Stanford University

They bill themselves as the "three ex-terrorists" and speak at campuses around the country. They like to be provocative and seem to invite controversy by characterizing the radical Islamic movement as a new form of Nazism. Their efforts to attract attention got a boost this week when Stanford University called their scheduled appearance Monday controversial and said members of the press and the public would be prohibited from attending.

The Community Book Center, a longtime fixture on Bayou Road in the city's Esplanade Ridge neighborhood, was one of the numerous small-business casualties of Hurricane Katrina. The storm ravaged the venture that Vera Warren-Williams had nurtured for 25 years, where she sold African American novels, school reading texts, gifts and artwork.

Stanford University will build a center for stem cell research in the heart of its campus with the help of a $33-million gift announced Tuesday. The donation from Lorry I. Lokey, the founder of Business Wire and a 1949 Stanford graduate, came a day after a California appeals court upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 71, a $3-billion bond measure for stem cell research.

Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang said he would donate $75 million to his alma mater, Stanford University, where he and a fellow student began working on a directory of websites that became one of the Internet's first big success stories. Stanford said that $50 million of the donation would be used to cover the costs of a new environmental studies center and that $5 million would help fund a center for training doctors.

In the 109th Big Game between California and Stanford, there was no big upset Saturday, with the possible exception of Cal's margin of victory, only 26-17, which was much closer than anyone expected. Other than that, it was all sort of routine, a matter of figuring out itineraries. For 9-3 Cal, it's on to San Diego to play Texas A&M in the Dec. 28 Holiday Bowl. For Stanford, it's back to the drawing board, or rather a 9 a.m.

Gary Tyrrell was in the wrong place at the right time, accidentally but comically planting himself in college football's most famous play. As seen in countless television replays over the last 24 years, Tyrrell is the tumbling trombonist who was bowled over in the end zone at the end of the magical, mythical, multi-lateral, last-second kickoff return that gave California an unforgettable 25-20 victory over Stanford on Nov. 20, 1982. Or, as the return has come to be known, "the Play."

The blowtorch caught everyone by surprise. It glowed blue in the darkened classroom at A.M. Miller High School in Fontana as the man holding it asked, in a slightly unhinged voice: "Why am I using a blowtorch, and who the heck am I?" No one answered. "I am Danny Ruderman," he proclaimed, "and, yes, I am an alumnus of Fontana High School, your archrival." Blowtorch. Archrival. Something unsettling was taking place here. But Ruderman did not flambe any students at Miller that day.

For 12-year-old Roger Kornberg, it was just an annoying commotion in the middle of the night. He had been roused from sleep with the news that his father, Arthur, a Stanford University professor, had just won the 1959 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Drowsy and not really comprehending the significance of the event, he fell back asleep. When he woke up hours later, his room was littered with cold coffee and stale rolls from the celebrations.

Two researchers, from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discovery of a way to shut down individual genes in the body, a technique that holds the possibility of new therapies for macular degeneration, HIV, cancer and other diseases. Andrew Z. Fire, 47, of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Craig C. Mello, 45, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School will share the $1.