March 19, 2021

IndyTalks: Can (and should) mining pay more in taxes?

The topic of whether Nevada’s mining industry should, or could, pay more in taxes to the state isn’t exactly a new issue — but it’s one that’s attracted increased attention since lawmakers kickstarted the process of amending the state Constitution to potentially increase taxes on the industry.

Lawmakers in the 2021 Legislature have big choices to make, and could potentially send three proposed mining tax constitutional amendments to the 2022 ballot. In the meantime, the debate over mining taxes continues, which is why The Nevada Independent invited experts to discuss and debate the issue during an IndyTalks event on Tuesday evening.

Panelists included former Legislative Counsel Bureau Director Lorne Malkiewich, longtime mining industry lobbyist James Wadhams, and Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada Director Laura Martin. The panel was moderated by reporter Daniel Rothberg and Editor Jon Ralston.

Wadhams conceded that mining could pay more in taxes, but did not specify a number and warned that excessive taxation could drive mines out of business or drive the industry out of the state — and that commodity prices can be volatile and thus are not ideal for propping up the state’s tax base. Martin suggested that essential services including education and health care have been slashed in Nevada and that mining needs to contribute more to the state budget. And Malkiewich provided historical context and legal interpretations of a fight that dates back to the signing of the state Constitution in 1864.

Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/indytalks-can-and-should-mining-pay-more-in-taxes

March 19, 2021

Most 2020 Nevada election integrity cases resolved without finding of fraud; recent Republican

Most 2020 Nevada election integrity cases resolved without finding of fraud; recent Republican document drop under review


The vast majority of election complaint case files submitted to top Nevada election officials in the last six months regarding the 2020 election were closed without any findings that election laws were violated, even as many Republicans continue to assert that the election was rife with fraud and stolen from former President Donald Trump.

A log obtained by The Nevada Independent through a public records request shows there were 298 election integrity case files submitted to the secretary of state’s office from the beginning of September through Tuesday. It does not characterize the complexity of any individual case — such as whether a complainant suggested a single improper vote or submitted a spreadsheet alleging thousands of suspicious votes — or offer names of complainants or the accused.

Of those case files, 255 — or 86 percent — have been closed either because no violation was found, the underlying issue was resolved, or the case was referred to investigatory authority in the secretary of state’s office.

Only 41 of the roughly 300 files submitted for the 2020 election have not been resolved, which includes 15 submitted by the Nevada Republican Party earlier this month (many entries in the log list out several thousand alleged examples of voter fraud). The GOP and the state had widely varied public descriptions of the scope of their submission, with the party saying it submitted 122,918 records, and the state categorizing it as fewer than 4,000 distinct reports.

Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/most-2020-nevada-election-integrity-cases-resolved-without-finding-of-fraud-recent-republican-document-drop-under-review

March 19, 2021

Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson undergoing treatment for prostate cancer

Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson (D-Las Vegas) has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and received cutting-edge outpatient treatment at UCLA this week as the condition has escalated in recent months.

Frierson said he chose to go public about his condition, which was first diagnosed in 2018, in an effort to encourage other men to take seriously the common and treatable but sometimes deadly cancer. The top-ranking Assembly leader has been absent from the Legislature for two days this week but plans to participate remotely in committee hearings as soon as Thursday.

“I just felt compelled to make sure that if there was one person ... that will go get tested when they turn 50, or one person that will follow up after they get a ... PSA (prostate-specific antigen test) that's higher than it should be for the age, then it's well worth it,” he told The Nevada Independent in an interview on Monday. “Just one.”

Frierson, 51, said cancer runs in his family and he is at a higher risk because he’s African American, but he also credits the attentiveness of his Nevada-based doctor for catching the condition in a blood test. He’s been monitoring his PSA levels, the primary screening metric for prostate cancer, and said that in recent months the numbers “got significantly worse.”

Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/assembly-speaker-jason-frierson-undergoing-treatment-for-prostate-cancer

March 19, 2021

Proposal seeks to close 'ghost gun' loophole, criminalize guns on private property

Hoping to send a message to the world that Las Vegas is safe, one of the biggest players in the resort industry is asking lawmakers to strengthen existing laws surrounding private businesses that choose to ban firearms on their premises.

Assembly Bill 286 received its first hearing in the Assembly Judiciary committee Wednesday. The bill also targets unregulated firearms that skirt federal law by being sold as part of DIY assembly kits.

The proposed legislation continues gun-reform efforts made by Democratic lawmakers in 2019. That year, the Legislature passed laws to expand background checks, ban bump stocks, establish gun storage requirements and allow courts to order the removal of guns from people deemed a risk to themselves or others.

Strengthening trespass laws

Private businesses already have the ability to ban firearms on their premises. Many do, under threat of trespass.

Read more: https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2021/03/18/proposal-seeks-to-close-ghost-gun-loophole-criminalize-guns-on-private-property/

March 19, 2021

Lawmakers address barriers faced by homeless youth seeking medical care

Tayvon Jenkins, a youth ambassador with the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, said minors experiencing homelessness were turned away from Covid testing during the health pandemic.

It’s not the only example lawmakers were given Wednesday about how Nevada law puts barriers in front of youth seeking health care.

Pamela Girgis, a pediatric nurse practitioner who works with homeless youth and refugee children, says many of the children she encounters are unable to fully access health care due to the state’s restrictions.

