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By Tomoki Chien & Claire Qiu

Good morning. It’s Friday, and we’re reading about how a fisherman discovered a 7-foot gator just outside of Sacramento. Onto the five other USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Undergraduate student workers in the California State University system are looking to unionize, calling for higher wages in their assistant jobs doing things like filing paperwork and checking out library books. The move comes on the heels of other large campus labor movements, though those efforts have thus far been concentrated in graduate schools.

Rocky Walker / CalMatters

2.

A tech consultant and entrepreneur was charged in last week’s murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco. Nima Momeni, 38, allegedly stabbed Lee twice in the chest in broad daylight in the city’s wealthy Rincon Hill neighborhood. Authorities are yet to uncover a motive but said that the two men knew each other.

Staff / San Francisco Chronicle

3.

Thanks to this winter’s heavy storms, California’s three-year drought has dwindled from covering 99% of the state to a mere 9%, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported. The remaining drought-afflicted areas are concentrated in the state’s far north and southeast and are surrounded by areas of “abnormal dryness.”

Staff / Associated Press

4.

Police officers in the Northern California city of Antioch referred to Black people as “zoo” animals and bragged about kicking a suspect’s head “like a field goal” in newly revealed texts messages loaded with racial epithets. The texts added to a growing FBI investigation into the department, where one-fifth of the force is already suspended for misconduct.

Jakob Rogers and Nate Gartrell / East Bay Times

5.

An exodus of wealthy white collar workers in the San Francisco Bay Area is raising fears of a “doom loop.” The workers, liberated by remote work options, are moving to cheaper cities where they can buy less expensive homes and save for early retirement. But they take with them their tax revenue, leaving Bay Area cities with growing budget shortfalls and dying downtowns.

Ethan Varian / The Mercury News

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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