Editor’s note: Seven days. Never enough hours.



Stacks of paperwork at the office and piles of laundry at home. It’s a never-ending cycle, which makes it difficult to stay on top of the endless news nuggets flowing from the White House, state capital, local government, and business community. We get it — and we’re in the news business.



Enter “About Last Week.” This is our way of bringing news-hungry but time-strapped readers up to speed on happenings that may have flown under the radar. Our promise: We’ll keep it brief. Our hope: You’ll read (or skim) and keep checking back every Monday.



So, without further ado, here are some noteworthy things that happened in Nevada last week.

Heller launches first 2018 ad

Frequently a target of advertisements from Democratic-leaning hoping to derail his 2018 re-election campaign, Republican Sen. Dean Heller released his first campaign ad of the election cycle nearly a year before the general election.

The ad, which Heller’s campaign released on Twitter last week and features the Republican senator speaking into a camera for about a minute, focuses on a pair of recent Heller priorities — the tax overhaul bill and efforts to confirm conservative judges in the Senate.

"I demanded Senate leadership keep the Senate in session, 24/7, until we fill every judicial vacancy with a conservative judge who will follow the Constitution and pass real tax reform, with real tax cuts for families and small businesses," Heller says in the ad. “I’m as frustrated as you are. President Trump is sending us conservative judges, and Democrats are holding them up.”

The ad buy will reportedly be in the low six figures, and the Washington Examiner reported that it will be part of a “sustained” television and targeted digital campaign.

— Riley Snyder

Additional government agency files complaint against embattled CCSD trustee

A separate government agency has received a complaint about Trustee Kevin Child's behavior, according to a memo Clark County School District Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky sent to staff Thursday.



The memo sought to clarify why Skorkowsky banned the embattled trustee from contacting school employees or visiting district property last month.



Skorkowsky said the other government agency, which he did not name, is investigating the complaint. He also noted that district employees have expressed concerns about Child's behavior, unannounced visits and statements he allegedly made threatening their jobs if they complained about him.



"A few weeks ago, an unannounced visit to a school by Trustee Child included him taking over classroom instruction and making comments that embarrassed a student," Skorkowsky wrote in the memo. "Unfortunately, this is not the first time that trustee Child has made comments in a classroom upsetting students and staff."



Skorkowsky directed staff who wish to speak with Child to do so by email or phone — not by inviting him to their classrooms.



Child has repeatedly dismissed the allegations, saying the superintendent's decision is a retaliatory act stemming from their disagreement over budget-related issues.



The school-visit controversy has been brewing since last year. Skorkowsky issued a memo in December 2016 requiring Child to obtain permission or an invitation from administrators before visiting schools, a process that the superintendent said he has not followed.

— Jackie Valley

New line of attack in attorney general race: What’s larceny?

An outside group trying to help Republicans win attorneys general offices has a new line of attack against Democratic candidate Aaron Ford — a clip in which he said he doesn’t know the definition of larceny.

The Republican Attorneys General Association, which praised Republican Wes Duncan’s entry into the race last week, started attacking Ford even before he announced his candidacy with a website trying to characterize him as a “radical liberal.” (The Nevada Independent fact-checked the earlier version of the site in July.)

The site has been updated with a short clip of Ford, the state Senate majority leader, testifying in April on a bill he sponsored that would have reduced penalties for burglary.

“Not being a criminal lawyer, I can’t speak to what larceny even means, frankly. I just can’t,” he said during a sometimes-testy hearing on the measure, which later died in committee.

The site asks if Ford is qualified to be the top legal officer and asserts that “understanding criminal law is literally part of the job.”

Nevada Revised Statutes say a person commits grand larceny if he or she “intentionally steals, takes and carries away, leads away or drives away” with “personal goods or property, with a value of $650 or more, owned by another person.” Petit larceny is defined as stealing goods worth less than $650.

Ford has five degrees to his name and is a partner at the law firm Eglet and Prince, where he concentrates on product liability and alternative dispute resolution, according to his official biography.

"This is a juvenile and misleading attack,” said campaign spokeswoman Michelle White. “Senator Ford has a strong record of holding criminals accountable during his time at the legislature, which is why he's received multiple endorsements of top Nevada law enforcement leaders across the state."

— Michelle Rindels

The Indy Rewind:

From determining where Nevada gubernatorial candidates stand on the question of a major energy ballot question to concerns about the shortened timeline for Obamacare’s open enrollment period, here’s what Nevada Independent reporters covered last week.