The Daily Rundown - May 7, 2026
🕯️ Raishawn Josiah Denetclarance, a 25-year-old Diné man, was murdered in downtown Las Vegas earlier this year, on February 7. His death remains unsolved. He’s part of the growing number of unsolved Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) cases. It wasn’t that long ago that law enforcement agencies weren’t accepting Indigenous missing persons reports.
Previously, if an enrolled tribal member vanished from their community, a missing persons report would have to be filed with their tribal police. Then a law from the 2023 Nevada Legislative Session changed that, due to advocacy by Assemblymember Shae Backus, the only Indigenous lawmaker in Nevada.
That year there was also legislation that required the state to hire a tribal liaison within the Department of Public Safety to help track the state's MMIWR cases — although it is unknown just how many unsolved cases there are due to individual tribal police tracking. And in the silver state, there are major tribal police disparities from tribe to tribe. Some sovereign nations may not even have law enforcement agencies on the reservation.
To bring more awareness to the crisis, Las Vegas locals met at Floyd Lamb Park over the weekend as part of the fifth annual MMIWR prayer walk — recognized nationally on May 5, and in the middle of the greater National Week of Action for MMIWR. This year, attendees honored the life of Denetclarance and others. Hear the full story by KNPR's Jimmy Romo here.
💼 Some lawmakers are warning that legal foreign workers in the United States may face multiple hurdles renewing their work permits which could impact both workers and businesses. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services changed a rule last year ending the automatic renewal of work permits for more than a dozen immigrant categories, including refugees. Now add budget cuts and longer processing times, and Democrats warn that many workers could lose their permits starting this spring without automatic renewals.
Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen was among 30 Democrats to force a procedure called a “congressional review” to bring attention to the issue. “It will hurt families, small businesses, large businesses and our entire economy,” Rosen said. Republicans did not support it. In a public statement, the Department of Homeland Security said this is “a commonsense measure to ensure appropriate vetting and screening” to work in the United States.
🏨 County officials say they are very focused on the impact several business closures could have on the town of Primm. The Primmadonna Company announced this week that it will shut down operations at Primm Valley Resorts, Buffalo Bill’s Resort & Casino, Whiskey Pete’s Hotel & Casino, Primm Center, and the Flying J. The Lotto Store will also close, as will a company-owned employee apartment building. The properties are scheduled to close permanently on July 4, leaving about 350 people without jobs and some without a home.
Employees were told they would have weeks to pack up and leave. In a statement, county officials said they are working to ensure the gas stations stay open to provide resources to the traveling public. Additionally, Clark County Social Services is working to provide resources to those who live and work in the area.
🛢️ The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to roll back federal coal ash cleanup rules, raising concerns about groundwater contamination at dozens of coal plants and waste dumps across the Mountain West. In a region where many rural communities rely on groundwater as their main drinking water source, along with agriculture and industry, even small increases in contamination risk can have outsized impacts. Coal ash — the toxic byproduct left after coal is burned for electricity — is often stored in ponds or landfills near power plants.
Across the Mountain West, coal ash sites are spread widely: Colorado has about 12, Wyoming and Utah each have six, Arizona has five, Nevada has four and New Mexico has three. Monitoring data links coal ash ponds and landfills to groundwater contamination at multiple locations across the region. In some cases, testing has found toxic metals like arsenic, boron, lithium and radium.
🐟 The Devils Hole pupfish, a critically-endangered species and an icon of conservation, ekes out a precarious existence in Death Valley National Park. About a year ago, the population abruptly dropped to just 20 fish. Wildlife managers were so alarmed that, for the first time ever, they decided to release some pupfish that they'd been breeding in a huge tank for over a decade as a kind of insurance policy. They started by putting 19 captive-bred fish into Devils Hole, and later added about 50 more.
This spring, biologists saw 77 fish swimming around in the hole. "We're breathing a lot easier at 77 than 20," says Olin Feuerbacher, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But the move to augment the population in the wild happened so quickly — in part because of uncertainty about massive federal layoffs and a looming government shutdown — that the lab didn't take genetic samples from the first batch of captive-raised pupfish released into Devils Hole. Read the full story by NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce here.
✈️ 999 workers based at Harry Reid International Airport are among those who have lost their jobs now that Spirit Airlines has ended operations. The layoffs include 772 Vegas-based flight attendants, 59 airline captains, flight instructors, and maintenance personnel. Spirit Airlines served 16 markets from the Las Vegas airport. All of those destinations, according to an airport spokesperson, are currently served by at least one other airline. Read the full story on the airline’s closure 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.
