Taylor Lane | Las Vegas Review-Journal (TNS)

The only thing better than great cocktails is drinking them with a view of Las Vegas’ bright lights and grand resorts.

Here’s a round up of eight rooftop bars to explore around the Las Vegas Valley:

Rooftop bars on the Strip

108 Drinks

Address: Inside the Tower at the Strat, 2000 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Hours: 11 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday through Sunday. Happy Hour is Monday through Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m.

Who doesn’t love a happy hour 800 feet above the Strip?

Guests can get two-for-one Tower admission and two-for-one cocktails at 108 Drinks during the bar’s “Sky High Happy Hour.” The cocktail special also includes draft beer, bottle beer, wine by the glass and well & call cocktails, according to the Strat.

The bar also serves frozen cocktails to help you stay cool while being closer to the sun.

Allē Lounge on 66

Address: Inside Resorts World, 3000 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Hours: 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to late Friday and Saturday.

You’ll find this bar 66 floors above the Las Vegas Strip at Resorts World.

This bar’s menu changes seasonally, but you’ll be able to find a wide selection of signature cocktails, wines, small plates and dessert options year-round.

Dress code is elegant, so leave the baseball cap at home.

Hotel Bar at Waldorf Astoria

Address: Inside Waldorf Astoria at 3752 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Hours: Sunday and Thursday 4:30 p.m. to 12 a.m., 12 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Located on the 23rd floor of the Waldorf Astoria, Hotel Bar offers great Strip views and drinks with names inspired by Vegas lore and culture, like cocktails Mojave and Spanish Trail. Mocktails are also offered for sober visitors.

Skyfall Lounge at Delano Las Vegas

Address: Inside Delano Las Vegas, 3940 Mandalay Bay Road.

Hours: Monday through Sunday 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.

This upscale bar on the 64th floor of the Delano offers cocktails, mocktails, beer, wine and spirits.

If you’re feeling a little hungry, you can get light bites like panisee (chickpea fries) and short ribs tacos, among other options.

And, if you’re feeling REALLY hungry, lobster risotto and Angus New York Strip are also on the menu.

Book a reservation at sevenrooms.com/reservations/skyfallmandalaybay.

Downtown Las Vegas rooftop bars

Legacy Club

Address: Top of Circa Resort & Casino, 8 Fremont St.

Hours: 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, 2 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Portraits of Las Vegas founders, pioneers and legends hang in a hall as the sun sets on the city viewed from the outside deck within the Legacy Club at Circa on Dec. 22, 2020, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS)

Drink among legends (or, at least portraits of them) at Circa’s rooftop bar, Legacy Club.

The bar sits at Circa’s 60th floor and includes 360-degree views of downtown Las Vegas and the Strip.

Guests can enjoy cocktails around a firepit, or stay inside and gaze at the bar’s collection of 500 custom gold bars.

This bar requires a dress code to enter, with swimwear, sandals, workout clothes and sports gear prohibited.

Reservation prices begin with a $25 minimum per person for inside seating, and go up to $1,500 minimum spend for a large firepit reservation.

Rooftop bar at Inspire Nightclub

Address: 107 Las Vegas Blvd. South (Corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard).

Hours: 10 p.m. to late Thursday and Sunday, 9 p.m. to late Friday and Saturday.

Down the street from Legacy Club in the Fremont East District is Inspire Nightclub, which boasts three floors with live DJs, a cocktail lounge, and plenty of opportunities to look out and people watch on Fremont Street.

The rooftop bar has VIP tables (and bottle service), a DJ and an outdoor dance floor with 270-degree views of Fremont’s bar strip.

People walk around Fremont East in downtown Las Vegas, where many rooftop bars can be found, on Nov. 21, 2020. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS)

Commonwealth

Address: 525 Fremont St. (Corner of Fremont and Sixth streets).

Hours: 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday and Sunday, 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Kitty-corner from the El Cortez is Commonwealth, a spot hoping to be a “neighborhood bar for locals and visitors alike,” its website states.

