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Sheldon Adelson, center, watches a lion dance at the opening ceremony of the Sands Cotai Central in Macau on Thursday.

MACAU -- Billionaire Sheldon Adelson said on Wednesday he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain where he is courting the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex.

Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, was speaking at a press conference ahead of the opening of his new $4 billion casino property in Macau, the world's largest casino destination.

"We are looking at 12 integrated resorts, 3,000 rooms each. A mini Las Vegas, about half the size of the Las Vegas strip in Spain for the European market," said Adelson, one of the world's richest men worth an estimated $25 billion according to Forbes.

Each building would cost between $2.5 and $3 billion and the company would target customers from Western and Eastern Europe in addition to the former Soviet bloc.

Adelson did not address the debt crisis that has gripped Europe, but he has said that the complex in Spain would be a five to 10-year project, by which time he expected demand to have picked up significantly.

36,000 hotel beds
Las Vegas Sands said in February that it was studying an investment of as much as 15 billion euros ($20 billion) over 10 years in a casino complex in Spain that would include 36,000 hotel beds, 18,000 slot machines and three golf courses.

On his Asian expansion plans, Adelson said he would continue to develop integrated resorts in the region after the success of his Macau and Singapore properties.

"We are looking to build two each in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Taiwan is late in catching up. There is pending legislation in the other three countries," he said.

Under its $31 billion Macau unit, Sands China Ltd, the group already has two casinos open in the former Portuguese colony.

The new Sands Cotai Central, erected beside Adelson's Italian-themed Venetian, cost twice that of local player Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd's Galaxy Macau, which opened last year.

The new property will add 5,800 hotel rooms to Macau's supply constrained market, as well as 300,000 square feet of gambling space and 1.2 million square feet of shopping, entertainment, dining and convention facilities.

The property will house the Conrad, Sheraton and Holiday Inn hotel brands. Conrad and Holiday Inn will open immediately, while the Sheraton will open in the second half.

Shares in Sands China were down 3 percent on Wednesday, lagging a 1.3 percent drop in the benchmark Hong Kong index.

Adelson's Singapore casino, Marina Bay Sands, is one of the most profitable in the world.

Macau, the only place where Chinese nationals are legally allowed to gamble in casinos, said gambling revenue surged 24.4 percent in March to 25 billion patacas ($3.1 billion), in line with forecasts.

About 37 miles from Hong Kong, Macau has thrived as a flood of affluent mainland visitors have flocked to the properties of the enclave's six licensed operators that include Las Vegas tycoons Steve Wynn and Adelson.

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A woman caught smoking in a nonsmoking area of Denver International Airport on Tuesday responded by putting out her cigarette and taking off her clothes.

Around 8:45 a.m., after being asked to extinguish her cigarette, the woman stripped naked in the B Concourse, TMZ reported. 

"The woman told officers that she'd had no sleep the night before," Raquel Lopez, spokesperson for the Denver Police Department, told msnbc.com. The woman was taken in for a medical evaluation. "No one was arrested, no one was hurt and no report was filed," Lopez said.

Police and paramedics responded and "the woman was ultimately transported to a local hospital," said Laura Coale, Denver International's director of media relations.  

There are four smoking lounges at the airport, including two Aviator's Club Smoking Lounge locations, but there is no clothing-optional area, Coale said, nor are there plans to create one anytime soon.

Find more by Harriet Baskas on StuckatTheAirport.com and follow her on Twitter. 

More on Overhead Bin

• In the hole to Uncle Sam? Bill aims to strip your passport
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Have passport, will travel?

Not if you’re delinquent on your taxes and some of your elected officials have their way. With tax season upon us, it seems that Benjamin Franklin’s old dictum — No man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session — may also apply to Americans’ international travel plans.

That strange bit of governance can be found on page 1,447 (!) in S. 1813, which passed the Senate on March 14. Sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the bill was ostensibly written to reauthorize federal aid for the nation’s highways.

But in an impressive display of legislative sausage-making, the bill also authorizes the “denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport” for anyone with “a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.”

Translation: You don’t have to be found guilty of tax evasion but if the IRS has filed a lien against you for big bucks, you would have to rethink that trip to the French Open or London Olympics.

What restricting international travel has to do with funding American highways is unclear, especially as spokespeople for Sen. Boxer’s office and the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works declined to comment on the matter.

“The way in which laws get cobbled together is something I don’t even try to understand,” said Robert Wood, a San Francisco tax attorney who recently addressed the issue for Forbes.com. “A lot of weird things sneak in in odd ways.”

“I don’t know what this has to do with transportation,” said Paul Ruden, senior vice president for legal and industry affairs for the American Society of Travel Agents, who nevertheless, understands the rationale behind the proposed regulation.

