USC professor accused of sexual harassment in lawsuit
Tomo Chien
February 07, 2025
Good morning. It’s Friday, and a USC student built a program that yielded surprisingly good advice for your Hinge profile. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
A former Ph.D. candidate accused a USC professor of sexually harassing her then flunking her when she objected. The lawsuit, which is headed to court next month, alleges that professor David Kang made repeated unwanted sexual advances and at one point slapped the student’s buttocks with a wad of rolled-up papers.
2.
Southern California Edison admitted its equipment may have started the Hurst fire, which burned 800 acres in Sylmar but didn’t destroy any structures. Still, the utility maintained there’s no evidence it’s responsible for the Eaton fire — despite videos that show the blaze started under one of the company’s transmission towers.
3.
The former interpreter for Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing some $17 million from Ohtani’s bank account. Prosecutors said Ippei Mizuhara used the money to pay his debts to an illegal bookie, buy $325,000 worth of baseball cards, and cover his dental bills.
4.
Donald Trump pledged to investigate California’s notoriously delayed effort to build a bullet train between LA and San Francisco, calling it “the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen.” Even Californians aren’t mad about it. “It may deserve a mercy killing,” wrote columnist Dan Walters.
5.
A San Francisco nudist known to locals as “McGreasy” was arrested after allegedly masturbating while following a group of teenagers. Some residents, long accustomed to public nudity, were surprised. “I thought he was just another naked guy,” a city supervisor said in a truly only-in-San-Francisco utterance.