Good morning. It’s Tuesday, and I’m reading about the “worst performance in the history of Coachella.” Onto the five USC, Los Angeles and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

USC, which seems to have recently found a special knack for pissing people off, said it won’t allow this year’s valedictorian to speak at graduation — citing threats it received over her pro-Palestinian views. Asna Tabassum, the valedictorian, links to a webpage on her Instagram profile calling for Israel to be abolished and replaced by a Palestinian state in which Arabs and Jews live together: which had spurred a wave of online outrage from pro-Israel groups. It is unclear what the nature of the threats were. But what is clear is that USC has managed to spark a nearly unprecedented firestorm of student outrage.

Jaweed Kaleem / Los Angeles Times

2.

Elsewhere in the world of domestic strife over the Israel-Hamas war, a group of pro-Palestinian protestors shut down the Golden Gate Bridge and a major Bay Area highway, snarling the Monday morning commute. The protest was part of a planned nationwide demonstration on Tax Day to rail against the United States’ military and financial support of Israel. Demonstrators also staged less disruptive sister protests in downtown LA and USC. 

Eli Rosenberg and Jessica Flores / San Francisco Chronicle

3.

California sued to block a new law in Huntington Beach that could require voters to show identification before casting ballots starting 2026. State Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said the measure conflicts with state law and could make it harder for marginalized groups to vote. The conservative bastion has in recent years become a battleground for the culture wars, having just recently passed legislation to ban Pride flags on city property.

Amy Taxin / Associated Press 

4.

Federal officials finally shut down a scandal-plagued women’s prison in Northern California known as the “rape club” that had faced years of investigations into rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse. The closure of the Dublin prison comes after a judge ordered special oversight of the facility and the FBI raided the premises earlier this month. The director of the federal Bureau of Prisons said the facility was “not meeting expected standards and the best course of action is to close the facility.” It’s the first closure of a federal prison since 2021.

Sam Levin / The Guardian

5.

Your tortillas could soon have a new ingredient. A California lawmaker introduced a bill that would require manufacturers of corn masa flour — used to make corn chips, tortillas, tamales and pupusas — to include folic acid in their products. When consumed by pregnant women, folic acid can help prevent serious birth defects. It’s long been required in enriched grain products like cereal, bread, pasta and rice, but the lawmaker said he introduced the bill because Latinas are statistically less likely than other groups to consume folic acid in the early weeks of pregnancy.

Ana B. Ibarra / CalMatters