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Jim Hindle, the Storey County clerk, is among six Republicans indicted in Nevada for allegedly submitting a false certificate to Congress that declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential election in Nevada.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has now appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court to uphold these indictments. Similar criminal cases have also been brought in Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona.

Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus recently issued a written order affirming her ruling that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case, leading to the dismissal of charges. In response, Ford’s office confirmed that they had formally filed an appeal shortly after the judge’s written order, expressing confidence in their case and intent to hold the individuals accountable for their actions.

The other indicted individuals include state GOP chairman Michael McDonald, Clark County GOP chairman Jesse Law, national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid, national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan, and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. They were indicted by a grand jury in Las Vegas last December, just before the three-year statute of limitations expired, each facing charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, felonies carrying penalties of up to four or five years in prison.

The defense argued that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas rather than Northern Nevada, where the alleged crimes took place. Meanwhile, AG’s office contends that no single county encompassed the entirety of these crimes.

As of now, it remains unclear whether oral arguments are scheduled before the Nevada Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the fate of the so-called fake electors hangs in the balance.

Nevada election officials confirmed on Friday, July 26, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign has enough signatures to appear on the Nevada ballot in November.

Last month, state and national Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging Kennedy Jr.’s standing on the Nevada ballot as an independent, citing his affiliations with political parties in other states. The verified signatures were part of a petition that Kennedy Jr.’s campaign submitted after Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s office clarified guidance that would likely nullify his original petition due to the absence of a listed running mate.

The campaign filed a lawsuit against Aguilar’s office regarding the state requirement that independent candidates must name their running mate before they start gathering signatures. The campaign said it received approval from Aguilar’s office in January to collect the required signatures without listing a vice-presidential selection.

Aguilar’s office stated that Kennedy’s campaign received the Nevada guidelines “well in advance of the deadline to submit signatures.”

In late March, Kennedy Jr. chose California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

State and county election officials verified over 22,000 signatures on the new petition, significantly surpassing the requirement of just over 10,000. Critics argued it was more than a coincidence that Nevada allowed Kennedy on the ballot after President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race.

Developers looking to capitalize on the rush for renewable energy across Nevada. Conservationists rally around those same untouched parcels, often home to desert tortoise, bi-state sage grouse, and other threatened species.

The developers and conservationists repeatedly butt heads on the same issue: where should clean energy infrastructure be built?

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates a land area equivalent to 0.5 percent of the country is needed to develop the resources to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A 2023 report by the Nature Conservancy found that under current wind and solar development practices, generating that much power would require an area larger than Texas — roughly seven percent of the U.S. land mass.

With more than 170 active applications for renewable energy projects in Nevada, prospective developers continue looking to greenfields — untouched land they can start fresh on, building supersized projects as they see fit — to meet those needs. However, according to the Nature Conservancy and other environmental groups such as the Nevada Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society, developers should instead be looking to brownfields — previously disturbed areas such as old mines, landfills, and former industrial sites, often with electric lines and other infrastructure already in place.

According to the Nature Conservancy, nearly 400,000 acres in Nevada are already damaged through development and extraction and are suitable for renewable energy development. These sites are of adequate size and close to transmission lines and substations.

“There are so many opportunities if we open our minds to building in our developed spaces,” said Jaina Moan, external affairs director for the Nevada arm of the Nature Conservancy. “There’s a whole world of rethinking how we use our spaces that can be really valid contributors to our energy planning.”

Potential sites identified by the Nature Conservancy range from the defunct Anaconda Copper Mine in Yerington to the closed Sunrise Landfill outside Las Vegas. Moan says the focus is on advancing policy changes to incentivize and prioritize development and getting developers and utilities on board.

The sites are often incompatible with the competing goals of deploying clean energy quickly, affordably, and efficiently and “are unlikely to represent a substantial share of future solar generation,” according to the American Clean Power Association.

There are concerns about liability for cleanup costs. Required environmental assessments and agency oversight can add time and work.

Remediation is often needed.

