A long freight train carrying iron ore has derailed in a remote area of the Mojave Desert but authorities say there were no injuries. A Union Pacific spokesperson says 55 five rail cars and two locomotives derailed around 8:30 a.m. Monday in the Mojave National Preserve. The railroad says th…
Lines will be getting longer for free breakfast and lunch at New Mexico public schools. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed legislation to provide free school meals to all students regardless of family income. The bill cleared the Legislature during the recent 60-day sess…
Forecasters say the system could drop several feet of snow in the upper elevations of Northern California’s coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada, making travel difficult.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed into law a bill allowing firing squads to execute death row inmates when lethal injection drugs are unavailable. The move makes Idaho the fifth U.S. state to authorize the execution method. The new law will give the Department of Correction up to five days a…
Adele has announced that she’s extending her Las Vegas residency with 34 more dates between June and November and also plans to release a concert film. Saturday night’s show was the last performance in the British singer's original “Weekends With Adele” series that covered 34 dates since las…
The casino floor was shut down, U.S. 50 was closed and the 11-story hotel was searched before 24-year-old Edgar Julian Delgado was arrested
A name paired with poker and Las Vegas lore now has a place on the neon-lit Strip. Caesars Entertainment on Friday marked the rebranding of its Bally's Las Vegas as the Horseshoe Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. The 2,800-room property once was the MGM Grand Hotel, where a historic fire in 1980…
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
A geothermal energy developer vowed to sue the Biden administration over its decision to list a rare Nevada toad as endangered. The endangered listing could potentially derail the company’s latest renewable energy project in Nevada. In a letter filed Wednesday, Reno-based Ormat Technologies Inc. announced their intention to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service […]
The post Reno-based geothermal developer set to sue Biden administration over toad’s endangered listing appeared first on Nevada Current.
A name paired with poker and Las Vegas lore now has a place on the neon-lit Strip. Caesars Entertainment on Friday marked the rebranding of its Bally's Las Vegas as the Horseshoe Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. The 2,800-room property once was the MGM Grand Hotel, where a historic fire in 1980 killed 87 people. Then it was Bally’s Las Vegas for 36 years. The name change comes ahead of the 54th World Series of Poker, which the property will again host beginning in late May. Last year, the tournament drew nearly 200,000 players and awarded almost $350 million in prizes.
The developer of a planned Nevada geothermal power plant says it intends to sue U.S wildlife officials to try to overturn the endangered species listing of a toad that lives in adjacent wetlands. The move could end up pitting two Biden administration agencies against each other in one of a series of legal battles over President Joe Biden's efforts to combat climate change with so-called “green energy” projects. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management approved Ormat's project in northern Nevada's high desert. Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service later determined the tiny toad is on the brink of extinction. Biden's Justice Department lawyers represent both in federal court in Reno.
"We cannot move forward another legislative session pretending like we don't have a crisis. We have a crisis."
A Democratic former state lawmaker in Nevada has been sentenced to three years of probation for misusing campaign funds and lying about his residency when he ran for office in 2018 and 2020. Alexander Assefa was sentenced Thursday in state court in Las Vegas after pleading no contest in November to felony theft and misdemeanor false statement of residence charges. His plea deal allows for his felony conviction to be dismissed if he successfully completes probation. His attorney on Friday called the sentence a good result to a complex case. Assefa represented a Las Vegas district for one term and resigned just weeks ahead of the 2021 legislative session. Investigators found that he actually lived in North Las Vegas.
Weather forecasters say confidence is growing in the likelihood of another strong storm arriving in soggy, snow-laden California early next week. The outlook for more winter-like weather increased Friday as the state turned windy and cold, with residual rain and mountain snow showers in the aftermath of the most recent storm. The next one is expected to arrive Monday. The San Francisco Bay Area weather office says all the threats of downed trees, power outages and flooding will be in play. California has been battered by storm after storm since late December. States of emergency have been declared in 43 counties. As of Thursday, more than 700 people were being housed in 16 shelters in eight counties.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
Citing the need for Nevada to be proactive against an emboldened anti-abortion rights movement nationwide, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro made the case Thursday for a constitutional amendment that establishes reproductive freedom as a right. Senate Joint Resolution 7, which she is sponsoring with 39 other Democrats, would grant through an amendment to the Nevada […]
The post Constitutional protection of reproductive rights needed in Nevada post-Roe, argues Senate leader appeared first on Nevada Current.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposal to roll back restorative justice policies, which were implemented to address the school-to-prison pipeline but received a shaky roll out due to the pandemic, was met with a bevy of questions and concerns from lawmakers Thursday. Lombardo, who made a rare legislative appearance in front of the Assembly Education Committee to […]
The post Lombardo’s proposal targeting restorative justice policies scrutinized by lawmakers appeared first on Nevada Current.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
All of Nevada’s counties are federally designated mental health provider shortage areas. The state ranks last in the nation for mental health metrics like access to care and high prevalence of mental illness. And it ranks second in the Mountain West region with the lowest mental health workforce availability, with only one professional to every […]
The post A pair of measures aim to tackle state’s behavioral health provider shortage appeared first on Nevada Current.
