The Wall Street Journal featured a study co-authored by researchers from UCLA, Stanford University and the University of Southern California examining how people use artificial intelligence tools in their daily lives. UCLA economist Gregor Schubert, one of the study’s authors, said that while AI can boost efficiency and free up time, how people ultimately use that time varies widely. The article also highlighted real-world examples of individuals using AI to manage household tasks, fitness routines and scheduling. Read more about UCLA in today’s CBS News, NPR and others.
More highlights from UCLA in the News: March 30, 2026
UCLA heat maps reveal disparities in who suffers most | Santa Monica Daily Press
“Heat maps reveal something temperature data alone can’t: which communities are most vulnerable to heat-related health impacts,” said Dr. David Eisenman, a physician and professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and co-director of the center. “Knowing who is hit hardest is essential for planning targeted interventions — especially as heat waves grow more frequent and severe.”
As Western heat wave ends, scientists get to work | NBC News
Climate change is responsible for a shift in temperature distribution across different parts of the world. Land is warming faster than the ocean, and the Western U.S. is warming faster than other regions, said Karen McKinnon, an associate professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA testing soil for lead, offer inexpensive fixes | Los Angeles Daily News
Enter the scientists with the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences and a group they formed to yes, test dirt, what they call soil, called the LA Urban Soil Social Impact Collaborative. They’ve been testing soils in neighborhoods not affected by fires that have legacy lead contamination from nearby industrial pollution. In short, many regions in Los Angeles County and all across Southern California have been dealing with lead and other toxic metals in their soil for years, even decades, that are not sourced from fires. (UCLA’s Kirsten Schwarz and Monika Shankar were quoted.)
UCLA sues to stop Riverside County Sheriff’s election investigation | KCBS-TV
UCLA’s Voting Rights Project filed a lawsuit to stop Riverside County’s investigation into the Prop 50 special election, arguing that Sheriff Chad Bianco violated state law when he ordered his deputies to seize more than 600,000 ballots and recount them. “What’s happened here in Riverside County is the ballots have been removed from the trained elections staff,” said Chad Dunn, director of litigation of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project. “Whoever does the count, if it’s done in secret, at least some group of people are not going to believe it.”
Custody fight over dog shows why lawyers should never trust AI | Los Angeles Times
“Most lawyers grew up in a time when you could expect the other side to spin and even to lie about the record some of the time, but just lying or making a mistake about the existence of a case was basically unheard of up until a few years ago,” said UCLA’s Eugene Volokh.
Living comfortably costs the most in these California cities | Los Angeles Times
California housing costs are about double the national average. The state has struggled to keep up with demand, largely due to the lingering impacts of decades-long missteps in housing policies, said Paavo Monkkonen, a professor in urban planning at UCLA. “It’s a problem that we created very slowly over a long period of time,” Monkkonen said.
Trump has deployed ICE agents to the nation’s airports. What’s their role? | NPR
“Two significant developments have occurred and accelerated during the second Trump administration,” Hiroshi Motomura, co-director of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy, told NPR via email. The first, he said, was how the administration has allowed ICE to conduct its operations. The agency has faced criticism for its confrontational tactics, including allowing masked, plainclothes officers to arrest and detain people who they suspect to be in the country illegally.
How a Latino voter shift could reshape the midterms | Los Angeles Times
UCLA political scientist Matt Barreto said movement away from Republicans is already visible in real-world election outcomes, not just polling. “We’ve already seen in the Virginia and New Jersey legislative and gubernatorial elections really large shifts in the Latino vote, 25 points back to the Democratic Party,” Barreto said. He added that similar patterns have emerged in places such as Miami and Texas, where Democratic candidates have outperformed expectations with strong Latino support.
Lucrative bets that anticipated Trump’s policy surprises warrant scrutiny | Reuters
“It looks deeply suspicious,” said Andrew Verstein, an expert in insider trading at UCLA School of Law, adding that while the examples are limited in number, they show patterns you “would expect to see if there were informed trading by government officials and their friends.”
‘I thought I would be caged my whole life’ | New York Times
Woody excelled at community college and transferred into UCLA, where he took a creative-writing class with the novelist Mona Simpson. He submitted a story, “The Eloper,” about a nonverbal autistic man who wanders out of a day care facility and is accosted by police officers. It became the opening of a longer work of nested stories set at a center for people with disabilities. “It was such a persuasive view of a world that I hadn’t seen before,” Simpson said.
In a first, scientists observe a comet reversing its spin | CBS News
Researchers determined that the comet likely continued slowing until it nearly stopped. Then, as it approached the sun, heat melted frozen ice on the comet’s surface, creating “jets of gas” that “can act like small thrusters,” said David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles, who published a paper about the comet’s movements. The comet also had a small nucleus, making it easy for it to rotate.
These small African antelopes may help mpox spread | Science
The finding “suggests duikers may be one piece of a more complex mpox ecology than we have fully appreciated,” says Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist and mpox researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the work.
‘Cicada’ COVID-19 variant spreading across United States | KTLA-TV
“The reason that it’s called ‘cicada’ is because like the insect, it appeared, went quiet for a while, and then has reemerged. What makes it really important is that it has a lot of mutations. So it’s been changing over time,” said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin.
The latest on the conflict in Iran | KCAL-TV
“It reflects the frustration on the part of the administration [with] how long this has dragged out … the frustration, really, that the Iranians have not come to the table,” said UCLA’s Benjamin Radd (approx. 1:00 mark).
