The Daily Rundown - May 12, 2026
🩸 This week marks Period Poverty Awareness Week, an annual campaign meant to raise awareness of an unfilled social need. People generally donate food, clothes, and money, but period supplies are among the least donated items. According to the nonprofit Alliance for Period Supplies, 40% of people can’t afford the supplies they need.
Project Marilyn, a Las Vegas-based organization, is working to create a network across Nevada that fills that need and addresses this public health issue. The nonprofit offers two different kits that contain necessary supplies depending on personal preferences. The global week of awareness ends on May 17.
⛽ Gas prices in Las Vegas continue to rise. The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline on May 11 was $5.29, according to AAA. That’s up about 7 cents from a week ago and $1.39 higher than this time last year. Statewide, Nevada’s average for regular unleaded is $5.24, up 6 cents from last week.
That’s 72 cents more than the national average. The price increase began after Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, disrupting oil supplies from the region.
🐢 Mojave Max emerged from his burrow at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve on Mothers day, May 10th. It was Max’s latest emergence yet. Like other southern Nevada desert tortoises, the mascot for the Clark County Desert Conservation Program spends the cooler months in his burrow and comes out once spring-like weather arrives.
The county said wild fluctuations in temperatures contributed to his late emergence — along with rain and wind, and the fact that he was sharing his burrow with three other tortoises. For the annual Mojave Max Emergence Contest, elementary school students in Clark County studied Mojave Desert weather, temperatures and conditions.
They then estimated when they believed Mojave Max would emerge. The winner of the contest will be announced shortly, the county says.
🌲 The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with development, as President Donald Trump's administration eases restrictions on industries and seeks to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land. The 2024 rule adopted under former President Joe Biden was meant to refocus the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 10% of land in the U.S.
It allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the rule could have blocked access to hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) of land — preventing energy and timber production and hurting ranchers who graze on public lands. Supporters argued that conservation had long been a secondary consideration at the land bureau, neglecting its mission under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act.
While the bureau previously issued leases for conservation purposes in limited cases, it never had a dedicated program prior to the Biden administration. Bobby McEnaney with the Natural Resources Defense Council said repealing the rule ”means less protection for the clean drinking water, less protection for endangered wildlife that depend on healthy habitat, and less accountability when corporations leave these landscapes damaged and degraded."
The federal government's vast land holdings are concentrated in Western states including Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Since taking office, Trump has pursued a flurry of actions aimed at boosting fossil fuel production from those taxpayer-owned sites. The Republican administration also has sought to sideline some renewable energy projects, claiming they were unfairly subsidized under Biden.
🎡 The Electric Daisy Carnival, or EDC, is happening this weekend. The annual electronic dance music festival will be held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Friday May 15 through Sunday May 17. For 15 years, the event has been taking place in Las Vegas. It features hundreds of performances by DJs and other musical artists.
All three-day passes to EDC have sold out…. However, Sunday day passes are still on sale. The event goes from 7 pm to 5:30 am each night. The opening ceremony takes place at Cosmic Meadow on Friday beginning at 5 pm.
🏙️ The Las Vegas Convention Center's expansion and renovation was completed earlier this year. So, how does it play into the overall Las Vegas economy? The LVCC, as locals call it, is a hub for events in Southern Nevada, most notably conventions such as CES (Consumer Electronic Show) and NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters) Show.
The facility's biggest and most recent development is its $600 million expansion, which was talked about for more than a decade, began in 2021 and was completely finished this year. It now offers 4.6 million square feet of space, with 2.5 million square feet of that being exhibit space. “There is no doubt that this is really an exercise and an exhibition of just what happens in Vegas from a scale, from the ambition and evolution of the city,” said Vanessa Claspill, chief sales officer for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
The convention center now has the capacity to hold multiple events on its campus at one time, which fills hotel rooms mid-week (when tourism slows) and stimulates the economy, according to Claspill. Hear the full story by KNPR's Heidi Kyser and Charlize Smith 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.
