Harrah's Buys Shutdown Binion's Horseshoe - 2004-01-19
After over five decades as a downtown Las Vegas landmark, Binion's Horseshoe Casino was forced to shut down last week after U.S. marshals arrived with a court order to seize almost $2 million in debt owed to a union. Days later, Harrah's Entertainment
stepped in to buy the property and plans to reopen the casino, at least temporarily.

Officials moved swiftly through the casino on the night of Jan. 9, telling gamblers to cash in their chips and leave. Within hours, the doors were closed. Since then the hotel has remained operational but the casino and all of its attendant neon have been dark, leaving a gaping hole in the bright lights of Fremont Street -- and nearly 1,000 people unemployed.
Read the full story at KTVU.com

Four died in Sofia office blast - 2004-01-19
Four people were killed and at least seven injured in an explosion in an office block in Sofia on Monday afternoon which could be linked to violent retaliations in the Bulgarian underworld, police said.

The explosion occurred in the lift of a building housing a branch of the Insurance Company Bulins and the offices of a casino group, they said.

The building caught fire after the blast. Bulins was formed out of the SIK group which was involved in black-marketeering in Bulgaria after the fall of Communism in 1989.
Read the full story at Irib