The Brief

For anyone who doesn't think Los Angeles is serious about pizza, they've never been to Pizza City Fest.

Now in its fourth year, the festival returns to L.A. LIVE's Event Deck this weekend — from 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday — showcasing the full range of styles that define SoCal's pizza scene. The event was founded by three-time Emmy and 13-time James Beard Award-winning food reporter Steve Dolinsky, who has built Pizza City Fest into a three-city operation spanning Chicago, Nashville and Los Angeles. This year, 40 pizzerias will be offering unlimited tastings — general admission runs $99 a day, VIP $199. (Drinks, both alcoholic and NA, are also included in the price).

Who's going to be there?

SoCal pizza isn't specific to L.A. What's most exciting about this year's lineup is how far it stretches — from Orange County and the Inland Empire to the San Fernando Valley and Santa Barbara. It’s a testament to the fact that good pizza is everywhere in the region; you just need to know where to find it.

As Dolinsky puts it: "You don't have to get in your car and drive all over Southern California to try all these great pizzas because they're all going to be made fresh, right there in one place."

Eleven out of the 40 pizzerias are making their Pizza City Fest debuts this year (marked with an asterisk).

Saturday

• Angel City Pizza (Venice)
• Anna Pizza (Valley Village)*
• Bianca Sicilian Trattoria (mobile truck — Arts District)*
• Bub & Grandma's Pizza (Highland Park)*
• Colossus (Long Beach, San Pedro)*
• Emmy Squared (DTLA)
• Esco's New York Style Pizza (Mid-City)
• Fat Lip Pizza & Beer (Corona)
• Fat Nattys (Los Angeles)*
• Joe's Pizza (Southern California)
• Mievè (Miracle Mile)*
• Mike's Firestone Pizza (Fullerton)*
• Old Gold Tomato Pies (Los Feliz)*
• Riip Beer & Pizzeria (Huntington Beach)
• Slice House by Tony Gemignani (Southern California)
• Thunderbolt Pizza (Long Beach)*
• Tribute Pizza (San Diego)
• Triple Beam Pizza (Southern California)
• Truly Pizza (Dana Point)
• Woodstock Farina (mobile truck — Oxnard)

Dessert: Lei'd Cookies (Culver City) and Uli's Gelato (Los Angeles)

Sunday

• Apollonia's Pizzeria (Mid-Wilshire)
• Bettina (Santa Barbara)
• Chi-Pie (Reseda)
• Detroit Pizza Depot (Hollywood)
• Due Fiori (Long Beach)*
• Little Dynamite (Mar Vista)
• LaSorted's (Silver Lake; Chinatown)
• Nonna Mercato (Long Beach)
• Ospi (Venice; Brentwood; Costa Mesa)
• Naughty Pie Nature (Echo Park)
• Petramale Pizza (mobile truck — Venice)
• Pie Trap Pizza (Covina)
• PiiZaa (Mobile Truck- Torrance)*
• Pizzana (Southern California)
• Prime Pizza (Southern California)
• Prince St. Pizza (Southern California)
• Secret Pizza (El Sereno)
• Speak Cheezy (Long Beach)
• Two Doughs (Agoura Hills)

Dessert: Wanderlust Creamery (Los Angeles) and Levain Bakery (Los Angeles, Venice, Beverly Hills)

Styles upon styles

Esteban "ESCO" Gutierrez grew up in his father's Manhattan pizza shop. Now he's bringing that New York tradition to Mid-City L.A. — and to Pizza City Fest this weekend at L.A. LIVE.

(

Susana Capra

/

Courtesy Pizza City Fest

)

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of Pizza City Fest is the sheer range of styles on offer. Detroit, NY, Neapolitan, tavern-style, grandma pie — all under one roof. No dominant identity, and that's kind of the point. Unlike New York or Chicago, where pizza culture rallies around a single style, SoCal's scene is pluralist by nature. You've got Ozzy's Apizza repping New Haven-style, Esco's flying the New York flag, Detroit Pizza Depot doing what it says on the tin, and Bub & Grandma's doing their own artisan thing that defies easy categorization.

Keep an eye on Colossus, based in Long Beach and San Pedro, who earned a glowing review from the LA Times and is bringing a 100% sourdough crust to the fest — the kind of artisan approach Dolinsky says has defined the scene's evolution over the past four years.

