Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, a Republican, unseated the incumbent governor of Nevada, Democrat Steve Sisolak. He won by about a percentage point in November.

Lombardo is a veteran. He served in the Army, the National Guard and the Army Reserve. He began his law enforcement career with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department before being elected sheriff.

He said he will repeal what he calls “soft-on-crime” laws and policies, including reduced sentences for drug traffickers and burglars.

“As your next governor, I will expand school choice and make school safety a priority,” said Lombardo.

To improve safety in public schools, Lombardo plans to work with the state legislature to repeal “restorative justice” measures. Those are ways of disciplining students while avoiding punishment, such as suspension or expulsion. Sisolak said restorative justice is a tool to get to the root of students’ behavioral issues.

Lombardo has also committed to address the affordable housing crisis.

According to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there’s a shortage of nearly 80,000 available and affordable rental homes in Nevada. It deems the state the worst in the country on this issue. Lombardo’s strategy is to speed up housing development by making the licensing process more efficient and removing some land restrictions. 

When it comes to the economy, Lombardo’s goal is to bring more jobs to Nevada. He plans to incentivize industries outside of gaming and tourism by rolling back regulations and setting up workforce development programs, which provide job training and other services.

Last week, the National Archives released 13,173 documents related to the federal investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The agency said over 97% of records in the collection are now publicly available.

In 1992, Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which dictated that all assassination records be publicly disclosed by October 2017, except for those the president authorized for further withholding. This latest release was brought on as a result of multiple postponements by former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden on the advice of several law enforcement agencies.

The assassination has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories over the decades, as Gallup polling has found that the majority of Americans still believe that more than one person was involved in the plot to kill the president.

This latest release of documents was not expected to include any new bombshells or change the conclusion reached by the commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and communist sympathizer who had defected to the Soviet Union, acted alone in shooting Kennedy.

However, experts said it does shed new light on what law enforcement was doing leading up to the murder. Larry Sabato, a leading Kennedy scholar, said there is evidence the shooting in Dallas could have been prevented and has accused the CIA and FBI of not doing their jobs to stop it.

“The truth is that this assassination was preventable and could have been prevented and should have been prevented if the CIA and FBI were doing their jobs,” Sabato said. “Really, that’s it. Now that’s serious, but you’re not going to find the names of other conspirators in here.”

Other details from the newly released records include documents on Oswald’s trip to Mexico City just weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald’s visit to Finland from the same year of his Soviet defection, and information on covert U.S. military operations intended to destabilize the Cuban government.

Despite the absence of any earth-shattering revelations, experts are preparing to take a fine toothed comb to this sea of documents. Over the next several months, the records will be analyzed extensively by academics in search of any clues to the mysteries surrounding this landmark event in American history.

Did the U.S. government overestimate job growth by more than 1 million jobs this spring? That’s the claim after the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank released a December report, which makes early revisions to Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the second quarter of 2022.

“In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period,” the report read.

To do the math, that puts the job growth data off by about 1 to 1.1 million jobs from March to the end of June.

That paragraph caught the eye of at least one person in Congress. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) called the finding “outrageous” in a tweet and accused the Biden administration of lying to the American people about the economy.

WRONG BY A MILLION JOBS. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.@JoeBiden's admin has been lying to the American people about our economy to prop up his failed agenda & I won't stand for it. I'm requesting an immediate meeting with the head of @BLS_gov. WE NEED ANSWERS NOW! pic.twitter.com/OKwsiYSoER

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) December 16, 2022

Because jobs data informs how economic and policy leaders run the economy, the potential discrepancy could have tremendous consequences.

“[There were] 2.7 million people hired in the first half of the year, it doesn’t make sense that the economy would be in a recession with this kind of thing happening,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during a press conference in July.

The supposed strong labor market has fueled the Fed’s path to higher interest rates to fight inflation, which has tightened money supply to levels not seen since 2007. But if the job market is not what it seems, then the Fed is crunching a much more vulnerable economy, which already saw negative economic growth the first two quarters of the year.

Revisions are normal in any economic data, but not by 1 million. I presented the Philadelphia Fed revision to the BLS, which largely refuted the findings.

“Using a simple methodology and a series of assumptions, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank benchmarked to a less complete version of the [Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages] data than is available to BLS,” BLS economist Emma Sillman responded in an email. “BLS does not believe that the monthly [Current Employment Statistics] data dramatically overestimated employment growth.”

Sillman said the preliminary revisions run by the department are well within normal ranges. The official national BLS revision will be published Feb. 3, 2023, with state-level data out March 13, 2023.

