LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — State computers crippled by a cyber attacker who still hasn't been identified. A special session with two major bills failing. A year of tragedy on our roads.
Those are just a few of the major stories that marked this year. Here, in no particular order, are 13 takeaways from 2025.
WATCH | 13 takeaways from the news in 2025
1. Suspect still unknown in crippling state cyber attack
In late August, state information technology managers noticed suspicious activity in state computer systems, and acted to take them offline. A state employee — using a spoofed website — inadvertently downloaded software that gave cyber-intruders access to state systems, where they encrypted some data and left a ransom note. A 30-page report released in late October detailed what happened, how, and the fact that no ransom was ever paid, but left out one crucial detail still unknown at year's end: Who did it?
RELATED: Previously unknown details about extend of Nevada cyberattack revealed in final action report
2. Big bills fail in special session
Unlike regular legislative sessions, special sessions are usually quick affairs where every piece of legislation passes. That's because the governor sets the agenda, and he usually doesn't put an item on the list unless he knows he's got the votes to pass it. But in the seven-day November special, a bill to authorize $1.8 billion in tax credits to build a film studio in Summerlin fell one vote shy in the state Senate. And when the Legislature for the first time in history signed a petition to call itself into its own special session, the lone bill it placed on the agenda — a limitation on corporate homeownership — also failed, and also by a single vote. The bottom line: sometimes, even the best vote-counters are wrong.
3. Deadly streets, incremental fixes
Kids hit and killed while walking to school or shot by an alleged road-rage shooter on a freeway. Innocent people dying while waiting at a traffic light as a speeding driver hits them at full speed. And DUI crashes, while fewer in number than last year, still causing mayhem on the roads. As locals demand more action, lawmakers raised the punishments for DUI causing death, tightened penalties for violations in school zones and allowed school districts to put ticket-writing cameras on school buses. But one key punishment sought by prosecutors — the ability to charge people with second-degree murder in the most egregious cases of DUI — did not pass in either the regular or special sessions.
RELATED: Las Vegas prosecutors see the worst in their fight for justice for drunk driving victims
4. Fake electors one mistake costs them in the end
After the 2020 election, when President Donald Trump insisted without evidence he won the election, groups of his supporters around the country gathered to sign fake Electoral College certificates, attesting to a fictional Trump victory, Here in Nevada, six Republicans were later charged with forgery and filing a false instrument after they sent the certificates to authorities around the country. But a judge dismissed the charges, because they were filed in Clark County, while the alleged crime took place in Carson City. The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal, however, because one set of documents was — in error — sent to the courthouse in Las Vegas, which was enough for the justices to say charges could be filed in Southern Nevada. The six electors will go on trial in the new year.
5. The quiet death of the state lottery amendment
In 2023, on a mostly party-line vote, a joint resolution passed the Legislature that would have amended the state constitution to repeal the prohibition on a state lottery. Nevada is one just a handful of states without a lottery, and the convenience stores near the state's border with California and Arizona are among the busiest, especially when jackpots soar. The resolution would only have had to pass again this year to go before voters for their approval. But despite backing from the Culinary Union Local 226, the proposal didn't get so much as a hearing, let alone a vote. A state lottery has come up for discussion in Carson City more than two dozen times over the years, but this effort got further than any previous repeal push. But its death means Nevadans won't be playing the lottery in their home state any time soon.
6. Justin Jones bows out
As State Bar of Nevada discipline goes, a letter of reprimand is fairly minor, especially considering that the regulatory body is empowered to take away a lawyer's license, the vocational equivalent of the death penalty. So when Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones was merely reprimanded in March for deleting his own text messages pertinent to a lawsuit against the county, he initially said nothing about his future on the commission, and fellow Democrats who'd been mulling the race were just as silent. But Jones eventually drew some high-profile Republican opponents in Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama, R-Clark County, and businessman Albert Mack (and even a non-partisan contender in ex-state Sen. Becky Harris, the woman who beat Jones out of his state Senate seat in 2014). Jones eventually decided against what would have been a tough bid for re-election, even as the State Bar asks the Nevada Supreme Court for another opportunity to suspend his law license.
7. Bowing out of office
Jones wasn't the only political leader to decide to leave. Las Vegas Councilwoman Victoria Seaman — who was gunning for Jones's seat on the commission — decided instead to take a job with the Trump administration in Denver. In the Legislature, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro is running for attorney general. Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager decided not to seek re-election, and his No. 1, Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui, announced a bid for lieutenant governor. The chair of the powerful Ways & Means Committee, Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, is running for mayor of North Las Vegas. The legislative departures will mean all-new leaders come the 2027 session. About the only elected official who's out but desperately trying to get back in is Nye County Justice of the Peace Michele Fiore, suspended by the State Bar after she was convicted on federal wire fraud charges connected to misused charity funds. She was later pardoned by President Donald Trump. At year's end, she was urging state Supreme Court justices to overrule the Bar and put her back on the bench.
