It was the marriage of whiplash and deja vu. Hours before Gov. Schwarzenegger debuted the latest version of a hellish state budget proposal, the University of California's governing Board of Regents gave a unanimous thumbs-up for continued planning for a multi-million-dollar Valley medical school headquartered at UC Merced. Among the regents ...

UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang offered an engaging smile and a sense of exuberance as he and others provided a status report Nov. 16 on the push for a UC medical school in central California. The goal is to open the campus in 2013 with 32 students, and have 284 enrolled by 2023. In the words of Maria Pallavicini, dean of UC Merced's ...