With any luck, by the time you read this, the 2015 Legislature will have come to a merciful close. Then again, it’s also entirely possible that, as of this writing, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore and Cliven Bundy are holding our lawmakers hostage at musket-point until they recognize the independent city-state of Fioria. At any rate, here’s a roundup of the newsworthy people, the politics and the power plays of the 78th session.

Seasoned photographers share the stories behind memorable shoots — the how, the why and what happened next.

Some were reaching for the brass ring. Others were running for their lives. Whatever reason they came here, these Las Vegans from around the globe have fascinating origin stories.

At Lago, Italian classics get a fresh makeover for the modern palate

One of the Westside’s new sweet spots, Gelato Messina has display cases filled with shiny mounds of frozen concoctions ranging in flavor from pistachio and pear-rhubarb to blood orange and vanilla.

The delicate, earthy flavors of the season take center stage in these fine-dining dishes.

In a hard-drinking, 24-hour town, a new form of a drug holds hope for recovering alcoholics.

If you paid any attention to the Nevada Legislature this year — the policy part, not the part about the weird woman with all the guns who thinks cancer is a fungus — you heard a fair amount about the need to finally improve education so that Nevada’s youth will be prepared for the exciting jobs of tomorrow.

Wielding hashtags like throwing stars, the social-media ninjas at the Nevada National Security Site showed us some love for Alan Gegax’s account of touring the former Test Site, which ran in our May issue: “Great #article by Desert Companion magazine about the many #cultural resources at the #Nevada National Security Site,” they posted.

Las Vegas’ transient populace can make for a lot of brain-drain and skeletal, undernourished relationships, but there’s definitely one advantage to living in a city where everyone comes from somewhere else: Whoa, what great backstories. Amid the drifters, dreamers and second-chancers who float our way, there are countless compelling tales of arrival.