LAist reported that city air quality officials have ramped up demands of Lineage LLC as it oversees the cleanup of its Boyle Heights warehouse after residents filed more than 900 complaints of “rotten, sour, garbage-type smells” in the last week. According to Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, an exposure scientist and assistant professor with the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, the waste is being hauled away by trucks that can hold 20 tons at once. Ornelas Van Horne said beyond the smells of the material they’re holding, these trucks may pose health concerns of their own, similar to those near warehouses across LA County and the Inland Empire. Read more about UCLA in today’s Discover, Wired and others.

More highlights from UCLA in the News: July 21, 2026

World Cup halftime show puts American-style spectacle on the world stage | Wired

“The World Cup has traditionally centered its musical identity on a single iconic anthem and an opening ceremony rooted in the host nation,” says Tiffany Naiman, director of the Berry Gordy Music Industry Center at UCLA. “So when FIFA unveils an 11-minute halftime spectacle, featuring Madonna and Justin Bieber, and Tom Cruise attached to the closing ceremony, it reads to some as importing an American made-for-TV sensibility.”

Are wildfires getting worse? | Discover

Along the roads through Yosemite National Park, a bend can reveal a field of bare, burned trunks standing where a living forest once grew. It is a scene wildfire researcher Mitchell Hung has encountered repeatedly. Hung, who studied California’s changing fires as a graduate student at UCLA, compares the remaining trunks to “tree gravestones.” (UCLA’s Park Williams was also quoted.)

The latest in the conflict with Iran | CNN

“I think it either points to the fact that the U.S. has not decimated Iran’s offensive capabilities or the United States doesn’t have the ability to protect its assets, its troops, using defensive capabilities —ammunitions, interceptors, things of that nature. Either way, it’s a deficit in the U.S. operation and the way this is being run, and it’s a cause for concern,” said UCLA’s Benjamin Radd.

Trump’s border czar makes ‘gobsmacking’ statement about ICE shootings | HuffPost

“ICE and other federal immigration agents have made quick compliance difficult or impossible,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a professor of immigration and citizenship law at the UCLA School of Law and the author of ”Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy.”

New drug targets California disease that ‘does not spare the healthy’ | SFGate

Shangxin Yang, an associate clinical professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UCLA, called the study results “phenomenal” and told SFGATE a new drug “is exactly what we need at this point.” Yang said when he started his career 15 years ago, Valley fever in California was still relatively uncommon, and he saw only about one Valley fever case a month. Now, he said, he often sees at least one case a day.