Now the leader of the Nevada Department of Human Services, Whitley has served in a cabinet role since 2015 and been in state service since 1986.

Dena Schmidt submitted a resignation letter Aug. 22 but rescinded her decision four days later. She previously said that she "cannot continue to be subjected to intimidation, humiliation and abusive behaviors."

Experts warn that some $10 million in opioid settlement funding could be going to programs that are not directly addressing the epidemic. Lombardo disputes it.

One analysis shows if the federal match for the expansion is stripped and the state can't meet the gap, more than 300,000 people could be booted from Medicaid.

In today's edition of Behind the Bar, what you need to know after the budget amendments, lieutenant governor scrutinized over women's sports task force and Democratic senators demand answers about possible Medicaid cuts.

This week's Behind the Bar explores a service freeze affecting people with disabilities and an improvement in the unemployment appeals backlog.

The state's health and human services director says the new program will help the state come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Fifteen current and former state employees said they worked under a supervisor who built a culture of fear, retaliation and paranoia. Last year, she returned to lead some of those who spoke out against her.

Under a little-noticed bill that would allow private hospitals to implement an existing "provider tax," state health officials are hoping to leverage up to $30 million in new state funds to address a lack of youth behavioral health resources.

In 2023, in spite of Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's fierce criticism of the Steve Sisolak administration on the campaign trail, he kept even more. Ten out of the 17 cabinet appointments announced by Lombardo Friday were Sisolak holdovers

State and local officials across Nevada signed agreements with Northshore Clinical Labs, a COVID testing laboratory run by men with local political connections. There was only one problem: Its tests didn't work.

In Nevada, which ranks last in the nation for nursing home resident vaccination rates, 1 in 4 residents has yet to be fully vaccinated. There are few clear answers why — but an abundance of theories.

When lawmakers kicked off their 120-day legislative session in February, the state was still recovering from a brutal winter surge of COVID-19, which saw a thousand new cases of the virus reported across the state each day.

Nevada became the second state in the nation to enact a state-managed public health insurance option on Wednesday, with Gov. Steve Sisolak's signature transforming a bill that hadn't even been made public until six weeks ago into law.

More than a year into the pandemic, the victory we long for has been delayed as the vaccination effort races against the variants' spread. This uncertain moment, however, offers an opportunity for Nevada: To reflect, to learn and to heal.

Over the last year, the pandemic has sometimes brought the state and local governments together as they allied to face a grim future together in the face of no centralized national response strategy. It has also sometimes wrenched them apart.

The last year laid bare Nevada's chronic underfunding of public health systems, a lack of investment in aging state infrastructure, including its unemployment system and continued economic overreliance on the tourism industry. It also saw resilience in the face of despair.

The proposal, which was released Monday evening and comes a day before the governor's biennial State of the State address, sets the state budget at about $8.68 billion over the next two years, or about $500 million less than what was allocated during the last two-year budget cycle. The state's tourism-dependent economy remains battered by the COVID-19 pandemic but economists are hopeful that a vaccine will usher in recovery.

The Governor's Office for New Americans (ONA) released a statement on Tuesday saying that Nevada's COVID-19 vaccination program cannot share personal information with federal agencies. The statement came in response to growing concerns in Nevada, notably among the undocumented immigrant community, over privacy protections provided by the program.

If a sushi bar can't open their countertop, I want to understand what is the science behind that? If there is an establishment that has Plexiglass at their countertop in between different partition eaters, I'd like to know why is that any different than sitting across from somebody at lunch."