Oskar Garcia

LAS VEGAS -- A 23-year-old beauty queen from Wisconsin won the Miss America pageant Saturday in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.

LAS VEGAS -- Nevada has agreed with officials in California to make a run at hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics at Lake Tahoe, in hopes of bringing the games back to an area where they were held in 1960, Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said Wednesday.

If successful, the games would return to the United States for the first time since Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002. Squaw Valley, a resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe, hosted the Winter games in 1960.

Krolicki told Nevada tourism leaders in Las Vegas on Wednesday that the Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition has a memorandum of understanding with California leaders to try to convince the U.S. Olympic Committee to back their bid and take it to the International Olympic Committee.

Enforcement chief Jerry Markling of the Nevada Gaming Control Board told The Associated Press on Monday that regulators have been taking calls from gamblers and casinos and are trying to resolve disputes after Pac-12 officials changed the score of Saturday night’s game two hours after it ended.

USC ultimately won 23-14, scoring its last touchdown on the final play of the game when Matt Kalil blocked a 41-yard field goal attempt and Torin Harris returned it for a touchdown. But the touchdown wasn’t counted in the box score at first because of an excessive celebration penalty USC committed.

LAS VEGAS -- The changing Western Athletic Conference wants enough schools to have two divisions and an annual title game, and is looking to boost membership by selling programs on geographic convenience and the chance to be college football's next Boise State.

"The WAC has shown that when you join the WAC, teams get better," Commissioner Karl Benson said as the league previewed this year's football season in Las Vegas. "You take advantage of the WAC and you take advantage of the assets of the WAC. History has shown that."

The Broncos, who finished last season ranked No. 10 in the nation while playing in the Western Athletic Conference, received 28 of 31 first-place votes in a poll released by the conference on Tuesday.

Boise State returns six starters on offense and seven on defense from last season's 12-1 team, including seven players picked to the preseason all-conference team.

TCU, the defending MWC champion, was picked to finish second in the conference. It garnered three first-place votes.

Six other teams placed well behind TCU and Boise State in voting, with Air Force picked to finish third and San Diego State to finish fourth.

This season, the conference is without BYU or Utah, and is preparing to lose TCU next year. It will gain Hawaii in football only in 2012, and Nevada and Fresno State in all sports.

LAS VEGAS -- A helmeted bandit who escaped the Bellagio with $1.5 million in chips during a daring gunpoint heist returned to the scene of the crime several times before his luck finally ran out, police said Thursday.