-Important discussions, intriguing interviews, and stories from the field.

We bring you "The Best of Nevada Week in 2025" this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

2025 started with Las Vegas making national headlines on New Year's Day.

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel, and inside the Cybertruck was a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs who died by suicide.

Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department publicly acknowledged that Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped in the investigation, and he used the spotlight to highlight the importance of mental health resources for veterans.

He said that's why he created a Wellness Bureau for his own officers.

It opened in November of 2024, and in this clip he told Nevada Week how well his department was utilizing it.

(Sheriff McMahill) Well, I got to tell you, it's, it's being utilized beyond what I even dreamed it would be utilized.

Just this last month, we had 425 of our members actually take part in the mental health counseling or some version of what it is that's happening in that, that Wellness Bureau.

We've expanded that to our family members, as well as even retirees from Metro, because for many years, we didn't have anything for those that have now retired and struggled with the departure from the job, which is almost like losing a family member, because you love it so much and you give so much to it while you're here.

But the bottom line is that what my men and women see and do, hear, and feel and smell out there, day in and day out, fatal accidents and murders and rapes and robberies and child abuse, these things live in our heads and in our hearts.

My men and women really give a darn about what it is they do, and so I decided I was going to do something and was going to make sure we took care of them in ways we've never taken care of them before.

I think the proof's in the pudding in how much they're using it.

But the ultimate goal here is a healthy, happy workforce.

I'm proud to tell you that last year we had a year that we did not have one of our members commit suicide.

That's the first time since, I believe, 2012.

It's also about saving our lives.

These men and women, go through a lot.

They put it all on the line for this community, and I'm going to do everything I can while I'm sheriff to make sure we take care of them.

-How well aware do you think the public is of what officers may face mentally?

-You know, that's a really good question, because I think part of what happens is society becomes sort of numb to what it is.

You know, it's still-- the news talks about if it bleeds, it leads.

Every story that's out there every single day, nobody ever pauses long enough to think about what it looked like for that police officer, that detective, or that crime scene investigator to have to go out there and deal with that or to deal with the loved ones, or, in the case of fatal accidents, I'm sure we'll talk about red lights at some point here, as well as it's traumatic to go to the scene of a fatality traffic accident and see the damage that these vehicles have done to human bodies and then expect cops and all of those people to just be normal after they go out there and deal with it.

We have to teach them appropriate outlets and we have to teach them coping mechanisms and we have to teach them it's okay to not be okay when it gets to a certain point, and that's exactly what Wellness is doing.

-So you have clinicians on site, counselors on site.

Are you utilizing the Wellness Bureau?

-I sure do, yeah.

In fact, there's a, there's a machine that we make available for our officers called the Alpha-Stim machine.

And it's, it was actually developed for people like our Tesla truck bomber, who was deployed overseas in combat situations many times and they come back and they have PTSD, anxiety, trauma, sleepless nights.

I used the Alpha-Stim machine last night before I went to bed.

It reduces that anxiety.

It allows you to clear your mind and allows you to go to sleep.

But I also use talk therapy.

I speak to my counselor, and part of that is to lead from the front and, you know, do anything that you ask your people to do.

And so-- but it's also very beneficial to me.

You know my wife retired from Metro, I think you might know, as a deputy chief, and we had talked about wellness for a long time and seen how it impacted our marriage, impacted our kids, impacted-- my kids grew up with Mom and Dad not being there sometimes when they woke up because we responded to the One October or a, you know, other major incident or even just an officer-involved shooting investigation.

And so it's not even normal sometimes for our children to see and experience things that others don't.

And so that's really important to make sure we take care of one another as we move forward, and that's why we developed it.

-We had an officer on Nevada Week a couple years back who explained that there is hesitation among officers to talk about their mental health struggles out of fear that they may be deemed unfit to do their job, maybe even have their guns taken away.

How are you overcoming that stigma, that concern?

