Good morning. It’s Monday, and I’m reading about whether these TikTok-famous restaurants in Los Angeles are worth the hype. Onto the five USC, LA and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Not that you need me to tell you, but there’s a storm system parked over LA right now. The downpour has already spurred mudslides, flooding and road closures in Studio City and Malibu, and officials warned of an “extremely dangerous situation” unfolding in Hollywood Hills. Downtown received a record-breaking four inches of rain yesterday, and most of the region is under a flash flood warning until 9 a.m. Nonstop showers are expected to continue until tomorrow.

Staff / The New York Times

2.

USC’s class of 2028 is expected to hit a record low 9.2% acceptance rate, just after the school broke into the single digits for the first time last year. Some 41,000 students applied under the early action deadline and another 40,800 applied for regular admission — a 1.2% increase in applications from last year. The 9.2% acceptance, by the way, puts us right with UCLA, though I wouldn’t be shocked if they have higher SAT scores than us. Sue me.

Nathan Elias / Daily Trojan

3.

The race for California’s open Senate seat has at times gotten nasty, particularly between Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. Want nastier? Try the 47th District in Orange County, where Democrats Dave Min and Joanna Weiss are running to succeed Porter in the House. First, Weiss slammed Min for his DUI arrest last year in an attack ad. Then, Min accused Weiss of funding her campaign with money she and her husband earned defending sex offenders in court. The real winner, though, will likely be the Republican nominee, who’ll face a weakened Democrat in the purple district’s general election — and could determine control of the House.

Melanie Mason / Politico

4.

Two years ago, a Bay Area elementary school with chronically low test scores paid $250,000 in federal money to Woke Kindergarten, a for-profit company that promises to train teachers to confront white supremacy and disrupt oppression: an alternative to traditional education, which some say is failing disadvantaged students. But two-thirds of the way into the program, test scores at Glassbrook Elementary School have fallen even lower. School officials defended Woke Kindergarten, arguing that the school was removed from the state watch list since starting the program — only to learn from journalists that the school was still on the list and had in fact dropped lower. 

Jill Tucker / San Francisco Chronicle

5.

I want you to imagine a utopia with me: You’re cruising west on the Interstate 10, and there are no legal billboards. None. No Jacoby & Meyers. No Accidente. No Larry H Parker. You might not know that some 50 years ago, that utopia was a reality. The reason why there are so many personal injury advertisements in LA now is because in 1977, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of then-upstarts Leonard Jacoby and Stephen Meyers on free speech grounds when they challenged the state bar’s decision to discipline them for “unethical advertising.” That paved the way for legal advertisements, which were previously unheard of, to flood the state.

Fiona Ng / LAist