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Reno’s New Gigafactory Stirs Debate

When a new enterprise sets its sights on a place–it comes wrapped in the finest promises of prosperity, only to be met with the grimacing squints of those who must live beside it. Such is the case with Lyten, a green energy upstart from San Jose, which plans to raise a mighty fortress of industry just north of Reno.

Their dream? The world’s first lithium-sulfur gigafactory. Their pledge? A billion-dollar investment and a thousand jobs–if all goes as they reckon.

The grand facility, sprawling across 1.25 million square feet, will birth batteries that boast of being 40 percent lighter than their lithium-ion cousins, promising greater efficiency, fewer rare earth minerals, and less dependence on that far-off kingdom known as China.

“Sulfur,” says Lyten’s chief battery wizard, Celina Mikolajczak, “is as common as dust in a desert wind.”

Why, she declares, there are such mountains of the stuff that one can spy them from space! An observer might wonder if the company intends to mine batteries or dig a sulfur-scented throne among the gods.

Yet, while Lyten dreams of a luminous, electrified future, the folks in North Valleys find themselves less enchanted. Unlike Tesla’s grand factory, which looms comfortably far from the nearest porch swing, Lyten’s behemoth will rise just a stone’s throw from Lemmon Valley and a hearty holler away from Silver Knolls.

Longtime residents have spent their evenings conjuring up visions of an industrial inferno, which recently befell Moss Landing, Calif. There, a battery plant took to burning with the enthusiasm of a Fourth of July bonfire, spewing forth such ominous plumes that 1,700 folks fled. Officials, ever the optimists, assured the public that no hazardous air conditions were detected, though it was little comfort to those who preferred their lungs unseasoned by chemical smoke.

Mikolajczak waves away such worries like a woman brushing gnats from his sandwich.

“Battery manufacturing,” she says, “is a different beast than it was in the dark ages of—oh, a few years ago.”

She is, she notes, one of the very people who wrote the book—quite literally—on new fire codes. Her confidence is stout, her assurances firm.

But Reno’s citizens, a pragmatic breed by nature, have heard such serenades before. They have seen grand visions rise and watched the consequences settle, often in the form of traffic, pollution, and regrets.

The coming months will tell if Lyten’s mountain of sulfur leads to a golden age of industry or if, as some fear, it merely lights a match in a powder keg.

There was no question about it—Excel Christian’s home opener on Thursday was a proper spectacle, and the Virginia City Muckers found themselves on the business end of a rout. When the dust settled, the Warriors had romped to a 13-1 victory, snapping a three-game skid that had shadowed them since last season.

Tommy Schoech was the man of the hour. On the mound, he was untouchable, striking out ten batters over four innings while allowing just one earned run on a single hit. If that wasn’t enough, he made himself a nuisance on the basepaths, crossing home plate four times and swiping three bases while reaching in all four plate appearances. Not since April of last year had he tallied that many runs in a game.

Samuel Mills made his presence felt as well, notching two hits in three at-bats, stealing a pair of bases, and scoring three times. For his part, Keegan Davis delivered at the plate with a 2-for-4 showing, driving in four runs and adding a stolen base of his own.

It was another bitter pill for Virginia City to swallow, their second loss in two outings. With an 0-2 record, they’ll look to get their season on track when they take on Hug at 10:00 a.m. this Saturday. Meanwhile, Excel Christian will try to keep the momentum rolling when they clash with Sierra Lutheran in tournament play on Thursday.

But the State Wants Another Pound of Flesh

There was a time, in the golden age of common sense, when a man settled his dues with society by serving his time, and once he’d done so, he was handed his walking papers and sent on his way, free to pursue whatever meager prospects awaited him. In our modern era of enlightened governance, the man also receives an itemized bill.

Consider the plight of an unfortunate soul who, after spending eighteen years in the state’s care, found himself the proud owner of an $8,000 medical debt, courtesy of a wrist that prison doctors treated with all the attentiveness of a blacksmith shoeing a mule. He had saved up $400 during his lengthy stay, no small feat considering the going wages, but before he could so much as buy himself a sandwich on the outside, the state relieved him of all but $25—no doubt a generous parting gift meant to help him reintegrate into society.

Not content with this minor fleecing, the state came knocking for the remaining $7,200 with all the enthusiasm of a hungry landlord: “Pay up in thirty days, they said, or we’ll send the hounds.”

