Las Vegas Spectrum

The LGBTQA+ community is at greater risk for COVID-19 infection for an entirely preventable reason — tobacco use, according to Malcolm Ahlo, a public health officer with the Southern Nevada Health District. Tobacco use rates are disproportionately higher in the LGBTQA+ community than in the straight community, according to a report from the American Lung Association, “Smoking Out a Deadly...

  Will Rucker is a gay Christian pastor who is a licensed wedding officiant and regularly performs weddings at the MGM properties and at other chapels on and off the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas. Churches had already voluntarily closed their doors, so when casino-resort chapels and the assorted wedding chapels up and down the Strip were closed under order...

Nevadans have until May 15 to enroll in a health plan through Nevada Health Link, the online health insurance marketplace operated by the state’s Silver State Health Insurance Exchange. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s Emergency Declaration, which gave Nevadans additional time to enroll through Nevada Health Link, is open to qualified Nevadans who missed the Open Enrollment Period. Nevadans who enroll by...

Ten college-bound seniors have received more than $35,000 in scholarship money from  Cox Las Vegas this year as part of the annual Cox Diversity Scholarship program in partnership with the Public Education Foundation and Southern Nevada-based diverse organizations. Since 2014, Cox has been presenting its Cox Diversity Scholarships to graduating seniors in Clark County, totaling $245,000. “Our partnerships with nonprofit diverse organizations enable...

Longtime Las Vegas entertainer, Jimmy Emerson will host a special Zoom show May 12 and June 9 at 7 p.m. He will showcase entertainers, tell stories, mix drinks and provide tons of fun. Emerson and his partners had planned opening their cabaret bar before the COVID-19 crisis hit. Now, he is waiting out the shut-down with a drink in one...

If you’re getting this magazine in your mailbox for the first time, congratulations on your recent marriage! With the advent of same-gender marriage, we have created a data base, using names and addresses from Clark County marriage licenses. It hasn’t been cheap, as we must purchase the list, month-by-month, and then process it to remove all the opposite-gender couples. Invariably,...

I initially wrote this for April, but as you likely noticed, the Spectrum couldn't publish due to COVID-19. Not only did we lose our advertising base, but more importantly, our distribuiton, since most of the 115 locations this publication is distributed at, were closed. The USPS comes through again, and we're mailing out nearly 10,000 copies of this magazine. So...

With businesses struggling during the lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic, Cox Media is offering free television advertising to local restaurants. “We know this is a challenging time for our local restaurants and we want to help,”  Tonya Ruby, vice president of Cox Media, Las Vegas said in a press statement. “This is an opportunity to support restaurants who have shifted their...

Our April 2020 issue will be online only. I’m sure everyone can figure out why, but in case you’re reading this 20 years from now and wondering, it’s due to our COVID-19 shutdown. As one can imagine, printing 11,000 copies of the Spectrum and then mailing most of them, takes a considerable sum of money. Losing many of our advertisers,...

Vegas Urban Pride Awards The Vegas Urban Pride Awards and Kings' Birthday will be held April 11-12. Both are fundraisers for the Pride event in October. The Vegas Urban Pride Awards is a peer-to-peer voting ballot. Winners are selected by popular vote for each category. Nominate an influencer living and actively conducting business in the Las Vegas community to be recognized...