour-bus company is charging 10 for a cheesy “multimedia” walk-through. Don’t go in. And avoid getting sucked in by the clever advertising for the Time Elevator Roma or the hype surrounding the new, inconveniently located MAXXI modern-art museum, which to me comes off like a second-rate Pompidou Center.At St. Peter’s Basilica, you won’t have to descend into the crypt to find the tomb of the late, beloved Pope John Paul II. After he was beatified on May 1 (bringing him a step closer to sainthood), his remains were moved to the Chapel of San Sebastian on the main floor on the basilica (midway between Michelangelo’s Pieta and the main altar).
In Venice, as renovations continue at the Accademia showcasing the city’s top collection of Venetian paintings some major canvases are out of view and some rooms are closed entirely. There’s still scaffolding around the base of the Campanile, the dramatic bell tower on St. Mark’s Square, but a three-year restoration of the lovely little Bridge of Sighs popular with romantics who kiss as they glide under it on a gondola is now complete.
In Florence the big news for visitors is the energetic young mayor’s passion for traffic-free zones. Once brutal for pedestrians, the city’s core is now a delight on foot. That means it’s also more bike-friendly, and you’ll find appealing city bike tours and bike-rental services readily available.
Florence also now offers a new sightseeing pass called the Florence Card (50). Though it’s unlikely to save you much money, it saves you the hassle of making reservations for the top sights (Uffizi and Accademia galleries), and most important allows you to bypass the long lines. The card is valid for 72 hours, includes most sights, and covers free use of city buses. Especially if you’ll be seeing five or six major sights within three days, the pass is worth it for the convenience and the time saved.
At Florence’s Duomo Museum, the restoration of the original panels of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise is wrapping up. The famous panels are being reinserted in their door frames and should be back on display for a formal inauguration on June 24, 2012, the feast day of Florence’s patron saint, John the Baptist. And Florence’s Galileo Science Museum, which was in a jumble of restoration for years, is now all fixed up and ready for prime time.Sadly, the biggest change in Italy for 2012 is the result of a natural disaster. When I was in in the magical towns of the Cinque Terre in May 2011, I never could have imagined that, just a few months later, the streets I walked on would be under more than six feet of mud and rocks, devastated by a horrific flash flood.
Of the five towns of the Cinque Terre, the two most popular towns for tourists Vernazza and Monterosso were hit hard. Monterosso plans to be ready for business in the spring of 2012, but Vernazza’s road to recovery will take longer. At ricksteves.com we host a landing page with updates, travel information, and hotlinks to organizations accepting donations to aid the town’s recovery.
In spite of the damage and disruption, I’m already making plans to visit the Cinque Terre in 2012 and expect to have a wonderful Riviera experience. The strong spirit of its people and the love of its many honorary citizens the legions of visitors, like me, who have left a piece of their hearts there will ensure that the Cinque Terre will rebuild.

The U.S. State Department has updated and expanded its travel warning for Mexico, providing a more detailed, state-by-state security assessment and noting any restrictions on U.S. government workers traveling within the country.The warning, dated Feb. 8, replaces one that had been in place since April 22, 2011. It notes that “millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business … there is no evidence that Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) have targeted U.S. visitors and residents based on their nationality. Resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes.”
But it adds that “crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country and can occur anywhere. U.S. citizens have fallen victim to TCO activity, including homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.” According to the warning, the reported number of U.S. citizens murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.The updated warning cautions against nonessential travel to part or all of 14 Mexican states, including Chihuahua (which includes the Copper Canyon), Sonora (where U.S. citizens visiting Puerto Peasco are urged to use the Lukeville, Arizona/Sonoyta, Sonora border crossing to limit driving through Mexico, and to limit travel to main roads during daylight hours) and Michoacn.However, no advisories are in effect for such popular tourist areas as the state of Quintana Roo (Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya and Tulum), southern Baja California (Cabo San Lucas), Guanajuato (San Miguel de Allende and Leon), Oaxaca (Oaxaca, Huatluco and Puerto Escondido) and Chiapas (San Cristobal de las Casas), as well as Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and nearby Riviera Nayarit.The warning recommends that travelers stay within the tourist zones of Acapulco, Ixtapa, Monterrey, Zihuantanejo and Mazatlan – where, the State Department notes, “incidents of violence are occurring more frequently in tourist areas. (Government) personnel are permitted to travel between the Mazatlan airport and the tourist areas only during daylight hours. We recommend that any other travel in Mazatlan be limited to (Zona Dorada and the historic town center).”

