Good news! Your tuition is $3,000 higher
Tomo Chien
March 06, 2024
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and I’m reading about Shohei Ohtani’s new “normal Japanese” wife. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
USC’s undergraduate tuition will rise by 4.9% next year to a grand total of $69,904. Here are some things you could buy with the $3,264 add-on: an 83-inch smart TV. A Prada Handbag. A SMEG dual-fuel kitchen range. Three MacBook Airs. A five-day Hawaiian luxury vacation. Eight meals at The French Laundry. A 10-month lease on a 2024 Jeep Wrangler. Thirteen autographed Caleb Williams posters (with frame). A 46-year supply of three-ply toilet paper. Three hundred eighty-four caramel lattes at Panera. A full semester at a public university.
2.
For the first time in three decades, California won’t have a female senator. That’s because Rep. Adam Schiff, a Burbank Democrat who made his name leading Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, successfully managed to box out Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee in a blockbuster Senate primary. Schiff will face Republican Steve Garvey — a political novice who Schiff boosted with an ad blitz so he could face a weak opponent in the general election — come November. Garvey is probably toast.
3.
Looking for summer work? LA County is in desperate need of lifeguards — and it’s coughing up cash to fix that. Hourly wages now sit at up to $25.87, a 20% increase from last year. Guards working on lakes can make up to $30.50, and the county is running a free program to train young people to pass the certification exam. There are also some, well, questionable recruitment changes: The swim test is 40% shorter, and the age requirement is now just 16. It takes around 500 lifeguards to staff the county’s pools and lakes over the summer, but only about 300 have committed to work this year.
4.
You’ll have to sit tight as officials tally ballots in a handful of tense LA County primaries. George Gascón, the county’s unpopular progressive district attorney, looks poised to advance to the general election with 38% of votes counted. Nathan Hochman, the former U.S. assistant attorney general, seems to have the next-best shot at advancing out of a long roster of challengers accusing Gascón of being soft on crime. In one of the most closely watched City Council races, embattled incumbent Kevin de León is clinging to a 900-vote lead with just 10% of ballots in. And speaking of embattled, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva might have a shot at the general election in his Board of Supervisors run, but even if he does, it looks like he’ll get smoked by incumbent Janice Hahn.
5.
JuJu Watkins, star freshman guard on the women’s basketball team, was named the Pac-12’s freshman of the year. It’s no shocker. Watkins, who’s widely recognized as a generational talent, set USC’s single-game scoring record and earned the most 30-point performances in school history — not to mention the fact she brought record crowds out to home games and has essentially sparked a Trojan women’s basketball renaissance. She may be single-handedly responsible for keeping anybody interested in USC sports after bad, no-good performances from the football and men’s basketball teams this year. The Trojans will play their first game of the Pac-12 tournament tomorrow.