Is it still present?

-Look, there's always going to be that stigma in law enforcement, because it did exist for a long time.

If you had a mental health crisis in law enforcement when I first hired on in 1990, you would have been run out of the police department, quite frankly.

Even though we had employee assistance programs and those kind of things in place, those were typically designed to deal with the aftermath of an officer involved shooting.

Today, we recognize that all the stressors that every human being has, to include yourself, is also prevalent in law enforcement and oftentimes exacerbated by the type of work that it is that they do.

And so we've proven to our officers that it's not going to impact their employment status, it's not going to impact their promotions and transfer status, that we are going to invest in them and pour into them and try to get them back to a healthy place so that they can continue on in their career and be successful all the way to the end.

-I want to talk about mental health in a broader sense now.

There is a study by the American Psychological Association that found that nearly 20% of all calls to law enforcement involve someone with a mental health crisis.

Does that number sound about right for Metro?

-20%?

I'd say that's severely underestimated.

I mean if you just look at our Clark County Detention Center, about 70% of the people that are in the Clark County Detention Center today are on some type of psychotropic medicine to deal with mental health or substance abuse issues.

If you just translate that back out into calls for service, I would have to tell you it's probably much higher, but we have a real mental health crisis in America.

We have a real mental health crisis in our cities and our counties, and, you know, that's part of the reason we're working with the private sector, the State, and other people to come up with this Campus of Hope for homelessness, mental health, and addiction, because they all three sort of cross over.

If you have one, you're very often likely to have all three, right?

And so trying to find ways that we can reduce the responsibility of police to have the only ability to deal with these folks, because putting them in jail doesn't resolve mental health or addiction or even homelessness.

And so we are trying and doing everything from a best practice perspective, coresponse with mental health providers in our police cars to go out there and have those interventions.

Our hot teams and our homeless teams work together with a lot of different providers to provide services to people, but people are service resistant because they're mentally ill or they're addicted or they don't want to go into a treatment center.

So we got to keep trying, and we will keep trying.

And I think we see some great success with it, but it is a complex problem.

-So when you refer to the Clark County Detention Center as the largest mental health facility in the state, I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, that these officers, when they are meeting these people with mental health crises, they are arresting some of them and taking them back to CCDC?

-Yeah.

I mean, there's oftentimes no alternative there, because somebody has committed a crime.

In fact, we've heard from a number of them that the only care that they get when they're in crisis is to be taken to jail.

So they'll go out and commit a crime, knowing full well that they're going to go back into jail.

And what happens in jail is they get stabilized, right?

There's no access to street-level narcotics in there.

There's access to health care and medical care in the jail, and it's a relatively safe environment for them.

They're not sleeping out on the streets.

They're not doing the drugs.

And so there are lots of people that decide to commit a crime to go back to jail, because that's actually where they feel safe.

-Access to mental health care and health care in general is an issue several Nevadans face.

That's partly because there's a large shortage of physicians in the state.

And locals even have a joke about it.

It goes, Where do you go to get good health care in Las Vegas?

The airport.

Well, in March, Nevada Week hosted a panel discussion about the problem.

And during it, Dr.

Pedro "Joe" Greer, Founding Dean of the Roseman College of Medicine, said this: (Dr.

Greer) Because it's not just an issue of having a physician.

You want the best physician.

I mean, my goal is to take the old saying you had here in Vegas, that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

I want us to be so creative that what happens in Vegas, I want the world to know.

I want them to know what you can do in a state where you're not anchored by the traditions of the East and the West Coast, where you can actually bring in new ideas and education to prepare the kind of doctor we need, because we as a profession have a problem.

There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about why Americans don't like doctors.

We had the biggest drop from before the pandemic, after the pandemic of any professional group.

We went from the 80s to 53% of approval.

-Distrust.

-So we need to-- -Can I add something?

-Then I want to jump in.

I have something.

(Dr.

