Good morning. It’s Tuesday, and I’m reading about the best spots for an affordable date night in the city. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

It seemed bad enough when graffiti artists made national news by breaking into an abandoned downtown highrise and tagging nearly 30 floors with spray paint. But now people are literally parachuting off the skyscraper. “I guarantee you tragedy will take place there if that place is not boarded up quickly,” said Mayor Karen Bass. The City Council approved a motion last week that gives the Chinese developers who abandoned the construction site until Saturday to secure the property, but city officials still haven’t been able to contact them.

Alex Rozier and Helen Jeong / NBC Los Angeles

2.

A real estate mogul and first responders unions are pouring more than $1 million into the race to unseat progressive LA City Councilmember Nithya Raman. Attack ads funded by that money paint Raman as one and the same as George Gascón, the LA County district attorney who has sought lighter penalties for people convicted of crimes — and now faces an 11-person slate of more moderate candidates looking to oust him. But property and violent crimes have actually dropped over the last two years in Raman’s district, as have violent crimes in the county at large under Gascón’s watch.

Frank Stoltze / LAist

3.

Officials recovered the body of a hiker who went missing on Mount Baldy earlier this month after a drone operator reported spotting a young woman on the mountain Saturday. Rescuers found 22-year-old Lifei Huang dead. Huang, who embarked on a solo hike just as an atmospheric river swept through the region, is the latest in a string of fatalities that the notorious mountain just outside LA has claimed. Mount Baldy is known to kill even serious outdoorsmen with its dangerous winter conditions and has been described as one of the deadliest peaks in the U.S. 

Dani Anguiano / The Guardian

4.

In the second California Senate debate, Rep. Katie Porter tried to bait the frontrunner, Rep. Adam Schiff, into a fight. He had none of it. Instead, Schiff seemed more eager to pile on Republican Steve Garvey and continue his strategy of portraying the election as a two-man race between him and the only Republican in the field, who stands little chance in a general election in a deep-blue state. Schiff has pumped millions of dollars into TV ads that similarly portray Garvey as the main opponent, in what’s essentially an effort to make the other Democratic candidates look irrelevant and ensure he’ll face a more defeatable opponent come November — in California, the top two primary candidates regardless of party qualify for the general election. 

Melanie Mason and Christopher Cadelago / Politico

5.

California’s reputation has taken a hit. Half of U.S. adults believe the state is on the decline, and half of Republicans even believe that it’s “not really American,” according to a new nationwide survey. Thoughts on the Golden State largely fell along party lines, but 3 in 10 Democrats notably said that California is too liberal. Some of the results were also just ridiculous: 3 in 10 Republicans said the state has a worse natural environment than other states — forget about the nine national parks and Pacific coastline — so take it all with a grain of salt.

Noah Bierman / Los Angeles Times