Author

April Corbin Girnus

April Corbin Girnus

April Corbin Girnus is an award-winning journalist with a decade of media experience. A stickler about municipal boundary lines, April enjoys teaching people about unincorporated Clark County. She grew up in Sunrise Manor and currently resides in Paradise with her husband, three children and one mutt.

empty tables at Big B's Texas BBQ

With little relief in sight, small business owners wait in limbo

By: - March 18, 2020

The employees at Big B’s Texas BBQ had been wiping down every hard surface in the restaurant every 30 minutes. After every customer, they were cleaning and re-cleaning. Their cashier was wearing and changing gloves regularly. The picnic tables that make up the seating in their dining area were already spaced out, but they considered […]

closed

Reno to shut down bars, nightclubs, gyms and restaurants to combat coronavirus

By: and - March 16, 2020

In an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, Reno is shutting down bars, nightclub, gyms and restaurants, Mayor Hillary Schieve announced Monday. In an afternoon press conference, the mayor phrased the effort as a shutdown of “non-essential” businesses and said grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and medical would remain open. Later, the city issued […]

lonely at csn

NSHE bumps up deadline for moving all public colleges online

By: - March 16, 2020

The Nevada System of Higher Education has directed its eight institutions to make the switch to online or remote learning “at the earliest possible opportunity but under no circumstances later than March 18.” The direction, which was sent from NSHE Chancellor Thom Reilly to the state’s public college and university presidents on Sunday, bumped the […]

empty classroom

What funds education in Nevada? Mostly sales tax.

By: - March 12, 2020

Nevada relies heavily on regressive sales tax to fund its K-12 education system, a new report makes clear. The Nevada Legislature last year passed an 11th hour bill to revamp the decades-old funding formula for K-12 education. The existing funding formula — called the Nevada Plan — can only be described as labyrinthian. It was […]

no income tax tho!

Citing decades of neglect, education advocates turn to courts for action

By: - March 5, 2020

Education advocates on Wednesday filed a lawsuit asking a district court to declare Nevada’s K-12 education system unconstitutional, arguing that decades of financial neglect by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have led to a dearth of public school resources so severe that lawmakers cannot be trusted to fix it without being legally compelled […]

no lights

3 out of 4 drivers fail to yield to pedestrians

By: - February 27, 2020

Drivers must yield to pedestrians trying to cross the road at marked crosswalks. That’s the law. Most drivers don’t follow it. And drivers of expensive cars are even less likely to. That’s the takeaway from public health researchers at UNLV who observed hundreds of drivers at two marked crosswalks in Southern Nevada and documented whether […]

e-cig vaping

Nevada joins multistate investigation into JUUL’s marketing

By: - February 25, 2020

Attorney General Aaron Ford on Tuesday announced Nevada has signed onto a bipartisan, multistate investigation into the vaping company JUUL Labs. Thirty-eight other states — including Connecticut, Florida, Oregon and Texas — have signed onto an investigation of JUUL’s marketing and sales practices, including targeting of youth, claims regarding nicotine content, and statements regarding risks, […]

none

Nevada presidential debate focuses on health care and campaign culture

By: and - February 20, 2020

The issue of health care — specifically, the issue of why the richest country in the world has not figured out a way for every citizen to be covered — has commanded significant airtime during previous Democratic presidential debates. Wednesday night’s debate at Paris Las Vegas was no different. The debate featured Sen. Bernie Sanders, […]

Moapa River Indian Reservation community engagement meeting

Parents express frustration over CCSD structure, funding of Indian Education

By: - February 19, 2020

Parents are mobilizing in an effort to increase resources for indigenous students in Clark County School District after a meeting earlier this month with school board trustees and the superintendent left them feeling their concerns are being brushed aside. Mercedes Krause says she and other parents of indigenous students are trying to make the case […]

sample caucus preference card

26,000 Nevadans participated in first two days of early caucus

By: - February 17, 2020

The Nevada Democratic Party announced via a tweet that more than 26,000 voters participated in the first two days of early voting. The party also noted that 56 percent of voters on Saturday were first time caucusgoers. Late Sunday afternoon, the party announced more than 18,500 participated on the first day. There are more than […]

Mark Modrcin

Pro-virtual school group takes charter authority to court over public records

By: - February 13, 2020

The war between brick-and-mortar and virtual charter schools has many battlefields. One of those battlefields is the courtroom, and Carson City District Court on Wednesday awarded a small victory to advocates of virtual charter schools. The judge ruled that the National Coalition for Public School Options, an organization whose primary focus appears to be advocating […]

cultural appropriation

Forum highlights pain caused by cultural appropriation in festivals

By: - February 5, 2020

When Fawn Douglas saw a website promoting an event entitled Las Vegas Tribal Gathering, she had two thoughts: Enough was enough. She had to do something. She says for years she overlooked local instances of cultural appropriation from people she felt were kind-hearted but ignorant about the ways in which they were insulting Indigenous Americans […]