Gilliar) What I would like to propose is exactly the direction you're saying.

Years ago, one of my patients said, Dr.

Gilliar, when I arrived here in the '70s, we had to say, we go out into the airport, all of that stuff.

But we also said at that time, We don't have culture.

We don't have sports.

Look what we have now.

We have the Smith Center.

We have all the sports teams.

We are the best or the largest entertainment capital, if you want.

Why don't we do exactly what you said, invest into Nevada as the leader of productive, innovative, visionary healthcare because of the problems we have.

And I'm going to ask all of us to say, stop and forget the past and say, we have to go the airport, all that stuff.

But I'm going to say the state and us have to find $100 million, not 8.5 million or 10.

We need $100 million for 10 years to really look at the healthcare, to not go and go from pockets of very good ones.

We have very good ones, and I love it here in Las Vegas, but we need to really come together and say, This is our mission, almost like a startup.

And I really think then we can drive it.

(Dr.

Kahn) And let's not forget.

Let's not forget, a plug for UNLV, that we have one of the world's best hospitality schools.

We're a hospitality community, so let's take advantage of those concepts, and let's make healthcare consumer friendly.

Let's borrow knowledge that our folks in the hotel industry know about.

And let's not make only the quality good, but let's make the experience top notch as well.

-And this is going to become important in positions being paid in the future, because customer satisfaction is going to be one of the criteria.

-Another issue Nevada faces is drought, and this year it had a significant impact on Nevada's state animal, the desert bighorn sheep.

Historically, pneumonia has been one of the animal's fiercest enemies; but most recently, drought in the Muddy and Black Mountains at Valley of Fire State Park forced the animal to be moved out of state in a process known as translocation.

A net shot from a helicopter captures the sheep, and the pilot then flies them to the location we visited in August.

In here is where veterinarians, volunteers, and biologists are all working together to collect samples--blood samples, fecal samples, nasal swabs, toncil swabs--all of this to determine whether these sheep have any diseases.

(Virginia Stout) The biggest risk factor for mortality or death is pneumonia.

A lot of herds have declined due to that bacteria, and we're trying to repopulate those areas.

-Virginia Stout is a wildlife veterinarian for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Once she and her staff determined that these bighorn sheep did not have pneumonia, they transported a portion of them back home.

-It's exciting to actually have the opportunity to have more sheep on the landscape and be able to move them around Utah.

-The other sheep went to the Tobin and Cortez Ranges in Northern Nevada.

Patrick Cummings was part of the crew that loaded them in the trailer to be towed there.

Let's start off with the scratch on your face.

-The scratch on my face?

-What happened?

(Patrick Cummings) I didn't-- It would have been, probably, in the trailer.

We've got some older rams.

They're heavier.

They can have an attitude.

-Cummings also serves as the president of the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, founded in 1964 in Las Vegas.

The nonprofit donated $100,000 to this capture and translocation.

The hunting company KUIU contributed $200,000.

(Brendan Burns) We only donate to projects that are creating or solidifying hunting opportunities.

The state's wildlife department estimates that this project cost $1.2 million in total.

Donations, excise taxes on guns and ammo, and hunting tags made up its funding.

-It's a lot more than just the hunting opportunity.

It's, it's potentially-- You know, I have a son who's 12 years old.

You do projects like this so someday he could potentially draw a tag.

-And while it may seem strange, wanting to hunt an animal that you're also trying to save-- -So conservation is a complicated thing.

- --subjecting it to stressors that could kill it-- -The rigors of capture.

It is an experience that is very difficult for any animal to endure.

- --Cummings says it's about resource management and population control.

-I do not like what the sheep have to go through.

I really don't.

But I think, in a broader sense, what it's going to do for the eastern segment of this desert bighorn population in the Muddy Mountains on balance, it's a good thing.

-We move now to another area of advocacy work; that's Alzheimer's disease research and prevention.

Nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer's patients are women.

