UCLA in the News November 20, 2025

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 is building a 19-story student housing tower | Los Angeles Times

UCLA, which has been on a campaign to vastly expand student housing around its Westwood campus, is planning a new 19-story tower that 1,150 students can call home … In 2022, UCLA announced that it would become the first and only University of California campus to guarantee housing for four years to first-year students and two years for transfer students. The campus now touts housing as a selling point for students it hopes to attract.

Thousands of hazardous sites are at risk of flooding | Associated Press

If heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil and gas continues unchecked, thousands of hazardous sites across the United States risk being flooded from sea level rise by the turn of the century, posing serious health risks to nearby communities, according to a new study … “Our goal with this analysis was to try to get ahead of the problem by looking far out into the future,” said Lara Cushing, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, who co-authored the paper published in the science journal Nature Communications. (Also: ABC News and The Guardian.)

ICE raids may stunt some state economies | Los Angeles Times’ “De Los”

The ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids could have major economic effects on the U.S. economy as Latino workers have gone into hiding across the country, according to a data brief released Wednesday by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute … “Latino immigrants are indispensable to the U.S. economy, because they support industries that are difficult to automate or outsource,” wrote [UCLA’s] Arturo Vargas Bustamante, one of the authors of the findings in a news release. (UCLA’s Ahmad Ismail was also quoted.)

New tool can quickly track the spread of countless viruses | KNX-FM

This new system, created by researchers at UCLA, is a game-changer when it comes to tracking viruses and how they’re moving through populations. (UCLA’s Dr. Marc Suchard was interviewed.)

Subsidizing insurance just props up dysfunction | Los Angeles Times

(Commentary by UCLA’s Dr. Kim-Lien Nguyen) Congress ended its impasse to reopen the government, but the Democrats’ reason for the shutdown remains unresolved: the renewal of expiring subsidies for insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act.

America’s deadliest cancer has abysmal screening rates | New York Times

But one of the biggest obstacles may be simply figuring out who qualifies, said Dr. Drew Moghanaki, chief of thoracic oncology at UCLA Health.

How does the menstrual cycle impact our brain? | LAist 89.3-FM’s “AirTalk”

“Some of the biggest questions that women have are ‘are my hormones abnormal?’ I think what we know from research — and I’m kind of focusing specifically on women who have clinically significant mood disorders during the luteal phase. So, what we call that in psychology is pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD,” said UCLA’s Dr. Katie Unverferth (approx. 8:55 mark).

The words you can’t say on the internet | BBC

The problem is the policies governing social media are heavy-handed and largely invisible, says Sarah Roberts, a professor and director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at the University of California, Los Angeles. People rarely know where the boundaries lie, Roberts says, or when the platforms quietly push some posts forward and others out of sight.

Judge excoriates colleague in Texas redistricting case | The Guardian

While many conservative legal figures cheered Smith’s opinion on Wednesday, the strategy could backfire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Richard Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “Simply as a matter of strategy, if Judge Smith’s audience is the Supreme Court, I think he would have been far more effective if he had been measured and focused more attention on what he sees as the defects in the merits of the case, rather than to continually cast aspersions on the other judges, expert and lawyers in the case,” he wrote. (Hasen was also featured by KCRW 89.9-FM’s “Press Play” – approx. 1:10 mark).

Disney’s newest gay character is a queer icon in fur | Edge Media Network

Despite these concerns, many see Hazel’s introduction as a positive development. “Representation matters, especially for young people,” said Dr. Sarah Johnson, a media studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Seeing a character like Hazel on screen can help normalize LGBTQ+ identities and foster a sense of belonging.”