NPR’s “All Things Considered” examined how transit systems across the country are responding to issues related to homelessness and quality-of-life concerns on buses and subways. Jacob Wasserman, research program manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, said transit agencies are increasingly being forced to address homelessness despite not being designed for that role. “That’s no knock on them. That’s just not what their purpose is. But they have to,” Wasserman said, noting that enforcement alone often displaces unhoused people rather than addressing the underlying causes. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times and The Hill.

More highlights from UCLA in the News: May 12, 2026

Americans exposed to hantavirus back in the U.S. and being monitored | KTLA-TV

“What’s happening now is a very controlled public health operation. What’s happening at the National Biocontainment Center in Nebraska — it’s a place that has been designed specifically for this purpose. It’s to be able to quarantine people who have been exposed, to isolate people who have been sick, and to provide them with the kind of care that they need,” said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin (Rimoin was also featured by KCAL-TV, KABC-TV, KTTV-TV and Deutsche Welle.)

Telemedicine did not increase costs — or help more people | City News Service

The rapid expansion of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic did not lead to major increases in health care use or spending in Southern California or nationwide, according to a UCLA study released Monday … “Our findings suggest neither prediction came true on a national scale,” lead author Dr. John N. Mafi, an associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in a statement. (UCLA’s Dr. Katherine Kahn was also quoted. Also: LAist and Medical Xpress.)

Elon Musk’s chainsaw has brought world health crashing down | Los Angeles Times

(Commentary by UCLA’s Dr. Robert Shpiner) In February 2025, the richest man in modern history raised a chainsaw over his head to wild applause while on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The image of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk donning a “Dark MAGA” hat, sunglasses indoors and a thick gold chain while wielding the bright red tool handed to him by Argentine President Javier Milei was viral for a news cycle. (Shpiner also authored a separate commentary about vaccines in The Hill.)

More cancer patients are taking Ivermectin. This might be why | New York Times

Dr. John Mafi, a primary care physician and researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the senior author of the new study, said it wasn’t able to answer an essential question: Who is prescribing these medications to cancer patients? It also did not look at how the patients taking these drugs fared, or what other therapies they were taking.