Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and I’m reading about how Los Angeles has one of the worst dating scenes in the country. Onto the five USC, LA and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Elon Musk’s biggest bootlicker is a USC dropout. John Hering, a one-time public policy student, has devoted billions of dollars and countless unpaid hours to Musk’s projects in an attempt to curry favor with the tech despot. Except, for all his fealty, he doesn’t even hold a board seat at any of Musk’s companies.

Berber Jin and Rolfe Winkler / The Wall Street Journal

2.

USC athletes will not receive CBD or THC products from the school’s new partnership with the weed brand Cookies, clarified an executive at USC athletic’s third-party marketing agency. But he did laud the school as “such an innovative university” for also partnering with an all-inclusive casino resort.

Luca Evans / The Orange County Register

3.

A man who was shot near the Coliseum Sunday afternoon died of his wounds in the hospital, police said. The unidentified man was in his 30s and had gotten in a dispute with another person at a business prior to the shooting, authorities said, though police haven’t made any arrests.

Staff / City News Service

4.

Jurors convicted a 34-year-old man of murdering a UCLA graduate student at a furniture store in 2022. Prosecutors said the man stabbed Brianna Kupfer, an architectural design student, 46 times then left her to bleed out on the floor.

Richard Winton / Los Angeles Times

5.

A South LA soul food restaurant is turning to a novel nonprofit model that’ll help it keep prices low and train employees from the low-income Watts neighborhood. LocoL’s barbecue ribs, collards, and mac and cheese are also available on DoorDash if you don’t feel like making the trek from campus.

Patrick Sisson / Fast Company