Sleeping on a sidewalk or in a vehicle on public property is now a criminal misdemeanor in Sparks after the city council voted unanimously Monday to approve an ordinance change. 

The two largest cities in Nevada are trying to overturn court decisions that said sweeping people from an encampment when there is no room at local shelters “cruel and unusual.”

Ford said he has five priority areas — called the “Five Cs” — to support that justice focus, including constitutional rights, criminal justice reform, consumer protection, client service and community engagement.

Black’s entrance into the race is likely to shake up what was once considered a cakewalk to the nomination for Chattah, an Israeli-born Las Vegas attorney best known for leading lawsuits challenging COVID restrictions. 

The new boundaries would give 14 of the 21 state Senate districts and 27 of the 42 Assembly districts a voter registration advantage for Democrats over Republicans of more than 4.5 percent.

Aaron Ford will serve alongside DAGA’s current co-chair, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, in the group dedicated to supporting Democratic Party candidates in attorney general races across the nation. The group helps fund Democratic candidates and also runs independent ads, including in Ford’s narrow 2018 victory over Republican challenger Wes Duncan.

Nevada has increasingly been thought of as a blue state, and even Washoe County has swung bluer than it has in a long time in recent years. But Republicans and Democrats alike are taking Washoe County seriously this year.

Incumbents Donald Abbott in Ward 1 and Paul Anderson in Ward 3 have had a considerable lead in cash on hand since the cycle started and point to their primary wins as a sign of support from voters. Meanwhile, challengers Wendy Stolyarov in Ward 1 and Quentin Smith in Ward 3 have characterized the incumbents as disconnected from their respective wards and argue that they would be better representatives on the council.

A three-justice panel of the state’s Supreme Court issued the ruling on Thursday, affirming a lower court’s decision to keep confidential body camera footage of an event involving Ford in November 2017 and requested by the Republican Attorney Generals Association (RAGA), which opposed the Democrat during the 2018 election.

Records offer a glimpse of the challenges that will lie ahead as Nevada once again overhauls its marijuana regulation next year and adopts an oversight regime not unlike the one that reined casinos into a respected mainstream.

An email sent Thursday afternoon entitled “I need to be honest with you” and “signed” by Ford’s chief of staff Jessica Adair makes a typical campaign fundraising pitch, highlighting the attorney general’s actions since taking office, including joining an antitrust case against Google and fought the Trump administration on DACA, saying it’s made him a “top target for Republicans.”

A few weeks ago, as revelations that two political candidates in 2018 were given large donations by foreign nationals in an amateurish attempt to secure lucrative marijuana sales licenses came to light, Gov. Sisolak expressed his outrage.

A Russian businessman with ties to a man indicted earlier this month as part of a scheme to open a pot dispensary and influence Nevada politics set up a company in the state earlier this year.

So far, Adam Laxalt has been Sgt. Schultz on his contacts with two Soviet-born men indicted earlier this month, one who gave him a $10,000 campaign donation.

Few who are trying to keep up with the plot twists in the state’s nascent marijuana industry were surprised when embattled Nevada Department of Taxation official Jorge Pupo was placed on leave last month and then later terminated.

Department of Taxation spokeswoman Eden Larson confirmed to The Nevada Independent late Tuesday that department records did not show any contact with Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, the four men named in the indictment who hatched a plot in 2018 that included giving campaign contributions — funded by a Russian national — to Nevada political candidates.

I asked Danny Tarkanian why two of the indicted Rudy Giuliani associates were at his campaign event last year and why he posed with them for that picture (above).

Two men indicted this week along with a couple of Rudy Giuliani associates set up a business last year in Nevada around the same time prosecutors allege the quartet was trying to secure a pot dispensary license.

The Russian citizen and four defendants met in September to discuss the venture but later realized they missed an early September deadline to apply for one of 61 dispensary licenses that were eventually awarded. One defendant said that the group was “2 months too late to the game unless we change the rules,” and said they needed a sympathetic governor who would give the “green light to implement this,” the complaint says.

Two businessmen born in Eastern Europe have been indicted on charges that they lied to the federal government to make large contributions to candidates — including Republican gubernatorial hopeful Adam Laxalt — in a failed attempt to advance the political interests of Ukraine and win a recreational marijuana business license in Nevada.