Good morning. It’s Thursday, and we’re reading about how California has a new state bat. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

A 22-year-old driver was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter for allegedly killing four Pepperdine University seniors walking along the Pacific Coast Highway on Tuesday. Two other victims remain in the hospital with no word on their conditions. Investigators said Fraser Bohm, the suspect, was driving at a high speed at nighttime, lost control and sideswiped three parked vehicles which then crashed into the group of pedestrians. Police said Bohm was sober.

2.

Gov. Gavin Newsom approved $10 million in state funding to post more police officers outside religious buildings, including mosques and synagogues, in an effort to prevent hate crimes during the Israel-Gaza war. The funds will be used to reimburse departments for the overtime costs they incur. Newsom also allocated an additional $20 million to a program that allows nonprofits to apply for increased security measures.

3.

A veteran LA Police Department detective accused multiple colleagues of sexual hazing Monday in a legal claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit. The detective said the abuse occurred in 2009 when he was a rookie cop playing on the department’s amateur football team. His teammates — including several who are now high-ranking officers, and one in prison for raping women in the line of duty — allegedly forced him to strip before grabbing him, hurling liquids at him, yelling at him to show his penis and at one point ramming a hard object up his anus.

4.

California school districts have made little to no progress in reversing steep declines in test scores wrought by the pandemic, according to a state report that was largely in line with the district-specific data LA Unified released a day earlier. Notably, the proficiency gap between Black and Latino students and their white and Asian counterparts showed little change. For instance, only 1 in 6 Black students and 1 in 5 Latinos met the state standard for math proficiency, compared to half of white students and 7 in 10 Asians.

5.

Allied counterintelligence officials warned that more than half of China’s espionage efforts are focused in Silicon Valley — not Washington, which is traditionally considered the key intelligence battleground in the United States. The heads of the FBI, Britain’s MI5 and their commonwealth counterparts said after an unusual gathering at Stanford University that Chinese spies have a particular interest in artificial intelligence, and that Western officials are working with the private sector to detect and stop the Chinese efforts.

You’re all caught up. Thanks for reading Morning, Trojan, and have a good day. Anna Hsu copy edited this newsletter.

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