The popular Epic fried chicken at Willie Mae’s in New Orleans

Words like “beloved” and “institution” barely start to scratch the surface when describing Willie Mae’s Scotch House, an iconic but off-the-beaten-track New Orleans eatery. Along with the humble Central Grocery, an Italian food retailer and purveyor of the game-changing muffuletta sandwich, this is a true locals’ favorite – so much so that volunteers famously pitched in to rebuild it after Hurricane Katrina, a seemingly generous effort that was fueled by ulterior motives – the craving for Willie Mae’s famous fried chicken.While both restaurants are family owned and multi-generational, Central Grocery has a prime spot in the tourist-rich French Quarter, and having created its own food category, enjoys one-of-a-kind status. Willie Mae’s, on the other hand, is far off the tourist path in the much poorer Fifth Ward, still surrounded by evidence of Katrina’s devastating wrath, and it specializes in one of the nation’s most ubiquitous dishes, available at thousands of locations nationwide, fried chicken. It is a small, house-like corner restaurant with metal gates over the front door, and two small dining rooms divided by a hallway along which is the open kitchen where cooks are busily frying away. There is no dcor to speak of, just a ceiling fan and some beer bottles lined up on a shelf representing the choices, and a number of framed clippings about the eatery and its scion, Willie Mae Seaton. Along with the omnipresent line out the door, these clippings are the only indication something special is going on, and if you look, you will see numerous reviews proclaiming it nothing less than the best fried chicken on earth, along with a James Beard Award – the culinary world’s equivalent of an Oscar.Reason to visit: Fried chicken.Today Kerry Seaton, Willie Mae’s granddaughter, runs the kitchen, and closely guards the family recipe, which is understandable since it leads fans on quests of thousands of miles to this hard-to-find corner eatery, open only for lunch. The line is almost always a varied mix of devoted local repeat customers, devoted repeat visitors, and passionate foodies driven by the reputation and stellar rankings the restaurant has accumulated in books and chat rooms. If you research a quest for the best fried chicken in the USA, you will inevitably end up here.
The chicken is fried to order and comes to the table quite hot, and the first thing you notice is how ragged and three dimensional the breading is. Excellent fried chicken is never of the smooth-coated fast-food variety, it should have peaks and valleys and crunchy nubs. This version totally delivers. A bit shiny, almost glazed in appearance, the crust is crunchy and crispy and perfectly seasoned, just a bit salty and not spicy. But what makes Willie Mae’s chicken amazing is its juxtaposition of textures. The crust shatters to the bite, yet comes away clean – you can see the shape of your bite afterwards, whereas with inferior versions the entire outer surface rips off. As crispy and flavorful as the breading is, it is also surprisingly light and not greasy, like good tempura. Beneath this rugged exterior the meat is perfectly moist and juicy, a seemingly impossible duet of textures. Traditionally, you can only get this effect from frying in small batches in cast iron pans, except here they use large deep fryers and somehow pull it off.
Right on the menu it says “the world’s best fried chicken,” and while I can imagine better, I haven’t found it yet. I’d put it on par with the exalted Gus’s in Memphis, another vaunted temple to crispy poultry, as the best I’ve tasted. It is well worth noting that the French fries are excellent too. Otherwise the menu is pretty simple – if you have not been you are going to order the 3-piece fried chicken plate with a side for $10, or a $2 upcharge for white meat. There is no 2 or 4-piece meal, and the standard is thigh, wing and drumstick, though even the upgraded breast, the hardest piece of fried chicken to cook, was perfect in its crunchy/juicy dichotomy.
If you are a devoted regular, you might wander into the less-charted territory of the other white meat, available as chicken-fried pork chops or country-fried pork chops, with different breadings. There is also smothered veal, but looking around the crowded room I saw nothing but fried chicken. The choice of sides is as local and real as it gets, with red beans and rice that are completely respectable in a town obsessed with the dish, excellent butter beans, the standout fries and the one weak link, a potato salad that is simply okay. But even the best sides are simply window dressing to the main event: fried chicken that carries the day.

