A pedestrian was killed in a fatal crash on Interstate 15 just north of Washington Avenue in Las Vegas on Friday night, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

The crash, which happened just before 9:30 p.m. Friday, involved a pickup truck and a pedestrian the Highway Patrol’s trooper Shawn Haggstrom said in an email. The pedestrian, who was identified as a man, was confirmed dead at the scene.

The driver of the pickup truck stayed at the scene and was cooperating with investigators, the Highway Patrol said.

The crash has closed down all travel lanes of the northbound I-15 at Washington. The Interstate 11 ramp to the I-15 is also closed, Haggstrom said. All northbound I-15 traffic was being diverted off at the D Street off-ramp.

It wasn’t known how long the closures would last, Haggstrom said.

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — The chief global affairs officer of OpenAI visited the College of Southern Nevada Friday to connect with students and local leaders on the future of artificial intelligence.

Chris Lehane joined lawmakers on stage at CSN, speaking to students about AI’s growing impact.

“Right now, we are in a moment of transition,” Lehane said. “Today in the world, there’s nearly a billion people who use chat on a regular basis. Here in Nevada, it’s almost a million people who use it on a regular basis.”

Lehane said the technology creates economic opportunities by lowering barriers to entry.

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“We need to get these tools into all of your hands, and we need to work to teach you how to use it, because it lowers barriers to entry and produces incredible economic opportunity,” he said.

AI development in Nevada

Lehane said there are about 4,900 developers in Nevada building businesses using AI technology.

CSN began offering an artificial intelligence certificate and degree program last fall to keep up with job market demands.

Throughout the day Friday, OpenAI hosted training sessions designed to help faculty, students and small businesses learn how to use AI tools like ChatGPT. The goal is to grow and scale the partnership between the school and the AI company in the months ahead.

Local author releases AI book

Las Vegas-based author Michael Schrenk has been building computer systems since the 1970s and just wrote a book called “Structured Prompts” to teach people how to speak to AI.

“When most of us start using chat bots, we’re encouraged to use just plain normal English,” Schrenk said. “There are limitations with that. The limitations are that English is very nuanced.”

Schrenk said an economy built on service workers like Las Vegas is less vulnerable to losing jobs to AI.

“Most of the things you do on the Strip or wherever, you’re interacting with a person,” he said. “And in most of those cases, I don’t think it’d be possible to interface… with a machine, nor do I think people would want to… AI can’t clean your hotel room.”

Data center concerns

Schrenk also spoke about AI data centers and the push to build them across the country to service growing demand, including a proposal to build one in Boulder City.

“The reality is that nobody wants a data center in their backyard,” he said. “They’re noisy. They take a lot of power, so they’re going to raise everybody’s utility rates. Plus, they take up a lot of space, but they don’t employ a lot of people.”

Schrenk predicts about half of proposed data centers are already not going to be built, and suspects fewer will be built in the future.

A group of Henderson licensed mental health professionals has become the first dedicated response team in Nevada that can be dispatched through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline as part of a pilot program, the city announced this week.

Lisa Kelso, a licensed clinical supervisor for the city’s Crisis Response Team, said during Tuesday’s Henderson City Council meeting that the unit, made up of licensed clinicians and licensed social workers, launched in July 2025 and works with the city’s police and fire departments to be dispatched automatically after officials receive a behavioral health-related 911 call.

From last July until December, Kelso said the city received about 1,700 calls related to behavioral health.

“On scene, our licensed mental health clinicians can complete assessments and provide treatment recommendations,” Kelso said Tuesday. “We work to connect to the individual to the right level of service.”

City official: 988 model reduces strain on 911

Kelso said a formal partnership with the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health is still being finalized, but the goal is to begin dispatching the Crisis Response Team in Henderson through 988 later this year. She noted that Nevada currently has just two 988 call centers, one in the northern part of the state and another in Southern Nevada.

According to a Wednesday news release from the city, expansion of the 988 program — which launched nationally in 2022 — seeks to make support immediately available during mental health or substance use emergencies.

Nationally, Kelso said, an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent of all 911 calls are related to behavioral health and that less than 2 percent of calls to 988 have required law enforcement intervention. Hayley Jarolimek, a licensed social worker and director of Henderson’s Department of Community and Neighborhood Programs, told City Council members on Tuesday that older approaches to mental health crises have traditionally resulted in high incarceration rates for those with mental illness and have strained care systems.

Jarolimek said the 988 model reduces pressure on emergency services like 911 and allows law enforcement and firefighters to respond to service requests that align more with their missions.

State developing certification process

Henderson’s Crisis Response Team is able to dedicate professionals to provide immediate support by telephone, text or chat in English and Spanish, as well as provide personnel to respond on-site to de-escalate crises and connect people in need to treatment and support resources to stabilize them during times of crisis, Jarolimek said.

“This framework is designed to prevent the criminalization of mental illness and to enhance collaboration between the justice system and the behavioral health systems,” Jarolimek said. “It identifies critical intercept points where interventions can prevent further involvement into the criminal justice system.”

In an email Thursday, Jesse Stone, a spokesperson for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, thanked Henderson for its participation in the pilot project. Stone said the division is developing regulations that will allow certified mobile crisis teams be dispatched through 988.

“The initial pilot project is the first stage of a larger effort from DPBH that would allow any mobile crisis team across the state, in any municipality, to be dispatched from 988 after meeting minimum standards to receive a Behavioral Health Certification of Excellence,” Stone said.

Those regulations, Stone said, are tentatively expected to go into effect in 2027.

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on X @Casey_Harrison1.