That's according to the Women's Alzheimer's Movement, a nonprofit that Maria Shriver founded.

The nonprofit has a research center here in Las Vegas at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, and that's where we had the opportunity to speak with the journalist and former first lady of California.

(Maria Shriver) I'm a mother of two young women.

I'm a woman myself.

Every time I went into the doctor's office and I said what about this or what about that, the doctor would say, We just don't know.

We don't have the research.

When I took a drug, a prescription drug, I'd say, Has this been tested on women?

I was told no.

I was like, Why is that?

They're like, Good question.

No one's ever asked.

No one's ever done anything about it.

And so I thought, well, someone should do something about that.

And then I thought, well, I'm capable of doing something about that.

I should do something about that.

So it brought together my mother's struggle with her health, the dismissal she felt as a woman when she tried to get answers for her health.

It brought together my father's Alzheimer's diagnosis.

It brought together my own gender and the inequity that I saw what was happening to other women like myself.

It brought my reporting to the forefront.

So it was a perfect storm for me, and I saw an issue that people weren't championing.

I saw something that could be rectified in my lifetime for my daughter's generation, and it galvanized me, it enraged me, and it motivated me.

-Of the progress that you are responsible for in this area, what are you most proud of?

What stands out?

-Well, I'm proud of rewriting the narrative around Alzheimer's to put women front and center when everybody told me that that was incorrect and when everybody told me that women weren't discriminated against.

I'm proud of the work of the White House Initiative on Women's Health and Research.

I'm proud of, you know, letting women know that they should care about their brain health and that there are things that they can do, that they can get in the driver's seat, that they can be philanthropists, even if it's only $25.

So I'm proud of that.

I don't know that I'll find the answers I'm looking for in my lifetime, but I know that because of this work, when my daughters and their generation are my age, they'll get different answers in the doctor's office due to a lot of the work we're doing.

-So you have a family member within the administration right now.

RFK Jr.

is your cousin.

He is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The progress that you've made, what role do you think he will have in continuing it?

-Well, I know he's supportive of women's health and research, and I'm going to meet with him about it.

And I think he should be asked that question by other people as well.

-Will you be asking him that?

-What do you think?

-I do.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that conversation, yeah.

Do you know when you'll be meeting with him?

-I talk to him a lot about it, so I'll let people know.

-Great.

That's wonderful.

You have already been vocal about the funding that was at threat of being cut, initially cut, then restored.

What did you say that you think got through?

-Well, I think that, you know, the Women's Health Initiative has been a complicated issue.

I think people focus on it.

-Why is it complicated?

-It was complicated, specifically, regarding its findings on hormones, right?

So, but it does a lot of other work, and I think sometimes people lose sight of that.

They don't understand the complexity of women's health.

So I think having a women's health and research initiative is integral to this country.

Women are 50% of the country, and, traditionally, NIH has spent about 10% of its budget way before this current administration.

So this is a, has been a problem long before this administration, and it will continue to be an issue until 50% of NIH's budget is spent on women's health.

I think women's health has been siphoned.

I know when I go to corporations, they say, Well, we support breast cancer.

I said, But there's more to women's health.

Or people say to me, Well, you know, you're talking only about reproductive health.

I said, No, I'm talking about women's health.

So that starts in puberty.

It goes into your reproductive years.

It goes into perimenopause.

It goes into menopause.

It involves autoimmune.

It involves MS.

It involves Alzheimer's.

It involves osteoporosis.

It involves aging.

And then people step back and go like, wow, I never thought about it like that.

-In 2026, Nevada Week is sharing more on the work underway here in Nevada to help prevent and treat brain diseases.

You'll hear from researchers and medical professionals in our new segment called "Your Brain Health Matters."

Another issue will be following, the state of tourism in Las Vegas.

This year there were all kinds of headlines and social media posts about why fewer people were coming to Las Vegas.

It's a topic we asked Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President Steve Hill about in August.

