City News Service reported that the number of California students experiencing homelessness rose 10% from the 2018–19 school year to a record 298,254 students in 2024–25, according to a UCLA study released Wednesday. Southern California is home to seven of the 10 school districts with the highest numbers of students experiencing homelessness, according to the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. “These numbers are particularly concerning given the extensive evidence documenting the harmful effects of housing instability on children’s development, health and educational outcomes,” said Grace Kim, a research analyst at the center and lead author of the report. (UCLA’s Joseph Bishop was also quoted. Also: EdSource and KTTV-TV.) Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, NPR and others.

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More highlights from UCLA in the News: August 27, 2026

The Los Angeles Times reported on UCLA’s launch of the nation’s first freestanding Department of Digital Humanities, as the Westwood campus and other institutions craft new degree programs built partly or entirely around AI. Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA Humanities Division, said growing demand justified the new department, especially in Los Angeles, a hub where media, tech and the arts meet. The UCLA major fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities in subjects like history, literature and global cultures. (UCLA’s Todd Presner and Wendy Kurtz were also quoted. Cindy Anh Nguyen was featured. Also: CalMatters.) Read more about UCLA in today’s Vox, NPR and others.

Decision delayed on homeless encampment sweeps during emergencies | LAist

A study published earlier this year found that sweeps in Los Angeles County were associated with poorer physical health and worse psychological distress, as reported by hundreds of surveyed unhoused Angelenos. Randall Kuhn, a professor of community health sciences at UCLA who co-authored the study, said the city should ideally give unhoused people a chance to enter safe indoor shelters during emergencies. Barring that, he said, the city should at least allow people to stay put.

Immigration arrests soar, hitting 50,000 in July | NPR

Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded 49,571 arrests in July, setting the highest monthly arrest total in President Trump’s second term, according to recently released government data provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project based at UC Berkeley and UCLA … Graeme Blair, co-director of the Deportation Data Project, says the uptick is due to Mullin’s change in tactics. (Also: CBS News and UPI.)

Angelenos work to beat the heat | Spectrum News 1

“This year has been just one string of extreme heat periods after another,” said V. Kelly Turner, heat expert and professor of urban planning at UCLA. “I think what’s happening this summer, that’s different, is that there hasn’t been a lot of a break between the extreme heat events,” she said.

A vaccine for the newest strain of Ebola? | KNX-AM

UCLA professor Anne Rimoin says the Ebola vaccine we already have wasn’t designed for this particular virus. “There is currently no licensed vaccine specifically for it,” [said Rimoin.]

The bizarre roots of Trump’s trade war on Canada | Vox

“This has never been a particularly well-thought strategy,” says Kim Clausing, a trade economist at UCLA. “I think that the biggest, most coherent explanation is that this is about power.”

Meta to safeguard against teen social media addiction | KCRW 89.9-FM’s “Press Play”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is touting the changes as a victory for teen digital safety, but Julia Powles, who leads the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy says none of the changes go far enough. The nuts and bolts of Meta’s business model remain intact and as long as the company profits off addiction, perverse incentives remain (approx. 1:05 mark).

Children are losing health coverage. Federal cuts will make it worse | Capital & Main

Partly as a result, the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research predict that California’s uninsured rate will nearly double by 2030, nearing 15%. The addition of 2.2 million people to the ranks of the uninsured will erode much of the progress the state has made toward universal coverage, the UC researchers wrote in a May report.