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.
Western U.S. megadrought worst in 1,200 years | NBC News
Compared to other megadroughts in the historical record, what’s surprising is that this current drought shows no signs of letting up, said A. Park Williams, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the study’s lead author. “Twenty-two years in, some of these big megadroughts in the past were starting to peter out,” he said. “This drought is not petering out. Instead, it’s in full swing and is as strong now as it ever was before.” (Also: San Francisco Chronicle, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Popular Science, Independent, Santa Fe New Mexican and Earth.com.)
UCLA reports that woman has likely been cured of HIV | ABC News
Dr. Yvonne Bryson, an infectious disease physician at UCLA, who led the study, discussed their team’s finding along with the patient’s condition at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this week. “Today, we reported the third known case of HIV remission and the first woman following a stem cell transplant and using HIV-resistant cells,” Bryson said in a press conference. (Also: NBC News, Reuters and Washington Post.)
Can L.A. save its taxi industry with apps and permits? | Los Angeles Times
Opening up the permitting system to allow thousands more drivers on the road could make taxis more readily available. But it could also depress driver wages, according to Victor Narro, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, and Bradan Litzinger, a UCLA law student, who made that argument in a report to the city in August.
How the Black queer community is building family | NBC News
While coming out has become more accepted in recent years, many LGBTQ people, like Willis, are building their own “chosen” family trees in the face of rejection from their biological ones … Forty-nine percent of Black LGBTQ adults say they have strained relationships with their parents, according to a 2021 UCLA report, compared to 33 percent of their straight Black peers.
Rams parade and COVID risks | Los Angeles Times
There’s sure to be a crowd, which makes social distancing all but impossible. And with the shouting and cheering that’s likely to happen, you’d need more than six feet of space to stay out of range of other people’s potentially infectious respiratory droplets, said Shira Shafir of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Sandy Hook families’ $73M settlement with gun-maker | Wall Street Journal
The gun industry may now face more lawsuits attempting to hold them liable for mass shootings committed with their products, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written a history of gun laws. “Gun makers have been resting secure with the knowledge that they can’t be held liable when their guns are used in a mass shooting,” said Mr. Winkler. “This opens up that possibility.”
Jury rejects Sarah Palin’s libel claim | New York Times
“There is unease on the court about The New York Times v. Sullivan test,” said Eugene Volokh, who teaches First Amendment law at the University of California, Los Angeles. But Mr. Volokh said he believed there was little chance that Ms. Palin’s case would end up being the vehicle for any effort to roll it back because the jury did not believe her argument that Mr. Bennet was so blinded by his disgust for her that he knew the editorial contained material that was likely false and overlooked evidence to the contrary.
Doctors likelier to see Black patients as uncooperative | New York Times
The medical record is the first thing a hospital-based health provider sees, even before meeting the patient, said Dr. Gracie Himmelstein, the paper’s first author, and it creates a strong first impression. “Before I even go meet a patient in the emergency room, the first thing I do is call up their record and read through the previous admission notes and get a sense of their history,” said Dr. Himmelstein, a resident physician at the University of California, Los Angeles, who carried out the research as part of her doctoral thesis at Princeton University.
Some Republicans losing faith in value of higher ed | USA Today
Making matters worse, fewer men are going to college. In 2016, the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute found that a record number of freshman women (41%) identify as liberal, compared with 29% of their male counterparts. There are now 60 women for every 40 men on college campuses. If fewer men attend college, the ideological center of gravity already tilting left will slide more in that direction.
Scientists: HIV drug effective despite breakthrough infections | NBC News
Dr. Raphael J. Landovitz, who led the Apretude clinical trial in question, told NBC News that he expects such cases of PrEP failure to remain what he characterized as rare, regardless of which form of preventive antiretroviral medication people at risk of HIV receive … Landovitz, an infectious disease specialist at UCLA, said it might always remain unclear why the breakthrough infections among those receiving Apretude occurred.
Three women to host this year’s Oscars | National Public Radio
Year after year, research shows that Hollywood productions lack diversity. According to UCLA’s most recent Hollywood Diversity Report, while women and people of color have made some gains, they remain “underrepresented on every industry employment front.”
Judge is first Latina nominated to California’s high court | Associated Press
Despite the growing influence of Latinos, who make up the largest racial or ethnic group of California’s nearly 40 million residents, no Latina has served in a statewide constitutional office or as U.S. senator, said Sonja Diaz, founding director of UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. Latinas sit on high courts in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, New York and Texas, Diaz said. (Diaz was also interviewed by KCRW-FM.)
How liaisons connect homeless children to services | EdSource
There are nearly 270,000 homeless students estimated to be enrolled in California’s K–12 schools, according to an October 2020 report published by UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. The report explained that students who experience housing insecurity are more likely to be chronically absent from school, less likely to graduate from high school and are most likely to be children of color.
The latest on the pandemic | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
“It’s really very reassuring to see how quickly cases are coming down here in Los Angeles County and also in the state of California. It’s very similar to what we’ve seen in other settings, where the omicron variant surged quite rapidly and cases were quite high, and then it was followed by a very steep decline in cases,” said UCLA’s Dr. Paul Adamson (approx. 1:35 mark).
Lifting mask mandates too soon puts U.S. at risk | Newsweek
The decision to roll back mask mandates need not be arbitrary. There are concrete figures that can be referred to so that state officials know when the right time is to do so, said Dr. Timothy Brewer, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
What parents of successful kids have in common | Insider
Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment. “Parents who saw college in their child’s future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets,” he said in a statement.
