It’s well known that Nevada rarely tops lists when it comes to accessibility of mental health services. The Silver State ranked 50th among U.S. states in 2013 for number of psychiatrists per capita and routinely falls at the bottom of Mental Health America’s overall ranking of access to care.

It’s well known that Nevada rarely tops lists when it comes to accessibility of mental health services. The Silver State ranked 50th among U.S. states in 2013 for number of psychiatrists per capita and routinely falls at the bottom of Mental Health America’s overall ranking of access to care.

Joe Leal says he knows the good ones from the bad. He’s been doing this for decades. He trusts that his brown eyes — narrowed beneath a furrowed brow — won’t deceive him.

In 2012, Brookings Mountain West at UNLV and the Brookings Institution collaborated on a book project, “America’s New Swing Region: Changing Politics and Demographics in the Mountain West.” It examined how the politics of Mountain West states — Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and Utah — are being reshaped by the region’s changing demography and increased urbanization.

In a city built on entertainment, this week’s presidential debate could prove to be the biggest spectacle Las Vegas has ever seen. Wednesday’s showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at the Thomas & Mack Center marks the first time Las Vegas has hosted a presidential debate during the general election.

Take away the “Access Hollywood” hot-microphone scandal, the ranting performance in the first presidential debate and all of Donald Trump’s other self-inflicted wounds, and he still would have faced an uphill battle in Nevada, said one of three experts taking part in a panel discussion about the 2016 election today at UNLV.

They don’t call Nevada a battleground state for nothing.

With 30 days left until the election (well, 32, but who’s counting?) the Silver State is anyone’s to win. Candidates in the two biggest-ticket races here — president and U.S. Senate — are statistically tied in the latest polls. Voter data on the state’s two House races are less plentiful, but the outcome of each still hangs in the balance.

On a trip to Great Basin National Park, UNLV geoscience professor Matt Lachniet says that rainfall many millennia ago formed lakes in the desolate basins lining this strip of rural highway. Between the towns of Pioche and Panaca, we stop at Cathedral Gorge, where a multimillion-year dance of erosion and tectonics forged a slender canyon fringed with clay-colored spires.