In the vaccination campaign, mandates may just be the final frontier. If scientists, public health officials, family doctors, and cash prizes can’t convince people, the thinking goes, maybe a mandate from their employer will.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves the Las Vegas metro area, is tasked with implementing what its general manager said is probably “the most aggressive municipal water conservation measure that's been taken in the western United States.”

On Friday, committee members voted 4-3 to pass the measure with the promise that another amendment will be filed prior to a floor vote. The bill previously passed out of the Assembly on a party-line 26-16 vote in April.

Construction on the high-speed train to connect Las Vegas with Los Angeles could begin "in the next 12 months or so," Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Phillip Washington told Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) at a congressional hearing last week.

Mario Sandoval was a waiter at Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel’s steakhouse in downtown Las Vegas for 36 years but has not worked since mid-March of 2020 — when casinos were closed because of the pandemic — along with thousands of Nevadans in the tourism and hotel industry.

It’s another bump along the way for businesses during the pandemic, which brought layoffs, closures, capacity-restricted reopenings, reimagined operating models and, lately, pent-up customer demand as COVID-19 vaccines multiply and people clamor for a return to some semblance of normal.

Sponsored by the governor’s office and presented by Sisolak’s policy director, Heather Korbulic, AB450 stops short of implementing any immediate changes. Instead, it would create an interim committee that would study workforce development programs at the state’s community colleges, as well as the role a change in governance structure could have in the way such programs — and the colleges themselves — are funded.

The Nevada Independent sat down with Whitfield to discuss some of the biggest issues facing UNLV — from the pandemic to land grant status to diversity and racism.

Faculty across the state’s higher education system are pushing for a new law this year that would expand the state’s nascent public collective bargaining infrastructure to include professors and other professional staff — a sharp break from years of control of the bargaining process by the Nevada System of Higher Education itself.

The main feature of the resolution is doing away with the two-level system in the state Constitution and creating a single minimum wage, even for employers that offer health insurance. Some employers who otherwise would be paying a minimum rate of $11 per hour by 2024 under the current plan in state law would have to pay $12 if the resolution passes.

A proposed bill that would recognize UNLV and DRI as land grant institutions in addition to UNR has renewed old divisions over perceived equity and fairness in higher education funding.

The Assembly Committee on Natural Resources voted Friday to advance a legislative proposal, pushed by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, to require the removal of about 5,000 acres of unused grass, an action that could save billions of gallons of Colorado River water each year.

The bill, SB386, garnered emotional support testimony Wednesday from laid-off workers looking to return to work and the backing of labor unions, while businesses, including some Las Vegas casinos, opposed the measure, arguing that it would result in inappropriate costs and litigation.

This week’s Indy Environment newsletter looks at a hearing Tuesday on AB380, legislation that would require gas utilities to go through a comprehensive planning process meant to consider the effects of decarbonization on their operations and ratepayers.

Since at least 2015, state lawmakers have introduced but failed to pass proposals modifying the school board structure in the nation’s fifth largest school district — egged on by issues ranging from workplace harassment, to ethics complaints, to a tweet telling teachers to “Dust off those resumes” if they didn’t want to resume in-person classes.

Major tech companies, from food delivery platforms Grubhub and DoorDash to online marketplaces Amazon and eBay, are pushing back on two measures introduced by Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) that would strengthen state regulation of online business.

Amid a pandemic year that stalled the Las Vegas economy and severely tested the bottom lines of businesses small and large, chambers of commerce and other business interests gave 61 of 63 Nevada lawmakers more than $840,000 in the 2020 election cycle.

In this edition: A bill on “Stablecoin” that is totally not related to Innovation Zones, increasing utility regulator fines, changes to wrongful conviction compensation and heartburn on abolishing education-focused commissions, including one created by beloved former Assemblyman Tyron Thompson.

In this edition: major updates from state grants office initiatives, criminal justice updates, how Vegas police have changed policies after Black Lives Matter protests this summer, a Sisolak Promise Tracker update and some noteworthy numbers from the higher education system.

At the rate vaccines are rolling out, people will likely feel more comfortable traveling by the second quarter of 2021.