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.

San Francisco faces deadliest year for drug overdoses | The Guardian

“California has now surpassed the national average and it’s becoming the single most important place for overdose intervention in terms of sheer numbers,” said Joseph Friedman, an addiction researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Who won the Republican debate? | USA Today

And although the GOP contenders were thrown a myriad of questions, they were all attempting to answer one never directly asked, Georgia Kernell, a political science and communications expert at the University of California Los Angeles said: “Who is going to be the best challenger to Trump, if anyone?”

How the Palestinian cause took off on campuses | Los Angeles Times

Dov Waxman, a professor of political science and chair of Israel studies at UCLA, has always tried to challenge his students not to buy into simplified narratives about the Middle East … It wasn’t until graduate school in the late 1990s that Waxman was introduced to a Palestinian perspective on Israel — through the work of Edward Said. “Up until Said, most people looked at Zionism through the lens of Jewish history ... understanding it as a liberation movement for Jews or as a response to the Holocaust,” Waxman said.

Backlash swift for schools taking a stance on Israel-Hamas | The Guardian

“Over the past few years, schools have increasingly become sites of conflict,” said John Rogers, professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles who researches issues related to democracy, education, and inequality. “That has made schools more contentious spaces and education politics more partisan.”

L.A. Jews struggle with a holiday amid Israel-Hamas war | Los Angeles Times

The holiday is the festival of lights, but it’s also one centered around a military victory, said David Myers, UCLA history professor and director of the Initiative to Study Hate. “There is a way in which this Hanukkah has particular meaning for Jews, especially in light of that interpretation that’s focused on a military triumph,” Myers said in reference to the Israel-Hamas war.

Jewish communities look for Hanukkah to bring light | Daily Breeze

Some local Jewish peace activists, like UCLA doctoral student Benjamin Kersten, are using Hanukkah to highlight their calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Kersten, a fellow at the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, helps run the UCLA chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace; a progressive Jewish, anti-Zionist national organization. Kersten said now is the “most intense and heightened moment it’s ever been” of the longstanding conflict between Hamas and Israel, and personally the hardest time he’s ever experienced.

Local gun control laws alone won’t stop violence | Los Angeles Times

Generations of racist economic policies and inequitable social structures correspond to higher rates of gun crime in certain areas, according to Jorja Leap, a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and co-founder of the Watts Leadership Institute.

L.A. says 21,000 homeless people placed in housing | Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, UCLA professor of law emeritus Gary Blasi, who has repeatedly sued the city over its handling of homelessness, gave the mayor favorable marks for her work on that issue. “I would say that Mayor Bass has accomplished more on the problem of homelessness in her first year than any mayor in the last 40 years,” said Blasi, former president for the National Coalition for the Homeless. “What is tragic is that it has taken 40 years to get this far.”

Best jazz albums of 2023 | New York Times

It’s been a transformative year for Ambrose Akinmusire, who became the artistic director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz at UCLA, left his longtime home on Blue Note Records and released a pair of spellbinding albums … On “Owl Song,” he brings together two master musicians who had hardly ever played together — the guitarist Bill Frisell and the drummer Herlin Riley — for a cozy but unadorned session, leaving plenty of open air in these eight original tunes.

Billie Eilish came out. Here’s why it still matters. | Yahoo Entertainment

According to a November 2023 report from UCLA’s Williams Institute, one in six young adults ages 18-24 identify as either lesbian, bisexual, queer or trans.