“The perception is it’s easier to develop on a greenfield,” said Kerry Rohrmeir, Nevada climate and energy strategy program director for the Nature Conservancy and former business management developer at a Nevada-based geothermal company. “But if you consider legal actions and litigation, then development on a greenfield is no longer a way to develop energy quickly.”

Redevelopment of brownfields in urban areas has been happening for decades. Working with the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Henderson redeveloped a former gravel mine with groundwater and surface water contamination into Cornerstone Park, complete with sports courts, picnic areas, and walking trails.

In 2000, Las Vegas purchased Symphony Park, a former Union Pacific Railroad fueling and maintenance yard once contaminated by petroleum, solvents, and metals, to convert it into a mixed-use development. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded Nevada $4.5 million to expedite the assessment and cleanup of brownfields, including $2 million for work at Symphony Park.

The redevelopment of larger, more rural brownfields has not caught on in the same way, despite the Nature Conservancy report identifying roughly 400,000 acres of brownfields across Nevada suitable for redevelopment.

In Lincoln County, the Nature Conservancy is working with other groups and local officials to explore the possibility of developing two megawatts of solar energy at the former Caselton Mine and Mill. If the project comes to fruition, it will join the handful of successfully redeveloped brownfields to produce renewable energy in the state, such as the 14-megawatt solar field on 140 acres at Nellis Air Force Base.

In June, Arevia Power and NV Energy entered a power purchase agreement to build the state’s largest solar energy and battery storage facility. The 700-megawatt Libra Project will have a 700 MW battery storage system spread across more than 5,100 acres in Lyon and Mineral counties, and the proposed Samantha Solar Project outside Ely would generate up to 600 MW of power from 2,900 acres.

The Nature Conservancy acknowledges that brownfields cannot account for all renewable energy needs to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the internationally agreed-upon date by which emissions need to reach net-zero worldwide to halt ongoing climate damage.

In 2019, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill directing the state to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero by 2050.

“Brownfield sites aren’t that big, but they can really serve as good community projects,” Moan said. “Even though these aren’t huge economies of scale, they can fit into our energy mix.”

She lauded NV Energy’s recent conversion of a portion of the former coal-powered Reid Gardner Power Station to a battery storage facility that can store as much as 220 MW of power. Earlier this year, Nevada Gold Mines received $95 million in federal funding to develop solar and battery storage systems at three of its active mine sites in Elko, Humboldt, and Eureka counties.

The projects are the first combination of utility-scale solar and mining in the state, said Amanda Hilton, president of the Nevada Mining Association.

The state’s environmental protection division has made renewable energy development on brownfields a priority for more than a decade, Jenny Jackson, state public information officer, said in an email. In 2013, the state partnered with the Rural Desert Southwest Brownfields Coalition to develop a database of brownfield sites with potential for redevelopment, in part to assist with new transmission line planning and siting of renewable energy projects.

But earlier this year, when the Bureau of Land Management released a draft of its updated plan guiding solar development across multiple Western states including Nevada — where the federal government owns huge swaths of land — the agency prioritized potential placement of solar projects along proposed and current transmission line corridors rather than siting them on previously disturbed lands.

In 2018, the Nature Conservancy and the Nevada Mining Association proposed and helped pass a state regulatory change to make solar arrays an option for cleaning up old mine sites, a move Moan describes as “successful.”

“We think the regulatory change helped socialize the concept and pique interest,” Moan said. “Now, we would like to work with lawmakers to incentivize and prioritize alternative energy development on old mine lands and brownfield sites and for these sites to be included as part of energy, electrification, and transmission plans in Nevada counties, tribal nations, and across the state.”

However, Moan said, getting lawmakers and permitting agencies to think about ways to use brownfields is needed to spur policy changes that incentivize and prioritize their development.

A fatal crash in Fernley closed both directions of US50 Alt at Mile Marker 10 on Wednesday, July 24.

