UCLA in the News

The New York Times featured UCLA neuroscience doctoral student Elle Rathbun in a report on how federal funding cuts are affecting young scientists’ careers. Rathbun, whose stroke recovery research was temporarily suspended following cuts to UCLA’s federal grants, discussed how the experience led her to reconsider a career in academia, even after her funding was restored. Read more about UCLA in today’s Scienmag, KCAL-TV and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with Ahilan Arulanantham, faculty co-director of UCLA’s Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy, about President Donald Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff. Arulanantham said the promotion is unlikely to change the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, but a Democratic-controlled Congress could have greater leverage to challenge its policies. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, CNN and other outlets.

Bloomberg spoke with Colleen Callahan, executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and Marta Segura, director of the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, about Mayor-elect Nithya Raman’s plans to advance Los Angeles’ climate goals. Both emphasized the importance of turning existing climate commitments into measurable results and what that might look like. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, CBS LA and other outlets.

CBC News spoke with UCLA political science professor Daniel Treisman about Melania Trump’s involvement in a temporary Russia-Ukraine ceasefire that allowed hundreds of civilians to evacuate a Russian-occupied city. Treisman suggested both countries may view her participation as a way to strengthen ties with President Donald Trump, regardless of her role in the negotiations. Read more about UCLA in today’s CNN, Los Angeles Times and other outlets.

The Associated Press spoke with UCLA law professor Rick Hasen about the aftermath of the 2026 midterm elections and whether President Donald Trump might challenge the results following significant Republican losses. Hasen said the decisive outcome left Trump with little opportunity to contest the broader results, although some individual election disputes could continue. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, USA Today and other outlets.

Homelessness? The Los Angeles Times spoke with Jim Newton LA veteran journalist and editor of UCLA Blueprint magazine, who said that most Angelenos would be happy to spend money if it solved the issue. Most want encampments gone for good, he said, and not by locking people up or punishing them for being poor but by genuinely helping them. “Is that possible?” he asked. “I don’t know.” Read more about UCLA in today’s USA Today, Atlantic, Forbes and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck about the future of the Republican Party as it approaches the midterms amid shifting voter support and questions about its direction beyond President Trump. Vavreck said the political coalition Trump built is unlikely to disappear when he leaves office, noting that the priorities motivating his supporters will persist. Read more about UCLA in today’s Bloomberg Law, the New Yorker and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with UCLA’s Dr. Keith Vossel about Lewy body dementia, the condition actor Patrick Stewart suffered from before his death Wednesday. The condition is the second-most-common form of degenerative dementia behind Alzheimer’s disease, with the two often occurring together and resulting in a faster decline for the individual. Read more about UCLA in today’s The Conversation, Spectrum News 1 and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with UCLA information studies professor Ramesh Srinivasan about the growing role of paid social media influencers in California’s contentious Proposition 40 billionaire tax campaign. Srinivasan warned that personalized social media feeds, AI and targeted political messaging can expose voters to vastly different information, making it harder to establish a shared understanding of political issues. Read more about UCLA in today’s BBC News, CBS News and other outlets.

LAist 89.3’s “AirTalk” spoke with UCLA historian Caroline Luce about her new book, “Yiddish in the Land of Sunshine: Race, Labor, and Jewish Radicalism in Los Angeles,” which explores the influence of Jewish immigrant activists on the city’s early 20th-century political landscape. Luce discussed how Boyle Heights became a center for Jewish political activism and how these communities helped shape the city’s labor movement and relationships among its diverse populations. Read more about UCLA in today’s Guardian, KCAL-TV and other outlets.

BBC Wildlife Magazine spoke with UCLA ecology and evolutionary biology professor Daniel Blumstein about an international study he co-authored that found that urban birds tend to fly away sooner when approached by women than by men. Blumstein said the findings were consistent across 37 bird species in five European countries. Researchers have yet to determine the cause of the difference. Read more about UCLA in today’s CNN, Los Angeles Times and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with Ann Carlson, founding director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA, who credits Newsom with dramatically expanding battery storage and suggests that his potential presidential ambitions have influenced his recent shifts in environmental policy. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, Associated Press and other outlets.

The New York Times interviewed UCLA’s Jim Newton and Zev Yaroslavsky about the political challenges facing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as she seeks reelection against City Council member Nithya Raman. Criticism of Bass’ response to the 2025 wildfires has complicated her bid for a second term, but a large number of undecided voters could determine the outcome. The article also cited a UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs survey on Angelenos’ declining satisfaction with their quality of life. Read more about UCLA in today’s Time, Forbes and other outlets.

