View this email in your browser

Morning, Trojan

Seven stories with Tomoki Chien.

đź“Ť On campus

  1. The Undergraduate Student Government is looking to provide a 24-hour dining option for students. That would most likely mean keeping Starbucks open all night, a return to the pre-pandemic norm. (Brianna Tang / Daily Trojan)

🌴 In L.A.

  1. Kevin de León was clear: He’s not resigning. In two Wednesday TV interviews, the embattled L.A. city councilmember — heard in the infamous leaked recording that ended in former Councilmember Nury Martinez’s resignation — said he won’t step down despite protests from his council colleagues. (City News Service)

  1. A group of Black real estate developers behind a proposed downtown luxury skyscraper said that they refuse to continue working with de León for fear that he holds racial bias against them in light of the leaked recording. The proposed project is in de León’s district. A spokesman for the city councilmember dismissed the developers’ messaging as a negotiation tactic, but the developers argued that de León has been “slow-walking” them and requested that another councilmember oversee the project. (Roger Vincent / Los Angeles Times)

  1. For three decades, L.A. has had the most overcrowded housing among large counties in the United States. In the pandemic, low-income residents paid the deadly price for it. Here’s how it all happened. (Staff report / Los Angeles Times)

  1. Authorities seized about 12,000 suspected fentanyl pills found packaged in bags of candy at LAX on Wednesday. The person who tried to go through security with the pills escaped before law enforcement arrived. (Cindy Von Quednow / KTLA)

🌅 California

  1. University of California students are urging the school system to make jobs available to students regardless of their immigration status. It’s a push that’s coming as new enrollment in the DACA program has been shut off by federal judges, and as the student advocates say a study by immigration scholars refutes the university’s contention that offering jobs to the undocumented would violate federal immigration law. (Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle)

  1. Domestic and international criminals stole some $20 billion in California unemployment money during the height of the pandemic. Now, the state’s trying to claw some of it back. (Eric Westervelt / NPR)

📖 Other things I’m reading

  • Wednesday was a bit of a slow news day, so I got the chance to catch up on some magazine reading… What’s wrong with the CIA? Meet the luxury buses trying to disrupt air travel. Can robots evolve into machines of loving grace? Everyone wants to be a hot, anxious girl on Twitter. How to start liking the most annoying person in your life. And, finally, power causes brain damage — though I’m a bit skeptical of that one.

  • I also started listening to this podcast from LAist about Alex Villanueva’s controversial tenure as L.A. County sheriff. It has some production and sound engineering shortcomings, but rock solid journalism; I’ve completely lost all my confidence in the sheriff’s department. What a corrupt city.

🚨 In case you missed it

  • The L.A. City Council unanimously elected Paul Krekorian as council president. The former Democratic state assemblymember from the San Fernando Valley succeeds the now-disgraced Nury Martinez, who resigned over a leaked recording that showed her making racist and disparaging comments. (Alexander Nieves and Lara Korte / Politico)

  • Has a right-wing movement to flip school boards landed in the California Bay Area? Nationwide, conservative donors are pouring money into school board races, hoping to capitalize on lingering COVID resentment and flaring culture wars. That movement might be starting to reach one of the most liberal parts of the country. (Joshua Sharpe and Sophia Bollag)

Forward this email to a friend who might enjoy! Click here to subscribe, or here to view past editions.

Morning, Trojan is an Annenberg Media product, curated and edited by Tomoki Chien. Chris Bibona writes The Sports Corner. Questions, concerns or feedback? Just reply to this email.

USC students can click the following links to access free newspaper subscriptions: Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal.