Author

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.
Recession or not, Nevada and Gov.-elect Lombardo are primed for a bigger budget
By: April Corbin Girnus - December 6, 2022
Nevada is expecting to collect $11.4 billion in tax revenue over the next two fiscal years. The Economic Forum, a five-member panel of private sector fiscal analysts, on Monday approved the forecast for the 2023-25 fiscal biennium, which begins July 2023 and runs through June 2025. The forecast provides the base for the governor’s executive […]
Some fun, and not so fun, facts about Nevada from a ranking of the best states for business
By: April Corbin Girnus - December 1, 2022
How friendly to businesses is Nevada? If you ask Forbes Advisor, which on Wednesday released a ranking of the best and worst places to start a business, the answer is: Not very friendly. Forbes Advisor, a site that offers personal finance advice and reviews, looked at 18 metrics across five categories: business costs, business […]
Lombardo names Kieckhefer chief of staff
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 28, 2022
Nevada Gaming Commissioner Ben Kieckhefer will be chief of staff for the Joe Lombardo administration, the governor-elect announced Monday. Kieckhefer, a Republican, served in the Nevada State Senate from 2011 until fall of 2021 when he resigned and was appointed to the Nevada Gaming Commission by Gov. Steve Sisolak. His district covered Carson City and […]
Survey says: Nevadans are happy, but not super satisfied?
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 28, 2022
Today was a good day. Nevadans are more likely to agree with that sentiment than residents of almost any other state, according to a new nationwide survey that asked people about their overall happiness, anxiety and life satisfaction. Gross National Happiness USA, a nonprofit that describes its focus as “changing the definition of progress and […]
Proposal to allow city-based school districts gets one step closer to reality
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 23, 2022
A proposed law that would open the door for breaking up the Clark County School District met a key state deadline Wednesday, with backers saying they submitted more than 220,000 signatures to qualify a statutory initiative for consideration by the state legislature in 2023 or voters in 2024. Community Schools Initiative is proposing changing Nevada […]
Democrats expand hold in Nevada Legislature, but will fall short of veto power over Lombardo
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 17, 2022
Republican Gov.-elect Joe Lombardo has promised to bring back school voucher programs and eliminate “soft on crime” laws. But his ability to implement right of center policies are likely to be handicapped by the Nevada State Legislature, which assuming unofficial results hold, will be solidly controlled by Democrats. Going into this year’s midterms, Democrats held […]
Talk of recession lingers as fiscal analysts prepare to set Nevada state budget
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 15, 2022
Fiscal analysts are cautiously optimistic about Nevada’s economic future, even amid nationwide chatter about the possibility of a recession. Emily Mandel, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the U.S. economy is slowing after a stronger-than-expected recovery from the pandemic but is “clearly not in a recession yet” and that it is “far from certain” that […]
With Cortez Masto’s victory, Democrats retain control of U.S. Senate
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 12, 2022
In a nailbiter watched all over the country, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto prevailed over challenger Republican Adam Laxalt and secured Democratic control of the U.S. Senate in the process. Cortez Masto was considered by many to be one of the most vulnerable U.S. senators up for reelection this year, and polls throughout the election […]
After backing Dems in other statewide races, Nevada voters elect Lombardo over Sisolak
By: April Corbin Girnus and Dana Gentry - November 11, 2022
Nevada Democrat Steve Sisolak will be a one-term governor, unofficial results now show. Sisolak is on track to be defeated by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. Sisolak was trailing Lombardo by 2.2 points – roughly 21,000 votes — on Friday. “While votes are still coming in – and we need every ballot tallied and every […]
Question 3: Election reform proposal ekes out victory, will return in 2024
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 11, 2022
Nevada voters have signaled they are open to changing the way they elect politicians. Unofficial election results have Question 3, which proposes a new voting system that uses open primaries and ranked choice voting, leading with 52.5% support, or roughly 45,000 raw votes, as of Friday. Although there are still ballots awaiting counting, Question 3 […]
Nevada sheds two-tiered minimum wage, puts $12 per hour floor in constitution
By: April Corbin Girnus - November 11, 2022
Nevada’s unusual minimum wage system will soon be a thing of the past, unofficial election results show. As of Friday, the Nevada secretary of state was reporting that 54% of voters approved Question 2, which sets the state minimum wage at $12 per hour for all employees and removes a provision that allows employers to […]
Tens of thousands of still uncounted ballots could reverse current Republican leads
By: Camalot Todd and April Corbin Girnus - November 10, 2022
59,600 – that’s how many ballots were placed in drop boxes in Clark County on Election Day, officials announced Wednesday. Earlier Wednesday, county officials said nearly 15,000 mail-in ballots had been dropped off by voters prior to Election Day, and another nearly 13,000 had been delivered by the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday. USPS delivered […]