The Los Angeles Sentinel reported on a new partnership between UCLA Extension and the SoLa Foundation offering tuition-free courses to South Los Angeles residents. Held at the foundation’s Crenshaw campus, courses in fields including AI, entrepreneurship and project management aim to provide residents with marketable skills and new pathways to career advancement. Read more about UCLA in today’s Bloomberg Law, USA Today and others.

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More highlights from UCLA in the News: September 10, 2026

A 2,000-year-old ring with Pontius Pilate’s name on it is discovered | Popular Mechanics

So it didn’t seem like a luxury item befitting the governor of Judea — but then why did it bear his name? Recently, Catherine Bonesho, a professor of ancient Judaism at UCLA, examined the ring more closely and decoded the ancient mystery.

AI companies are harming mathematics | New Scientist

Terence Tao is a man who understands mathematics. He has a Fields medal — often called the Nobel prize of mathematics — to name just one of his many accolades. So when he says that OpenAI’s recent blockbuster mathematical breakthrough is indicative of how big technology companies are negatively affecting the field, people are likely to listen. (Tao was also cited by USA Today.)

Hollywood fears an AI future. China is already living it | Los Angeles Times

Similar tools are being tested in the U.S., and the AI trends upending China’s entertainment industry may be a harbinger for what’s to come in Hollywood, said Michael Berry, a professor specializing in contemporary Chinese culture at UCLA.

Uncertainty looms as SCOTUS considers mail ballot plan | New York Times

“It would be massively disenfranchising, and it would serve no real purpose, because the government didn’t make any showing that this rule is actually going to prevent any fraud, or even that they could put their rule in place,” said Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law. (Hasen was also cited by Los Angeles Times.)

Texas sees growing benefit from corporate push to ditch Delaware | Bloomberg Law

Other states have tried — and failed — to dethrone Delaware, where two-thirds of the Fortune 500 are legally domiciled, as the nation’s corporate hub. But this attempt is noteworthy given the size and sway of some companies leaving, such as Dell Technologies Inc. and software firm Datadog Inc., and Texas’ entrance as a serious competitor, said Stephen Bainbridge, a corporate law scholar and professor at the UCLA School of Law who popularized “DExit” as a term.

Student homelessness is on the rise in California, including San Diego | KPBS-FM

A recent study from UCLA shows that San Diego County has the fourth highest count of homeless students across all California counties. And the San Diego Unified School District has the second highest out of every district in the state. That’s in line with the growing statewide trend of student homelessness.

Groceries, gas, rent. Why it’s so expensive to live in LA | Los Angeles Times

Shane Phillips, a housing expert with the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA, said the high price of homes reflects the lack of construction of new housing over decades. “When the rest of the country was booming in the 2000s, Los Angeles was building effectively nothing. We did not respond to the boom at all,” he said. Housing costs could come down if the city were to allow four-story, 12- to 15-unit residences on standard home parcels, which could lower the price of a new home below $500,000, Phillips said. But he believes that would be politically impossible due to neighborhood opposition.

Heat sets new records as oppressive humidity strangles region | Los Angeles Times

Unsafe weather conditions can create an added heat stress by forcing a person’s body to adjust to maintain a stable core temperature, said Dr. David Eisenman, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. A person’s body is working to maintain 98.6 degrees and if it gets hotter and more humid outside, the body has to work harder to maintain that stable temperature, he said.

It’s head lice season. Here’s what to know | Time

“Head lice can occur throughout the year, but cases are often noticed more frequently in late summer and early fall, when children return to school and resume close-contact activities,” says Dr. April Armstrong, chief of dermatology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

No one is fooled by California’s fake trees. That’s not the point | SFGate

A tree can only look so realistic, though, when it has to tower above its surroundings to ensure a good signal. The branches often look either too perfect or not perfect enough. They’re “comical,” Dana Cuff, a professor of architecture and urbanism at UCLA, told SFGate via email.