Now, the average man, when confronted with such a bill, might at least have the option of pawning the family silver or sweet-talking a wealthy aunt. But for a man just released from prison, whose worldly possessions amount to a battered wrist and a pocketful of lint, such a task is as realistic as flapping his arms and flying to the moon.

And so, a band of well-meaning lawmakers have proposed that perhaps the state should refrain from saddling these ex-prisoners with medical debts they can’t possibly pay, particularly when said debts stem from injuries acquired under the state’s watch. An excellent notion, one might think—until one recalls that the bill doesn’t make the debt vanish into thin air. No, it simply transfers it onto the backs of the taxpayer, already burdened with a fine collection of other governmental expenses.

One is left to wonder at the curious arrangement whereby a man who has committed a crime gets room, board, and–allegedly medical care, only to be released back into the world with a bill he can’t pay, which is then quietly reassigned to the very people he wronged in the first place. It’s a peculiar sort of justice–one in which the scales never seem to balance–unless they are tilting ever so slightly in favor of those holding the ledger.

Water, Wealth, & Wisdom

The fine folk of Amargosa Valley have spoken, and they ain’t whispering no more. With voices hoarse from repeating common sense to an indifferent government, they gathered again to plead their case: keep the mines out and the water in.

For those unacquainted with the latest chapter in the eternal saga of progress versus preservation, the matter comes down to whether Washington should slap a 20-year ban on mining across nearly 270,000 acres near the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The Department of the Interior, after much dawdling under the Biden administration, finally agreed to ponder it—but as anyone who’s dealt with bureaucracy knows, a ponderin’ government is as convenient as a broken pump in the desert.

The people of Amargosa aren’t asking for much—just the continued existence of their water supply. A hundred people packed into the community center, each eager to remind the government that the Amargosa River is not some nameless trickle but the lifeblood of their town. It has watered generations, and they’d like it to keep doing so rather than seeing it vanish into the insatiable maw of a mining operation.

The opposition to mining isn’t some ragtag bunch of idealists with a vendetta against economic prosperity. Quite the opposite—the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, town boards, county commissions, conservationists, state and federal lawmakers, and even a few mining claim holders have thrown their weight behind the ban.

When even the would-be diggers say, “You know what, let’s leave this one alone,” it might be time to take the hint.

Yet the fight is far from won. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has been making noise about “suspending, revising, or rescinding” conservation policies. It’s precisely the kind of language that makes these desert dwellers happier than a summer rain shower.

With federal priorities shifting like dunes in a storm, the folks of Amargosa can only hope that the Trump administration—whether friend or foe—will heed their call. Here’s hoping Washington still reads news stories.

Jebediah Slocum was born in Illinois of decent stock, but somewhere along the way, something in him soured. At twenty-six, he shot a man over a dispute best forgotten and fled westward, where men of his temperament often found their calling. By the time he reached the Sierra Nevada range, he had a reputation trailing behind him like the dust off his boots.

One day in the desert, serving as train-master for a California-bound outfit, Slocum found himself nose to nose with a surly wagon driver over some minor slight. Both men reached for their pistols, but the driver was quicker, cocking his weapon first.

With a grin as easy as a summer breeze, Slocum lifted his hands. “Now, friend, ain’t it a damn shame to spill blood over such a little matter? Let’s toss these irons aside and settle it like men—with our fists.”

The driver, perhaps mistaking charm for sincerity, dropped his pistol. Slocum did no such thing.

He laughed, leveled his gun, and shot the fool dead where he stood. Then, with an easy step, he mounted his horse and rode on as if he’d merely swatted a fly.

Slocum lived wild for a time, splitting his days between dodging an Illinois sheriff who had set out to bring him back for his first killing and fighting off Paiutes, who had a score to settle. In one skirmish, he took three scalps, later sending their ears back to the chief as a token of his respects.

His ruthless efficiency earned him a position as the overland division agent at Truckee Station, replacing Bart Hollis, a man of similar disposition but lesser cunning. For some time, outlaws had made off with the company’s horses and delayed the stages with impunity.

Hollis had let them. Slocum did not.

The first time a bandit made trouble, Slocum shot him where he stood and nailed the body to the barn door as a warning. Soon, horses stayed put, the stages ran on time, and no man dared test Slocum’s rule.

Of course, bringing about such peace required the elimination of several undesirables—some say three, others six, and one wild account claims twelve—but the final count mattered little to Slocum. He figured the world was none the worse for losing them.

