In Carson

Officials with the V&T Railway reconstruction project will start taking bids today for work on a new phase of track that will carry a tourist train 18 miles from Virginia City to Carson City.

The four and a half mile section, expected to cost about $7 million, will run from American Flat in Storey County south to Mound House in Lyon County. About a mile and a half from Gold Hill to the Overman Pit was finished in 2005.

Bidding for the new phase will be open in four to five weeks.

It is expected to cost $54 million and be finished by 2011. About $40 million has been raised so far, including $21 million from Carson City.

Opening statements are expected to begin today in Yerington in the murder trial of a Dayton man accused of gunning down his estranged wife in May 2006 in her parents' driveway.

Christopher Deyerle, 26, is being tried on one count of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon in the killing of Heather Greene-Deyerle. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

A judge Monday morning sentenced a Trinidad man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1982 rape and murder of a Douglas County teen.

Carson City District Judge Todd Russell additionally sentenced David Winfield Mitchell, 61, to a consecutive eight to 10 years in prison for using a deadly weapon, a ligature, to strangle Sheila Jo Harris in her east Carson City apartment, a complex where he worked as a handyman.

Mitchell shook his head when asked if he wished to say anything on his own behalf.