In addition to the rooftop bar and live DJs, the bar boasts a menu of craft cocktails, more than 20 varieties of local and international beers, and 16 different tequila bottles available with prices that’ll make your eyes pop out of your head.

With ornate lampposts, exposed brick walls and rustic park benches, this bar feels like the kind of place Tommy Shelby of “Peaky Blinders” would want to grab a drink.

ZAI Vegas

Address: 700 Fremont St. (Corner of Fremont and Seventh streets).

Hours: 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday through Sunday.

Across the street from Downtown Container Park is ZAI, featuring VIP tables, bottle service and private event reservations.

The bar also hosts themed nights for holidays and special DJ headliners.

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JERUSALEM — At the start of its devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israel set an ambitious goal: destroy Hamas. At the time, the Biden administration committed to the objective, giving Israel considerable stocks of weaponry and voicing its support.

Nearly eight months into the war, however, cracks have emerged between the close allies over what defeating Hamas actually looks like. Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden said Hamas was no longer capable of launching an attack on Israel like the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war and that it was time for the fighting to end. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right ministers disagree.

Where the U.S. seeks a quick end to the fighting, Israel’s leadership appears determined to push onward.

Here is how the leaders define the destruction of Hamas.

BIDEN: NO ABILITY TO POSE A THREAT

Biden on Friday said it was time to end the Israel-Hamas war, signaling that the objective of destroying Hamas had already been met because the terrorist group was “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one on Oct. 7.

That day, Hamas fighters astonished Israel with a large-scale assault, killing some 1,200 people and dragging about 250 hostages back to Gaza as rocket fire targeted Israeli cities and towns. Hamas has been deemed a terrorist group by the U.S., Canada, and EU.

In the nearly eight months since then, Israel says its air and ground offensive has significantly depleted Hamas’ military capabilities. It claims to have killed 15,000 fighters, half of Hamas’ fighting force, and wounded thousands of others. It also says it has destroyed a significant portion of Gaza’s labyrinthine tunnel network, command and control centers and rocket launchers.

Biden appeared Friday to believe this was enough to satisfy Israel’s objective. He urged Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to release about 85 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 40 more, for an extended cease-fire.

NETANYAHU: ELIMINATE REMAINING MILITARY AND GOVERNING ABILITY

In response to Biden’s suggestion that Hamas was significantly depleted, Netanyahu said Israel would not agree to a permanent cease-fire until “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

The Israeli army says the eradication of Hamas is still incomplete, with battalions of fighters remaining in the southernmost city of Rafah and fighting still raging in Gaza’s north. Hamas has continued to launch rockets into Israel, although with far lower intensity than in the first months of war. The extent of the group’s governance across the strip remains unclear, though no alternative has emerged.

Still, Netanyahu admits it may be impossible to fully stamp out the ideology of Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, a year after winning legislative elections against the rival Fatah party. Hamas has managed to survive despite a 16-year blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, and four previous wars against Israel.

“Hamas has to be eliminated, not as an idea,” Netanyahu said in late March. “Nazism was not destroyed as an idea in World World II, but Nazis don’t govern Germany.”

ISRAEL’S FAR RIGHT: ERADICATE HAMAS AND RESETTLE GAZA

The far-right firebrands within Israel’s ultranationalist government have staunchly rejected Biden’s cease-fire proposal, saying Israel must continue its war in Gaza until Hamas is completely stamped out.

Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both threatened to leave Netanyahu’s government if he endorsed Biden’s proposal. That would cause the coalition to collapse.

Smotrich said Monday that agreeing to a cease-fire would amount to a humiliation of Israel and a surrender. Increased military pressure, he said, is “the only language understood in the Middle East.”

Ben-Gvir has called for the “voluntary” emigration of Palestinians from Gaza and for a return of Israeli settlements. Israel unilaterally pulled out of more than 20 Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005, ending a 38-year presence.

Speaking at a resettlement conference in May, Ben-Gvir said that the only way to make sure “the problem won’t come back” was to “return to Gaza now.”

“Return home!,” he chanted, “Return to our holy land!”

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The Biden administration says Israel hasn’t crossed a red line on Rafah. This could be why.