In a rare move, Gov. Joe Lombardo testified before state lawmakers on Thursday in support of his bill revising a contentious 2019 restorative justice law that school districts and others have said ultimately limited teachers’ ability to deal with disruptive or violent students.
Seven incarcerated firefighters from Nevada are suing state forestry and prison officials who they allege mocked and ignored burn injuries the prisoners received in April 2021 in a wildfire area carpeted by hot soil and burning embers. In emails, state Division of Forestry and Department of Corrections officials declined Thursday to comment. The lawsuit alleges that when one plaintiff’s boot melted off, a forestry supervisor duct-taped it back on and told her to keep working. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Wednesday in state court in Las Vegas. The civil complaint includes allegations of negligence and infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. It seeks at least $700,000 in damages along with training and policy changes.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
Thousands of captive-raised specimens of the largest cutthroat trout species in North America are released into Pyramid Lake every year, but despite the trout’s size and might, they are also one of the most threatened. Decades of overfishing, dam building, water diversion, and other human actions have set the Lahontan cutthroat trout up for unrelenting […]
The post How NV tribes are saving Lahontan cutthroat trout from extinction appeared first on Nevada Current.
A rare tornado left a line of damage across roofs of commercial buildings in the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello. Video captured Wednesday shows pieces of roofing being ripped up and twisting into the sky. One person was hurt. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado with winds of up to 110 mph touched down. The violent weather comes amid a strong late-season Pacific storm that brought damaging winds and more rain and snow to saturated California. Five deaths have been attributed to the storm.
During the 2020 and 2022 elections, Clark County’s elections department became the face of Nevada’s lengthy vote-counting process
Nevada's largest power provider is set to build a new natural gas plant in the state for the first time in nearly 15 years. State utility regulators last week gave NV Energy approval to start construction on two gas turbines north of Las Vegas. The Public Utilities Commission says the gas plant limited to summertime operation is needed to fill a gap in demand during the hottest months of the year. But environmental activists say the project is a huge step backwards for Nevada's goal to have a carbon-free power grid by 2050. An energy expert says the decision highlights growing tensions across the American Southwest, where extreme drought conditions threaten power grids.
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Spring Valley and Echo Canyon State Parks are closed to the public due to hazardous road conditions
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
Housing is the most common unmet need for domestic violence survivors in Nevada, according to the recently released National Network to End Domestic Violence’s (NNEDV) 17th Annual Domestic Violence Counts report. The Nevada annual report is based on 571 people who sought domestic violence services in a 24-hour period on Sept. 7, 2022, including the […]
The post Domestic violence survivors’ most urgent priority is housing, report says appeared first on Nevada Current.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
For their own health, as well as for the health of the baby, women are generally advised by medical professionals to wait at least 12 months after giving birth before becoming pregnant again. That means birth control for postpartum women is critical, since it is possible to get pregnant again within weeks of giving birth. […]
The post Legislation would increase birth control access for postpartum women appeared first on Nevada Current.
Policy, politics and progressive commentary
Prison officials told lawmakers Tuesday that, in accordance with federal law, they already have policies to maintain the safety of transgender and gender nonconforming people who are incarcerated. But several people housed within the Nevada Department of Corrections, who provided written testimony about their experiences dealing with abuse by other inmates and staff, said it’s […]
The post After failing in 2021, sponsor revives bill to protect transgender, nonconforming inmates appeared first on Nevada Current.
It's one of the world's most vital resources. In Paraguay, a man displaced by a rising river hauls heavy buckets of it to his temporary home. In the Philippines, a girl uses a manual pump to get just enough to wash. In Haiti children fill large jugs of it in dwindling ravines.
A strong late-season Pacific storm is bringing wind, rain and snow to saturated California as the first full day of spring shows little change from an extraordinary winter. The storm is focusing most of its energy Tuesday from central California southward, bringing threats of flooding and mountain snowfall that forecasters say will be measured in feet. Winds gusting to 80 mph knocked down trees and downed power lines. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a falling tree killed a motorist and an Amtrak train with 55 people on board derailed after hitting a fallen tree, although nobody was hurt. The storm is a low pressure system interacting with California’s 12th atmospheric river since late December.
President Joe Biden has established national monuments in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary southwest of Hawaii. Biden announced the measures Tuesday at a White House summit on conservation. Biden designated a desert mountain in southern Nevada called Avi Kwa Ame as a national monument. Native Americans consider the mountain sacred. The Democratic president also designated Castner Range National Monument in El Paso, Texas and initiated a national marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. Biden’s actions come as environmental activists protested his approval of the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
U.S. regulators say they need more time to wrap up a final safety report and make a decision on whether to license a multibillion-dollar complex meant to temporarily store tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants around the nation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a new schedule Monday, citing unforeseen staffing constraints. The agency was initially expected to issue a decision by the end of March. It will now be the end of May. The announcement comes just days after New Mexico approved legislation aimed at stopping the project. The governor on Tuesday asked the agency to suspend its consideration of the license application.