“If someone owes a lot of money to the government and they’re carrying a government instrument that says they’re free to go, they might not come back,” he told msnbc.com.

The IRS has yet to respond to an inquiry from msnbc.com about how many Americans might be subjected to the rule if it were to pass.

At this point, the passport-confiscation provision is only a proposal and neither Ruden nor Wood expects the Senate bill to pass as is in the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority has a markedly different approach to funding and regulations.

And even if does, suggests Ruden, the majority of travelers should be able to hold on to their little blue books.

“I’m going to be an optimist and say there aren’t that many Americans in this situation and planning to use their passport to leave the country,” he said.

More from Overhead Bin:

• From refund to audit: 5 holidays for tax season
• Frequent fliers blast flying experience in annual survey
• Got miles? Grab a seat, some sun or a sub-orbital flight

Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

There were 12 dogs aboard the Titanic, including these three tied to the rail on deck, which did not survive the ship's sinking.

For the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, just about every aspect of the storied liner – from safety issues to class differences among passengers – is being explored, analyzed and celebrated.

But little attention is being given to another group of Titanic travelers: the 12 dogs that made the voyage.

A new exhibit at the Widener University Art Gallery, in Chester, Pa., that opened Tuesday hopes to change that by including photographs and stories of the dogs and their owners who sailed on the Titanic, said J. Joseph Edgette, professor emeritus of education and folklorist emeritus at Widener University, who produced and curated the exhibit.

“I wanted to include things that people don’t normally run across,” Edgette said, noting that there were no Titanic-related exhibits that he was aware of that focused on the famed ocean liner’s canine passengers.

Related: Who gets Titanic's treasures? Stay tuned

“Everybody knows about the iceberg, how the ship went down, and the heroic stories, but it doesn’t go beyond that, yet there are hundreds of other aspects that we need to give attention to,” said Edgette, who based much of his findings on eyewitness accounts of the evacuation, ship’s records and his own research. “Until recently, most scholarship has not covered the dogs.”

Only three dogs survived, he said.

Those that were saved included a baby Pomeranian named Lady, owned by Margaret Hays of New York City, who kept the puppy in the cabin with her, Edgette said. When passengers were evacuated, Hays wrapped it in a blanket. Crew members allowed her to get in a lifeboat with the puppy. “Because they assumed it was a baby, it survived,” he said.

Others that lived were Sun Yat-sen, a Pekinese belonging to Henry and Myra Harper (of Harper Row publishing fame), also of New York City, and a small Pomeranian owned by Elizabeth Rothschild from Watkins Glen, N.Y.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

This Pomeranian named Lady, owned by Margaret Hays of New York City, survived because Hays wrapped it in a blanket and crew members assumed it was a baby.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

This small Pomeranian owned by Elizabeth Rothschild from Watkins Glen, N.Y., survived the sinking of the Titanic.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

Sun Yat-sen, a Pekinese belonging to Henry and Myra Harper (of Harper Row publishing fame), also survived.

All surviving dogs were small and were kept in the first-class cabins of their owners, Edgette said. “The crew was very respectful of first-class passengers and usually gave them what they wanted to make them happy.” The nine dogs kept in the onboard kennel perished, though the kennel was well-kept and the dogs were well taken care of, he said, by crew who fed and walked them.

Of the 12 dogs on board, four were from Philadelphia families. Two of those that perished were owned by William Carter, a coal magnate. Carter’s children were worried about their pets, but their father assured them the dogs were safe and encouraged his children to get in the lifeboats, Edgette said. The family survived, and later received insurance reimbursement from Lloyds of London in the amount of $100 for daughter Lucy’s King Charles spaniel and $200 for son Billy’s Airedale.

(The replica of the Carters' 1912 Renault, the location of a love scene between young Rose and Jack in James Cameron’s Titanic, was based on the car owned by the Carters, Edgette said.)

One century after the Titanic sank during its maiden voyage, the historic day is being commemorated around the world. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

Other dogs that died included two Airedales named Kitty and Airedale, owned by John Jacob Astor IV and his wife, and a fox terrier named Dog, owned by William Dulles, an attorney from Philadelphia.

Related: Titanic's wealthiest passenger built NYC hotel

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

Kitty, an Airedale owned by John Jacob Astor IV and his wife, perished in the Titanic disaster along with his master. Astor's wife survived.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

This fox terrier named Dog was owned by Philadelphia attorney William Dulles. The exhibit at Widener University Art Gallery also focuses on the 68 Philadelphia-area families who sailed on the Titanic.

Perhaps one of the saddest stories is that of Ann Elizabeth Isham, who was already in a lifeboat when she got out to go to the ship’s kennel to retrieve her Great Dane. She never made it back.

“Two to three days later, a passenger ship’s crew member, not too far from the site of the sinking, found her,” said Edgette. “She was clutching a Great Dane.” Isham’s body, along with 326 others, was retrieved from the water, but no dogs were, he said.

