The Daily Rundown - March 25, 2026
⚖️ Nevada election officials are preparing for a possible U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could change how mail ballots are counted. As he left the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices had just heard arguments Monday over whether to prevent states from counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar texted his staff 3,000 miles away.
His directive: get ready to plan how to run November’s midterm elections if the high court changes the rules when it issues its decision in June.
“The challenge is educating voters shortly before the election how the election is going to work,” Aguilar said. “That doesn’t happen overnight. The election planning happens long before.”
Election officials in Nevada and 13 other states that allow regular mail ballots sent by Election Day but arriving days later to be counted were closely watching Monday’s arguments, where conservative justices appeared skeptical of such grace periods. Fifteen other states have grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters.
Mail ballots, also called absentee ballots, have been the source of conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump, who groundlessly blames them for his loss in the 2020 election. The Republican National Committee and Libertarian Party sued to overturn Mississippi’s law permitting the counting of mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive up to five days later — the case the high court is now considering.
🌊 A disaster relief volunteer from the American Red Cross of Southern Nevada is now in Hawaii to help communities hit by massive flooding. They’ve joined more than 100 Red Cross disaster workers providing disaster relief in the area.
Winter storms have caused the state’s worst flooding in more than 20 years, forcing roughly 5,500 people to evacuate, the Red Cross said in a press release. Storms hit Oahu and Honolulu the hardest. Volunteers have opened 18 emergency shelters.
🌳 The Clark County Department of Environment and Sustainability is relaunching its Community Canopy Project. It plans to give away 2,300 drought-resilient trees to people living in certain ZIP codes. It’s part of a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation to provide shade for people living in areas affected by the heat island effect.
That’s when an area is significantly warmer than nearby places because of an abundance of heat-retaining structures such as roads and buildings. Studies indicate that planting shade trees can help reduce ground-level temperatures by up to 12 degrees while improving air quality. People can apply through the Arbor Day Foundation website starting March 30.
🚕 Zoox says it plans to double the number of places served by its robotaxi service in Las Vegas this spring. That includes most Strip resorts. The Las Vegas Convention Center, T-Mobile Arena and Sphere will also be added. The company rolled out free rides on the Strip last year with a handful of locations. It says it has already served roughly 350,000 passengers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave Zoox the green light to offer free rides last August. The company has requested an exemption that would allow it to charge.
💬 You’re not imagining it: the word “gaslighting” is everywhere. During a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late-night host said President Trump was “gaslighting” Americans by trying to convince them that rising fuel prices benefit them.
“The United States is the largest oil producer in the world by far. So when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social earlier this month. Kimmel quipped: “You hear the term gaslighting a lot, but rarely when it comes to actual gas.”
“Gaslight,” a term used to describe a destructive form of psychological manipulation, has gone from clinical lingo to Merriam-Webster’s 2022 Word of the Year. It’s become a buzzword lobbed at bad bosses, ex-boyfriends and leaders across the political spectrum.
The trouble with buzzwords, though, is that their meanings can get watered down when they become ubiquitous. And some therapists say our comfort with deploying the term has gotten out of hand. Read the full story by NPR's Emma Bowman here.
Part of these stories are taken from KNPR's daily newscast segment. To hear more daily updates like these, tune in to 88.9 KNPR FM.