“We recently had a homeless youth with uncontrolled diabetes in desperate need of a referral to endocrinology for an insulin pump,” she said. “Because of this rule, care was delayed, which resulted in multiple hospitalization for this youth risking his life and resulting in him missing work and losing his job setting him further back.”

Read more: https://www.nevadacurrent.com/blog/lawmakers-address-barriers-faced-by-homeless-youth-seeking-medical-care/

March 19, 2021

Cyclists no longer required to stop at stop signs in Utah, per Governor Cox

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill into law that exempts cyclists from coming to a complete stop at stop signs, where safe, throughout the state.

After failing to pass in several previous legislative sessions, House Bill 142 sailed through the Senate vote on March 5th with 28 in favor and only one, Senator John D. Johnson, R-Ogden, opposed.

Representative Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, who sponsored the bill, said she thinks that it finally passed this year because an additional measure allowing cyclists to also roll through stop lights was removed. Despite failed attempts to pass this measure in Utah over the past 11 years, she repeatedly backed the bill because similar legislation in other states has shown a decrease in collisions between automobiles and cyclists when cyclists can use their judgement to navigate through quiet intersections rather than being legally required to come to a complete stop.

"Most of the accidents, from all the data I have, happen in intersections. We want to encourage people to ride bikes. Bicyclists get killed in intersections. So, anything we can do to spend less time at intersections, it’s safer," Moss said.

Read more: https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2021/03/17/cyclists-no-longer-required-stop-stop-signs-per-gov-cox/4736386001/
(St. George The Spectrum)

March 19, 2021

Capitol Capers

Bills that may have slipped right by us during Utah's highly unusual 2021 legislative session.


No one can follow everything that happens at the Utah Legislature, and that was particularly true for the 45-day vote-a-rama that concluded on March 5.

In a typical legislative session, you're likely to learn as much about bills by sitting in the Capitol cafeteria as you are by watching debate from the House and floor galleries. Much of journalism is professional eavesdropping, and it's considerably harder to do in a socially distanced, virtual-first format.

Thus, I spent the week after session listening to committee hearings and chamber discussion that I had missed the first time around. Like any year in recent memory, schools got a funding bump, road projects were greenlit, Salt Lake City and County got jabbed in the ribs repeatedly, and certain taxes were cut—which could impact Utah's share of federal COVID-19 relief.

But with some 500 new or altered laws headed to the desk of Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, most will not get the attention they deserve. And for every nakedly sinister proposal that rightfully grabs the headlines—looking at you, transgender athletics ban—there are dozens that either die in darkness or tiptoe quietly into code.

Read more: https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/capitol-capers/Content?oid=16556051
(Salt Lake City Weekly)

March 19, 2021

SXSW 2021: Pete Buttigieg returns to event that sparked presidential run

Pete Buttigieg returned to South by Southwest on Thursday to deliver a keynote speech on his new role as U.S. transportation secretary and was immediately reminded of the last time he appeared at the festival.

It was 2019 — the most recent SXSW before last year's event was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic — when an audience getting revved up for the upcoming U.S. presidential election got their first glimpse of the little-known Midwest wunderkind.

Nearing the end of his second term as mayor of South Bend, Ind., Buttigieg used an appearance on a CNN town hall to emerge as a viable contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge President Donald Trump. At just 37, he carved out a spot in the crowded field as an alternative to long-timers Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.

A month later and riding the momentum of his SXSW star turn, Buttigieg launched his presidential campaign. The rest of the country was introduced to "Mayor Pete," the openly gay, Harvard-educated Rhodes Scholar who served seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant with the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Read more: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/03/18/austin-sxsw-pete-buttigieg-returns-keynote-address/4747654001/

March 19, 2021

US, China spar in first face-to-face meeting under Biden

Source: AP

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Top U.S. and Chinese officials offered sharply different views of each other and the world on Thursday as the two sides met face-to-face for the first time since President Joe Biden took office.

In unusually pointed public remarks for a staid diplomatic meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi took aim at each other’s country's policies at the start of two days of talks in Alaska. The contentious tone of their public comments suggested the private discussions would be even more rocky.

The meetings in Anchorage were a new test in increasingly troubled relations between the two countries, which are at odds over a range of issues from trade to human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong and China’s western Xinjiang region, as well as over Taiwan, China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic.

Blinken said the Biden administration is united with its allies in pushing back against China’s increasing authoritarianism and assertiveness at home and abroad. Yang then unloaded a list of Chinese complaints about the U.S. and accused Washington of hypocrisy for criticizing Beijing on human rights and other issues.

Read more: https://kdhnews.com/news/world/us-china-spar-in-first-face-to-face-meeting-under-biden/article_0aedaa63-e14d-5ef4-bab2-c2defe2dc188.html

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Link is to the Killeen Daily Herald.

March 19, 2021

Two Texas telemarketers just got hit with FCC's largest fine ever for robocalls

Two Texans are getting held accountable for all the robocalls that never seem to go away.

The Federal Communications Commission has fined two Texas telemarketers $225 million for making approximately 1 billion robocalls in under five months in 2019.

This is the largest fine the FCC has ever administered.

The robocalls falsely claimed to sell short-term insurance plans from well-known health insurance companies such as Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna.

"John C. Spiller and Jakob A. Mears, who used business names including Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom, transmitted the spoofed robocalls across the country during the first four-and-a-half months of 2019," the FCC said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.lmtonline.com/news/houston-texas/article/robocall-texas-telemarketer-fcc-fine-16036364.php
(Laredo Morning Times)