We often think of first responders mainly as police, fire and emergency-medical professionals. In Las Vegas on Monday, NPR's Eric Westervelt found a small volunteer army of mental-health professionals, trauma counselors, psychiatrists and social workers who quickly fanned out to help some of the thousands who had witnessed the massacre up close.

It's white, about twelve inches long with a bulbous head and a couple of buttons, and it became an icon of sexual liberation in the 1970s. It's the Hitachi Magic Wand and, though it's name has since changed, it's still one of the most popular vibrators on the market today, available in brightly-lit boutique sex-toy stores across the country. Forty years ago, women bought their "personal massagers" at the local department stores, hoping the sales clerk wasn't going to give them a dirty look. By the mid-1970s, though, women were tired of these awkward transactions, and a few of them decided to take matters into their own hands, opening the first "women-friendly" sex-toy stores.

After four years of lab testing and complex neuro-decoding, a research team led by UNLV psychology professor James Hyman has struck a major breakthrough that could open the floodgates for research into the anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC, and how human brains learn.

After four years of lab testing and complex neuro-decoding, a research team led by UNLV psychology professor James Hyman has struck a major breakthrough that could open the floodgates for research into the anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC, and how human brains learn.

Steve Hill won’t be the last official to leave Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval’s administration in coming months, local analysts say. Hill, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, confirmed Thursday that he is a candidate for a leading role at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The confirmation followed Republican Assembly Leader Paul Anderson’s Wednesday announcement that he is resigning his seat, which he confirmed is to succeed Hill at the economic development office.

Brothels are legal in Nevada, but only in counties with populations of fewer than 450,000. But could a move by Dennis Hof, who owns the Moonlite Bunny Ranch and six more brothels, lead to more acceptance of brothels?

Lynn Comella had been attending the annual adult video convention in Las Vegas for years, but she remembers the 2008 event as being unusual.

When was the last time someone came to your door to ask you not to do something? If the answer is never, wait for a Nevada Democrat to show up.

Both were great generals. Both Virginians. Both came from slave-owning plantation families. Is it really so far-fetched to put Robert E. Lee in the same category as George Washington, as President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday?

Nowadays, sex-positivity is mainstream: Amazon sells vibrators for as little as a few dollars, and the honest, open-minded sex-advice podcast Savage Love is consistently at the top of downloads charts.

It all started with a shipment of sweaty sex toys.

It was a hot and humid day in August 2003 and Jennifer Pritchett and her then business partner were days away from opening Minneapolis’s first feminist sex shop, Smitten Kitten. They had sunk all their money into their first shipment of products, but as they excitedly opened the boxes of toys, packing peanuts flying everywhere, they knew immediately that something was wrong. The toys were leaching an oily substance. It was coming off the products, out of the clamshell packaging, through Styrofoam packing peanuts, leaving big greasy spots on the cardboard box. What, they wondered, was wrong?

When 26-year-old Amber, a Las Vegas transplant, realized her dog ate her favorite vibrator, she headed to Las Vegas’s Adult Superstore. Amber grew up in a small Midwestern farming town of 6,000 people, a place where sex “was shunned” and sex toys were never discussed. If she wanted to find a sex-toy store back home, it would mean driving 40 miles to St. Louis. Now, at the Adult Superstore, a large sex-toy emporium — think clothing retailer H&M but for sex toys — she knows that she’ll not only have many options to choose from, but once there, she’ll be treated with respect by a knowledgeable staff. But it wasn't always this way.