Articles written by Scott Sonner
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1 dead, 1 injured following avalanche at California ski resort as storm moves in, official says
RENO, Nev. (AP) — An avalanche roared through a section of expert trails at a California ski resort near Lake Tahoe on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring another, as a major storm with snow and gusty winds moved into the region, a...
Veteran California pilots racing in Reno killed in mid-air crash shortly after first-second finish
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Two veteran California pilots were killed over the weekend when their World War II-era planes collided in mid-air while preparing to land just after finishing first and second in a title race at the National Championship Air R...
Nevada toad in geothermal power fight gets endangered status
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a geothermal power project has officially been declared an endangered species after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily listed it on a rarely-used emergency basis last s...
Tahoe ski resort reverses parking policy after legal fights
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Free parking, as precious to some skiers as virgin mountain powder, has returned to one Lake Tahoe resort but not before its corporate owner waged an expensive year-long legal battle with two season-pass holders. An 80-year-old a...
AP Exclusive: Rare wildflower could jeopardize lithium mine
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A botanist hired by a company planning to mine one of the most promising deposits of lithium in the world believes a rare desert wildflower at the Nevada site should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, a move that c...
US Supreme Court denies Nevada church's appeal of virus rule
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court denied a rural Nevada church's request late Friday to strike down as unconstitutional a 50-person cap on worship services as part of the state's ongoing response to the coronavirus. In a 5-4 d...
Judge denies Nevada off-road challenge to grouse protection
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge has upheld the U.S. Forest Service's authority to keep a 250-mile (400-kilometer) motorcycle race out of sage grouse habitat in Nevada's high desert, rejecting a lawsuit by off-road vehicle enthusiasts who argued t...
Bid to halt Nevada oil drilling in sage grouse habitat
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Conservationists say the Trump administration's approval of exploratory drilling for oil in sage grouse habitat on federal land in eastern Nevada violates its own protection guidelines and ignores concerns raised by scientists about...
Biggest US solar project approved in Nevada despite critics
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Trump administration announced final approval Monday of the largest solar energy project in the U.S. and one of the biggest in the world despite objections from conservationists who say it will destroy thousands of acres of h...
No one to vote? Nevada Democrats puzzle over empty precinct
RENO, Nev. (AP) — What if a neighborhood precinct was voting in Nevada's presidential caucuses and nobody came? Democrats in one county were left scratching their heads about the possibility they had stumbled onto a phantom precinct during the party'...
New deal with mining company to protect rare Nevada plant
RENO, Nev. (AP) — An Australian mining company has agreed to a moratorium on new activities at a planned lithium mine in Nevada in exchange for conservationists dropping a lawsuit to protect a rare desert wildflower they say doesn't exist anywhere e...
Trump's pick for energy boss answers Nevada's nuke concerns
RENO, Nev. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s pick to become the next U.S. energy secretary pledged Thursday to uphold his predecessor’s promise to begin removing weapons-grade plutonium the government secretly shipped last year to a security site in so...
Scientists monitoring swarm of 60 small quakes north of Reno
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Scientists are keeping a close eye on a swarm of dozens of small earthquakes that have been recorded in recent days in Sun Valley north of Reno, along with a larger quake earlier this month south of Reno. A sequence of 60 e...
NASA's first-of-kind tests look to manage drones in cities
RENO, Nev. (AP) — NASA has launched the final stage of a four-year effort to develop a national traffic management system for drones, testing them in cities for the first time beyond the operator's line of sight as businesses look in the future to u...
Genealogy site, DNA used to help solve decades-old murder
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Forensic genealogists followed a trail built on decades-old DNA evidence to help identify a woman whose body was found near a Lake Tahoe hiking trail in 1982 and her killer who confessed to three other murders, investigators said T...
Nevada woman is the 6th to accuse Arias of sexual misconduct
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The longtime director of the international center at the University of Nevada in Reno is the latest woman to accuse Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias of sexual misconduct. Carina Black said in i...
US secretly shipped plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy revealed on Wednesday that it secretly shipped weapons-grade plutonium from South Carolina to a nuclear security site in Nevada months ago despite the state's protests. The Justice Department notified a...
Single operator runs multiple drones in Reno for first time
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The city of Reno confirmed the first successful deliveries by multiple drones steered by a single operator under a federal program fast-tracking regulatory approval for unmanned aerial vehicles nationwide. City officials a...
Defamation lawsuit over alleged fake Western painting tossed
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit a Western art collector filed against a prestigious auction house and the owner of a Reno gallery who claimed an early 20th century cowboy painting he sold for $750,000 was a f...
Ex-Tesla worker accused of hacking seeks $1M in counterclaim
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A former Tesla Inc. employee at the electric car maker's battery plant in Nevada is seeking at least $1 million in defamation damages after it accused him of sabotage, hacking into computers and stealing confidential information l...
Crews gain more control over Nevada fire visible from space
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Lighter winds brought some relief Wednesday to crews working to contain a wildfire in northern Nevada that is so big it can be seen from space. The flames were nearly halfway contained and no populated areas were threatened, the Nat...
AP Exclusive: Water delivery suspended in Nevada mine battle
RENO, Nev. (AP) — It was an uncharacteristically urgent demand at a U.S. Superfund site where the cleanup of an abandoned World War II-era mine has dragged on for two decades and progress is measured, at best, in years. Atlantic Richfield, owner o...
Bundy: Judge did US government a favor by throwing out case
SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — Southern Nevada rancher and state's rights activist Cliven Bundy said Friday a judge in Las Vegas did the U.S. government a favor last month when she threw out his criminal case stemming from an armed standoff with federal agents...
Shoes, bags, even dentures lost at Burning Man await owners
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Lindsay Weiss once lost her cellphone and got it back, so she and a friend knew what they had to do when they discovered a camera during the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert — even though it meant giving up their coveted sh...
AP Exclusive: Training on vet suicides set at Nevada prisons
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Four months after he enlisted in the U.S. Army at 18, John Morse IV was on the front lines in Iraq training the sights of laser range finders on combat targets to be shelled. For the next four years, the fire-support specialist watc...