🛣️ Why Downtown traffic won’t get better

⛽ Babysitter Misses Point of Job

A nine-year-old girl says she was pulled out of bed and left at a gas station by her babysitter, who was later arrested. The mother says she’s never had any previous issues with the sitter, who told police she thought the girl was dead — as if that would make it okay. [KLAS]

🙏 Reba Inspires Push for Legislation

A Nevada assemblywoman from Henderson filed paperwork to introduce legislation next session that would toughen penalties for animal abuse. DA Steve Wolfson challenged lawmakers to lengthen jail sentences for offenders following the death of Reba, a bulldog abandoned in a sealed plastic tub. [KVVU]

🛣️ Downtown Highway Improvements Scratched

In what could be a first, something won’t happen in Las Vegas because it was too expensive and disruptive. The planned Downtown Access Project, which would have made improvements to Interstate 11 (the artist formerly known as U.S. Highway 95) as it passes through Downtown, was quietly cancelled by NDOT and federal regulators earlier this month. [Las Vegas Review Journal]

🍎 Does Anybody Want This Gig?

It’s been so long, you may have forgotten — the Clark County School District still doesn’t have a superintendent. The deadline to apply was pushed back to February 5, 2025 and interim superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell now says she won’t seek the position. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

• That’s not the only story in the news with its share of twists and turns. So I joined City Cast Las Vegas co-host Dayvid Figler and KTNV senior reporter Jaewon Jung to discuss the latest developments on the headlines that continue to surprise us. We talk about the sentencing of a man who flew through the air to attack a judge, a Metro officer accused of questionable behavior (on the Strip and online), and how Clark County was able to turn things around for the only school on Mt. Charleston. Who needs a superintendent? [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]

We want to wish the very best to former Hey Las Vegas editor Scott Dickensheets and his family during the holidays. In the spirit of the season, let’s revisit his story about Hallmark Christmas movies — and whether it’s about time one should be set in Las Vegas 🤔

It’s odd to my family, everyone who knows me, and even to myself, but I’m totally into Hallmark Christmas movies. You’d think that after decades in the cynicism-industrial complex, I’d be inured to their Mad Lib plotlines, laughably repeated tropes — who knew so many Central European royals find holiday romance in rural America?! — and uncritical celebration of small-town rectitude. But, in fact, I find all of that a cozy, frictionless way to spend an evening after a long, brain-sapping day of whatever it is I do.

As far as I know, none of these movies has been set here. Las Vegas is, let’s say, contraindicated for the Hallmark holiday treatment, and not just because we lack snow. Indeed, it doesn’t take much of a shift in perspective to see all that small-town charm and authenticity as the everyone-in-your-business smothering that people come here to escape for three days, trying on different versions of themselves in the personality labs of the Strip. The relationship narratives this city specializes in are more complicated and not especially Hallmarkian: There are apparently a lot of sugar daddies in this town — one in every 52 dudes, if you believe this — and when a prince does visit, he’s less likely to woo a commoner than end up naked and in the tabloids. Also, this can be a very lonely place.

But, hey, maybe I’m wrong. I mean, Clark County issued a whopping 79,279 marriage licenses in 2022 — which suggests an average of 222.6 couples a day find a workable overlap between true love and Sin City. So let’s imagine a hinterlands events planner who comes here to make it big. She meets a charming sports bettor; they flirt through set pieces at, say, the wax museum and Red Rock. He gives his winnings from a gutsy bet on the Raiders to Toys for Tots; she’s smitten. Then a tragic Mad Libs plot device breaks them up. On Christmas morning, she’s stuck in orange cones on Koval, glances up, and there, on Sphere — thanks to an executive who’s a sucker for true love — it’s him, 367 feet high, proclaiming his love, kiss-kiss, the end. Frothy, you suggest; treacly? Only if they do it right! And you bet I’d watch it.

• At least Vegas has its share of holiday pop-ups right now. [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]