In a Los Angeles Times commentary, UCLA’s Benjamin Karney discusses his lab’s effort to review what social scientists have learned about the consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage in the two decades since Massachusetts paved the way for LGBTQ couples to tie the knot. Of the 96 independent studies Karney’s team reviewed, the data point to no evidence for the harms critics predicted — namely, that these unions may harm children or even the stability of different-sex marriages. Read more about UCLA in today’s LAist’s “AirTalk” and the New York Times Magazine.

More highlights from UCLA in the News: April 14, 2026

AI’s lack of bodily experience poses safety risks | Santa Monica Daily Press

A new study from UCLA Health argues that today’s most advanced artificial intelligence systems are missing a fundamental property of human cognition — and that the gap could have significant consequences for AI safety. Published in the journal Neuron, the paper proposes that current AI systems are missing two essential ingredients that humans take for granted: a body that interacts with the physical world and an internal awareness of that body’s own states such as fatigue, uncertainty or physiological need. (UCLA’s Akila Kadambi and Marco Iacoboni were quoted.)  

Deportations and street arrests have risen exponentially, researchers find | Phys.org

The number of deportations within the United States increased by a factor of five in the first year under the current presidential administration, according to a new report by the Deportation Data Project. The report follows the latest release by the project, which is led by scholars at UCLA and UC Berkeley Law and Freedom of Information Act attorneys, of new and updated individual-level Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. (UCLA’s Graeme Blair was quoted.)  

Iran war expected to have ripple effects on U.S. supply chain | Spectrum News 1

“The Middle East, and therefore the world, has changed permanently, and even if we try to go back to where we were, it simply won’t be possible,” Jerrold D. Green, [who has lived and worked in Iran, Israel and Egypt and is currently a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations]. “This is a serious problem,” he said. “It looks Middle Eastern. It’s absolutely global in scope.” (Also: Daily Breeze.)

Can these lawsuits protect LGBTQ youth from conversion therapy? | CalMatters

“What this decision is essentially saying is that it doesn’t matter that states have an interest in regulating the quality of care for their patients. Her right to express herself doesn’t stop when she steps into her office and practices her profession that is licensed by the state” said Elana Redfield, an attorney and federal policy director at UCLA’s Williams Institute, which researches LGBTQ legal issues.

What have the results for Inside Safe looked like three years in? | LAist’s “AirTalk”

“One benefit of Inside Safe that it has proven the myth that people in encampments are there by choice and don’t want a better alternative, because almost 100 percent of the people in encampments who are offered a motel room through Inside Safe accepted it,” said UCLA’s Gary Blasi (approx. 13:10 mark).

How Southern California cleaned up its skies | LAist’s “AirTalk”

“We need to go back to the 1940s, when we first start getting regular reports of smog, reported primarily in The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and other local newspapers. We have extraordinary pictures from those days of people wearing gas masks downtown. For a long time, we thought the smog that we were experiencing in Southern California was very similar to what was happening in other Midwestern cities like Pittsburgh, St, Louis and Chicago,” said UCLA’s Ann Carlson (approx. 1:55 mark).

California Democrats are clamoring to tax the rich | CalMatters

While they might do little to address the state’s structural deficit, proposals to tax the rich shrewdly tap into the public anxiety with “rather extraordinary disparity in the distribution of income and wealth,” said Kirk Stark, a professor of tax law and policy at UCLA. ”I think that targeting the rich is understandable, but I don’t think that it’s really the kind of policy that can be expected to durably address very long-term structural fiscal imbalance,” he said. 

Economy is forcing middle-class people in Sacramento to the edge | Sacramento Bee

A UCLA report released in March noted that the economy is functioning unevenly. They described it as bifurcated: High-productivity sectors are surging while employment growth is lagging. That divide shows up clearly in California, where output is growing, but payroll employment remains weak. And it shows up in kitchens, credit card balances, and doctors’ offices across the country.  

Can ‘Michael’ help restore a tarnished image? | The New York Times Magazine

[Jeff] Jampol teaches a class in artist management and marketing at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and he always tells his students that they need to think about what “connects a 12-year-old to Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Tupac,” adding, “If you think that magic is about the music, you’re going to fail this class.”