In an East Bay Times commentary co-authored with UCLA’s Ramesh Srinivasan, the professor warns of the hidden environmental damage of AI data centers and the risks associated with increased AI surveillance of personal data. Srinivasan, founder and director of UCLA’s Digital Culture Lab, and his co-authors argue that there are ways to responsibly leverage technology to benefit everyone, and offer insight into a possible blueprint for change. For more on UCLA, check out today’s New York Times, CBS News, and other media outlets.
More UCLA highlights in the news: March 2, 2026
UCLA Health receives $100 million for mental health treatment | Inside Higher Education
UCLA Health received the single largest gift in its history dedicated to mental health care. That’s $100 million to expand mental and behavioral health services at the health campus as part of support for the construction of a new neuropsychiatric hospital. (Quoted from UCLA’s Johnese Spisso, also known as the Los Angeles Sentinel.)
President Trump justifies attack on Iran as Congress voices opposition | Los Angeles Times
Benjamin Rudd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Burkle Center for International Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, said whether Iran is an “immediate” threat to the United States depends not only on Iran’s nuclear capabilities but also on Iran’s broader desire and ability to inflict pain on the United States and its allies, which became clear to both the United States and Israel after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which Iran praised. (Rudd was also featured on KTTV-TV, KNBC-TV and KABC-TV. UCLA’s James Gelvin was also featured on KTTV-TV.)
Iranian Americans in Los Angeles find hope in US and Israeli attacks on Iran | New York Times
“This is a global moment,” said Sharon Nazarian, 58, a UCLA political scientist and local philanthropist. Her Jewish family fled Iran when she was 10 years old after receiving death threats. “There’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of mixed emotions, but there’s also a lot of hope. All of our hearts are trembling.”
Trump administration names Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detention | CBS News
The Iranian diaspora in the United States is estimated to number more than 600,000 people, all of whom could be significantly affected by expanded travel restrictions to Iran, according to the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies.
The big problem with tariffs is not the price. It’s corruption | New York Times
(Commentary by UCLA’s Kimberly Clothing and Shane Ball) President Trump is reinstating tariffs following a Supreme Court ruling that canceled many of the tariffs he imposed during his first year in office. This means increased costs and economic uncertainty for U.S. consumers and businesses.
The gas tax review bill is supported by rural groups who say it’s necessary. Karmatters
In 2017, then-Gov. Jerry Brown supported a 12-cent gasoline sales tax increase that would tie the tax rate to the state’s consumer price index, while facing $59 billion in backlogs in deferred highway and bridge maintenance and $78 billion in deferred costs for local streets and roads. This is evidence that California leaders will only implement such policies when “they have no choice but to do so because they desperately need the revenue,” said Brian Taylor, a professor of urban planning and public policy at the Luskin School of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
These black women invented some of the most important things ever. buzzfeed
[Patricia] Barth continues her path to success by becoming the first black female ophthalmologist at UCLA. There, she discovered the troubling problem of high rates of blindness in underserved communities. She then set out to fill that gap, launching a concept called community eye care that combines eye care and public health for vulnerable populations.
Where Black families in Altadena stand after fire | USA Today
Odigi said Altadena’s black community was shrinking even before the fire. Odigi said a year ago in January, before one of California’s most destructive fires ravaged the region, particularly impacting Black households, and before investors began buying up land in the wake of the fires. The Eaton Fire had a disproportionate impact on black households in Altadena, according to a UCLA brief.
Bacteria play a previously unknown role in kidney stones | Science Alert
“This groundbreaking discovery challenges the long-held assumption that stones are formed only by chemical and physical processes and shows that bacteria reside inside stones and may actively participate in their formation,” said Kaimora Scotland, a urologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “By uncovering this new mechanism, this study opens the door to new therapeutic strategies targeting the microbial environment of kidney stones.”
Ivermectin is making a comeback among cancer patients after pandemic | NPR
Early in the pandemic, prescriptions for ivermectin soared 10 times before the pandemic as doctors prescribed it off-label. Dr. John Maffi, a geriatrics specialist who tracks ivermectin prescriptions, said prescriptions were particularly high across the South among older patients who are more vulnerable to COVID-19.
Can you own a gun if you smoke a lot of marijuana? Supreme Court rules | USA Today
Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA School of Law, said the confusion created the possibility for judges to impose their own preferences. Winkler said judges appointed by Democratic presidents have upheld gun control laws despite weak historical evidence, while judges appointed by Republicans have struck down laws based on the lack of a historical “twin.”
Tune it up, turn it on, and guess what? |New York Times
In 2023, UCLA released a study on the sexual attitudes of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 24, which found disagreements over the depiction of sex and romance on screen. Almost half of the participants said they “didn’t need sex scenes in the story” of movies and TV shows, and many wanted more non-romantic scenarios and asexual characters.
