UCLA in the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription. See more UCLA in the News.

‘Oligarchy’ decried by Biden gained $1.5 trillion in his term | Bloomberg

“Those at the top of the income distribution often do well during periods of strong economic growth,” Kimberly Clausing, a UCLA law professor and economist who served in Biden’s Treasury Department, said in an email. “Recent U.S. innovation and productivity growth have helped fuel these high returns.”

The latest on the ceasefire deal in Gaza | KCAL-TV

“The deal consists of an initial phase of — basically scattered over several days or several weeks — where a limited number of remaining Israeli hostages, some who are alive, some who are dead, will be released, beginning with women and those who are ill, elderly,” said UCLA’s Benjamin Radd.

L.A. fires’ heat, intensity driven by planet-warming pollution | The Hill

Human-caused climate change was responsible for about a quarter of the fuel available for the wildfires that have devastated the Los Angeles area, according to research from University of California, Los Angeles scientists published Monday. (Also: San Francisco Chronicle and CalMatters.)

What is psychological first aid? | NPR’s “All Things Considered”

“If we think about the wildfires that are going on now in Los Angeles, different communities and different people are in very different spaces. We have quite a few that are not in the space right now to talk about what their worst moment is,” said UCLA’s Melissa Brymer. (UCLA’s Dr. David Eisenman was also quoted.)

Could the L.A. fires change how California responds to deportations? | Los Angeles Times

Talia Inlender, deputy director at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, told me she’s hopeful. “California has a strong track record of resisting federal pressure to cooperate with immigration enforcement,” she said in an email. “We expect that the state will continue to do so in the aftermath of the devastating fires because it’s the right thing to do, and because any recovery and rebuilding efforts will depend on the many immigrants who live and work in Los Angeles.”

Elon Musk and Gavin Newsom’s common cause on the fires | Politico

Minjee Kim, a professor in urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, said Newsom’s order was likely a preemptive move to answer questions about the commission’s role in the recovery. “For any rebuilding that needs to happen, there shouldn’t be any additional ‘development permit’ that needs to be secured,” she said.

He saved his home from fire. But toxic dangers still lurk | New York Times

Smoke and overall air quality continued to be a risk, said Yifang Zhu, a professor in environmental health at the University of California, Los Angeles. Soot and other fine particles, known as PM2.5, can penetrate the lungs and the heart and can even enter the bloodstream, affecting the entire body.

What is the pink powder sprayed over the wildfires? | NBC News

Yifang Zhu, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health, said the benefits of using fire retardants outweigh the risks. “There’s very little evidence showing there are serious long-term health effects associated with it” for people, Zhu said.

Answering frequently asked questions about wildfires | People

Greg Pierce, who teaches environmental policy at UCLA, told PEOPLE that without considering sweeping infrastructure changes, urban water systems are currently “not well-equipped” against wildfires. Pierce noted that a local reservoir, the Santa Ynez, was down for maintenance in the Palisades but even with that water, it was unlikely to be decisive in dealing with such a sweeping fire.

Safety concerns as fire evacuees begin returning home | KCAL-TV

“The particles that are larger are going to settle. A lot of them have already settled. As soon as the rain comes it’ll all settle down,” said Rania Sabty, a program manager with UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program. “So concern about asbestos in the air will continue to go down as time goes down.”

This practice could have slowed down L.A. fires | San Francisco Chronicle

For Edith de Guzman, water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, too many communities have been built in areas that are now susceptible to climate-amplified super fires. More than 5 million California homes are estimated to be in the risky “wildland-urban interface,” the most of any state.

The Los Angeles fires burned livelihoods, too | New York Times

Around 10,000 Latinos worked in the evacuation zones of the Palisades, making up 34 percent of the work force there, according to the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at UCLA. Nearly 20,000 more Latinos worked in the evacuation zones of the Eaton fire near Pasadena to the east of downtown Los Angeles.

Why did it take so long to ban cancer-causing red dye? | Los Angeles Times

“A lot of people think we need to reform this,” said Diana Winters, deputy director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law. “It does lead to some absurd results.”

Processed red meat may raise risk of cognitive decline, dementia | Healthline

“It is fairly well known that red meat, and especially processed red meats, are highly inflammatory, are associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and also may increase the risk for plaques in the brain which are associated with dementia and/or cognitive decline,” Dana Hunnes, a senior dietitian at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told Healthline.

California workers plan a long battle against AI | CalMatters

A report released earlier this year by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute found that 4.5 million Californians are in 20 industries labeled at high risk of job loss due to automation, and that more than half of high-risk workers are Latino.

Republican bill would ban trans girls from high school sports in California | Los Angeles Times

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, which researches public policy around sexual orientation and gender identity, estimates that about 1.4% of American teenagers ages 13-17 — about 300,000 individuals nationwide — identify as transgender. Fewer play sports.