In bringing the BLS response back to the Philadelphia Fed, the bank pointed me to its article, stating, “By making timelier revisions, we produce more accurate estimates of states’ job growth.”

The bank revision comes roughly five months after the quarter and updates on a quarterly basis, rather than waiting on the BLS to update the data once per year.

So where do we go from here? Did the U.S. economy add 10,500 jobs or more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter? Officially, that answer won’t be reached until February, when the BLS posts its annual revision. Even though the Philadelphia Fed and the BLS are a world apart in current estimates, the Philadelphia Fed acknowledged the accuracy of final BLS revisions.

“Once the BLS completes its more comprehensive annual revisions — with a more sophisticated methodology and better data access than we can deploy — we accept their benchmarked data as more accurate than our fourth and final Early Benchmark,” the Philadelphia Fed said.

We’ve all had a moment like this. You’re in a dentist office waiting room. You reach for the stack of magazines on the table and think to yourself, “Wait, Reader’s Digest still exists?” We’re taking a look at some of the companies you may not realize are still hanging on in this week’s Five for Friday.

#5: Kodak

Kodak filed for bankruptcy just over a decade ago but surprisingly it’s still in business. Cellphones made a huge dent in its consumer photography business but Kodak does have Polaroid-esque instant-print cameras which have been making a comeback. Kodak is also a big player in the movie business, working with IMAX to develop the “next generation of film cameras.” And I bet you didn’t know Kodak dipped its toe in pharmaceuticals. Back in 2020 it did land in some hot water due to a prospective deal with the federal government to manufacture generic drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It sent Kodak’s stock price skyrocketing, but in the end all they received was an investigation into insider trading.

#4: RadioShack

RadioShack has been around for more than a century. It was once a haven for tech-tinkerers looking to be on the cutting edge. But the consumer electronics industry exploded, especially online, and the Shack hasn’t found where it fits in since. RadioShack filed for bankruptcy twice in the last decade, in 2015 and 2017. Now it operates a cryptocurrency exchange with its own token, which they announced with a series of vulgar tweets. It also appears they are attempting to cash in on the meme of their irrelevance by selling nostalgia-laced merchandise.

#3: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey dominated the circus world since the 1870s. Seeing the “Greatest Show on Earth” was a right of passage for any child for well over a century. But the new millennium brought on its demise with low attendance and protests over animal rights. In 2017 they drew the final curtain with their last show. Or so we thought. This year, Feld Entertainment announced Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is making a comeback in 2023 but this time, without the animals that sparked criticism.

#2: Atari

Before Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo could run the video game industry, Atari had to walk. Atari was a pioneer throughout the 1970s. The Atari 2600 is a classic, featuring games like Adventure, Centipede and Pitfall. But it hasn’t been a player in the console business for decades, unless you count the console made by Lego in 2022. After filing for bankruptcy in 2013, Atari sold off its biggest intellectual property. The company is now in the blockchain business and entered a partnership to develop a group of Atari-branded gaming hotels, the first of which should pop up in Phoenix and Las Vegas.

#1: AOL

America Online was synonymous with the internet in the 1990s, but now it’s just a company that provides emails to old-timers. AOL was so successful in 2000 that it bought Time Warner for $182 billion, the largest merger in American history. Just 15 years later, Verizon bought AOL for only $4.4 billion. Surprisingly, as of 2021, AOL still had 1.5 million paying subscribers, although they are really paying for ID protection and limited technical support.

A judge ruled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried could be released on $250 million bail and put under house arrest at his parents’ California home while he awaits trial in New York City on eight federal criminal charges. As Bankman-Fried fights the charges against him, some of his coworkers have already pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with authorities.

Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, along with FTX co-founder Gary Wang, pleaded guilty to charges brought by the Southern District of New York. The two are also cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, according to the agency, which has leveled two more fraud charges against Bankman-Fried’s former associates.

While Bankman-Fried has repeatedly stated in multiple media interviews that he was not aware of any improper use of customer funds between the FTX exchange and the group’s sister company, trading firm Alameda Research, the SEC complaint alleges the exact opposite.

According to the complaint against Ellison and Wang, both allegedly committed fraud at the direction of Bankman-Fried. Ellison is charged with, among other things, manipulating the price of FTT tokens at Bankman-Fried’s request to inflate Alameda’s collateral. The SEC also claims Bankman-Fried told Ellison to use software code Wang created to borrow “virtually limitless funds from FTX,” all hidden from customers and investors.

