KTLA-TV reported that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has launched a civil rights investigation into the emergency response to the Eaton Fire in West Altadena, following UCLA research that found the blaze disproportionately affected Black residents in the historically Black community. The research comes from a January 2025 data brief from the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. Read more about UCLA in today’s Associated Press, Time and other outlets.

More highlights from UCLA in the News: Feb. 13, 2026

Finding that underpinned U.S. fight against climate change revoked | Associated Press

Overturning the finding will “raise more havoc” than other actions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental rules, said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the UCLA School of Law.

What to make of social media’s ‘Chinese Era’ | Time

“China feels much more present in everyday American life than it did even a decade ago,” says Caroline Ouellette, a researcher at University of California, Los Angeles. “China looks different in the American imagination than it did in previous generations,” in large part, she adds, because social media has made information about and from China more accessible.

Cell phone ban in schools sparks debate over local control | Kansas News Service

Joseph Bishop, an education policy researcher who leads the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA, said he’s hypervigilant about how much time his three children spend in front of screens. “I’m doing everything in my power for our kids not to have devices,” he said. But Bishop, who has studied different state policies on school cell phone use, said a one-size-fits-all approach is not ideal.

Ultra-processed foods linked to higher death risk in cancer survivors | Healthline

Dana Hunnes, a senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Health, who was not involved in the study, says the findings are an important reminder of some of the problems with eating too much ultra-processed food. “Ultra-processed food is a problem for anyone in reality because [it is] an inflammatory food that increases oxidative stress, affects glucose regulation, blood pressure, and insulin resistance, among other things,” she said.