His first real trouble came from Hollis himself. Displaced and bitter, Hollis took his grievances public, swearing he’d see Slocum dead. Matters came to a head when Slocum accused Hollis of stealing stage horses. The two men prowled the streets, guns ready, waiting for the other to make a move.

“You calling me a thief, Slocum?” Hollis spat, hand hovering near his belt.

Slocum smirked, shaking his head. “I’m calling you a dead man if I catch you near those horses again.”

The wait ended when Hollis, lurking behind a store door, emptied both barrels of a shotgun into Slocum’s back. Slocum returned fire even as he fell, putting three bullets into Hollis before the street swallowed them both in dust and silence.

Both men got carried home, swearing that next time would be the last. But Hollis healed first.

Gathering his possessions, he slipped into the mountains and vanished, though not from Slocum’s mind. The outlaw-turned-agent was not the kind to let bygones be bygones. He kept a standing reward for Hollis’ capture—dead or alive.

After a time, and seeing Slocum’s effectiveness in taming Truckee, the Overland Stage Company sent him deeper into the Sierras to the lawless pass at Devil’s Ridge.

It was a paradise for thieves and killers, where disputes got settled with lead, and nobody asked questions. Here, Slocum set about his work with relish. The first troublemaker who crossed him took two bullets to the chest before finishing his drink.

In short order, Slocum had cleaned out the riffraff, recovered stolen stock, and made such an impression that even the worst men in the territory spoke his name in hushed tones.

Slocum ruled as judge, jury, and executioner. When a party of emigrants lost their stock, he rode to a nearby ranch with a single companion, pushed open the door, and opened fire, killing three and maiming the fourth.

“Guess they had it comin’,” he muttered, stepping over the bodies.

“You sure about this, Slocum?” his companion asked, wiping sweat from his brow.

Slocum eyed him coolly. “Ain’t a doubt in my mind.”

He retrieved the stolen horses and rode back as if he’d merely fetched the mail.

Slocum was not a man to rush a grudge. Once, a French trader had crossed him, and to everyone’s surprise, Slocum let him be.

Weeks passed. The Frenchman breathed easier.

Then, one night, Slocum knocked on his door. When the trader opened it, Slocum shot him dead, kicked the body inside, and set the house ablaze.

“Some folks,” he sighed, watching the fire, “just don’t take a hint.”

For all his cunning, Slocum was not untouchable. Once, a posse caught him unawares and locked him in a sturdy cabin, posting guards at the door.

He asked that they send for his wife, a woman of rare devotion and even rarer nerve. She rode in hard, and the fools let her through without a search. When the door opened, she drew two revolvers, tossed one to her husband, and together they walked out under a hail of gunfire, mounting double and vanishing into the night.

In time, they dragged Hollis from hiding and bound to a post at Devil’s Ridge. When Slocum heard the news, he only smiled.

Come morning, he made a sport of it, firing at Hollis bit by bit, chipping flesh and bone as the man begged for mercy.

“Slocum, you ain’t gotta do this!” Hollis gasped, bleeding into the dirt.

Slocum tipped his hat back, took aim, and smirked. “I know. But I want to.”

Only when his amusement wore thin did he put Hollis down for good. Then, for his satisfaction, he cut off the dead man’s ears and carried them in his vest pocket as a keepsake.

Whether Slocum’s end came by law or revenge is unknown. Some say he died in a shootout, his luck finally spent. Others whisper of a night when men in dark coats dragged him from his bed, a rope waiting outside.

Justice, Nevada-Style

In the fair and just hamlet of Incline Village, where the pine trees whisper secrets and good folks sip their morning coffee in peace, the long arm of the law has seen fit to scoop up two wayward fellows who forgot that their past misdeeds did not come with an expiration date.

The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office teamed up with a whole alphabet soup of agencies—the U.S. Marshal Service Nevada Violent Offender Fugitive Task Force and Nevada Parole and Probation—to nab two registered sex offenders who had grown a little too comfortable skirting the rules.

First up, we have one Gurvinder Dosanjh, a man who, despite his troubles in Churchill County last August, figured he could take up honest work slinging hash in an Incline Village eatery without so much as a by-your-leave to the Sheriff’s Office. Detectives, being of a skeptical nature, observed him toiling away at the establishment until the fateful day of February 26, when he was lured into custody through that age-old Nevada pastime—getting pulled over for speeding. One might think that a man with the law breathing down his neck would tread a little lighter on the accelerator, but foresight is not every man’s gift.

