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.

Impacts of possible LAUSD strike | KCAL-TV

“There are 30,000 members of the Service Employees International Union Local 99 that are poised to go on strike. They may announce as early as in the next week, but they are planning for a three-day strike. And, the 30,000 members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles have pledged to honor the picket lines and to support the strike in the event that the classified workers launch the strike,” said UCLA’s Kent Wong. (Wong also co-wrote commentary about labor center expansion within the University of California in the Orange County Register.)

Political strife is harming teens’ high school experience | Los Angeles Times

But a study of the state’s high schools shows that California campuses are just as likely to experience political strife as those in other, more polarized states. “The surprise here is not that California is different, it is that our public schools are experiencing similar levels of political attacks and conflict with what we have seen across the nation,” said John Rogers, a study co-author and director of the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. (Also: KCRW-FM.)

A discussion on queer identity in art history | Los Angeles Times

(Story and interview by UCLA’s Justin Torres.) Paul Mpagi Sepuya crafts pictures that feel as intimate and warm as they do formal and intellectual. His photos do what art does best: Offer an immediate jolt of both recognition and disorientation, and point toward a singular perspective — a voice, a vision.

Why qualified immunity makes police ‘untouchable’ | KQED-FM’s ‘Forum’

Qualified immunity, writes UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz, “has come to represent all that is wrong with police accountability.” It’s the Supreme Court-created doctrine that protects police officers from civil liability for excessive force and other misconduct unless there is a prior court case where an officer violated another person’s rights in exactly the same way — a standard that she says is virtually impossible to meet. (Schwartz was interviewed.)

Why are Latinos left off many corporate boards? | Los Angeles Times

Trujillo co-founded the Latino Donor Collaborative, a Beverly Hills nonprofit that publishes an annual Latino GDP report. Its latest research, by scholars at UCLA and California Lutheran University, pegs the economic impact of the nation’s 62 million Latino consumers at $2.8 trillion in 2020.

This diet cuts women’s odds of heart disease, early death | HealthDay News

… [P]ast research has also shown that using olive oil and nuts that are high in unsaturated fats — both key foods in the Mediterranean diet — can help lower heart disease risk. Dr. Gregg Fonarow is director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center, co-director of the UCLA Preventative Cardiology Program, and interim chief of University of California, Los Angeles’ division of cardiology. Though also not involved in the review, Fonarow said that “the magnitude of associated [25%] benefit was similar to what has been previously reported for the overall population.”

The pandemic, three years later | KTLA-TV

“We’re in a very, very different place. We are now seeing cases come down, continue to come down and stay much lower. We are not on an upward trend,” said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin.

A gene therapy cure for sickle cell is on the horizon | Wired

In the intervening decades, researchers kept chipping away at gene therapy. They tried different ways of modifying the hemoglobin gene, and used different engineered viruses, known as viral vectors, to sneak it into cells. “No one knew what was going to work,” says Donald Kohn, a physician and professor of microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics and pediatrics at UCLA, who developed the treatment Junior received.

Experts say endometriosis is misunderstood | Healthline

“The ablation question is really a holdover. I don’t think anyone who’s really up to date on appropriate surgical management is still making a serious case that ablation is the right thing to do,” Dr. Daniel Ginn, an expert in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery at the University of California Los Angeles, told Healthline.

Americans are waiting too late to screen for colorectal cancer | The Healthy

The average age when adults in the U.S. are getting their first screen for colorectal cancers, according to data from AMSURG? Fifty-eight. The average age when most adults in the U.S. should be getting their first screen for colorectal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society? Forty-five. That 13-year gap could be the difference between life and death, says Fola May, MD, a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the director of Fight Colorectal Cancer.

UCLA’s ‘informal mascot’ Powell Cat has died | Los Angeles Times 

The cat, who used they/them pronouns, according to the official Powell Cat Instagram page, died at age 10 Thursday, ascending to kitty heaven, leaving behind earthly fans and friends grieving the loss of a campus mainstay. The cat lived at the university for years, with the earliest known photos dating back to 2015. (UCLA’s Kathy Brown and Phoebe Chiu were quoted.)

California eyes rising rivers as the latest storm departs | New York Times

The southern portion of the Sierra Nevada now has what may be its most moisture-rich snowpack on record, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. (Swain was also cited by KCRW-FM.)

Church hopes to bring Hollywood to Inglewood | KCRW-FM’s ‘Greater LA’

According to UCLA’s 2022 Hollywood Diversity Report, people of color have made incremental progress in key roles such as film directors and writers. For instance, during the 2020-21 season, people of color made up only 30% of directors and 32% of film writers in Hollywood. Additionally, filmmakers who are people of color face hurdles in raising financing with about 67% of those films receiving a budget under $20 million. 

Crowdsourcing the source for extraterrestrial life | Spectrum News 1

Led by Jean-Luc Margot at UCLA’s SETI lab, “Are We Alone in the Universe?” invites the public to help classify the hundreds of thousands of signals collected by the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia. “Citizen scientists” with a laptop or smartphone can easily learn how to classify radio signals and help in the search for possible signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.