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Israel confirms its forces are in central Rafah in expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city

Based on Glenn Stout’s nonfiction account of the same title, “Young Woman and the Sea” gets by on the careful engineering of clichés, Daisy Ridley and a really good piece of irresistibly rousing history.

In 1926, 20-year-old Gertrude Ederle, raised in a German immigrant household in New York City, swam the English Channel in 14 hours and 31 minutes. She bested the previous record-holder, a male, by two hours and became the first female athlete to make the crossing.

Two million people turned out for her ticker-tape parade. President Calvin Coolidge called her “America’s best girl.” After decades and centuries of patriarchal whining about women, swimming and the galling impropriety of the words “women” and “swimming” in close proximity, Ederle’s feat changed the course of athletics.

The movie tidies things up for its tour of Ederle’s life, focused by screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (“Catch Me If You Can,” the forthcoming “Lion King” prequel “Mufasa”) on 15 or so of the subject’s first 20 years. Trudy, as Gertrude was called by some, initially was not the most talented swimmer in the family; her older sister, Meg, was. That shifted soon enough; by the early 1920s, and Trudy’s late teens, she was the most famous female athlete in America, winning gold and bronze medals in the 1924 Paris Olympics. An initial go at the Channel crossing proved unsuccessful, and (some say) actively sabotaged by Ederle’s coach, Jabez Wolffe, who’d himself attempted the crossing 22 times to no avail.

“Young Woman and the Sea” plays around with various degrees of truth and fiction, because it’s not a documentary and, you know, welcome to the concept of movies based on true stories. None of them, not a one, tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It’s not their job. In the film, Ederle’s Olympic triumphs (she won gold and bronze medals) become invisible, rewritten instead as a general part of a general failure and a huge setback for women’s sports. In the film, her second, successful Channel attempt comes mere hours after the first, not a year later.

These things don’t necessarily matter (to me, at least) when a movie’s working as drama. This happens just often enough — and by the precision-tooled setback/triumph/setback/triumph pacing of the climax, just rousingly enough — to take care of business.

Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in “Young Woman and the Sea,” about the first woman to swim the English Channel. (Elena Nenkova / Disney Enterprises)

Throughout, director Joachim Ronning, next in line for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, manages a fairly pleasing blend of practical 1920s-era recreations, digital effects (plentiful but rarely completely fraudulent-looking) and shamelessly effective melodrama. Every sexist, misogynist resistance point to Ederle’s mission, feels not unlikely (it wasn’t; it was assuredly omnipresent a century ago) but boiled down to reductive, pencil-sketched character traits. Man A is a good man because treats Trudy as an equal, with respect; Men B, C, D, E and F-Z are not good men because they snigger and sneer at her, and all women.

And is too much to have the sniveling Scots swim coach (Christopher Eccleston) actually heave a radio through the nearest window pane at a key moment? Maybe, but who cares? The preview screening crowd was well and truly into the swim of things by that point. While never getting the material she needs to match her skills, Ridley creates a heroine both storybook-vibrant and human-scaled.

It’s not the creative license part of sports biopics that bugs me. It’s the screenwriters’ avoidance of how people actually talked, and behaved, in the time and place of the storyline. In this instance we have a German immigrant family, with good actors (led by Jeanette Hain and Kim Bodnia as Gertud and Henry Ederle) at the helm, yet there’s no attempt at even mentioning the anti-German sentiment of the mid- and post-World War I era. Sometimes it’s not what’s in a movie that weakens it, but what isn’t.

Yet this is sheer irrelevance by the end. Trudy Ederle’s paradoxically exhilarating ordeal amid the choppy waters, threatening skies, jellyfish and sheer physical punishment of the Channel was made for the screen. Not even the most generic film score in recent memory can keep “Young Woman and the Sea,” its title pulling a real-life variation from Hemingway’s old man and his sea, from reaching its destination.

“Young Woman and the Sea” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for thematic elements, some language and partial nudity)

Running time: 2:08

How to watch: Premieres in theaters May 31

Phillips is a Tribune critic.