It's either a masterpiece of Yuletide warmth or the most morbid TV commercial ever.

In its 14th year, the Vegas Valley Book Festival is loaded with so many interesting writers and educators that whittling down your options will be excruciating. Here’s a look at five of the free talks taking place October 17 at Downtown’s Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth Street.

That UNLV students were selected to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon against teams from elite private institutions such as Stanford University, the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology was an accomplishment by itself.

Then UNLV went and beat them all.

The UNLV debate team is nationally ranked. It turns out the Rebels know how to hold their own in an argument. This week the university debate group is hosting two dozen area high school students to help them fine-tune their debate skills. We're joined by three of the UNLV debate team members to learn more about the art of debate, and how it's been shown to help kids, especially at-risk kids, to better perform in high school.