8. Governor just says no ... and no ... and no ... and no....
Gov. Joe Lombardo set a one-session veto record in his first session in 2023, rejecting 76 bills. It wasn't entirely a surprise: he was a new GOP chief executive working with a Democrat-controlled Legislature for the first time. But in his second session, Lombardo blew every other governor out of the water, rejecting a whopping 87 bills and setting the all-time veto record at 163. There was even a strong suspicion he would veto one of the bills that came out of November's special session, something that's only happened three times in state history. Notably, Lombardo doesn't cheer using all the ink in his veto pen; he calls it a lack of communication and compromise. But whatever the reason, Lombardo has secured his place in state history, even if it's not one he'd have chosen for himself.
9. Sanctuary state controversy
Speaking of Lombardo, he was embroiled in a familiar controversy in August, when the U.S. Justice Department placed Nevada alongside such liberal bastions as Los Angeles and San Francisco on a list of sanctuary jurisdictions. (This wasn't the first time; Lombardo also faced off with federal authorities on the same issue when he was sheriff. The feds eventually backed off.) This time, Lombardo had to prepare an extensive schedule of actions he'd taken in his tenure to cooperate with immigration authorities. The Justice Department cut-and-pasted that list into a "memorandum of understanding" that Lombardo and Attorney General Pam Bondi signed, whereupon the state was removed from the sanctuary list. But that tender truce was in question at year's end, after Lombardo signed a long-sought crime bill that placed some Democrat-authored restrictions on law enforcement on school campuses that seemed clearly aimed at thwarting ICE enforcement.
10. More federal chicanery toward Nevada
The sanctuary flap wasn't the only way in which Nevada was uniquely put upon by the federal government in 2025. When Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, it contained a little-noticed, one-line provision that limited gamblers to writing off just 90% of their losses against winnings, creating the possibility that people could end up paying taxes on money they never saw. As if that wasn't bad enough, Trump declared at the end of October that the U.S. would immediately resume testing nuclear weapons, creating fears of explosive tests over the Nevada desert, which were once tourist attractions before their environmental and health consequences were fully known. At year's end, Nevada officials were scrambling to pass laws to restore the tax code and ban — or at least require congressional permission for — nuclear testing.
11. The curious case of interim/acting U.S. attorney Sigal Chattah
There were howls of protest from Democrats when President Trump in late March named Sigal Chattah as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada. A relentless partisan, Chattah was at the time (and for a time thereafter) serving as the state's Republican National Committeewoman. And she was best known for saying the state's first Black attorney general, Aaron Ford, should be hanging from "a f——- crane," a remark she risibly argued had no racial overtones. But with her 120-day temporary appointment about to expire, Chattah a.) resigned, b.) was hired by the Justice Department as a "special attorney," c.) was named first assistant U.S. attorney and d.) was named acting U.S. attorney. That sequence of events was replicated in other districts, and, when challenged, has been found to be invalid. At year's end, Chattah's disqualification was on appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She claimed in a post on X that "titles mean nothing to any of us warriors," but was certainly doing her best to hold on to hers.
RELATED: Chattah not the only disputed U.S. attorney
12. There won't be a doggie in the window
Animal activists have long sought to ban the sales of dogs and cats in pet stores, arguing that the animals are bred in gruesome conditions and are often sick. They succeeded in Clark County and North Las Vegas, but some pet stores in Henderson and all of them in Las Vegas still allow the sales. An attempt to institute a statewide ban failed in the Nevada Legislature this year, after opponents hired a politically influential lobbyist. But when advocates protested a watered-down ordinance in Las Vegas, it was amended in early November to ban pet sales, starting three years from now. The move leaves only a handful of stores in Henderson with the ability to sell pets.
13. Henderson goes crazy
A councilwoman indicted for surreptitiously recording a conversation held by another councilwoman. A vote to censure that wayward councilwoman. Another councilwoman unendorsed by the police supervisors union after she confronted a police sergeant at a crime scene. A former police chief, the latest in a long line of chiefs fired by the city, now running for mayor. Allegations of false and misleading information spread by council members. Henderson's governing body is fast becoming known as the valley's most dysfunctional governing board, as personal conflicts have repeatedly burst into the open. Things could change after next year's elections, but until then, Henderson has got drama in droves.
