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WESTWOOD—The government-funded Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) announced they are funding research headed by UCLA scientists that will study bone growth in space. Dr. Chia Soo, a UCLA professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery and orthopedic surgery, will be leading the research, along with Dr. Kang Ting, a professor of dentistry; Dr. Ben Wu, a professor...

SAN FRANCISCO—A network of utility wires large enough to wrap around the planet more than six times has become a problem in the state of California. For the past 50 years, California has made an effort to line utility wires underground. The network, spanning 152,000 miles overhead, has proved difficult to bury. Utility consumers currently pay an estimated price of $1...

CALIFORNIA—The California Friday Night Live Partnership, a state-funded program, which was established in 1984, with the principal purpose of “reducing the number of deaths and injuries caused by teen motorists driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs,” received a $400,000 grant by the California Office of Traffic Safety and the Tulare County Office of Education in an...

CALIFORNIA—Officials said there has been evidence that the outbreak of measles has been linked to people that visited Disneyland between December 17 and December 20, 2014. Since then, 51 cases of the illness has doubled, infecting people in larger communities. The kindergarten measles vaccination rates have been falling almost every year since 2002 in the state, but the virus now...

CALIFORNIA—The Center for Disease Control, in collaboration with state health officials and the US Food and Drug Administration, is investigating an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes (listeriosis), which has sickened 32 people, hospitalized 31 and killed seven. The disease is determined to have been spread by Granny Smith apples produced by Bidart Brothers of Bakersfield, who have recalled all of their...

SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco Philanthropist Helen Diller, 85, died on January 7. Diller’s supporters including San Francisco Mayor Edward M. Lee are paying their respects to her. Diller was undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. This is same place where she met her husband Sanford. Helen is a community leader and a philanthropist. She also served on the American Friends...

LONG BEACH—At around 5:50 p.m. on January 3, Long Beach police, responding to reports of gunshots, arrived at a home located on the 100 block of W. 51st Street and found three adults suffering from multiple gun shot wounds. There was a three-week-old infant, later identified as Eliza Delacruz, present in the house when the incident occurred, but she was missing...

SAN FRANCISCO—On Tuesday, December 9, two separate district attorneys filed civil lawsuits against the ride-sharing service, Uber. In a joint press release, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey stated that Uber was guilty of failing to collect sufficient background checks for their drivers and illegally servicing airports. Uber's top competitor, Lyft, has already...

WESTWOOD—A technique known as Trans Oral Robotic Surgery (TORS), cancerous tumors once deemed inoperable can now be removed through a non-invasive procedure performed by a specially-trained physician. Oropharyngeal (throat) cancer, a consequence of Human papillomavirus (HPV), used to only be operable through highly invasive surgical techniques that involved going through neck or face; a procedure that required a long, sometimes...

WESTWOOD—On October 31, the UCLA faculty voted in favor of making a one quarter-long diversity course a degree requirement for students of all majors. The initiative, which passed amongst UCLA faculty by a margin of 332 to 303, will become university policy if approved by both the Academic Senate’s Legislative Assembly and the Academic Senate’s Undergraduate Council. If passed, the degree requirement...