He also shared his opinion on whether parking and resort fees might be deterring tourists.

What is the LVCVA doing when you hear those kind of complaints of high prices?

What do you do?

(Steve Hill) Well, we do more in-depth research than just listening to anecdotal complaints.

And we're in the process again.

I mean, we do that on a regular basis.

We announced yesterday at our board meeting that we're doing a deep dive into the value proposition of Las Vegas, and we'll research that.

We will share that with our resort partners so that they can see what that reaction is on a bigger scale that is more statistically significant.

That's important.

We are leaning into our partnerships with the OTAs, the Expedias and the Bookings of the world.

We are letting people know in a variety of different ways what the value proposition of Las Vegas really is.

The idea that we are more expensive than other destinations... You can pick a place to be in a series of things to do here that would make that true, but there are all kinds of offerings where that's not true as well.

Las Vegas is still a value, and there are a number of ways to experience the city and the offerings that we have.

We're getting that out there as well.

-I have to ask about the resort fees and the parking fees.

There was an article in the Review-Journal 2019.

The headline is, quote, Some Las Vegas Resorts Cutting Fees as Visitation Declines.

2019.

And in the article, an LVCVA spokesperson is quoted as saying, "We believe it is premature to state that resort or parking fees are directly resulting in a net decrease in overall visitation.

Okay, so it's been six years since then.

What do you think about the relation between those fees and visitation?

-I don't-- I don't think at this point those are the issue.

Part of the reason for that is they are now published.

I mean, they're required to be published.

You can't publish a room rate without publishing the resort fee.

-That was a recent development.

-It is.

Well, but that's all of this year.

And so that issue, I think, is actually gone.

People continue to go back to it, but if you go anyplace, you pay a resort fee.

I've traveled a number of places over the past couple of months, and our resort fees are certainly competitive at a minimum with what you pay in other locations.

Our parking is way more competitive than you pay in most locations.

I was in a place in Southern California just this weekend.

Parking overnight was $60.

It's a very common charge.

I don't think those are the issues at this point.

-And it's here in Las Vegas where Pamela Anderson filmed The Last Showgirl.

Based on the closing of "Jubilee" at Bally's in 2016, Anderson's portrayal of Shelly, a Las Vegas showgirl who learns her show has been canceled, earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

It's a role that director Gia Coppola wanted her to play after seeing the Bay Watch actress in her 2023 Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story.

In January, I got to speak with the actress at a screening of The Last Showgirl at the Beverly Theater in downtown Las Vegas.

♪♪ This character in what ways, if any, did you identify with her?

(Pamela Anderson) My goodness, so much of it.

There's definitely parallels, but that was just the jumping off point.

I wanted to transform and create a character.

And, you know, it was a wonderful story and great director.

It's all about the director and the actor and how we can collaborate.

And so it was really fun to, you know, create Shelly with Gia.

-And will you tell me the difference between this director versus, you know, the Baywatch director that told you, Just pretend like it's real.

-Everyone pretend it's real... Action.

That was-- I hate to-- I don't want to-- I loved Baywatch , and I took it very seriously.

People don't want to understand that, but I did.

I've always been interested in the craft of acting.

I didn't know where to start.

I remember taking classes, and then I've been taking private lessons since I was on Broadway and then doing this movie.

I just did Naked Gun and another film with Karim Ainouz, this incredible film, Rosebush Pruning.

And I've-- every little bit has taught me something.

I mean, even Barb Wire taught me something.

It just, it's just so many pieces of the puzzle you have to put together for yourself.

And I know I took a real unorthodox route and a long, kind of windy road to get here.

And everybody does it different, but no regrets.

-Many thanks to the wonderful guests who showed their support for public media and Vegas PBS by granting Nevada Week those interviews.

And of course, a big thank you to you for watching in 2025.

Happy holidays, and we sure hope you'll join us in 2026.

♪♪