Listen to Podcasts editor Megan Vahdat, News editor and incoming editor-in-chief Alexandra Crosnoe, Arts and Entertainment editor Eric Sican and Assistant Sports editor Grant Walters discuss the top headlines from the 2025-26 academic year.

Megan Vahdat: You are listening to “This Year” by Daily Bruin Podcasts. Today, instead of highlighting stories from the past week, we are going to highlight the most prominent Daily Bruin headlines from this school year. We’ll start with the News section, then move to Arts and Sports, then wrap up with the biggest headlines from outside of campus. I’m Megan Vahdat, the Podcasts editor, and thank you for tuning in.

Alexandra Crosnoe: I’m Alexandra Crosnoe, the News editor and incoming Editor-in-Chief.

Eric Sican: I’m Eric Sican, the Arts and Entertainment editor.

Grant Walters: I’m Grant Walters, assistant Sports editor on the beach volleyball, softball and track and field beats.

MV: Let’s begin with the Daily Bruin News section. This year, UCLA was at the center of national debates over higher education, federal funding and campus politics. Alex, what was the top story from this year that the News team covered?

AC: The biggest story we followed was the Trump administration’s reshaping of higher education, which directly impacted UCLA this past year. The federal government opened investigations into alleged antisemitism and affirmative action at UCLA last year, but things came to a head when the Trump administration froze $584 million of UCLA’s federal research funding in July, alleging that the university had allowed antisemitism, affirmative action and “men to participate in women’s sports.” While a federal judge reinstated the vast majority of the grants in two decisions in August and September – and effectively barred the federal government from freezing any more of the UC’s federal research funding in November – the U.S. Department of Justice has continued its attempts to intervene at UCLA, suing it twice for alleged antisemitism.

MV: This story involves court rulings, federal investigations and hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding. Beyond the legal and political stakes, how did these cuts affect daily life for students, faculty and researchers at UCLA?

AC: Generally, we heard researchers say they were left scrambling. They raised enormous concerns about the grant suspensions and their ability to keep projects – which provide life-saving research – alive. From an undergraduate perspective, funding cuts limited research labs’ abilities to take them on.

MV: Thank you, Alex. Now, let’s turn to Arts and Entertainment. Eric, what was the top arts story of the year?

ES: The biggest film we covered this year was “The Drama,” the A24 release from director Kristoffer Borgli. The film stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple navigating the chaos that erupts one week before their wedding. It was one of the most talked-about movies of the spring, generating enormous buzz even before its release, with its central plot driver deliberately kept out of all marketing, creating a lot of controversy. The film was promoted largely as a dark relationship comedy built around a wedding. Yet, the film included a major plot point about a school shooting without a content warning for viewers before they saw the film. While some critics saw the secrecy as an audacious marketing strategy, others argued it left audiences unprepared for subject matter tied to real trauma and mass violence. But our reviewer gave it a perfect five out of five paws, calling it a film that transcends its genre through intentional production and storytelling. What made it significant for UCLA is that it sparked a real cultural conversation – about relationships, about media spectacle, about what audiences actually want from cinema.

MV: The film was surrounded by secrecy, intense criticism and a lot of public curiosity. How did that controversy translate commercially? Did the backlash hurt the film, or did it become part of what drove people to see it?

ES: The controversy absolutely drove people to theaters rather than away from them. The film crossed $100 million worldwide, making it one of A24’s major commercial successes. A24’s marketing leaned heavily into the mystery – the wedding-week premise became a cultural event, with Zendaya’s press tour creating a kind of vortex that drew in audiences who were predominantly women and younger viewers. Beyond the box office, the film stirred real debates about gun violence, social privilege and race relations. That ability to provoke conversation while maintaining commercial appeal is exactly what makes it such a significant cultural moment. The backlash, in a lot of ways, became the marketing.

MV: Thank you, Eric. Now we turn to Sports. Grant, UCLA athletics had a historic year across several programs. Which story best captured the scale of that success?

GW: The top story was the women’s basketball team’s first national championship in program history. The Bruins went on a historic run, dropping just one game across their 38-game season. After the Westwood squad sustained its sole loss of the season on Nov. 26 against Texas, the coach Cori Close-led team won 31-straight games, including its 28-point victory against South Carolina in the national championship. Our coverage also extended beyond just the 2026 season, since a record-breaking six Bruins were drafted in April’s WNBA Draft, with five being taken in the first round. Lauren Betts, Gabriel Jaquez, Kiki Rice, Angela Dugalić, Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker headlined UCLA’s draft selections. Women’s basketball’s March Madness triumph also marked the third UCLA team that hoisted a national championship trophy this year, alongside UCLA men’s water polo and beach volleyball, increasing the Bruins’ all-time NCAA championships mark to 127.