From the collection of J. Joseph Edgette

This Great Dane owned by Ann Elizabeth Isham perished in the Titanic disaster. Isham was already in a lifeboat when she got out to go to the ship's kennel to retrieve her dog. She never returned. A few days later, her body was found in the water, still clutching her beloved pet.

The exhibit features photos of the dogs and their owners, some supplied by the families involved and others taken onboard, including a group of dogs tied to the rail on the Titanic’s deck, which perished, and a photo of crew members walking several dogs.

One photo shows the Titanic’s captain, Captain Smith, holding a Russian wolfhound called Ben, named for industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, who gave the captain the dog as a gift for his daughter. But Ben never made the journey, as he disembarked before the ship sailed.

In addition to the dogs, the exhibit will focus predominately on the 68 Philadelphia-area families who sailed on the Titanic, including the Widener family, for whom Widener University is named. Three family members sailed on the Titanic, but only one survived. (Peter A.B. Widener was on the board of trustees of the parent company that owned White Star Line). The show also includes displays about the company that built the Titanic, details about the ship, information about the recovery of bodies after the sinking, how local families memorialized members who lost their lives after the tragedy, as well as Titanic’s impact on popular culture.

Free and open to the public, the exhibit runs through May 12.  

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Courtesy Men's Health

This Ford Focus Electric is traveling from New York City to the Santa Monica Pier in California in the Electric Car Challenge, organized by Men's Health magazine.

With the national average price of a gallon of gas approaching $4, you could be forgiven for thinking that the great American road trip is a thing of the past. But for a team of drivers about to drive from New York to Los Angeles, it’s a thing of the future.

Organized by Men’s Health magazine, the 2012 Electric Car Challenge (ECC) proposes to set a new record by making the roughly 3,000-mile trip without stopping at a single gas station.

“We love road trips and this is an excuse to have a different kind of trip,” said Eric Adams, a senior editor at the magazine and a member of the Challenge team. To accomplish the feat, the trip will utilize a 2012 Ford Focus Electric, require an estimated 40 to 55 recharging stops and rely on crowdsourcing and the kindness of others to ensure a dead battery doesn’t doom the effort.

While this isn’t the first multi-state, long-distance trip in an electric car – that honor belongs to Arizona Public Service and the Mars II Electric Car that went from Detroit to Phoenix over 15 days and 37 recharging stops back in 1967 – it aims to go farther in less time.

Related: Click here for much more coverage on electric vehicles

“It’ll be a ‘speed’ record in name only,” said Adams, who expects the team to reach the Santa Monica Pier in 10 to 12 days. Along the way, the team expects to promote various adventures — fitness challenges, environmental missions, etc. — during each 2- to 4-hour charging session.

For better or worse, they’ll also highlight the challenges that stand in the way of wide-scale acceptance of electric vehicles (EV). Chief among them: so-called “range anxiety,” the fear that you’ll run out of juice without a charging station in sight.

“Electric cars at this point are pretty much commuter vehicles,” said Carroll Lachnit, features editor at Edmunds.com. “It’s really difficult [to go further] because the infrastructure isn’t there yet.”

The Focus Electric, for example, has an EPA-estimated range of 76 miles, basically enough to get the team from New York to Bethlehem, Pa. At that point, they’ll either have to locate a public charging station or find a business or homeowner with 240V power — a clothes dryer outlet will do — and a willingness to share.

“Any business that has a welding station uses 240V,” said Adams. “We may call Firestone stores and see if we can roll up and plug in for a couple of hours.”

Elsewhere, they’ll take advantage of crowdsourcing and new apps, such as PlugShare and ChargePoint, that use mapping programs to show where the nation’s growing number of charging stations are. The PlugShare app, for example, shows 8,000 stations — 6,000 public, 2,000 home-based — along with insights about types of chargers, current availability and whether fees apply.

The idea, says Forrest North, founder of Xatori, which created PlugShare, is to move EVs beyond their current market of early adopters and alternative-fuel aficionados.

“We want that second tier of people to feel comfortable buying EVs,” he told msnbc.com. “If you see a lot of places to charge, it’ll help relieve their range anxiety.”

In the meantime, taking an EV on an extended road trip will present challenges. For example, higher speeds drain electric batteries faster, one reason the “Men’s Health” team expects to motor along on secondary roads at 40 to 50 mph. On the other hand, the Focus Electric’s combined MPGe, or miles per gallon equivalent, of 105 miles is pretty enticing when gas is nudging the $4 mark.

“It can be done but it can’t be done easily,” said Lachnit. “It’s not like getting in your car, heading for Vegas and just knowing there will always be a gas station on the next corner. EVs are not like that — you have to be much more decisive in your approach.”

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.