Week of April 10, 2025

From the editor’s desk

The Trump administration continues to come in hot. It looks like the wrecking-ball approach to toppling entire departments will have a profound effect on Nevada’s arts and culture organizations, and the divisiveness the administration is emboldening is resonating loud and clear in the Silver State. Here are a few highlights.

On April 2, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) notified Nevada Humanities and 55 other humanities councils across the country that their federal funding had been terminated. Nevada Humanities has typically received around 75% of its $1.2 to $1.5 million budget from the now-terminated NEH grant. The canceled funding was earmarked for distribution to 30 Nevada arts and culture groups for their 2025 programming.

The legal basis for cutting this funding is unclear, as the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 mandates federal humanities spending.

“We’re walking a place we’ve never walked before,” Christina Barr, the group’s executive director, told me in a phone interview.

I reported in more detail on the cuts’ effects on Nevada culture on Double Scoop.

Also on April 2, the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, the governing body for high school athletics, updated its eligibility policy to require transgender students to compete in the category that matches their sex as determined at birth. While Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony called the policy update “an important and courageous step to protect fairness in girls’ sports” in an editorial for the Reno Gazette Journal, Silver State Equality—Nevada’s LGBTQ+ civil rights organization—issued a statement calling the policy harmful, exclusionary and unconstitutional.

In an effort to quantify the scope of the problem that this policy change purports to solve, I asked the NIAA yesterday morning for the number of transgender high school athletes who had been playing in Nevada before the policy was updated. The NIAA has not responded. If you know of any verified data on this, please send it over.

On April 3, Nevada Public Radio reported a 19.6% drop in international passenger traffic into the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas from January to February. Jerry Perkins, president of the Las Vegas Tourist Guides Guild, told the station that international travelers have shared the concerns with guild members:

People are scared they’ll be rejected at customs. Some of them believe the National Parks are closed, based on everything they’ve heard about, regarding layoffs. Others are simply saying they want to boycott travel to the United States because of the rhetoric from the President.

On April 4, the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security revoked the visas of four international students studying at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Channel 3 News in Las Vegas reported: “The reasons are not clear right now, but this comes as the Trump administration revoked visas for students around the country who protest or participate in activism.” Channel 3 quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio as having said in March that more than 300 student visas had been revoked nationwide.

The Reno Gazette Journal reported on April 8 that no University of Nevada, Reno students’ visas had been revoked. I reached out to UNR for an update earlier today, and have yet to hear back as of this writing.

Finally, yesterday, leaked audio circulated of Gov. Joe Lombardo telling attendees at a private dinner that his message to people who criticize him on social media is—I am not summarizing; I am not paraphrasing; I am quoting verbatim the actual words of our governor—“Fuck you.” 

The audio was posted on X by the MeidasTouch news network. Reno’s Channel 4 News reported last night that a source with knowledge of the dinner confirmed the recording’s authenticity.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor