The Associated Press reported on a UCLA-led effort to raise funds for a project surveying marmots in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where the population declined by two-thirds during last year’s hibernation due to insufficient snow cover. Like Fat Bear Week, Fat Marmot Week is mostly for fun, but it also has a serious side: Scientists need to drum up donations to sustain their long-running research into the rodents amid federal funding cuts. “In some sense, we’re going to be laughing our way down as the Titanic sinks,” said Dan Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Marmot Project. “Because what else are you going to do?” (UCLA’s Emily Renkey and Katie Adler were also quoted.) Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and other outlets.

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

Oil company to continue pumping, California stripped of oversight | Los Angeles Times

“It’s not just a California issue,” said Allan Marks, a professor at UCLA’s law school who has a background in energy law. “What this kind of lays the groundwork for is the federal government — the Department of Energy or the Department of the Interior — [to use] ... the Defense Production Act as an excuse to run roughshod over state environmental law.”

How can a president legally spend ‘patriotic’ donations?  | The Conversation

(Commentary by UCLA’s Ellen Aprill) The fate of President Donald Trump’s estimated U.S. $400 million White House ballroom may hinge on the little-known and somewhat surprising rules as to when the federal government and its agencies can accept privately donated funds. That’s because Trump is using the fact that he’s been accepting private donations to pay for at least some of the project’s cost as a justification for not needing Congress’s explicit authorization.

$24 blood test reveals heart attack and stroke risk cholesterol misses | Miami Herald

Because Lp(a) is genetically determined and stays stable through adulthood, most people only need to be tested once. “Everyone should have Lp(a) tested at least once in their life. It’s a hidden risk for heart attack and stroke that won’t be picked up by standard cholesterol testing,” Dr. Karol Watson, a cardiologist at UCLA Health, said.

CEPI funds $4.17m studies to test Ebola vaccines | News Agency of Nigeria

According to CEPI, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health will receive 2.05 million dollars to examine immune responses among recipients of Ervebo and Ad26.ZEBOV/MVA-BN-Filo vaccines, using data from more than 1,700 participants and about 1,800 stored serum samples. Professor of epidemiology at UCLA, Anne Rimoin, said the institution’s long-standing collaboration with the National Institute of Biomedical Research in the DRC had provided cohorts and laboratory expertise that could be deployed rapidly