Dosanjh, whose fondness for open and gross lewdness earned him a Tier 1 designation among the state’s least upstanding citizens, now finds himself in the Washoe County Detention Facility, facing charges for failing to follow sex offender registration laws, driving with an overzealous foot, and the ever-popular probation violation. His fate remains in the hands of those who take a keen interest in justice—or, at the very least, an appearance of it.

Not to be outdone, one Reginald Burns, a Tier 2 offender with a more expansive résumé of misdeeds, was found working at a local gas station the next day. Authorities claim he neglected to inform them of his gainful employment within the requisite 48 hours, a small but significant oversight for a man with a history of statutory sexual seduction and lewdness in the presence of a child. He, too, was rounded up and deposited into the Washoe County Detention Facility, where he and Dosanjh will await the dispensation of whatever justice Washoe County has on hand this season.

The keen observer may note that justice in these parts often carries a particular aroma that suggests it is not as blind as it is selectively nearsighted. The betting folk among us might be watching closely to see which of these two unfortunate souls will be the first to walk free, and if history is any guide, the smart money is on Dosanjh.

After all, nothing quite says “social justice” like letting the foreign-sounding fellow go first. Just ask Nevada’s ever-enlightened Attorney General, Aaron Ford, whose moral compass appears to spin in whatever direction the political winds blow.

And so, dear reader, we wait, watching the grand Nevada justice machine rumble forward, grinding some into dust while letting others slip conveniently through the cracks.

It appears that some folks have got it in their heads that Nevada’s schools, with all their fine reputation, lack precisely one thing: a student trustee to warm a chair and nod thoughtfully at county school board meetings.

Yes, State Senator Angela Taylor and Assemblymember Duy Nguyen have hatched AB 316, a scheme to install a “non-voting pupil trustee” on each county school board, presumably so the students might gaze upon the machinery of government and get disillusioned at an earlier age. Now, this student trustee—who must be an 11th- or 12th-grader—shall be chosen by a vote of middle and high school students, an electorate famous for its maturity and good judgment.

The lucky lad or lass will serve a one-year term, during which time they may sit in closed-door meetings, offer opinions on matters of grand importance, and generally be treated as a trustee, save for the pesky matter of actual voting. The Clark County School District has 11 trustees and four non-voting members appointed by municipal governments, highlighting the inefficiency of having extra seats at the table.

And now, our enterprising lawmakers suggest that the youth, not yet old enough to buy so much as a cigar, should be brought in to help guide the ship. One wonders how far this sophisticated European-style tinkering will go.

Perhaps we might next install a toddler advisory board in the governor’s office or a panel of house cats to weigh in on state budgeting. The voter asked for local control, not for state politicians to meddle in county matters with bright ideas about student governance.

So perhaps they ought to take their hands off our school boards and their eyes off Europe and let Nevada be Nevada.

There’s a certain kind of silence in Nevada’s wide-open country—the kind a man welcomes when he’s watching the sun sink behind a range of stubborn hills and the kind that makes him check his revolver twice when trouble comes knocking.

But there’s another silence, more insidious and less welcome—the silence of a state government when a sheriff calls for backup. Sheriff Bill Ferguson of Mineral County has had enough of the latter.

In a letter that rings with the frustration of a man left to hold the line alone, Ferguson calls out the Nevada State Police for abandoning rural communities to fend for themselves.

“I have repeatedly reached out to the Governor’s Office for answers, only to be met with deafening silence,” he wrote. “That silence ends now.”

The sheriff’s ire is well-earned. Two recent shootings have rocked his sparsely manned department, the latest unfolding on U.S. 6 near the California border. When Ferguson called for assistance from the Nevada State Police, he met with the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug.

“It’s a county issue,” they told him, as though state highways were separate from the counties they run through.

Not one to take a brush-off lightly, Ferguson turned to another state agency, only to be told they too were short-staffed. It’s not just another excuse because it’s the same one he’s been giving for years.

Once patrolled by twenty deputies, Mineral County now limps by with just seven. Ferguson knows what it means to stretch a thin line thinner, but there comes a point when stretching turns to snapping.

“This crisis is not just about Mineral County – it’s about every rural community in Nevada being abandoned and forgotten,” he warns.

And he ain’t wrong. If the state government thinks small-town law can handle growing crime with dwindling resources, it may soon learn what happens when stretched-thin deputies decide the paycheck isn’t worth the risk.

