State and local leaders joined Latino and Mexican community members this week for celebrations across the state commemorating the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month.

The $2.8 million spent on lobbying activities in 2021 marked the first time since 2005 that spending dipped below $3 million, and represented roughly 72 percent of lobbying expenditures reported during the 2019 session.

Lawmakers took a major step this session to expand and diversify the industry’s disproportionately white and male ownership and also provide tourists with a place to legally consume marijuana by creating a new license type for cannabis consumption lounges.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) at first indicated that the bill would cost the agency an estimated $22.6 million for the biennium to implement, but Harris said the agency informally, through emails, had submitted an updated fiscal note that would bring down that amount to about $7 million after the bill was amended to only include traffic stops, not all kinds of stops. All other police agencies that had submitted fiscal notes on the bill withdrew them after the amendment was adopted.

A group of government agencies is opposing a bill that would strengthen penalties for delaying or denying public records requests, though supporters of the bill argued on Tuesday that it would increase transparency and compliance.

The bill that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to form the task force, AB143, also includes a provision for developing a statewide plan for the delivery of services to victims of human trafficking.

Cordón's experience is typical in that local law enforcement agencies "become essentially the suction valve that pull people into the deportation pipeline," said Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic.

The incident, which a court later said happened without specific or credible evidence of criminal gang activity, denied the plaintiffs equal protection and caused them severe emotional distress, according to the complaint.

The complaint calls the escape period "impermissibly narrow" and says it forces employees to support the union and its speech for up to 11 months, thus violating their rights to free speech and association, or the right to join and leave groups freely. The lawsuit states that DePierro never affirmatively agreed to have union fees taken from her paycheck nor have her First Amendment rights waived.

The governor, speaking Monday at a press conference in Carson City, also said he will call state lawmakers to the state’s capital sometime this month to address a sizable state budget hole, and he declined to rule out asking for a tax increase to help fill the a budget gap estimated at close to $900 million just for the fiscal year that concludes at the end of June.

Law enforcement officials from both Washoe and Clark counties have characterized the majority of protesters as peaceful. Still, both police departments have deployed large groups of officers in tactical gear, prepared to launch tear gas and projectiles.

Police arrested two photojournalists covering protests on the Las Vegas Strip in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis this week, according to booking logs posted to Twitter.

An opinion by the court released on Thursday reversed a lower court’s decision and will allow Cristina Paulos, an artist based in Las Vegas, to continue long-running litigation against a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer and the casino resort, in spite of similar claims being partially rejected by a federal court.

Immigrant rights activists are filing a lawsuit against the the City of Las Vegas over its policies of keeping people behind bars for extra time solely on suspicion that they may be in the country illegally. 

“Right now we have more people sitting in that queue for longer than we want, and that just comes down to affordable units that we can get folks into,” Clark County Administrator of Human Services Tim Burch said.

The Nevada Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Thursday in an appeal brought by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), stemming from a lawsuit filed by the group in September 2018 to obtain Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department body camera footage involving an incident with Ford in November 2017. A District Court judge denied the group’s request in October 2018, leading to the appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

Listen awhile to advocates for a new city ordinance that’s meant to move street-camping homeless from sidewalks and trash-strewn lots into shelter, and you can almost imagine a kinder, gentler Las Vegas. That’s a Las Vegas where there are enough beds for the down-and-out no matter their condition, one that has a continuum of care that’s more than a turnstile.

A Las Vegas police officer who’s raising money in the name of children with leukemia — but spending most of the cash on himself, his wife and professional fundraisers — is still employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

There are 97 days until the Iowa caucus, 116 days until Nevada’s first-in-the-West caucus, and 258 days until the start of the Democratic National Convention, where the winner takes it all.

Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang surpassed fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Julián Castro in two Nevada polls last month. But at a progressive forum in East Las Vegas on Saturday, it was Castro whom the crowd warmed to with his Nevada-specific answers while Yang struggled to answer questions, including on Yucca Mountain.