Good morning. It’s Thursday, and I’m reading about how a legendary California road trip spot — Pea Soup Andersen’s off Highway 101 — is closing. The Interstate 5 location is still open, though.

You can read (or watch) an old ABC 10 profile on the quirky restaurant, or make your own version of the Danish soup. I’ll try the recipe next week and let you know how it goes. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

An avalanche at a Lake Tahoe ski resort left one person dead and three injured on Wednesday morning. The Placer County Sheriff’s office identified the fatality as Kenneth Kidd, 66, who lived in Point Reyes and Truckee. Search and rescue teams recovered four people from the avalanche and concluded their search by the end of the day. The resort will reopen this morning, though the area where the avalanche occurred will remain closed as authorities investigate its cause.

Staff / San Francisco Chronicle

2.

Meta claimed that it’ll stop pushing harmful content to teens on Facebook and Instagram. No-go topics include suicide, self harm, eating disorders, guns, drugs, sex toys and nudity. The changes, which will roll out over the next few months, come amid increased scrutiny of the tech giant. In May, the U.S. surgeon general warned that social media platforms need to take “immediate action to protect kids now,” and in August, California joined a group of more than 40 states in a lawsuit accusing Meta of using “psychologically manipulative product features” to attract young users. 

Terry Castleman / Los Angeles Times

3.

California is staring down the barrel of a $38 billion budget deficit, a remarkable change of fortune from a nearly $100 billion surplus just two years ago. Gov. Gavin Newsom asked state lawmakers to pull some $13 billion from general reserves and delay or cut spending to cover the rest of the shortfall. Climate programs will take the biggest hit, though Newsom said he’d leave homelessness and mental health initiatives intact.

Blake Jones / Politico

4.

A group of USC students is pressuring the university to cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry, arguing that its commitment to divest from oil and gas over the next several years is not enough. The students, part of the Environmental Student Assembly, say USC’s petroleum engineering program, which trains fossil fuel engineers, is “unacceptable.” “We still have … faculty who have ties with Chevron who are now teaching or doing research here [and] professors’ research being influenced by funding from Chevron,” one student said.

Zachary Whalen / Daily Trojan

5.

An LA burger chain manager who used “straw donors” to contribute to former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s 2018 campaign will pay a $50,000 fine for campaign money laundering. After maxing out his legal donation limit, Manuel Gomez, who owns Tam’s Super Burgers, supplied intermediaries with cash then wrote contribution checks in their names. State investigators said they found no evidence that Villanueva knew about the contributions.

Keri Blakinger / Los Angeles Times

Anna Hsu copy edited this newsletter.

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