Breaking: Student in 'serious' condition after car crash
Tomo Chien
October 02, 2025
Good morning. It’s Thursday, and these are the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
A USC student was left in “serious” condition after being hit by a car Wednesday outside campus around 10:15 p.m., officials said. The unidentified 20-year-old pedestrian was struck near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Downey Way. He was transported to a local hospital.
2.
USC is among nine schools who received offers from the White House yesterday to enact a laundry list of reforms in exchange for preferential funding. Those include: capping international student enrollment, freezing tuition for five years, and abolishing departments that “punish” or “belittle” conservative ideas.
3.
For years, USC has sold cadavers to the U.S. Navy under a little-known program that trains medical teams in the Israel Defense Forces. It’s unclear where the cadavers come from, but documents suggest that at least some originate from LA County’s store of unclaimed bodies.
4.
Jane Goodall, the naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of primates and human evolution, died yesterday at age 91. Students today may not know that, in 1990, Goodall joined USC as a distinguished emeritus professor. At the link below, see a beautiful album that documents her life in photos.
5.
A new dating app will make you an AI agent and send it on virtual dates to find a match. Ditto AI, which was (actually) inspired by a Black Mirror episode, is now available to USC students. For what it’s worth: My agent has logged 218 “date sims” over two weeks. He’s still single. Tough.
I discovered yesterday that many reader emails have gone to my spam box. Because of the high volume of mail I receive, Gmail permanently deleted most spam prior to September.
I’m sorry if I missed your message. You can always try me again via email or text me at tomo.415 on Signal for a faster response.