PHOENIX — Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes is dismissing a sprawling criminal case that alleged President Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others tried to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state.
The decision, announced Thursday, marks the third such fake elector case filed by states to be dismissed, though the Democratic attorney general is vowing to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment.
The legal maneuver is aimed at getting around a Friday deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier this month. The appeal was filed after defense attorneys argued successfully that the original grand jury hadn’t been shown the relevant parts of a law that governs how presidential contests are certified.
Courts have dismissed similar cases in Michigan and Georgia, and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Cases related to the fake elector scheme remain in Nevada and Wisconsin.
The Nevada charges were dismissed in 2024 after a judge concluded Clark County, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case. Later that year, though, the case was refiled in Carson City, Nevada’s capital.
The Arizona case had been stalled for well over a year while Mayes pursued the appeal.
In Arizona, defense lawyers argued the law allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed. Federal law was amended in 2022 to specify that any given state could put forward only one slate of electors and that state governors are responsible for signing off.
Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by 10,457 votes.
The state attorney general has faced steep challenges in making her case.
It was filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election and levels complicated conspiracy charges against the 18 defendants. A dozen dismissal requests filed by defense attorneys have slowed progress in court.
The first judge on the case recused himself in late 2024 after an email surfaced in which he told fellow judges to speak out against attacks on Harris’ campaign for the presidency. The next judge ordered the case to be sent back to a grand jury.
Of the 18 Arizona defendants, two were former Trump aides, five were lawyers working for Trump and 11 were Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona.
Three defendants have resolved their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
The rest pleaded not guilty. Some said they signed the certificate in case Trump won court challenges and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally votes.
The case has factored into Arizona’s attorney general race, where both Republican challengers to Mayes have publicly said they will dismiss the charges if they were elected to the post.
TONOPAH, Nev. — Some years ago, Harry Chahal and his wife were on a trip to Las Vegas when, like countless motorists before and since, they passed through this high desert speck of a town.
Tonopah, built by the mining industry around 1900 and depleted as the gold, silver, lead and mercury waned, is a remote way station about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. Signs on either side warn — ominously, given the unforgiving expanse ahead — that once you’ve left, the nearest gas station is not for another 100 miles or so.
Harry Chahal opened hometown pizza in 2015 after driving through town and seeing there was no pizza place.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)
As he passed through town, Chahal noticed something missing: a pizza parlor.
Pizza is not generally associated with Punjab, India, where Chahal — given name Harvarinderjit — is originally from. But he learned how to make pizza, and how much customers loved gobbling it up, while working at different gas station mini-marts around rural Nevada.
In that absence, Chahal saw opportunity.
He and his wife, Ravinder, moved to Tonopah and in 2015 opened Hometown Pizza in a vacant building on U.S. Route 95, which runs through the heart of town. Ten years later, they bought the Dream Inn Motel, a 39-room operation just up the road.
Views of the 47th president, from the ground up
Lately, Chahal has been sprucing up the motor inn: new cabinets, new furniture, fresh paint every few months. The reason is President Trump.
Tonopah and the surrounding desert, stretching farther than the eye can reckon, is verging on a boom, owing to vast reserves of lithium, boron and other sought-after materials and a Trump administration promise to turn the U.S., in the words of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, into “a mineral powerhouse once again.”
Chahal, 40, is a repeat Trump voter and even though he has issues with some of what the president has done — he’s not happy about the war with Iran and inflation has taken a decent-sized bite out of his pizza business — he feels his faith in Republicans in general and Trump in particular have paid off.
A registered nonpartisan, Chahal is fairly apolitical. “I vote for Republicans because they’re better for business,” he said as a lunch-time crowd of locals and folks passing through tucked into the $11.99 pizza-and-salad buffet. Here’s proof: In the last year, Chahal said, he’s seen motel occupancy increase significantly, from around 15 rooms rented each night to 25 or more.
Those fresh touches to the Dream Inn are Chahal’s investment in the future and a belief that, with Trump in office, even better times lie ahead.
Tonopah was built as a mining town around 1900. It’s fortunes have waxed and mostly waned.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
::
For much of its being, Tonopah relied on metal, minerals and other valuables scooped from the earth. Today, government is the largest employer.
But mining continues to hold fast to the town’s imagination.
A headframe — that’s the tower built directly over an underground mine shaft — is part of Tonopah’s logo. Mining-related sculptures, including statues of Jim and Belle Butler, who staked the first claim in the 20th century silver rush, dot the main thoroughfare. The high school’s athletes are called the “Muckers,” after those who shovel ore into underground rail cars.
