Teynae Richardson set some ground rules as screens lit up and dozens of faces stared back at her. It was 10 a.m. on Tuesday, one day after Nevada schools were ordered to begin distance learning amid the statewide coronavirus closures.
With the number of coronavirus cases in the Silver State on the rise, The Nevada Independent will be keeping you up to date on the latest here, both through regular live blog updates and updates to our infographic tracking cases around Nevada. The most recent updates will be posted at the top.
“We just opened four months ago,” Farside said about the business, which is a coffee shop by day and a bar by night. “We're not Apple. We don't have $500 billion in cash that we're sitting on. We're just two guys who have a coffee shop. And, unfortunately, at UNR they didn't have a class in the business section that said how to open a store during a pandemic.”
The announcement, which came in a press conference on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, comes after a coalition of legal aid providers and other advocacy groups called on elected officials to issue a statewide moratorium on evictions. Prior to the announcement, a patchwork of orders from some 40 courts in the state led to confusion about who was eligible for what, if any, relief or postponement of an eviction.
A little more than a year ago, lawmakers heard a bill that would've appropriated an additional $15 million toward public health. The bill died without a second hearing. Now, the state's underfunded health agencies are grappling with a public health emergency.
More than 20 organizations signed on to a letter last week calling on Sisolak to issue a statewide moratorium on evictions to provide peace of mind to renters, who comprise 45 percent of Nevada households, and replace a confusing patchwork of orders from individual local courts offering varied levels of relief to tenants.
The House last week passed a record $2.2 trillion legislative package to bolster the flagging economy suffering from steps taken by states, including Nevada, to keep the coronavirus from spreading.
Sisolak did not make commitments on requests lodged this week that he release prisoners earlier or enact a moratorium on evictions. He did say he has consulted with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explore how hotels, dorms and warehouses could be repurposed as hospitals if circumstances became dire.
Nevada regulators are warning the state’s construction industry to follow social distancing guidelines at active construction sites, stating that it is “visibly obvious” many employees are working together in close proximity.
The organization and several partner organizations signed on to the missive dated Thursday — the same day that the Nevada Department of Corrections announced its first case of COVID-19, in a staff member at High Desert State Prison north of Las Vegas. Sisolak has not committed to mass inmate releases but his office said Thursday that “all options that could help prevent the spread and keep people safe are on the table.”
Although applicants for the chancellor position are still considered confidential at this point, Hardesty’s application for the position became public in motions filed by his attorney and attorneys for the higher education system last week seeking an expedited ruling on whether or not a constitutional prohibition on sitting justices taking another office during their term.
Those concerns gained new urgency on Thursday, when the Nevada Department of Corrections announced its first case of COVID-19 — a staff member at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs had tested positive and is now self-quarantined at home. The prison, which is the largest in the state and can hold nearly 4,200 male inmates, said it had responded by isolating inmates in their cells, observing inmates and staff for symptoms and sanitizing surfaces with a 10 percent bleach solution.
A spokeswoman for Nevada Health Response — the state’s centralized agency for tracking and responding to COVID-19 — confirmed to The Nevada Independent on Thursday that car dealerships can continue operating during the business shutdown, even though they are not explicitly mentioned in emergency regulations outlining the types of businesses allowed to continue operations.
Since Adams founded Seven Troughs Distillery in 2012, he said that the restaurant, bar and distillery has had its ups and downs, but experienced a steep downturn as coronavirus reached Nevada.
Cortez Masto made her comments in an interview with The Nevada Independent on Thursday, the day after she voted in favor of a $2.2 trillion emergency aid package aimed at relieving the economic fallout from the bill.
This week's Indy Environment looks at recreation areas closing as the state puts measures in place to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The newsletter also looks at a letter state regulators sent to the company responsible for the Anaconda Copper Mine and projections that the solar industry might see job losses in the wake of the pandemic.
INDYMATTERS PODCAST