Good morning. It’s Thursday, and these are the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Jay Bhattacharya, a former Stanford professor who became a global pariah when he criticized COVID lockdowns in 2020 — but has since been, in some ways, vindicated — will speak at USC on April 9 as part of the school’s Open Dialogue Project. Bhattacharya leads the National Institutes of Health under the Trump administration.

University of Southern California

2.

President Beong-Soo Kim spoke candidly about USC’s canceled gubernatorial debate at a faculty senate meeting yesterday. “The excluded candidates, in my opinion, were crying foul,” he said, adding that he’d like to host another debate but “hopefully, there are some lessons learned here.”

Stella Muzin / Daily Trojan

3.

USC warned that it may cancel summer classes in 2028 because security will be so tight during the Olympics. Fun fact: During the 1984 games, USC did not yet have the permanent fencing it does today, so it erected a barbed wire perimeter around campus. The Washington Post wrote an amusing feature on security at USC in 1984.

Stella Muzin and Feiyu Long / Daily Trojan

4.

While USC’s student government at times struggles to fill meetings with anything other than a land acknowledgment, UC students are lobbying for a second seat on the system’s board of regents. Granted, it’s a long shot: They’ll need support from a supermajority of state legislators, and, ultimately, voters in November.

Eric He and Lindsey Holden / Politico

5.

USC women’s basketball may have been eliminated from March Madness, but we redeemed ourselves on another court: the annual “Tuition Madness” bracket by the Royal Bank of Canada, which pits schools against each other using four-year attendance costs. (We sailed to the championship and beat Duke in a nail biter.)

Royal Bank of Canada