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big tourist attraction, along with the Clown Motel and other lodging establishments supposedly haunted by the ghosts of dead miners and other paranormal phenomena. (Chahal says there are no apparitions at the Dream Inn.)
The Clown Motel, which draws visitors from around the world, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of dead miners.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Lately, however, mining is becoming more than just a part of nostalgic lore. It’s poised to again be a major boon to the local economy and the town’s 3,000 residents.
Plans are underway for a new lithium and boron mine at Rhyolite Ridge, approximately 30 miles southwest of Tonopah, in Nevada’s Silver Peak Range. (Lithium, most of which is now imported, is a vital ingredient in the batteries that store solar energy and power electric vehicles; boron is used, among other things, for bulletproof armor and vests.)
About 27 miles to the south of Tonopah, near the town of Goldfield, a new gold mine is set to open in 2028.
Joe Westerlund, Tonopah’s town manager, said fresh development and the prospect of hundreds of new, good-paying jobs are much welcomed. The median income here is about $37,000 annually, less than half the state average. The hospital in town closed in 2015. Venture off U.S. 95 and the rolling hills are flecked with weathered miner’s cottages and tumbledown homes no longer fit for habitation.
(A three-bedroom, two-bath home in a comfy subdivision on the north end of town can be had for around $250,000, but don’t hurry over to buy; inventory is low and could grow even leaner if demand for housing increases.)
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big local tourist attraction.
“As soon as he got into office, things started loosening up. We had 15 drill rigs,” said Westerlund, who has lived in Tonopah since 1972. “I had never seen that before in my life.”
There are, of course, environmental concerns — about pollution, water supply, native habitat — but those worries haven’t gained much of a toehold. Nye County, which is home to Tonopah, isn’t exactly tree-hugger country — and not just because most of the land is scrub-filled desert. Trump carried Nye County all three times he ran, with landslide support ranging from 68% to 70%.
“This is a pro-Trump town,” Westerlund said, “and I feel like his policies are doing good for the town.”
Chahal stands ready to cash in, knowing firsthand what economic good times feel like.
The Mizpah hotel, opened in 1908, offers the plushest accommodations in town.
(Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times)
When he moved here in 2014, he and his wife were forced to stay in a motel for six months because workers finishing up a $1 billion solar energy project were taking up most of the living space. That’s the kind of extended-stay guest he’s after, not the tourists bedding at the Mizpah Hotel, the plushest resort in town, with its cut-glass chandeliers, Victorian furnishings and photo gallery of celebrities who’ve stayed the night.
“If I can rent 25 rooms a night, maybe 15 can be for the long term” of several weeks at a time, Chahal said. He’s done the math — $82 a night for a queen bed, single occupancy; $89 for a king — and likes how it pencils out.
::
Chahal came to the U.S. in 2006, after marrying Ravinder, who grew up in the Sacramento area. She had family in Punjab and was a regular visitor to India. The two met when they were 10 years old. Chahal became an American citizen in 2020.
Politically, Indian Americans lean heavily toward the Democratic Party. But in the tiny Nevada communities where the couple lived — Lovelock, Battle Mountain and Ely before Tonopah — there was little or no Indian American presence. So Chahal wasn’t acculturated into the party the way many others have been. Rather, he embraced the GOP gospel of lower taxes and less regulation.
Working seven days a week, Chahal has little time these days for politics, beyond voting. He isn’t particularly ideological or, for that matter, worshipful of Trump.
“Every coin has a head and a tail,” he said, flipping his wrist as though tossing a quarter in the air. He sees two sides to the president. “Maybe you’re angry for some things,” Chahal said. “Maybe you agree with some things.”
He supports the notion of tariffs as a way of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. He also laments that the pizza boxes he uses, which are made in China, once cost him 30 cents and now run almost 67 cents apiece.
He backs Trump’s promise to round up and deport violent criminals who are in the country illegally. But he’s also mindful of the important role immigrants play, especially in areas like farming and construction, in sustaining the U.S. economy.
Living in a town greatly shaped by outside forces — the fluctuation of commodity prices, the changing of presidential administrations, the shifting priorities emanating from Washington — Chahal is familiar with vicissitudes and the business cycles of boom and bust.
Not everything Trump has done has helped the mining industry.
But based on the talk around town, Chahal believes a more prosperous future is in the offing. He certainly hopes so, and he’s counting on the president to deliver.
LAS VEGAS — Retired Air Force Lt. Col. David Flippo has won the Republican primary in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District after securing President Trump’s endorsement in the closing weeks of the campaign.