“I really deeply wish that I had taken a lot more responsibility for understanding what the details were of what was going on there,” Bankman-Fried said in a Good Morning America interview in early December.

Ellison and Wang aren’t the only FTX associates cooperating with authorities, either. FTX Digital Chair Ryan Salame alerted authorities to the fund-transferring scheme days before the company filed for bankruptcy. Salame’s whistleblowing helped lead to Bankman-Fried’s charges.

To date, Salame has not faced public charges. However, authorities do expect other FTX employees will.

“If you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it. We are moving quickly and our patience is not eternal,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday night.

Two reports on the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol have two very different focuses. The official Jan. 6 investigative committee compiled a report that stated the attack on the Capitol could not have happened without Donald Trump. A separate investigation from a group of five House Republicans found that intelligence failures, internal politics and unnecessary bureaucracy left the Capitol unprepared.

“Unlike the sham Jan 6 report that focused on partisan politics and political payback, House Republicans released a report today that details how we can ensure another Jan 6 never happens again,” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., tweeted about the GOP version.

The GOP report stated the U.S. Capitol Police had sufficient information prior to the Jan. 6 to anticipate and prepare for violence. The report concluded police officers were short staffed, under trained and ill-equipped.

“The USCP was set up to fail, and there have been scant signs of progress toward addressing these weaknesses,” investigators wrote in the executive summary.

To fix the problem Republicans suggest making changes to the Capitol Police board, which they accused of resisting long-standing calls for reform and operating in the dark. They want to make the board more accountable to oversight, and add two new members who will be in charge of long-term strategic planning and identifying industry best practices.

The Republicans also said there was concern from Democrats over optics in the wake of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that prevented the early deployment of the National Guard.

To conduct their investigation, the representatives obtained documents, communications and interviewed witnesses including U.S. Capitol police officers, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, the House sergeant at arms, and others.

As for the committee report, much of the information had already been made public in previous committee hearings. Although the report offers more detail from depositions and testimony.

It stated Donald Trump pressured state officials to change election results and pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors or send them back to state legislatures during the electoral certification. They said that was all part of a multi-faceted conspiracy to overturn the lawful election results.

The Jan. 6 select committee voted to send criminal referrals against Trump to the Justice Department. They believe he should be charged with crimes including conspiracy to defraud the United States. If Trump were charged and convicted of everything the committee suggested, the former president could face up to 25 years in prison.

This is the final action of the committee. It will now be disbanded with the end of the 117th Congress.

For years, Americans couldn’t escape hearing about former President Donald Trump’s tax returns and why, despite years of precedence, he refused to release them. Trump repeatedly cited it was because he was being audited, but a House committee report reveals the IRS actually failed to audit him as president when it was required.

According to the latest report from the House Committee of Ways and Means, the IRS neglected to audit Trump for most of his time in office, despite a rule dating back to 1977 that requires mandatory tax examinations of all sitting presidents and vice presidents. The rule was spurred by a Watergate-era tax scandal surrounding former President Richard Nixon.

“The designated agents found that there was only one mandatory audit started and none completed during [Trump’s] four years in office. Clearly, the mandatory audit program was dormant, at best, during the prior Administration,” the report read.

The House Ways and Means Committee reported the IRS did not complete a single mandatory audit of President Trump’s tax returns while he was in office.

There’s no suggestion in the report that Trump tried to influence the IRS in any way. In fact, the IRS commissioner through most of Trump’s first year in office, John Koskinen, was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

It appears a move that did have at least some influence on the IRS was Democrats taking control of the House and its committees in 2019.

“Notably, the IRS sent a letter to the former President notifying him that his tax year 2015 return was selected for examination on April 3, 2019, which is the date the Chairman sent the initial request to the IRS for the former President’s return information and related tax returns,” the report authors wrote.

But aside from the one mandatory audit selected later that year, the remaining returns did not come up for examination until after Trump left office, according to the committee.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington to meet with President Biden and address a joint session of Congress. According to a senior administration official, President Biden will announce a $2 billion security package to Ukraine, which will include a Patriot missile battery.

According to the State Department, Patriots are capable of defending against cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles, and destroying aircraft that are flying significantly higher than what Ukraine’s current systems are capable of. The U.S. will train Ukrainian forces on how to operate the equipment in a third country. It will ultimately be used to protect against air raids on critical infrastructure like the electric grid.

