Shrimp

There are signs throughout the neon city that the Vegas economy has lost some of its shimmer. Casinos have laid off hundreds of workers. Hotels are slashing room rates. Foreclosure signs mar suburban streets. And now, the 99-cent shrimp cocktail has broken the dollar mark. The price of the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino's signature dish recently rose to $1.99, the victim of the escalating price of bay shrimp. The increase was the first in 17 years, and was viewed locally as an ominous indicator.

U.S. shrimp farmers won a yearlong effort to justify tariffs on shrimp from six nations after the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a final ruling saying the American seafood industry had been harmed by a surge in imports. The 6-0 vote was the fourth and final ruling needed to proceed with a program of tariffs on as much as $2.7 billion a year in shrimp imports from China, Brazil, Ecuador, India, Thailand and Vietnam.

The city will undertake a massive relocation effort, moving 468 tons of dirt by hand, to try to save some tiny endangered shrimp that live at Los Angeles International Airport. The plan, outlined in a 22-page agreement obtained by The Times, requires the Los Angeles airport agency to move the Riverside fairy shrimp to the Madrona Marsh in Torrance, or, if Torrance won't take them, to the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County.

Welcome to the good life in Sonoma, where good food meets good wine meal after meal, as we found on recent visits. At the Girl & the Fig restaurant in the town of Sonoma, Food editor Leslie Brenner flipped over the pappardelle with Sonoma rabbit ragu. "I had planned to have a very light lunch, but that sounded so good. With a glass of Russian River Valley Pinot, it was so wonderful, I polished it off. I particularly loved the combination of the rabbit with the slim, delicate carrots and the lovely fresh peas."

Shrimpers in the southern United States asked the Bush administration to slap duties on shrimp shipments from China, Vietnam, Ecuador, Brazil, India and Thailand to stem cheap imports of the shellfish. The Southern Shrimp Alliance sent petitions to the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission asking that conditions of fair trade be restored by imposing anti-dumping duties on the shrimp imports from the six countries.

Asian shrimp exporters Thursday said a U.S. anti-dumping lawsuit is an example of blatant protectionism, and vowed to fight to keep overseas shrimp on American dinner plates. The U.S. Southern Shrimp Alliance filed the suit Wednesday with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission against Thailand, China, Vietnam, India, Brazil and Ecuador. The alliance, an eight-state group of shrimpers and processors, claims those countries have dumped shrimp on the U.S.

Craig Wallis' son had a college diploma and an earnest intention when he approached his father two years ago. He wanted to work for the family firm, W&W Dock, which manages a fleet of 15 shrimp boats. In this peaceful waterside town in southeast Texas, where laundry dries on clotheslines near the main drag, shrimping has long been a source of pride and prosperity. "I told him no," recalled Wallis, 51. "He can't fight this battle." The son went on to become an engineer at Exxon Mobil Corp.

The U.S. International Trade Commission said Tuesday that cheap imported shrimp is harming U.S. fishermen and recommended the federal government consider anti-dumping levies. After reviewing thousands of pages of briefs and hearing testimony from fishermen and processors along the Gulf Coast and Southeastern seaboard, the ITC issued a 6-0 ruling that there was "a reasonable indication" that low-priced competition had harmed the domestic industry.

The Bush administration Tuesday imposed tariffs on shrimp imports from China and Vietnam, finding that companies there were dumping frozen and canned warm-water shrimp products into the United States at artificially low prices. U.S. seafood distributors and retailers said Americans would face higher shrimp prices at restaurants and in grocery stores if the duties, which take effect this month, were kept.

The scrubby, rock-filled drainage ditch at the end of a runway at Los Angeles International Airport might not look like much, but to scores of endangered shrimp, it's home. The little depression, surrounded by a chain-link fence with signs warning "Los Angeles World Airports -- Endangered Species -- Keep Out," is part of a 108-acre area at LAX that federal officials want to designate as a preserve for the tiny creatures, which at the moment exist in egg form. The proposal by the U.S.