According to the Nevada State Police (NSP), preliminary information indicates that the crash involved four vehicles—three cars and a semi-truck. The incident occurred when one vehicle attempted to pass the semi-truck unsafely, leading to a collision. One person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two days prior, on Monday, July 22, another fatal crash on westbound US50 Alt., resulted in the closure of all lanes near Inglewood Drive in Fernley. Details on this crash, including the identities of the dead, have not been released by the NSP.

The NSP continues to investigate both incidents.

Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation plans to raise $400,000 through 20,000,000 units at two cents per unit.

Each unit is one common share of the company and one-half of one non-transferable common share purchase warrant. Each warrant will be exercisable to purchase one common share at five cents per share for three years from the closing date of the offering.

Proceeds from the offering will go towards exploration, general working capital, and a payment of $80,000 related to the Nev-Lorraine property. Recently, Abacus acquired the Willow copper-molybdenum property and holds a lease on the adjacent Nev-Lorraine copper-molybdenum property near Yerington.

The financing is subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

State election directors and politicians from across the country, including those from Nevada, expressed serious concerns to a top U.S. Postal Service official on Tuesday, July 23, about the system’s ability to handle the anticipated surge of mail-in ballots for the November election.

Steven Carter, manager of election and government programs for the USPS, tried to reassure the directors at a meeting in Minneapolis that the system’s Office of Inspector General will publish an election mail report next week containing “encouraging” performance numbers for this year.

“The data that we’re seeing shows improvements in the right direction,” Carter told the Conference of the National Association of State Election Directors. “I think the OIG report is especially complimentary of how we’re handling the election now.”

Earlier this year, the USPS announced plans to cease processing and delivering operations in Reno, moving them to Sacramento, California. The change, affecting mail from several Nevada counties, including Storey and Lyon, is projected to save between $3.1 million and $4.2 million annually.

Governor Joe Lombardo, Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, and Representative Mark Amodei have confronted Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about the move, highlighting concerns over job losses and potential weather-related delays in ballot processing.

DeJoy has defended the change, claiming his “Delivering for America” plan will enhance efficiency and make the postal service operate more like a private business. However, he has not provided evidence to support his claims that service in Nevada will improve at a lower cost.

State election directors remain worried that many ballots won’t be delivered in time to be counted, citing past issues and disruptions from postal facility consolidations. Monica Evans, executive director of the District of Columbia Board of Elections, shared her experience of not receiving her mail ballot for the June primary, forcing her to vote in person.

“We had, at last count, over 80 ballots that were timely mailed as early as May for our June 4 primary election,” Evans said. “We followed up and we just kept getting, ‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know what happened.’”

Mail-in voting has become a crucial strategy for both parties in maximizing voter turnout for the 2024 election. Now, even Republicans see it as essential for an election likely to be decided by slim margins in swing states.

Bryan Caskey, elections director for Kansas, emphasized the potential impact of delivery delays, even in a jurisdiction with a 95% on-time rate. “That still means that in the state that sends out 100,000 ballots, that’s 5,000 angry voters mad about the mail service,” Caskey said.

Mandy Vigil, president of the National Association of State Election Directors and elections director for New Mexico, appreciated the engagement from USPS but remains concerned about the lack of timely changes.

“We need them to pay attention,” Vigil said. “We’ve been voicing our concerns since last November. But we just aren’t seeing the changes as we’re working through our primary elections.”

Nineteen senators recently wrote to DeJoy about the USPS’s plans for the 2024 election cycle, citing issues from past consolidations. Despite pausing these consolidations until January 2025, lawmakers demand assurances that their resumption won’t lead to further delays in mail delivery.

On my way out of Dayton township and up Six Mile Canyon, and as I drove through the community of Mark Twain, my cell phone suddenly blew up, dinging and dinging until I had to stop and look at it to see what was happening.

“What the hell,” I said.

No, I was not fortunate enough to finally have one of my social media posts go viral. What I did find were thousands of hateful messages sent to me through my several social media apps, which are all connected to Virginia City, Nevada.

That became the start of a week-long slog through a story about alleged racial comments and how social media played a part in taking an isolated incident and turning it into an international news story. But that I left for my news article, published a week later, on Friday, August 9.

