More than a dozen bills introduced during this year’s legislative session have sought to regulate or expand the use of AI, including to prevent its use in certain mental health settings and use it to give SNAP recipients discounted food.

Last month, the Reno City Council approved the Oppidan Data Center to become the city’s second data center amid a debate about regulation and their environmental impacts.

Hyperbole aside, I understand commentary about data centers isn’t actually commentary about data centers as a specific discrete point of discussion. It’s commentary about artificial intelligence, which, in turn, is commentary about the tech industry.

The university received $3 million in grants to bolster its cybersecurity training and consulting. MGM, Caesars and the Clark County School District have recently been victims of cyberattacks.

Below are excerpts from the new chapters in the 2024 Almanac on the state of Nevada and Gov. Joe Lombardo, written by Louis Jacobson.

In January, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s second-ever executive order called on the state’s Department of Administration to devise a plan to pull state workers out of work-from-home and back to “pre-pandemic, normal and customary office conditions” by July 1. 

This week’s Indy Environment looks at NV Energy’s plan to build two natural gas turbines, a proposal that is pending before state utility regulators.

Cases appear to be plateauing in the state as the virus runs its course, but the spread of COVID-19 differs region by region. In this edition of COVID in Context, we take a deep dive into vaccine hesitancy and share helpful resources and information.

The Omicron variant has out-competed the Delta variant as the predominant circulating strain in the United States. Nevada health officials expect the same pattern to occur in the coming weeks.

A business taking electric service from the state’s primary electricity provider may not seem like news, but Resorts World isn’t being treated like most other electric customers. Instead, NV Energy and the casino are asking utility regulators to approve a unique market-based electricity supply deal aimed at ultimately powering the property with renewable energy.

Nevada is facing its worst drought in two decades. The dry conditions are important for the forecasts facing fire managers as they start planning for the warm summer months. This week’s Indy Environment newsletter looks at a recent media briefing on Great Basin fire risks.

Storey County commissioners voted to oppose “separatist governing control” within their jurisdiction after Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak backed a legislative effort that could result in a private technology company and major donor forming its own local government.

Amid unanimous approval of the two applications during the Wednesday meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board, GOED Director Michael Brown said he planned to bring recommendations to the board — composed of Gov. Steve Sisolak, other elected leaders and several business representatives — at its next meeting in December raising the threshold level needed for new or expanding businesses to receive tax abatements.

The state of Nevada is launching an app on Monday that will allow people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to discreetly notify their close contacts of a possible exposure, a potentially significant boon in a tourism-driven state that has until this point had little ability to contact trace its visitors and at times even struggled to trace all its residents.

A public water district for the country’s largest industrial park has agreed to settle an eminent domain case weeks after a judge ruled that the state Constitution gave a nearby family the right to a jury trial in determining whether seizing their private land for a pipeline project was valid.

In September, Mayor Hillary Schieve announced a pilot program designed to address the area’s housing shortage called "1,000 homes in 120 Days," offering developers local permit fee deferrals that act as no-interest "loans" to attract more construction. By the end of the 120-day application period on Jan. 30, developers had proposed 4,628 housing units scattered throughout Reno.

Documents obtained through two public records requests offer new insight into the relationship between business and government at an industrial park that lured companies with incentives and support from the state. The letter comes amid new scrutiny of those practices. Last month, The Nevada Independent detailed how the industrial park’s public water district, which wants to use eminent domain to build the pipeline project, blurred the line between a government and private utility for decades.

For the last year, the state Democratic Party has been developing technology to facilitate its first-in-the-West caucus, which will, in another first, include an early voting option.

Documents, election records and interviews show an insular county gave a private water company controlled by the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) the power of a public entity. The deal reflects greater tensions about whether certain companies are benefiting from the region’s rapid growth and which politicians have given them an upper hand.