It is hoped that the ruling in Groff will encourage more employers to adopt inclusive workplace policies so that religious employees can practice their faith without compromising their livelihood.

Below are excerpts from the new chapters in the 2024 Almanac on the state of Nevada and Gov. Joe Lombardo, written by Louis Jacobson.

In January, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s second-ever executive order called on the state’s Department of Administration to devise a plan to pull state workers out of work-from-home and back to “pre-pandemic, normal and customary office conditions” by July 1. 

For the second consecutive year, Amazon ranks as the company with the most employees and dependents on Medicaid in Nevada, according to a new state report. 

The Omicron variant has out-competed the Delta variant as the predominant circulating strain in the United States. Nevada health officials expect the same pattern to occur in the coming weeks.

Major tech companies, from food delivery platforms Grubhub and DoorDash to online marketplaces Amazon and eBay, are pushing back on two measures introduced by Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) that would strengthen state regulation of online business.

The number of Nevada Amazon employees and dependents on Medicaid nearly doubled year over year, increasing from 4,040 to 7,892, despite statements on the company’s website that they offer medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage to all of their employees, regardless of their level or position.

Drew Cohen, a co-owner of the independent bookstore, said he and his husband Scott Seeley decided to move to only online orders after "a few awkward days" of watching customers wander through the store, "touching everything in sight." Since then, he estimated the store has gone from receiving one or two website orders a week to anywhere from 20 to 40 orders per day.

After blurring the line between a private and public utility for nearly two decades, the water district that serves the world’s largest industrial park is looking to part ways with a developer. Those actions come after The Nevada Independent reported this month that the public water district, with the governmental power to seize private property, is operated by a private entity.

Documents, election records and interviews show an insular county gave a private water company controlled by the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) the power of a public entity. The deal reflects greater tensions about whether certain companies are benefiting from the region’s rapid growth and which politicians have given them an upper hand.

Through the third quarter of 2019, more than $1.9 million filled the campaign coffers of nearly a dozen candidates across Nevada’s four congressional districts, according to filings made this week with the Federal Election Commission.

Earlier this week, the Washoe County School District sent out passionate, almost blubbering apology, and no one knew what it was for.

In 2018, the state reported that 1,024 of the company’s employees were earning full-time wages and 1,116 of their dependents were on Medicaid — the state-run health insurance program for low-income Nevadans — at a cost of upwards of $5.7 million a year to taxpayers. (Those numbers include any employees who worked full-time for Sutherland as well as those who made the equivalent of full-time wages but may have split their time between Sutherland and another company.)