Meanwhile, in the kind of story that underscores the sheriff’s point, a man in Walker Lake tried his hand at midnight mischief and nearly added murder to his repertoire. On Wednesday at about 1 a.m., a Scotty’s RV Park resident woke to the sound of an uninvited guest.

The park manager arrived to help, only to have the suspect whip out a gun and start shooting. Fortunately, the two managed to escape and summon law enforcement. Ferguson’s deputies—understaffed but undeterred—found the gunman, Cameron Aguilar, prowling I Street and hauled him to the Mineral County Detention Facility on attempted murder and a laundry list of other felonies.

The gun, however, remains missing. Deputies, helped by a Carson City K9 and drone, scoured the area to no avail.

Now, the sheriff is turning to the people—those citizens who are supposed to trust the state to keep them safe. Residents of I through K Streets in Hawthorne should check their properties for the missing firearm, as the Sheriff’s Office is offering a $1,500 reward for its recovery.

Ferguson has made his stand. Whether Nevada’s government will answer or keep its cowardly silence remains to be seen.

When the law calls for help but the state turns its back, it isn’t just one county left in the lurch–it’s every Nevadan who dares to live beyond the city lights, counting on a badge to mean something when the shooting starts.

A Hot Day, A Hotter Bill, More Nonsense

Well, folks, it appears the barons of NV Energy have cooked up yet another reason to lighten your pockets, blaming none other than the weather itself. Yes, dear reader, because the good people of Nevada had to endure a few sweltering days last year, NV Energy now demands a nine percent rate increase as their rightful tribute.

“We had two weeks of 110, 115 days,” proclaims Meghin Delaney, the company’s ever-affable mouthpiece, as if Nevada’s summer heat were some new and unexpected phenomenon.

One might think a company in the business of providing power in the desert would have anticipated that the desert gets, well, hot. But alas, such foresight requires an additional tax on the people sweltering beneath NV Energy’s golden empire.

But fret not, says Delaney, for NV Energy, in its boundless generosity, has a solution for the suffering masses! If you meet their particular income level, they might waive the basic service charge, granting you the princely sum of $20 in savings.

But do not celebrate too quickly, for that charity comes with a sinister new creation: the “demand charge.”

“The demand charge will help us recover the cost for those spikes in energy,” Delaney explains, encouraging customers to keep their usage level throughout the day.

In plain English–if you dare to wash your clothes and dishes in the same evening, expect to pay dearly for the privilege.

And if you’re one of those enterprising souls who invested in solar panels, believing they might free you from NV Energy’s clutches, think again! The company now seeks to change how solar users are credited, shifting from a monthly tally to a system that tracks usage in 15-minute increments—because nothing says fair like nickel-and-diming customers.

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada will hold court over this proposal in September, though one suspects their robes come sewn with silver thread. Should the tribute be approved, expect the new charges to hit in October, just in time for the crisp autumn air to remind you that no season is safe from corporate greed.

And Also, Bed Sheets

It has come to the attention of certain enterprising members of Congress that a frightful menace lurks in the digital ether, whispering nefarious secrets into the ear of the Chinese government. This ominous specter, known as DeepSeek, is an artificial intelligence platform born in the far-off land of China—a place already notorious for making bedsheets so thin a fellow can read his morning newspaper right through them.

Senator Jacky Rosen and her esteemed colleagues Jon Husted and Pete Ricketts have raised concerns, stating that DeepSeek poses a “potentially significant national security threat.”Now, one must assume the threat is more grievous than the bedsheets, though that is a high bar indeed.

According to Rosen, that confounded AI platform is busily gathering American data and, much like those whispering silk imports, sending it straight back to the Chinese government.

“The U.S. must take steps to ensure Americans’ data and government systems remain protected,” Rosen proclaimed, “against platforms—like DeepSeek—that are linked to our adversaries.”

Oddly, she and her cohorts never said a blasted thing about the Chinese balloon the Biden Administration allowed to float across the U.S.–but then that’s old-fashioned spying, not this new-fangled stuff.

To this end, she and her compatriots have introduced a bill to rid all government devices of DeepSeek’s insidious presence, ensuring our great nation’s secrets remain as secure as a bank vault in broad daylight. Now, if Congress were to focus on the previously mentioned sheets, which provide no more privacy than a windowpane, the American people could sleep as soundly as their data.