Since 2013, thousands have been gathering in Napa Valley, California, for the annual Bottlerock Music Festival to enjoy food, beverages, including wine, and different genres of music. John Snelgrove reports on the three-day festival which is also striving to become more eco-friendly. — The BottleRock music festival reconvened this Memorial Day weekend with the metal band Bastardane on one of the smaller of four stages.

Katelyn Welsh and Nancy Vazquez investigate how local ski resorts increasingly use J-1 exchange visa holders, and study effects on these foreign workers and local ones, as well as the shape of the industry with new legal action potentially changing overall dynamics. — Originally Designed to Improve International Relations, Now Improving Budgets Many Tahoe locals know that around peak ski season, minimally paid foreign J-1 workers cram into undersized bedrooms to do grunt work for long hours at their favorite ski resorts.

University students have been among the most consistently stressed out group of people in the country coming out of the pandemic. Schools have taken measures to attempt to alleviate the stress, but is it enough? Emily Richards, Madison Castagnola, Lynn Lazaro, and Chloe Cross investigate and share their own experiences. — A recent study done by The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds revealed that roughly 73% of university students have experienced some sort of mental health crisis during their time at college. …

New ID scanners have been implemented in local bars and underage drinkers feel fake IDs are being confiscated by bouncers more than ever before. Kelsey Middleton, Carlos Perez, Sean Sear and Troy Welling report on the different reactions to the new scanners by bar employees, the police, underage and of age bar goers. — TikTok recently blew up with videos about ID scanners at bars being upgraded, leading to an increase in fake IDs being confiscated. In college towns, such as Reno, this affected the amount of people showing up at different bars and what age groups occupy bars now.

In partnership with Our Town Reno, Charles Riggs and Reyden Morett strapped on their detective caps, grabbed their mini-notebooks, equipped a comically large magnifying glass, and investigated a question meant to be asked. Who is on the signal box below? Is it really white supremacist Francis Newlands as officially stated? — Dotting nearly every street corner across Reno and every other city in America are metal utility boxes that house the heartbeat of towns of all sizes. These metal boxes provide the electric pulse energizing stoplights, traffic meters, etc., all while connecting buildings to the power grid. They’re essential. …

The previous Speaker Pro Tempore Vanessa Ribeiro details how a slew of resignations within the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno (ASUN) in the last three years has left thousands of students unrepresented for more than one session, with graphic visuals by Tristen Taylor. — Three Years in ASUN: What I Learned, What I Lost There’s a paper and record that showed how I spent my time in ASUN. The ‘legacy’ I left can be determined through my speeches, or my legislation, or through the positions I held.

Jacob Kostuchowski, a journalism student, reports on UNR’s Biggest Little Festival to get student opinions on ASUN’s spending and what they do to improve student’s mental health. With all the issues students are facing, is the student government doing enough to assist? — Electronic music pulses through the afternoon air of the John Sala intramural fields as a hundred students begin to gather for the six hour event.

Yulia Rajeh and Chris Darche learn about the Kurdish community in Northern Nevada which has been growing since 2016 when the Northern Nevada International Center started relocating Syrian refugees here. — “Here (in the US) I felt safe for the first time in my whole life. Here we have been treated as humans,” Aisha Ali Yaqub explains, a Syrian-Kurdish refugee living in Reno. Aisha, Mohamad, and their four children were some of the first Kurds to arrive in Reno in 2016…

Shelby Herbert searched two states, five counties, two National Forests, a National Park, a library and a bar for answers about the cultural value of Basque tree carvings in the Mountain West. — I’m sitting at JT’s Basque Bar in Gardnerville, in front of a plate piled high with a heroic amount of brisket and matchstick fries. This mountain of starch and hearty protein is a heroic endeavor for a lapsed-vegan like myself. I know that I will be working away at this…