MV: Thank you, Grant. While many of this year’s biggest stories unfolded on campus, one international conflict carried deep personal weight for many students at UCLA: the escalating conflict between the United States, Iran and Israel. On February 28, Israel and the United States began a series of strikes against Iran, stating that the attacks aimed to target Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. The attacks ultimately killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Iran responded with a series of counterstrikes against Israel, U.S. military bases, and locations in Arab states. Iran also moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global trade route for oil shipments in particular. As of today, tensions still remain high. Iran is accusing the United States of violating a fragile ceasefire after new U.S. strikes in southern Iran. The U.S. argues that the strikes were defensive and were only meant to target missile sites and boats near the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, negotiations are still underway over a possible deal that could extend the ceasefire, reopen the strait and address Iran’s nuclear program. For the large population of Iranian students at UCLA, these headlines are deeply personal and many have lost contact with their family in the region due to internet shutdowns imposed by the Iranian government.

As this story shows, the issues covered by our paper are not only about policy or conflict, but about the people affected by them. So to close out today’s special episode of This Year, I want to turn from the biggest headlines of the year to the stories that stayed with us. What was the most meaningful or memorable story you covered this year?

AS: To me, some of our most meaningful coverage this year came in our interview with Chancellor Julio Frenk in January 2026. As I previously mentioned in this episode, UCLA has found itself wrapped up in challenge after challenge this year, and I appreciated having the chance to ask the Chancellor about the issues currently impacting our university the most. He quickly condemned the allegations that the Trump administration made against UCLA when suspending its federal funding and also told us that UCLA had not been in formal communication with the federal government since it sent a proposed settlement to the university in August. He also promised to hold himself accountable for being transparent about UCLA’s 2026-27 budget. The conversation came only a few weeks before we interviewed UCLA’s now-former CFO Stephen Agostini, who alleged to The Bruin that UCLA administrators’ financial mismanagement had contributed to the university’s budget deficit. Agostini was out as CFO four days after The Bruin published its interview with him.

Chancellor Frenk agreed to do regular interviews with us, which I’m really looking forward to.

ES: For me it was our Coachella 2026 coverage in April. Sabrina Carpenter headlined Friday night with a full theatrical production, transforming the entire stage into a landscape of homes on a hill, and KAROL G closed out the entire festival with a massive guest-filled set before ending with a tour announcement. Sending reporters out to the desert across both weekends is a huge undertaking for a student paper, and what struck me was how much our team brought their own voices to it – reviewing the food, capturing the fashion, writing about the art installations. It was a reminder that arts journalism at its best isn’t just about the headliners. It’s about the full experience of being there, and I think our coverage captured that.

GW: I loved writing the profile of Steven Jamerson II that was published in the first men’s and women’s basketball insert. Jamerson’s path to UCLA was unique, since he enrolled at Michigan State as a regular student with aspirations to walk onto the Spartan squad in 202. But after Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo rejected the redshirt senior’s attempt to even work as a team manager, he transferred to San Diego, where he averaged eight points and 6.9 rebounds per game while starting in 61 contests across his three-year career there. His hard work at San Diego amounted to his dream – to play at one of the most highly touted Division 1 programs, one that hangs 11 national championship banners at Pauley Pavilion. Jamerson’s unconventional path emphasizes how hard work pays off in sports. You don’t have to be the most talented. Grit and embracing change are often all that is required to achieve your goals.

MV: I will never forget my podcast interview with Iranian activist Homa Sarshar that took place in November before the attacks on Iran even occurred. She told me about her childhood in Iran before the Iranian revolution and the immense social and political freedoms she once had as a young reporter. Just a few years later, she rapidly had to leave the country with the change in governmental structure and she was deprived of those freedoms. Now, women in Iran are not even permitted to sing in public. I remember asking her at the end of the interview if she thought that we would ever see a free Iran in our lifetimes. She said with full confidence that we would. At the time of the recording, we could never have anticipated just how rapidly the political situation in Iran would change once again with the outbreak of protests. Her answer has stayed with me and the themes of freedom and exile that she discussed have continued to resonate. It was a reminder that the stories we cover do not end when the episode does. Sometimes, the most meaningful headlines continue to echo long after the conversation is over.

Thank you for tuning into This Year by Daily Bruin Podcasts. You can listen to this episode and all other episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud. The audio and transcript of today’s episode are available at dailybruin.com. Daily Bruin Podcasts will return next year with more updates.