Good morning. It’s Monday, and I’m reading about an exodus to colleges in the South. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

USC will likely have to reveal embarrassing details of its admissions process if it can’t settle or dismiss a lawsuit by a family that says the school ensnared it in the Varsity Blues scandal. In a nightmare scenario for USC, the suit could expose the pay-to-play process of accepting children of wealthy donors.

Chris Villani / Law360

2.

Third-party companies are paying colleges hefty sums to use their names and logos to market online courses — that the universities actually have no involvement in. The pricey courses, including USC-branded programs, are leaving students feeling screwed when they discover what they’ve paid for.

Alan Blinder / The New York Times

3.

A faulty fire alarm has rudely awoken residents of the embattled Hub LA Figueroa nonstop this semester. The culprit: The Taco Bell directly below the apartments. Building management couldn’t give a straight answer when asked if the problem is fixed.

Karthik Krishnamurthy / Daily Trojan

4.

Fire crews have almost entirely snuffed out two of three major wildfires burning in Southern California. The Bridge and Airport fires, which tore through some 80,000 acres, are more than 95% contained. The Line Fire in San Bernardino County, though, prompted a fresh wave of evacuation orders this weekend.

Jonathan Lloyd / NBC Los Angeles

5.

Vandals broke into an empty Bel Air mansion and covered it in graffiti, the latest in a string of similar incidents in tony LA neighborhoods. But more interesting is the house’s roster of former residents: famed Hollywood producer Arthur Freed. Oh, and Osama bin Laden’s half-brother.

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times