Talk about Santorum climbs as Gingrich fades and Marines pose with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan

Updated 6:05 p.m. ET
Rick Santorum is surging in a new national survey, climbing to second place in the Gallup daily tracking poll.
Santorum, who swept contests in three states earlier this week, is now tied with a fading Newt Gingrich. Both have 20% support among registered Republican voters in the Gallup Poll.
INTERACTIVE: Poll tracker
Mitt Romney is still leading with 36%. Ron Paul is in fourth with 10% support.
The tracking poll is a five-day average and includes at least one day of polling since the former Pennsylvania senator won contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri on Tuesday night.
Santorum’s support in the Gallup daily tracking poll has grown 4 percentage points since interviews conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 3. Gingrich, meanwhile, has dropped 6 points since losing the Florida primary to Romney.
SAN DIEGO (AP) C The Marine Corps on Thursday once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others.The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable.
However, it was a nave mistake made by Marines who believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to associate themselves with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton.
The Marines in the image will not be disciplined because investigators determined there was no malicious intent, Chapin said.
Instead, the Corps used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable after it became aware of the photograph last November.The image has since surfaced on an Internet blog.
“I don’t believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII,” Chapin said. “It’s not within who we are as Marines.”
It was the second time this year the Marine Corps has had to do damage control for actions of its troops. It’s also investigating a separate group of Marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.
STORY: Video shows Marines urinating on dead Taliban
Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington said he has been flooded with calls from former Marines offended by the photo and from one member of his organization who is an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor.
“This is a complete and total outrage,” he said.
Weinstein said his organization was sending a letter seeking a full investigation to the head of the Marine Corps and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
“First we have Marines peeing on dead bodies and now this,” Weinstein said.
The Marines in the photograph are no longer with the unit. Chapin said she did not know if they are still in the Corps.
In the photo taken in September 2010 in the Afghanistan town of Sangin, the Marine Corps unit is posing with guns in front of an American flag and a large blue flag with what appear to be the letters “SS” in the shape of jagged lightning bolts.
The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the police and military force of the Nazi Party, which was distinct from the general army. Members pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolph Hitler.
SS units were held responsible for many war crimes and played an integral role in the extermination of millions of Jews along with gypsies and other people who were deemed undesirable. The SS was declared to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

What we can see from the file on Apple’s Steve Jobs

The FBI today released its 191-page file on the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, which includes comments from former friends and associates, including one source who describes him as “a deceptive individual who is not completely forthright and honest.”
The FBI, which released the file under a Freedom of Information Act request, gathered the material in a background investigation of Jobs in 1991 as President George H. W. Bush was considering his possible appointment to the U.S. Export Council. In the end, the appointment was never made.
Here are excerpts from FBI summaries of interviews with different sources regarding Jobs, who is also referred to as the Appointee:
“He characterized Mr. Jobs as a deceptive individual who is not completely forthright and honest. He stated that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals.”
” Jobs basically abandoned [redacted] and their daughter; however, lately he has been more supportive of them.”
” the Appointee will twist the truth in order to achieve whatever goal he has set for himself. He therefore considered the Appointee to be a deceptive person.”
” the Appointee (Jobs) grew up in the late sixties and early seventies when drug use was prevalent and that she and the Appointee both experimented with various drugs although she would not be more specific as to the kinds of drugs involved, other than to say that experimentation was involved. She added the Appointee is extremely health conscious now and rarely even drinks but will occasionally have wine socially.”
“Two individuals … stated that he is strong-willed, stubborn, hardworking and driven, which they believe is why he is so successful. They further stated, however, that Mr. Jobs possesses integrity as long as he gets his way; however, they did not elaborate on this.”