The Daily Rundown: September 25, 2026
🐎 The Bureau of Land Management announced $30 million would go toward fertility control efforts to manage wild horses this week, marking a rare moment of agreement in a decades-old, heated debate.
“The American people have asked for more fertility control in wild horse and burro management, and the Department of the Interior is prepared to deliver,” BLM's Monday press release stated.
“The passion shown by the American people for safeguarding the Spirit of the West continues to guide and energize this work,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
BLM says wild horse herds can double within four to five years, and their overabundance affects range health. Its primary method to bring down numbers is removing animals from the range, often by chasing them into corrals with helicopters. The horses are then put in holding facilities and some are offered for adoption.
But this system is costly, with a 2025 budget of $142 million. Holding tens of thousands of horses and burros off range is the most expensive part. Last year, the government paid roughly $2.35 per horse per day in long-term holding facilities and $6 per horse per day in short-term facilities, designed to get them ready for adoption, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The agency emphasized that there are limits to the fertility control method.
Operations to round up and remove groups of wild horses will continue in order to reach sustainable herd sizes, BLM said, with gathers this month in Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming. Read the full story by the Mountain West News Bureau's Rachel Cohen here.
🗳️ With so many scams affecting Nevada residents, the Nevada Secretary of State’s office has a list of trusted tools to help voters in the upcoming 2026 general election.
Tools include official text messages about the election and voting information; mail ballot tracking via email, phone or text; and a new chatbot to find answers to common election questions.
The Secretary of State’s office says voters should be cautious of websites, texts, emails and social media posts that appear to be legitimate but are not operated by election officials.
More information is available on the Secretary of State's website. Early voting begins Oct. 17 and Election Day is Nov. 3.
🏞️ All state parks in Nevada will be free this Saturday [Sept. 26] in honor of National Public Lands Day, and that includes camping and boating. And according to reporting by Suzanne Potter with the Public News Service, some festivities around the city are in support of long-standing efforts.
Conservation groups are organizing a big family-friendly event at Gary Reese Freedom Park in East Las Vegas with games, free food, music and more.
Jonnette Paddy with Indigenous Voices of Nevada says the gathering is intended to raise awareness for the proposed 32,000-acre East Las Vegas National Monument.
"The proposed national monument is located at the edge of East Las Vegas before entering Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It would include Frenchman Mountain, Rainbow Gardens, and the Great Unconformity. And really, it houses a lot of really unique geological formations," Paddy says.
"The Great Unconformity" is a rare geological site where erosion has exposed ancient layers of granite and other types of metamorphic rocks, right next to newer deposits of sandstone.
The event will also promote Indigenous ecological knowledge. National Public Lands Day is the nation's largest single-day volunteer event dedicated to public lands.
🎰 MGM Resorts International will continue as a standalone company after a recent proposal to acquire the company has been withdrawn.
Media company People Incorporated first proposed an acquisition in June to gain all the outstanding shares of MGM Resorts that it doesn’t already own, about 73%.
Multiple news outlets report that Barry Diller, owner of the media company, says the decision not to go through with the deal is because it wasn’t “coming together.”
The bid valued MGM Resorts at about $18.8 billion. The rescinding caused shares to drop 11% yesterday [Thursday, Sept. 24]. MGM Resorts’ board of directors says they are excited to remain as a standalone company and are looking ahead to international growth.
🏀 University of Nevada basketball coach Steve Alford is retiring at the end of the upcoming season, ending a 36-year coaching career that also included stops at Iowa, New Mexico and UCLA.
Alford is entering his eighth season at Nevada, where he’s gone 137-88 with NCAA Tournament appearances in 2023 and 2024. He is 724-386 overall.
“After 36 years, I feel like this is the right time to step away from the bench,” Alford said in a statement on Thursday. “Tanya and I have loved our time in Reno, and have embraced this amazing community and built lifelong friendships. I want to thank the University of Nevada for the opportunity to lead this program, and I am looking forward to finishing this season the right way, with a team I believe in.”
The 61-year-old Alford previously coached at UCLA, leading the Bruins to consecutive Sweet 16s in 2014-15 during an up-and-down six-year tenure.
“Steve Alford has been an important part of Nevada athletics and Wolf Pack basketball for nearly a decade, leading the program with consistency, integrity and a deep commitment to developing outstanding young men,” Nevada athletic director Stephanie Rempe said in a statement.
“Throughout his tenure, he helped Nevada remain one of the Mountain West Conference’s most competitive programs while navigating a period of significant change in college athletics.”
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.
