Good morning. It’s Tuesday, and I’m reading about how a beloved New York bagel chain is coming to Burbank. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

We’ll see you next when we return from the Thanksgiving break. Enjoy your week!

1.

USC graduate student workers have made modest progress at the bargaining table with university negotiators, agreeing on a union security clause which requires union members to pay dues and non-members to pay an agency fee. That clause had been one of the last major sticking points ahead of the union’s Nov. 28 strike deadline. The two parties have tentatively agreed on 81% of the contract.

2.

More than 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees threatened to leave the startup if the company’s entire board of directors does not step down, seething over the ouster of former CEO Sam Altman. The employees, writing in an open letter, said they’d join Altman at his new post at Microsoft — adding yet another twist to the three-day saga that has rocked the tech world. Competitors, smelling blood in the water, are already trying to poach OpenAI’s engineers.

3.

Two more officers alleged that they were hazed and sexually abused while playing for the LA Police Department’s amateur football team. Their allegations, which were filed in a type of claim that’s a precursor to a lawsuit, mirrored what a veteran detective also alleged last month: As rookies on the team, they were herded through a gantlet of officers who groped them and hurled homophobic slurs.

4.

The lot under the Interstate 10 that caught fire and temporarily closed the freeway failed multiple fire inspections over the course of three years, officials said. In fact, Caltrans tried to evict the landlord, Ahmad Anthony Nowaid — who subleased the lot to mostly immigrants who ran blue-collar shops — for failing to pay rent in September. “This is a filthy unmaintained lease,” one inspector wrote in 2022. “Evict tenant and start over.”

5.

Last summer, the San Diego Humane Society thought it was shipping more than 300 rabbits, guinea pigs and rats to Arizona to find new homes as pets. Turns out they were used as reptile food. The Humane Society of Southern Arizona transferred the animals to a man named Colten Jones, who runs a business called Fertile Turtle that sells live and frozen reptile feed. The humane societies said they’re investigating who arranged the transfer and are exploring filing a lawsuit and hiring a private investigator.

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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