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Felony charges against Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki were dismissed Monday after a District Court judge ruled that prosecutors failed to show specific evidence that a crime was committed.

The state attorney general's office said Krolicki, while state treasurer, and his assistant Kathryn Besser misappropriated about $6 million in fees earned by the Nevada College Savings Trust Fund.

Instead of depositing it in state accounts, some of the money went to marketing the program with ads that featured Krolicki, which the state said was an improper political benefit.

No money ever went missing from the $3 billion fund, and Krolicki and Besser have maintained their innocence.

The case was criticized as a political prosecution by Krolicki's defenders.

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on Thursday announced that she would not appeal the dismissal, although she said she still believes Krolicki broke the law.

MONDAY

WELCOME WEATHER

A storm system socked Northern Nevada, blanketed Mount Charleston in snow and delivered almost three-tenths of an inch of rain to Las Vegas, which is experiencing its sixth-driest year on record.

Some parts of the valley received higher totals of precipitation.

Officially, the rain was only enough to raise the total for 2009 to 1.58 inches, well short of the 4.16 inches that is normal by this time of the year.

TUESDAY

GIBBONS EYES MORE CUTS

Gov. Jim Gibbons said he is looking at laying off state employees, cutting employee salaries and adding unpaid furlough days to deal with a more than $50 million tax revenue shortfall.

But he has not decided whether to call the Legislature into a special session this winter.

Gibbons also said he opposes tapping into an approved $160 million line of credit to cover the shortfall, although using the credit authorized by the 2009 Legislature might save the jobs of state employees.

WEDNESDAY

STIMULUS JOBS SCARCE

Local government officials estimated they will have created or retained fewer than 260 jobs by the end of the year, despite receiving between $50 million and $60 million in grants from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009.

Between 240 and 250 of those jobs are in construction and are expected to last from six weeks to 12 months.

THURSDAY

CONFLICTED COUNCILMAN

A construction union consortium was negotiating with the developer of a new Las Vegas City Hall at the same time City Councilman Steve Ross, who is an officer of the consortium, was voting to move the project forward, according to testimony before the Nevada Ethics Commission.

The ethics commission would later rule that Ross had a conflict of interest and should have abstained from the votes on the project in December 2008 and in February of this year.

FRIDAY

SIX TO BE FIRED AT UMC

University Medical Center officials began efforts to fire six employees after a pregnant Las Vegas woman went untreated in the emergency room for six hours.

Roshunda Abney, 25, went to UMC on Nov. 30 with severe abdominal pain but went untreated despite her moans of pain.

Abney and her fiancé eventually left the hospital and went home, where Abney gave birth to a premature baby girl who did not survive.