“Russia is trying to weaponize winter by freezing and starving Ukrainian civilians and forcing families from their homes. In response, President Biden will announce today that the United States is providing critical new and additional military capabilities to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s ongoing brutal and unprovoked assault,” Sec. of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Presidents Zelenskyy and Biden will also celebrate the anticipated approval of $40 billion in funding for Ukraine that’s being included in the 2023 government spending bill. The senior administration official said Zelenskyy wants to thank America for its bipartisan support throughout the war, while President Biden and Congress want to send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that America will provide support “as long as it takes”. 

“But the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests. Helping equip our friends in Eastern Europe to win this war is also a direct investment in reducing Vladimir Putin’s future capabilities to menace America, threaten our allies, and contest our core interests,” Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. 

But as Republicans take a majority in the House of Representatives, they are expressing some skepticism about what’s been called a blank check approach to Ukraine. Some have called for reduction in aid while more have called for audits to ensure the money and weapons are going exactly where they’re intended. So it’s also anticipated that Zelenskyy will try to convince them that continued support is an absolute necessity for his war effort and the world. Senior members of Congress are already spreading that message.

“I hope all House Republicans will attend the Zelenskyy address this evening. And when they do, they should listen to President Zelenskyy describe the horror his people have endured at the hands of Vladimir Putin,” Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “The single worst thing we can do right now is give Putin any signal that we are wavering in our commitment to defend democracy in Ukraine and around the globe.”

Since the beginning of the Biden administration, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with $21.9 billion in military assistance. In addition to the Patriot missile system, the next round of support will include Stingers, which are shoulder fired air-defense missiles, and drones or UAVs.

U.S. inflation surprised below expectations in November, slowing for the fifth straight month to a 7.1% annual rate. But when President Joe Biden took to the podium to celebrate the feat, he made a claim that didn’t stack up against statistics.

“In a world where inflation is rising in double digits in many major economies around the world, inflation is coming down in America,” Biden said.

While inflation in the U.S. is drawing down from June’s 9.1% peak, most recently falling from 7.7% in October to 7.1% in November, inflation is also starting to fall in most major economies in the world.

In the world’s top 10 largest economies based on gross domestic product, consumer inflation is on a downward trend in six: the U.S., China, Germany, the U.K., India and South Korea. And consumer inflation is flat in three countries. It held steady at the most recent peak the past two months in France and Italy, and remained flat the past two months in Canada, where inflation peaked in June, like the U.S.

The annual consumer inflation rate is rising in only one of the 10 largest economies, Japan, which sported a 3.7% annual increase in October, just a bit more than half of the current inflation rate of the U.S.

While Germany, the U.K. and Italy are facing double digit annual rates, it’s not rising as Biden suggested, at least not according to the latest available data. The statistics prove inflation is cooling in many other countries outside the United States.

“Make no mistake, prices are still too high. We have a lot more work to do, but things are getting better, headed in the right direction,” Biden said.

While Twitter users who participated in a straw poll overwhelmingly support Elon Musk stepping down as CEO, it may be too late for Musk’s golden goose, Tesla. On Sunday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to the chair of Tesla’s board raising questions about possible legal failures by Musk and the board since Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Warren brought up potential conflicts of interest and misappropriation of Tesla resources in the letter to Chair Robyn Denholm. According to Warren, possible conflicts of interest revolve around how Twitter may structure advertising deals with Tesla and its automaker competitors. As for misappropriation, Warren notes that Musk reportedly diverted Tesla engineers to help with Twitter.

Warren said it is the board’s responsibility to ensure Musk “does not treat the company as a private plaything,” and said, “it appears that the board has taken no action to protect the company, and Tesla’s stock price has plunged.”

Tesla’s stock is down more than 60% year to date, worse than every other major tech stock aside from Meta. Warren is asking Tesla’s board to detail exactly what actions they are taking to monitor possible conflicts by Jan. 3.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Tesla’s share price initially popped Monday after Musk’s poll revealed Twitter users favored him resigning as “Chief Twit.” Nearly 58% voted yes to him stepping down, a result Musk has promised to abide by, despite noting he doesn’t have a successor as of Sunday night. More than 17 million users voted in the poll over the 12 hours it was available.

It has always been Musk’s plan to eventually appoint someone to run Twitter, but since his October purchase he’s acted as CEO to the detriment of Tesla.

Tech analyst Dan Ives said Monday morning in a note it was “time to end this nightmare as CEO of Twitter,” declaring that Musk has been using Tesla stock “as his own personal ATM machine since this saga began in April.”

He said Musk deciding to step down at Twitter would be a major step forward for Tesla. Tesla is currently valued at around $477 billion as of Monday, nearly 11 times what Musk paid to purchase Twitter.