In between this, I looked around the Internet and found connections to the situation, with activities that created a broader picture bordering on conspiracy. And yes, I admit that the things I am about to write are mere speculation and not fact-based.

Not until I got home that first Friday would I start to understand why my cell phone had started dinging and was still dinging. Someone in Virginia City stood accused of racist remarks, posted on TikTok for all the world to view.

After watching the five-minute-six-second video upload, I came away with a slightly different take. Yet, being a news reporter, I kept my opinion to myself and worked hard to write an exacting article for my employer.

Setting that aside, I remembered other incidents I had seen in the recent news cycle and recalled the cancellation of a historical event for the weekend in Virginia City. I saw a far-reaching picture once I connected everything.

Before the racial incident, the Rev. Al Sharpton sent a letter to Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, inciting him to investigate former Ahern Rentals owner and CEO and Trump supporter Don Ahern for making racial remarks, calling a truck driver the N-word.

Having watched the TikTok video several times, it seemed all too familiar.

Then, I saw a comment on the TikTok video that said, “And did you notice the silver nooses?”

I returned to the video in question and could not find the frame in which this reported image appeared.

“Okay, so someone knows something about the town, but not the history,” I jotted down in my notes.

For the great unwashed, the silver noose lapel pin, made of silver still being removed from the Comstock Lode, is the symbol used by the cowboy and western reenactment outfit, the 601 Vigilante Group. They dress up on holidays and most weekends to wander about the town as 19th-century characters and unofficial docents.

Then, I began looking at the thousands of comments I had received. Not only did they come at a breakneck speed, but much of the language, syntax, and the myriad of spelling errors seem the same.

Ah, ha — spamming via artificial intelligence. So, good luck tracking down the threats of violence and personal harm.

Then, the annual Virginia City Civil War Days ended up getting canceled. The event had become too politically insensitive after what had happened the weekend before.

Finally, you can see what I am postulating is a conspiracy to develop distrust, divide by racial foment, and separate us from our state’s proud history of having helped save the Union within the 15 rural counties in Nevada, the same ones that generally and historically vote Republican. We’ll know I am right should this happen again in another little Nevada burg.

As a side note, in self-defense, I deleted most of my multiple apps after running out of steam trying to outpace the little nasties I was getting. Right now, I am enjoying life without the buggers, and I’m contemplating never reinstalling the damned things.

It is now time to retrieve a beer from the fridge, grab a seat at the mouth of my open garage, and watch the world go by.

Reports have surfaced suggesting that President Joe Biden suffered a severe fall during a recent visit to Las Vegas. The incident took place at Lindo Michocan, a well-known local Mexican restaurant, where Biden is said to have fallen and severely hit his head.

Eyewitnesses described the president as looking “real bad” after the fall, with some sources going so far as to say he appeared to be on “death’s doorstep.”

According to these accounts, Biden was initially en route to the University Medical Center (UMC) for emergency treatment. However, the president was reportedly diverted to the airport instead and flown out of state.

Local news outlets, often criticized for their alleged bias, quickly reported that Biden was merely “ill,” downplaying the severity of the situation. The narrative has raised eyebrows, especially considering Biden withdrew from public appearances shortly after, despite previous assertions that he was in good health.

Adding to the speculation, observers noted that when Biden reappeared a few days later, he seemed noticeably taller, and a recording of him raised further suspicions. These unusual circumstances have fueled rumors that the incident was more consequential than reported.

Reports indicate that the Secret Service refused to allow Biden to use stairs during his walking route to the podium at Mandalay Bay, the hotel linked to the controversial Las Vegas shooting that mainstream media rarely discusses.

Questions have also arisen about Biden’s previous visit to Las Vegas, in which cameras were not allowed, and the general public was from his “public” rally, with only a select few union members attending. It has led to speculation about the nature of Biden’s health and the administration’s transparency.

There are parallels between Biden’s presidency and Vice President Kamala Harris, whom they describe as a “Biden 2.0” with even more divisive policies. Efforts are underway to sanitize Harris’s public image in preparation for a potential transition of power.

