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.
Using trans kids as political pawns | Los Angeles Times
Republicans in Idaho and Texas have plumbed new depths to pander to conservative voters by trying to stop medical treatment that helps transitioning transgender minors even if parents, doctors and therapists concur with the need for those treatments … According to a 2017 report by the Williams Institute at UCLA, less than 1% of teenagers identify as transgender and many of those don’t get medical treatment related to their sexual identity.
A primer on California gas prices | Los Angeles Times
Many consumers will pay slightly more per gallon if it means avoiding a U-turn at a busy intersection or not going out of their way, said Leo Feler, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast. Offering a specialty service or being the only game in town can also help support elevated prices, while having many competing stations can drive down gas prices in a given area. At the other end of the spectrum, international events play a key role, even when they have yet to deplete national reserves or cause other significant crunches, Feler said.
Expanding incarceration through ankle monitors | Los Angeles Times
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Alicia Virani) In Los Angeles County, the number of people ordered to wear electronic ankle monitors as a condition of pretrial release went up 5,250% in the last six years, according to a recent report by the UCLA Criminal Justice Program. The figure rose from just 24 individuals in 2015 to more than 1,200 in 2021. This type of carceral surveillance is becoming the “new normal” across the U.S.
Cloud seeding to increase snowfall | CNN
While Gondzar is confident cloud seeding doesn’t steal snow from another area, some scientists disagree. Daniel Swain is a climate scientist at UCLA and spoke with my colleague and climate writer Rachel Ramirez. He told her “It is possible that you’re actually stealing water from someone else when you do this, because it may be, at least on a regional basis, a zero-sum game where if water falls out of the cloud in one spot, it’s even drier by the time it makes it downwind to the next watershed.”
New survey takes pulse of L.A. Latinos | KABC-TV
Latino voters have proven and will again prove to be consequential in upcoming races, like the L.A. mayoral race and other county races. “Research from our center has showed that Latinos were instrumental in rejecting the attempt to recall [Gov. Gavin Newsom] last year,” said Paul Barragan-Monge, director of mobilization at the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Institute.
UCLA, Howard U launch race, ethnicity and politics program | Diverse Issues in Higher Education
The new Mark Q. Sawyer Summer Institute will bring together four undergraduate fellows from Howard University to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in June for an immersive, six-week academic research program. The focus will be on the role of race, ethnicity, and politics in society. The summer institute is named after the late UCLA professor, Dr. Mark Sawyer, a leading scholar in the field of race, ethnicity, and politics. (UCLA’s Lorrie Frasure is quoted; UCLA’s Natalie Masuoka is cited.)
Nearly 20% of older adults have cognitive problems | USA Today
Biogen and other drug companies seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for a class of Alzheimer’s drugs known as monoclonal antibodies would be affected by Medicare’s preliminary decision to pay for the drugs only in clinical trials … “It’s frustrating for everyone,” said Dr. Keith Vossel, a neurologist and director of UCLA’s Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. “We just need to be a little patient. Until we can have more information about the efficacy and safety of these drugs, I do think it’s a little early for widespread use.”
Spotting the signs of a stroke | NBC’s “Today”
Many younger people dismiss telling symptoms because they think that stokes only occur in the elderly. While they may be more common as people age, “we see them at any age from birth till 105,” said Dr. David Liebeskind, a professor of neurology and director of the neurovascular imaging research core at UCLA.
Reducing your pet’s carbon pawprint | KTLA-TV
Americans spend about $100 billion on their pets each year, according to American Pet Products Association. With much of that money going toward treats, toys and other purchases of physical products, UCLA professor Gregory Okin began working on calculating the environmental impacts of those purchases. His study, published in 2017, found that the meat consumption of the 163 million dogs and cats in the U.S. produced 64 million tons of carbon dioxide, impacting the atmosphere as much as 13.6 million cars driving for a year. (Okin is quoted.)
Quality of diet for older adults has declined | Healthline
“The older the individual, the more likely they are to live alone, or be widowed, or be socially isolated. This makes it more difficult to make and shop for healthier meals. Additionally, fixed incomes and inflation make it harder to be food secure and more likely for them to purchase less healthy (but less expensive) foods,” Dana Ellis Hunnes, PhD, MPH, RD, a senior dietitian at the University of California Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health and author of “Recipe for Survival,” told Healthline.
What is a Russian oligarch? | Forbes
A few wealthy businessmen received shares of 12 state-owned energy and mining companies in the form of “leases.” The leases would turn into ownership — depending on whether Yelstin won. “If the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov had won the [1996] election, everybody expected that he would simply nationalize these companies and take back the shares that had been put up,” says Daniel Treisman, a political science professor at University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in post-Soviet politics.
The high cost of having a baby | HealthDay News
The bills don’t start piling up until months after their newborn comes home, said Dr. Mya Zapata, an obstetrician/gynecologist at UCLA Health in Los Angeles. Review your insurance policy before you give birth to be aware of what is covered and what isn’t, Zapata suggested. “Just because you have a ‘good plan’ and have not had co-pays for other medical services doesn’t mean that you won’t for pregnancy and delivery,” she said.
College faculty and the First Amendement | Inside Higher Ed
Over all, [UCLA’s Eugene] Volokh said, the Hiers case thus far demonstrates how the First Amendment protects public college and university faculty speech about “important public matters. It’s not categorical protection. In principle, if it’s disruptive enough, at least in certain contexts, it might be restrictive. But it’s a pretty broad protection, and it protects the untenured and the lecturers as well as the tenured ones.”
New autism doctors reflect on their remote training | Spectrum
Some of the less tangible skills that should accompany clinical psychology and psychiatry are particularly difficult to learn and develop virtually, says Catherine Lord, distinguished professor of psychiatry and education at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It cuts into the warmth that you can provide people, the reassurance that ‘here I am, I am a person, I value you, I care about you, and then we’re going to talk.’ As opposed to just talk, talk, talk.”
Stop Asian Hate movement at a crossroads | Vox
According to a UCLA-led survey, between 2017 and 2021, the percentage of people who believed Asian Americans experienced significant discrimination more than doubled. The survey … found that 23 percent of people across demographic groups said they believed Asian Americans faced a lot of discrimination in 2021, compared to the 10 percent of people who said the same in a similar poll done after the 2016 election.
COVID cases in China spiking | South China Morning Post
Wu Zunyou, adjunct professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and chief epidemiologist for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, also anticipated the mainland outbreak would be under control in the coming weeks. He noted that the highly transmissible Omicron variant was difficult to identify because of China’s high vaccination rate and the strain’s weaker symptoms.
How player Sedona Price’s video changed women’s basketball | New York Times
In the aftermath of last year’s tournament, Staley, Stanford’s VanDerveer and UConn’s Geno Auriemma — the three most prominent women’s basketball coaches — joined U.C.L.A. Coach Cori Close, a member of the N.C.A.A.’s basketball oversight committee, on weekly calls to kick around ideas on how to leverage the moment for the good of the game … Close added: “What I appreciate about Sedona’s courage, but it slapped me in the face, is that we’ve done so much to protect these women and shelter them from the realities of their journey, and yet the inequality gap is only widening. This moment, more than any other time, the student-athletes have all the power.”
