UCLA in the News May 21, 2024

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.

UCLA to lead first federal hub for heat-resilience planning | The Hill

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) will be establishing the first federal research center focused on bolstering community resilience to local heat impacts, the institution announced Monday. The Center of Excellence for Heat Resilient Communities, housed at the university’s Luskin Center for Innovation, is receiving a $2.25 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Integrated Heat Health Information System. (UCLA’s V. Kelly Turner was quoted.)

The UCLA scientist behind the next big climate startups | Bloomberg News

That scientist is Gaurav Sant, and he leads the University of California at Los Angeles’ Institute for Carbon Management … Under his direction, the lab is working on managing carbon emissions, including those already in the atmosphere. Equatic, a startup that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it in the sea, and CarbonBuilt, which sequesters the planet-warming gas in concrete, are just two examples of Sant’s vision. (Sant was quoted.)

‘Deaths of despair’ soaring for people of color | Los Angeles Times

But after roughly a decade, researchers at UCLA and elsewhere have begun to dismantle this idea. In a study published recently in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, authors found that deaths of despair rates for middle-age Black and Native Americans have surged past those of white Americans as the overdose crisis moves from being driven by prescription opioids to illegal drugs such as fentanyl and heroin. (UCLA’s Joseph Friedman and Helena Hansen were quoted. Friedman was also featured in another Los Angeles Times story.)

Trump’s new trade war would cost middle-class families | CNN

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” [Kimberly] Clausing, chair in tax law and policy at the UCLA School of Law, told CNN in a phone interview. “The cost of retaliation will be very large. The Europeans will tariff us. The Mexicans and Canadians will be very upset. People aren’t going to take it lying down.”

What happens if Trump is convicted? | Time

“There is no constitutional bar on a felon running for office,” Richard Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA Law School, told Time after Trump’s first indictment. “And given that the U.S. Constitution sets presidential qualifications, it is not clear that states could add to them, such as by barring felons from running for office.”

Time to take the chassis off manufactured houses | Washington Post

(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Lee Ohanian) With the median selling price of U.S. homes at nearly $400,000, the rising cost of housing is a top concern of many Americans. One reason homes both new and resold are so expensive is that almost all of them have been built the traditional way — on-site, and by construction workers.

Marijuana research could still be difficult after rescheduling | Axios

“Symbolically, this is an important time in our history,” said Ziva Cooper, director of the UCLA Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids. “But I’m eager to see how exactly this will be implemented and rolled out.”

Reactions pouring in after death of Iranian president | KNBC-TV

“Through the use of torture, through the use of repression, obviously assassinations, murder, executions, all of these things. So that served as a deterrent. So the combination of the willingness of the government to use violence to any means it needs to justify, coupled with the lack of a leadership to break through that and motivate people to sacrifice themselves, it’s going to be difficult to see change,” said UCLA’s Benjamin Radd (approx. 1:45 mark. Radd was also interviewed by KCRW 89.9-FM’s ‘Press Play.’)

Untagged mountain lion spotted in Griffith Park | Los Angeles Daily News

“Yeah, we are pretty convinced by the video it’s a mountain lion,” said Seth Riley, branch wildlife chief at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area where he has studied mountain lions for 22 years, including P-22. “It is exciting. And it is also very interesting,” added Riley on Monday, May 20, who teaches evolutionary biology and wildlife conservation at UCLA.