In The News: Brookings Mountain West
At a time of crushing financial strain on schools, businesses, families and individuals, the need for a well-functioning government could not be greater. Nor could the need for citizens to understand how the government should function.
Many cities are well-known for their abundance of one kind of building — think of Miami Beach and its Art Deco hotels, Brooklyn’s brownstones, or Los Angeles’ mid-century dingbat apartments.
New offensives against major cities from President Donald Trump and GOP governors are pushing at the central geographic fault line between the Republican and Democratic coalitions.
When Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman went on CNN in April and called for the early reopening of casinos, offering the city as a coronavirus “control group” to see what would happen, Twitter exploded.
Derek Stonebarger, owner of ReBar, a bar that doubles as an antique store in the Las Vegas Arts District, was just starting to get back on his feet when Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered bars to once again close.
As the nation struggles with the resurgence of COVID-19, robust contact tracing could help alleviate much of the strain on our already-burdened health care systems. However, we have a massive shortfall in the number of available contact tracers.
First, UNLV lost $25 million in state funding for a new medical school building. Now, the university’s $20 million advanced engineering building is on the chopping block as lawmakers try to close the state’s $1.2 billion budget deficit.
The name of George Floyd looks set to enter the history books along with Rosa Parks and Emmett Till, as the face of a moment that fueled a movement. Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis was one that may have been added to the long tally of Black Americans who have died at the hands of police officers. It could have caused a brief, mostly local, flurry of attention before the world moved on.
Social media is here to stay. It is in our lives and our phones, in our news and our politics, and in the manner in which key events are transmitted and interpreted by the public.
Black Lives Matter protests have allowed Las Vegas residents to stand in solidarity with the civil rights movement that has extended from the United States to countries around the world.