USG tosses candidate over frat scheme
Tomo Chien
September 25, 2025
Good morning. It’s Thursday, and I’m reading polling that shows what college students really thought of Charlie Kirk. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
Senior Zach Garcia won the student government’s special election for a vacant senate seat. But the better news is that, in a classically too-serious opinion issued by the judicial council, another candidate was disqualified because his friend tried to get freshmen to vote for him in exchange for entry to a Pike frat party.
2.
Netflix sent the sports media world into a frenzy last month when it attempted to ink a secret deal for the exclusive rights to the annual USC-Notre Dame rivalry football game. USC reportedly explored ways to circumvent its existing TV agreements by scheduling the game at a neutral site like Mexico City — but was told off by Big 10 officials.
3.
USC ranked 27th in this year’s U.S. News college rankings, a one-place demotion from last year. UCLA ranked 17th, but don’t despair: The report claimed that USC graduates make an average of $15,000 more than their crosstown rivals six years after graduation. Let’s just forget about tuition.
4.
A small win for USC amid federal funding cuts: The National Institutes of Health awarded the school an $8 million grant to develop a new Alzheimer’s treatment. Researchers made a breakthrough in developing the drug earlier this year, and have since touted new blood tests and brain scan benchmarks to track the disease.
5.
Earlier this month, we linked to an upcoming documentary about Kanye West filmed by an Orange County teenager who earned nearly unprecedented access to the rapper’s life. Well, it’s out now. And it features delightfully awkward footage of Ye and Elon Musk discussing their love lives.