Variety reported on a new study by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA examining how young audiences consume stories and what they want from entertainment. UCLA psychology professor Yalda T. Uhls, the center’s founder and CEO, said the findings show that young viewers are more discerning than Hollywood executives might realize, with many favoring unknown actors, more diverse representation and storytelling beyond traditional movies and television. Read more about UCLA in LAist, Education Week and other outlets.

KABC-TV profiled a patient who has survived 14 years after being diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer, thanks in part to surgery and an innovative treatment at UCLA. UCLA’s Dr. Timothy Donahue explained how the targeted treatment attacks cancer cells and highlighted a new research initiative aimed at expanding therapy options for patients with the disease. Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, Spectrum News 1 and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times reported on 28 people charged with federal election-related crimes in California, some of whom said they had no recollection of registering to vote. Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, noted that voter registration errors can occur accidentally and that prosecutors must prove willful violations of federal law. Read more about UCLA in today’s KCRW 89.9-FM, KNBC-TV and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times examined the growing threat of coastal flooding in California as rising sea levels and powerful ocean conditions put beaches, homes and infrastructure at risk. Timu Gallien of UCLA’s Coastal Flood Lab warned that upcoming conditions could break water-level records and potentially damage piers, breakwaters and jetties, while noting that many communities remain focused on temporary fixes rather than long-term solutions. Read more about UCLA in today’s Business Insider, Associated Press and other outlets.

The New York Times profiled UCLA mathematician and Fields Medal recipient Terence Tao, who has emerged as a leading voice in the debate over AI’s rapidly growing role in mathematical research and its impact on younger scholars. The article also featured UCLA professors Andrea Bertozzi and Dimitri Shlyakhtenko, as well as Tao’s graduate students Ben Goldman, Siddharth Mulherkar and Arian Nadjimzadah. Read more about UCLA in today’s Washington Post, CNN and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Justice Department is pressing California election officials to verify the citizenship of thousands of flagged voters or set aside their ballots ahead of the November midterm elections. Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, questioned the legality of the demand, noting that federal law restricts systematic voter purges within 90 days of an election to protect eligible voters from being mistakenly disenfranchised. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, LAist and other outlets.

The New York Times spoke with Dr. Edward Garon, director of thoracic oncology at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, about the prognosis for Pope Leo XIV, who was diagnosed with lung cancer on Tuesday. Garon joined other experts to explain the medical profile of lung adenocarcinoma and what next steps might be for the first American pope. Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, KTLA-TV and other outlets.

KCRW reported that UCLA scientists and the Nature Conservancy are using genetic analysis to identify oak trees best equipped to survive California’s increasingly hot, dry climate. UCLA biologist Ryan Buck said researchers hope to use the findings to identify more resilient trees whose acorns and seedlings could help restore struggling oak populations across the state. Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Business Journal, New York Times and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times featured an article about Zoë Ryan nearly two years into her tenure as director of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. Ryan, who wants to create a “radical welcoming” for the community through new uses of the site’s spaces, is seeking to place educational initiatives on equal footing with exhibitions, pursue collaborations across the city and position the Hammer as the anchor of a Westside arts district. Read more about UCLA in today’s New Yorker, Daily Mail and other outlets.

City News Service reported on a study by researchers at UCLA and that found that nearly 15,000 people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement across seven Southern California counties in 2025 and 2026 were eventually deported. “The extraordinary impact of the surge is now clear,” said Graeme Blair, co-director of the Deportation Data Project and a political science professor at UCLA. (Also: KNBC-TV, KTLA-TV and KCAL-TV.) Read more about UCLA in today’s BBC, The Guardian and other outlets.

With Los Angeles sweltering through a record-breaking October heat wave, the Los Angeles Times reported on a UCLA-led initiative looking for ways to give Angelenos relief from the sun. ShadeLA, a collaboration led by UCLA and USC, is testing temporary shade sails, canopies and tents to cool public spaces where trees are scarce or take years to grow. UCLA researcher Edith de Guzman says the goal is to complement tree planting with solutions that can provide shade almost immediately. Read more about UCLA in the New York Times, CNN and other outlets.

Inc. magazine highlighted a UCLA-led study that found that signs of accelerated brain aging in younger and middle-aged adults were associated with poorer cognitive performance, greater depressive symptoms and differences in gut bacteria and metabolites. The study's lead author, Kanhao Zhao, now at Stanford University, conducted the research while at UCLA. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, City News Service and other outlets.