The administration has not responded to these reports, leaving the public with more questions than answers about Biden’s health and the implications for the nation’s leadership.

As Nevadans prepare to vote in the 2024 general election, they shall revisit Question 3, a ballot initiative that proposes a significant transformation in the voting process for Nevada.

After narrowly passing in 2022, the measure seeks to implement ranked-choice voting and open primaries statewide. Its proponents and critics are ramping up to sway voters on this pivotal issue.

The proposed changes would allow all voters to participate in an open primary regardless of party affiliation and use ranked-choice voting in the general election. However, the initiative has sparked debate about its potential impact on voter participation and political extremism.

In a statement to The Nevada Globe, Jordan Kittleson, Policy Director of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute, criticized the system.

“Ranked-choice voting is a confusing, chaotic, disenfranchising system where the person with the most votes doesn’t always win, which is essentially un-American to its core,” Kittleson said. “This system scam manufactures a majority vote and throws one person, one vote, counted one time totally out the window.”

Director of the Center for Election Integrity Mike Vallante also expressed concerns that the measure would exacerbate political extremism and polarization.

“A jungle primary does nothing to bring people closer together to compromise,” Vallente said.

To rally opposition to Question 3, the American Policy Institute and its coalition partners held grassroots seminars on Thursday, August 1, and Friday, August 2 in Reno and Las Vegas, respectively. The events were to educate the public about the ranked-choice voting system and provide training for poll workers and watchers.

In contrast, supporters of Question 3 argue that the initiative will create an inclusive and less divisive political environment. Mike Draper of the Nevada Voters First PAC stated after its initial passage, “With the passage of Question 3, Nevadans have shown their desire to put Nevada voters first and address political extremism and polarization in our state.”

The Nevada Voters First PAC, which raised $19.5 million for the 2022 election cycle, plans to continue its advocacy efforts. Proponents believe that over 600,000 politically unaffiliated Nevadans will benefit from the chance to vote in an open primary, challenging the current two-party system they see as extreme and divisive.

Critics, however, say that the new system could eliminate political parties from races, lead to ballot exhaustion, decrease voter participation, and undermine the majority of registered voters in Nevada.

“One of the worst things that ranked-choice voting creates is skepticism in elections due to the lack of transparency,” Vallante warned. “People don’t understand how the system is being done. Voters don’t know for days or even weeks who actually won. We should be able to have an instantaneous result. If you think it’s bad now, once a state or city implements RCV, it extends the time to certify an election because you have to keep recounting and recounting and recounting…It’s not whoever gets the most votes, it’s whoever wins a ranked-choice balloting scheme. Ranked-choice voting is really a pollution of the election system.”

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Libra Solar Project in Lyon and Mineral Counties.

The project, spearheaded by Libra Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of Arevia Power, plans to construct, operate, maintain, and decommission a 700-megawatt (MW) solar facility along with a 700 MW energy storage system and a 24-mile-long generation line, under a 30-year BLM right-of-way grant. The project would generate and store enough clean energy to power over 212,000 homes.

The proposed solar facility would occupy approximately 5,141 acres of public lands in Mineral County, with the generation tie-line connecting to the Fort Churchill substation in Lyon County.

“BLM manages vast stretches of public lands that have the potential to make significant contributions to the nation’s renewable energy portfolio,” said Kim Dow, Carson City District Manager. “To promote the development of these energy sources, BLM provides sites for environmentally sound development of renewable energy on public lands.”

The Department of the Interior recently announced that the BLM had achieved the milestone of permitting 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects, encompassing solar, wind, geothermal, and transmission lines that cross public lands to connect renewable energy projects on private lands to the grid. As of July 2024, an additional 70 utility-scale clean energy projects—with more than 32 gigawatts of renewable energy—are being processed by the BLM throughout the western United States.

Moreover, the agency has begun reviewing over 170 solar and wind development applications and more than 40 solar and wind energy testing sites.