Good morning. If you didn’t watch this weekend’s game, here’s a quick recap of USC’s 56-10 blowout win over Stanford. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, sued California over a law that requires social media platforms to disclose their content moderation policies. The suit claims that the law — an effort to tamp down on online toxic discourse that sailed through the Legislature last year — violates social media companies’ free speech rights because it seeks to pressure platforms into limiting content that “the state apparently finds objectionable or undesirable.”

2.

A small group of LA Unified School District employees collected over $750,000 in mostly improperly approved extra pay over a three-year span. It’s not uncommon for public employees, particularly first responders like police and firefighters, to earn large sums of overtime pay. But auditors said that LAUSD staff charged extra for tasks that were part of regular duties and often improperly filled out overtime request forms — and that they were aided by lax enforcement from top administrators.

3.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’ll run for reelection in Congress in 2024, quelling any talk of the 83-year-old’s retirement. The San Francisco leader of over 35 years said she was motivated by the need to help her city in recovery and push House Democrats to regain their majority in an election season where she believes democracy hangs in the balance.

4.

California schools are desperately trying to coax chronically absent students back into the classroom. Nearly a third of the state’s public school students were consistently tardy and truant in the 2021-2022 school year, an all-time high that was three times the pre-pandemic rate. Now, lawmakers and school officials are scrambling to enact policies that might reverse the trend before experts say it’s too late.

5.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will make the wording on ballots easier to understand — changing “yes” or “no” to “keep” or “overturn a law”— and require referendums to list their funders. Lawmakers said they pushed for the reforms after seeing corporations use loopholes and confusing language to override laws and undo policies, especially in low-income communities of color.

You’re all caught up. Thanks for reading Morning, Trojan, and have a good day. Anna Hsu copy edited this newsletter.

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