USC sued over $1.1 million stadium bill
Tomo Chien
January 21, 2026
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and these are the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
A construction firm that worked on USC’s new Rawlinson Stadium sued the university over $1.1 million in alleged unpaid bills. Washington-based SunSteel is seeking money owed, plus interest, for its work on the state-of-the-art lacrosse and soccer facility.
2.
AI is gutting the entry-level job market, and universities are wildly unprepared for the fallout. Many schools, wrote New York Magazine, see AI “primarily as a threat to learning.” But that has blinded them to the fact that the labor market now demands both AI literacy and the experience for complex, harder-to-automate roles.
3.
A conservative group sued the LA Unified School District over a decades-old policy meant to combat the harms of school segregation. The 1776 Project Foundation says the district illegally allocates more resources to schools with non-white majorities. Critics of the suit say the allocation is needed to correct decades of discrimination.
4.
Gov. Gavin Newsom caused a fuss in Davos after he called world leaders “pathetic” for failing to confront Donald Trump and suggested that he “should’ve brought a bunch of kneepads.” (He is actually selling kneepads.) “Have some spine,” Newsom said. “Have some goddamn balls.”
5.
Nobody parties quite like UC Santa Barbara — except maybe until now. Santa Barbara officials voted to prohibit the annual Deltopia street rager, citing the untenable cost of paying cops and paramedics to respond to the unsanctioned event. “GOOD FUCKING LUCK,” an unofficial Deltopia Instagram account posted in response.