The race, which was called Wednesday, put Trump opposite Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and retiring Rep. Mark Amodei, who both backed former state Sen. James Settelmeyer. Amodei announced he was retiring after 15 years, opening up a competitive primary for Nevada’s only Republican-held House seat.
Flippo said he will fight “relentlessly” for secure borders, American energy, tax cuts, national defense and “the America First agenda our country needs.”
“Nevada deserves a fighter, and that’s exactly what I will deliver,” he said in a statement.
Democrats had hoped for a Flippo victory, thinking it would make it easier for them to win over less partisan voters in November in the conservative-leaning district. They nominated the chief of staff to state Atty. Gen. Aaron Ford, former majority floor leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson.
“I will ensure that Nevada families have an authentic Nevadan voice fighting for their needs in Washington DC,” Benitez-Thompson said in a Wednesday morning statement.
The 2nd District race is one of several Nevada contests that will be watched closely this year. In southern Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Susie Lee will face Marty O’Donnell, a composer known for writing the soundtrack to the video game “Halo.”
Trump won the 3rd district in 2024 and backed O’Donnell, who thanked Trump in his victory statement.
Tuesday’s primary also set the general election contest for governor, with Ford defeating a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary and moving on to face Gov. Lombardo. The incumbent, a former Clark County sheriff, is running on his record of public safety and job creation while pledging to work on housing affordability in a second term.
Ford is tying Lombardo to Trump in placing blame for soaring prices across the state and has pledged to lower costs for families. He would be the state’s first Black governor if elected in November.
In other races for statewide offices, Republican primaries for attorney general and secretary of state included several candidates who had pushed election conspiracy theories or been skeptical of election operations. Adriana Guzmán Fralick, who has expressed concerns about voting security, won the GOP nomination for attorney general and will face Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro.
The Republican primary for secretary of state, the office that oversees elections, included Jim Marchant, a former state lawmaker who has said the 2020 election “ was probably stolen,” and Sharron Angle, a former state lawmaker who was part of an effort to block the certification of Nevada’s 2020 election results. Another candidate who was competitive in the race, Shirley Folkins-Roberts, is an attorney who has denied that there is widespread voting fraud in Nevada.
In the 2nd District race, Flippo said he understands issues important to the region, including mining, water rights and fuel prices. He sought to turn Settelmeyer’s long political record into a liability, pointing to votes he said did not match conservative values.
He moved to the district this election cycle after losing a race in southern Nevada in 2024. The 2nd District covers all northern Nevada. It mostly rural but includes the major battleground county of Washoe, home to Reno.
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has denied a prosecutor’s appeal of an order that the state’s fake elector case against President Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others over the 2020 presidential election be sent back to a grand jury.
The decision marks another setback for Democratic Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes as she struggles to push the sprawling case through the courts. Mayes’ office said it will again present the case in its entirety to a grand jury rather than end the prosecution.
The ruling came after similar cases in Michigan and Georgia were dismissed by the courts and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Cases related to the fake elector scheme remain in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
A lower-court judge in Phoenix concluded in May that the case’s first grand jury hadn’t been shown the text of the Electoral Count Act, a 19th century law that governs the certification of presidential contests and was invoked by those charged in defending themselves.
Defense lawyers argued the law allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed, though it was amended in 2022 to specify that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that it was the governor who would sign off.
There has been no movement in the Arizona case at the trial court level since mid-May.
Former President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by 10,457 votes.
Nope, it’s not AI. It’s just a really big flag with bright lights, draped on Hoover Dam for the next several weeks.
As a display to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, the states of Nevada and Arizona and the federal Bureau of Reclamation teamed up to hang and illuminate an enormous American flag on the dam on Memorial Day.
The display, scheduled to be in place through July 4, is visible to anyone crossing between Arizona and Nevada on U.S. Route 93, which goes across the top of the dam. The flag is 150 feet tall and 300 feet long, spread on the south-facing side of the dam and lit by 550 LED lights (powered by dam-generated electricity).
A wider view of the illuminated U.S. flag at Hoover Dam.
(Michael Bittle)
It’s a spectacle that comes at a challenging moment for Hoover Dam, as experts warn that Lake Mead’s dwindling water levels could threaten the dam’s ability to generate hydropower. “Slap a flag on it, that’ll fix it,” suggested one of several Reddit commenters who were moved to snarkiness by the flag image.
The dam, a frequent day-trip destination from Las Vegas, stands 35 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, about 295 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The site features a visitor center and overlook, and guided and self-guided tours.
Installation of the display involved dozens of riggers and two cranes. The flag, which is roughly the dimensions of a football field, has been previously used for celebrations at Indianapolis Colts and Las Vegas Raiders football games.
