University Of California At Irvine

High noon in Duroville and nothing moved but a swirl of dust and a lone American flag flapping in the scorching breeze. Wild dogs, stricken by heat and light, could barely lift their heads. Dr. Alberto Manetta squinted hard at the jumble of sagging trailers and dirt roads winding through the 40-acre patch of California desert. In the months ahead, this impoverished mobile home community of up to 4,000 mostly Latino farmworkers would serve as a laboratory for the UC Irvine medical professor and about a dozen student volunteers -- sort of a model Third World village just two hours from campus.

The UC Board of Regents have quietly settled a dozen lawsuits stemming from fertility fraud uncovered nearly 15 years ago -- drawing closer to an end a scandal that has dogged UC Irvine and left behind dozens of heartbroken couples. Shirel and Steve Crawford recently deposited their $675,000 settlement, minus legal fees, but it brought them little peace. In the late 1980s, in the midst of what many consider the country's worst fertility scandal, the Crawfords believe their embryos were given to a woman referred to in documents as "Mrs.

In a challenging fundraising climate, the first new public law school in California in more than a generation begins classes Monday at UC Irvine with 61 top-flight students, a highly regarded faculty and the goal of becoming a model for an innovative legal education emphasizing hands-on experience and public service. It has been less than two years since the school's founding dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, was hired, fired and rehired by UCI Chancellor Michael Drake during a weeklong fiasco that focused attention on Chemerinsky's outspoken liberal politics and whether conservative critics had quietly lobbied for his ouster.

Had Dave Serrano not done his job so masterfully at UC Irvine the last three seasons, this weekend would have passed without notice. The Big West Conference might not be so highly regarded. And Irvine fans never would have learned how to hold a grudge. But in 2007 Serrano guided Irvine to its first appearance at the College World Series, where the Anteaters became the darlings of Omaha.

What's in a name? A lot, at least at two engineering schools in Southern California named after high-tech billionaire and generous donor Henry Samueli. The Samueli name could be stripped from engineering schools at UCLA and UC Irvine as a result of his recent guilty plea to a felony charge of lying to financial regulators. A review of the issue is being launched by the University of California's general counsel, officials said.

Police have arrested a Texas man suspected in identity thefts involving more than 160 UC Irvine graduate and medical students, authorities said. Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, of Fort Worth, was an employee in the Student Resources Department of United Healthcare in Dallas, authorities said. The company manages the university's graduate student health insurance program. The 163 identity theft reports involved students in the 2006-07 school year, said UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey.

UC Irvine students were urged Wednesday to be on alert after the first sexual assault by a stranger on the campus in eight years was reported Sunday, police said. A man approached a female student from behind outside the Mesa Court residence hall complex about 1:30 a.m., threatened her with a sharp object and sexually assaulted her near Parking Lot 5, near University and Campus drives, UC Irvine police said.

THE sight of cars piling onto Interstate 5 is a familiar one to many. But in the multimedia art installation "Airlight SoCal," the air pollution surrounding the vehicles is the focal point. The freeway is depicted via a real-time webcam, as its footage and audio mutate based on incoming smog data from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Facing a backlash from scholars worldwide, UC Irvine says it will drop a lawsuit against the widow and children of professor and philosopher Jacques Derrida, the acclaimed founder of the intellectual movement called deconstruction. Instead, UCI officials said they had resumed negotiations with Derrida's family over control of his groundbreaking scholarly work.