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.
Social media and teens | ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’
Dr. Yalda Uhls … at UCLA has some advice. First, be actively involved. “A lot of people use ‘drive the car’ as learning how to get on the Internet. We just don’t say ‘here’s the keys to the car. Just go for it.’ Teach them with your adult brain what you’ve already learned … Talk to them about the content they’re consuming. Two hours of Minecraft versus half an hour of Halo for a 12-year-old is much healthier” (approx. 2:10 mark; UCLA students Chizaram Iwuanyanwu and Abbie Burrus were also interviewed).
Gov. Newsom won’t deliver State of the State speech | Associated Press
“Long gone are the days of an hourlong gubernatorial address on prime-time TV that everyone went into their living room and watched,” said Matt Barreto, a political science professor at UCLA. “Perhaps the governor is thinking there are more effective ways of going out into the community and speaking directly to voters.”
Gun cases hinge more on history than today’s threats | Los Angeles Times
“This new ‘history and tradition’ test that the Supreme Court established last June is wreaking havoc on America’s gun laws,” said Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who focuses on 2nd Amendment law. “Instead of having a reasonable debate over whether a ban on assault weapons is good policy or not, we have to debate whether a ban on assault weapons has historical antecedents.” (UCLA’s Eugene Volokh was also quoted.)
America already tops 100 mass shootings in 2023 | CNN
“Although fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries are growing, no real legislative response has followed acts of gun violence in support of individuals or the communities in which they live. And there is scant proof that prevention measures, such as active shooter drills, have reduced actual harm,” Mark S. Kaplan, a professor of social welfare at UCLA, told CNN.
Voting rights under assault | Washington Post
A study of the 2016 election, led by UCLA economist Keith Chen and based on cellphone data, had a similar finding: Voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods were 74 percent more likely to wait for more than half an hour than those in White neighborhoods.
Awash in asphalt, cities rethink parking needs | New York Times
In the postwar period … parking minimums were enshrined in zoning codes … The rules were exacting: one parking space per apartment, for example, or one for every 300 square feet of a commercial building. It all sounded scientific, but these ratios were not based on any verifiable data about how many spaces were needed, said Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been railing since the 1970s against the requirements, which he calls a pseudoscience.
Police abuse often ‘shielded’ from repercussions | NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’
In her new book, “Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable,” [UCLA’s Joanna] Schwartz examines the legal protections — including qualified immunity and no-knock warrants — that have protected officers from the repercussions of abuse. She makes the case that true reform will require local police departments to gather and analyze information about the lawsuits brought against them — and to assume the cost of any settlements.
A look at Hollywood gender parity pre-Oscars | Reuters
“Women are making progress in certain areas on screen,” said UCLA sociologist Darnell Hunt, co-author of an annual Hollywood diversity report. But, Hunt added, they “have a long way to go, particularly behind the scenes” … Women accounted for 47.2% of leading roles in the top theatrical and streaming films in 2021, UCLA researchers found. That was an increase from 32.9% in 2017.
Tackling L.A.’s affordable housing crisis | Spectrum News 1
Tim Kawahara, executive director of UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, says there are several factors that stand in the way of easing LA’s affordable housing crisis, including restrictive land use policies. “75% of residential-zoned land in Los Angeles is for single-family homes so that’s excluding multi-family, which is what you really need to do if we’re going to create housing stock at scale,” he said. “And then there is a very long approval process. So for developers, it can take four or five or more years to get your approval before you break ground.”
Concerns over coming California storms | Washington Post
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, tweeted that — even if the snowpack is able to absorb much of the rain that’s to come — it would still pose problems for residents in the higher elevations. “There have already been reports of structural collapses from heavy snow loading,” he wrote. “Any rain falling onto existing snow could rapidly increase loading via absorption of water, leading to further issues.”
Are California’s drought conditions changing? | CBS News
UCLA’s Alvar Escriva-Bou: “Most short-term emergency conditions will improve for sure, but I will tell you that we have a lot of problems in California, and all of our water problems will not be over given only this year … Snow helps, it’s going to be a good year this year, but the two main reservoirs are quite empty — are in the emptiest level in many decades. So, what we need is to actually try to adapt our conditions on demand.”
Seniors less likely to get treated for anxiety | Kaiser Health News
“I cannot think of any danger in identifying anxiety in older adults, especially because doing so has no harm and we can do things to reduce it,” said Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychology professor at UCLA. In a recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry, Andreescu and Lavretsky noted that only about one-third of seniors with generalized anxiety disorder … receive treatment. That’s concerning, they said, considering evidence of links between anxiety and stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease, autoimmune illness and neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.
What are ‘darkness retreats?’ | NPR’s ‘1A’
“They idea behind darkness retreats is to remove all the external stimulation and overstimulation that we receive from social media or being attached to our electronic devices, or even just light. And it gives an opportunity to go within, be with yourself and find the internal truth,” said UCLA’s Helen Lavretsky (approx. 5:15 mark).
Do keto diet pills really work? | U.S. News & World Report
Dana Ellis Hunnes, a senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Medical Center, assistant professor at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and author of “Recipe for Survival,” says the keto diet has some health risks for “cardiovascular health, the gastrointestinal tract and microbiome, with an increased risk for colorectal cancer and possible hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and low energy.”
Biden’s skin cancer type and its treatment | Washington Post
Jenny Kim, a dermatologist at UCLA Health, echoed Michalski, saying that the cure rate when basal cell carcinomas are removed with Mohs is 99 percent. “It’s very highly treatable, especially when the lesions are diagnosed and treated early,” said Kim, who also was interviewed in January.