Within two days after it was hung, gusts of wind up to 50 mph prompted organizers to lower the flag last Wednesday as the National Weather Service declared a wind advisory for the area. Organizers raised the flag again late Friday.
Strong winds are not uncommon in the area. Organizers said weather “may periodically require the flag to be temporarily lowered.” Updates on the flag’s status can be found on the Hoover Dam Facebook page.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority paid for the display. A spokeswoman said the cost, including flag, production, installation costs and six weeks of lighting, will be between $750,000 and $1 million.
The dam, a five-year construction job that was completed in 1936 during the depths of the Great Depression, is often hailed as one of the nation’s most impressive works of infrastructure. Though this is not the first time a flag has been draped on it, organizers have called the display “the most ambitious long-duration installation ever attempted at Hoover Dam.”
Once upon a time, Primm, Nev., had three bustling casino resorts, shiny gas stations, a roller coaster and Bonnie and Clyde’s “death car.”
It was a bit surreal, said former visitor John Honell of West Covina: “You had this whole complex in the middle of the desert.”
Southern Californians traveling the arid stretches of the I-15 would see Primm pop up. As he drove to Sin City for bowling tournaments, Honell would stop and “drop a few coins” into the slot machines. It was a gambling oasis — a little less flashy and a little more affordable than Vegas and 45 minutes closer.
“I guess it worked for a while,” said Honell, 85.
But it works no longer. The last of the three casino resorts will close on July 4, owner Affinity Gaming confirmed to The Times this week.
Honell, a regular in the 1970s, saw the growth of a desert gamble: the expansion of the Primm property, in the dusty town once known as State Line, from Whiskey Pete’s gas station, bar and slot machines into three busy resorts.
The Nevada gambling hub south of Las Vegas along the 15 Freeway appears finished, though. Southern Californians who appreciated that it was a shorter drive now can find gambling much closer, at tribal casinos.
David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Primm’s casinos were “built for an entirely different world.”
“Southern California is a huge market for Las Vegas and, in particular, it was once very attractive for those in the Inland Empire,” Schwartz said. “It was a way to trim 45 minutes off the drive — it was a 2-hour drive. It’s different math.”
Lights still glow on the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino sign on Sunday, July 6, 2025 in Primm, NV. (Bridget Bennett / For The Times)
(Bridget Bennett/For The Times)
Primm was once one of Nevada’s more popular gambling resorts, a less expensive, slightly more kitschy alternative to Las Vegas that benefited from being closer than Sin City.
Primm Valley, Whiskey Pete’s and Buffalo Bill’s all hosted at one time the famed Bonnie and Clyde V-8 Ford riddled with more than 100 bullets in 1934.
Whiskey Pete’s offered a quick and affordable 24-hour IHOP, in comparison to Vegas’ pricier buffets, and Californians and Nevadans visited Primm Valley’s 100-store outlet mall, supported by shoppers who were brought by bus to the mall for free.
Buffalo Bill’s was the biggest of the trio, boasting a buffalo-shaped pool and 592 rooms at its opening (the Bellagio has nearly 4,000 rooms) and eventually expanding to 1,242 rooms.
Buffalo Bill’s and its sister resorts closed in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, reopening between December 2022 and 2023. But they struggled to attract customers.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic hurt all Nevada casinos, that was only part of the reason for Primm’s decline. Schwartz said tribal casinos in Southern California saw their prospects soar as Primm’s hotels teeter-tottered.
“Many of those people Primm was drawing from began to stay in Southern California, where the drives are just much shorter and the amenities much closer,” Schwartz said. “You see the same issue playing out at Laughlin along the Arizona border and Reno and Tahoe in Northern California.”
Shortly after Proposition 1-A’s passage, San Manuel was one of several tribal casinos in San Bernardino and Riverside counties that declared an arms race with Nevada.
Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, run by the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, opened in December 2004. The tribe was the fourth between 2002 and 2004 to open or expand its operations, including Agua Caliente in Palm Springs, Morongo in Cabazon and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Temecula.
Most of these casinos have continued to build and expand their operations as revenue has continued to flow.
The Southern California tribal resorts are classified by the National Indian Gaming Commission, a gaming regulatory body, to be in the Sacramento region, which includes all resorts in California and Northern Nevada.
Ten years later, 87 tribal operations throughout two states combined for $12.1 billion, marking a modest 1.4% increase from 2023.
Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, run by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, sits in Highland, about 200 miles from Primm but less than half that distance from downtown L.A.
Yaamava’ completed a $760-million expansion in 2021, which added a 17-floor tower, three bars and about 1,700 new slots.
