Michael Costa U.Va. grad, now high-profile chef New chef takes center stage, fills big shoes at Zaytinya Washington Examiner / Nov. 25 Reynaldo Decerega U.Va. grad, director of programs at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and sharp-elbowed pickup basketball player Reynaldo Decerega's elbow enters history Washington Post / Nov. 29 and Injured Obama still has game Politico / Nov. 27 Thomas Donilon 1985 Law School graduate, President Obama's new national security adviser National Security Advisor: Who is Thomas Donilon? Allgov.com / Nov. 29 Ben Olsen Former Cavalier soccer star Un...

Paul Cantor English professor Great dynasties: The Simpsons London Guardian / Nov. 27 Robert Fatton Politics professor The prey: Citizens of Haiti Montreal Gazette / Nov. 27 and Do Elections Equal Reconstruction? Inter Press Service / Nov. 26 R. Edward Freeman Professor of business administration Professor of the Week: R. Edward Freeman, Darden School of Business Financial Times / Nov. 25 Brandon Garrett Law professor Va. seeks uniform rules on police lineups Richmond Times-Dispatch / Nov. 27 Jeff Goldsmith Professor of public health sciences Health plans aren't supporting efforts to repe...

Deirdre M. Enright and Matthew L. Engle Directors of the Innocence Clinic at the U.Va. School of Law 'Miracle' conviction or one more mistake? Washington Post / Nov. 27

The bonds that unite brothers aren't built overnight. For Kris and Nick Burd, it was something that happened every day. After school the two would run over to Matoaca Park to play sports, the younger Kris tagging along with his brother and his friends, who were three years older. Later in life, those bonds held the family together through tragedy and recovery.

In many regards, Marc Verica is the consummate University of Virginia athlete. He’s an economics major, accomplished musician and record-setting quarterback.

Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia face off on Saturday in Blacksburg but Tuesday, fans in Lynchburg faced off with a mic. It was the annual Song Parody contest at Phase 2. Tech and UVA fans showed their school pride by changing the lyrics of popular songs to bash the other team. The tradition's gone on for 13 years now.

 When John Jones died after becoming trapped inside Utah County's Nutty Putty Cave, he left behind his 14-month-old daughter, Lizzie, and wife, Emily, who was pregnant with their second child. Jones, 26, was a medical student at the University of Virginia, and his family had been living on student loans. "[Emily] was a young mother with really no way to support herself and take care of her family," said her brother, Dan Petersen. ... Petersen, 22, and three friends planned an approximately 3,000-mile bike ride across the United States to raise money for Emily and her children.

1,300 runners laced up Thanksgiving morning for the 29th Annual Boar's Head Turkey Trot. The runners got a healthy start to the day by taking the 5-K challenge. The event helps to raise funds for the University of Virginia Children's Hospital and the families it serves each year.

To keep up with the increasing number of Virginia students who are applying for financial aid, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has recommended asking the General Assembly for the appropriation of an additional $29.8 million in need-based aid for the upcoming fiscal year.

… It cites a University of Virginia study that found implementing agricultural practices such as planting buffers and cover crops and keeping livestock out of streams would have significant economic impacts. Every dollar of state and federal funding invested in agricultural best practices, it says, would generate $1.56 in economic activity in Virginia.

After 3 1/2 years and some $3 million in public spending, Prince William County's crusade against illegal immigrants - launched almost single-handedly by an ambitious local politician who has made nativism his stock in trade - has confirmed the county's reputation as a national symbol of intolerance. Now, a study by scholars at the University of Virginia has exposed just what was achieved, and wasn't, when Virginia's second-largest locality undertook its campaign against undocumented workers.

New research from the University of Virginia Health System shows that nicotine use during pregnancy affects genes important in the formation and mechanism of myelin, a fatty brain substance that insulates brain cell connections in regions of the brain associated with neurobehavioral development. The findings … may explain why the children of mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to develop such psychiatric disorders as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, autism and drug abuse.

The mystery of how the moon got its surface water has just got deeper, following the failure of an attempt to replicate the mechanism that was thought to produce it. … Many planetary scientists assumed the water was created when particles from the solar wind hit lunar soils, but this idea has now been thrown into doubt. "The solar wind cannot produce water in sufficient quantities to account for the results of the three missions that observed it," says Raúl Baragiola, a member of the team at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, that tried to reproduce this effect in...

When Brendon Fox visited the University of Virginia back in his high school days, he said that he would like to return one day. Fox – after spending 15 years as a successful director in Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles – has returned to Charlottesville. He is in town this week to direct the University of Virginia Department of Drama’s production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The University of Virginia Library is continuing to preserve civil rights-era television news footage that includes clips of civil rights leaders discussing plans for demonstrations and then-Gov. Lindsay Almond vowing to fight racial integration.

Last month, UVA held a ceremonial ground-breaking at the future site of the Ruth Caplin Theatre, a 300-seat, 20,500 square-foot "thrust stage" theater that will rise beside the Culbreth Theater on Culbreth Road – courtesy of Ruth Caplin, 89, and husband, Mortimer Caplin, 94, who donated $4 million for the $13.5 million addition to the Drama Building and whose lives have been as drama-filled as the plays and films they hope to nurture.

Lexi Moutafakis is among the UVa students who volunteer with Campus Kitchen, a group that cooks meals from unused portions from the university's dining halls and provides the meals to Charlottesville-area families and individuals in need. For this Thanksgiving, the students launched a massive effort called "Turkeypalooza" to collect food and cash contributions from across UVa to provide a full Thanksgiving meal to their recipients.

The University of Virginia four years ago joined Harvard and Princeton in a much-publicized revolt against early-admissions policies that the schools termed unfair to some applicants. But the revolution never spread, and it now appears to be over. U-Va. announced Nov. 16 that high school seniors may again apply early in 2012, though under a more flexible policy than before.

The University of Virginia is considering a move to accelerate the pace of its student enrollment growth, but only if the state agrees to pony up to help the university cope with the added costs.

[Carl L. Cash of Charlottesville is a wounded veteran of the Korean War] Cash ended up in the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. While there, he was told that most of the men in his unit had been killed. The wounded Marine’s spirits were lifted considerably when he was visited by soldiers and sailors from Charlottesville who were stationed nearby. A surgeon from the University of Virginia raised his spirits even more. "This doctor from UVa operated on me, and if it hadn’t been for him, I’m not sure I would have made it,” Cash said. “I can’t remembe...