And then there's PiiZaa — a mobile operation out of the Torrance Farmers Market whose name is apparently how the Vietnamese community pronounces the word. They'll be making a bánh xèo-inspired dish (a traditional stuffed crepe in pizza form) with turmeric, shrimp and pork.

As Dolinsky puts it, "That to me is very LA. Vietnamese culture meets Neapolitan pizza. That doesn't happen really anywhere else in the country." The fest isn't an argument for one style over another — it's an argument that SoCal can do all of them and do them well.

Slice House by Tony Gemignani will be serving at Pizza City Fest at L.A. LIVE this weekend.

(

Susana Capra

/

Courtesy Pizza City Fest

)

Beyond the slices

When you get tired — or full — of stuffing your face with delicious slices, Pizza City Fest has you covered there too.

Saturday's programming kicks off with "The Dough Whisperers" at 2 p.m., featuring Nancy Silverton and Aaron Lindell of Quarter Sheets in conversation about the craft of dough, followed at 3 p.m. by a home baker's masterclass demo from Thomas McNaughton and Ryan Pollnow of SF's Flour + Water — plus a Silverton book signing after.

Sunday brings a backyard pizza oven demo at 2 p.m. from Daniele Uditi of Pizzana. At 3 p.m., Esteban Gutierrez, Sean Lango, and Vito DeCandia make the case that great New York-style pizza doesn't require a New York zip code — moderated by KTLA Morning anchor Chris Schauble.

The details

• Pizza City Fest runs Saturday and Sunday at the Event Deck at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles, 1–5 p.m. both days.
  
• General admission is $99 per day; VIP tickets are $199 and include one-hour early entry, access to an exclusive lounge, preferred panel seating and a swag bag.
  
• All tickets include unlimited pizza tastings, beverages, desserts and admission to all panels and demos — yes, that means drinks, both alcoholic and NA.

First-timer? Dolinsky's advice: "Go to the places that are furthest from your home ... go to the places from Corona, the IE and Covina. Who knows when you'll go there?"

Tickets at lalive.com/pizzacityfest.

A high-profile fight between California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Paramount Skydance resolved Monday with a settlement that clears a path for the company to continue with its planned acquisition of another century-old studio, Warner Bros. Discovery.

The deal comes after Paramount threatened to leave the state over an antitrust lawsuit led by Bonta and attorneys general from 11 other states that sought to block the $111 billion merger.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison reportedly told senior leaders of the company “clearly we’re not wanted here,” during a meeting in August. However, California has taken several steps since the 2000s to retain studios like Paramount.

The fight was the latest chapter in the battle for Hollywood, which has been a priority for California lawmakers and the last three governors.

Here are some ways the state has tried to keep its storied industry:

• Program 1.0: In 2009, in response to other states beginning to offer financial incentives for motion picture production, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state’s first California Film and Television Production Tax Credit. The program allocated $100 million per year to eligible film and TV production companies through 2017.

• Program 2.0: In 2014, lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 1839, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law, creating a new version of the Film and Television Production Tax Credit program and more than tripling the credits to $330 million annually through 2020.

• 2018 expansion: In 2018, Brown again authorized an extension of the program for another five years, through 2025. Following the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down productions, Gov. Gavin Newsom boosted the credit temporarily to $420 million annually.

• 2025 increase: Hollywood was struggling following the “quadruple-whammy” of the COVID-19 pandemic, a writers strike, deadly wildfires and growing production incentives from other states that lured movies out of California. In response, lawmakers increased the yearly credit in 2025 to $750 million per year until 2030. Newsom championed the boost, saying the industry was “on life support.”

• This year, when the film and television production tax credit clashed with an initiative to cap corporate tax breaks, lawmakers carved independent film producers out of the groups subject to a new cap.

• In July, Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas created the “Select Committee on Growing and Retaining the Creative Economy in California” to, in part, keep film and television production in the state.

• On Saturday, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2319 by Burbank Democrat Nick Schultz to create a new tax credit for post-production work, including editing and visual effects.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Democrat representing Hollywood, said he was delighted a deal was reached to keep Paramount in California, but that the state needs to do more to retain the industry. Zbur is chair of the state’s new Assembly committee focused on keeping film production in California.

“Now that other states are realizing what important, family-sustaining jobs these are, they're competing very aggressively for these jobs,” he said.

Zbur said the committee will explore new state incentives during its first meeting, which he expects will take place in October in Los Angeles.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, many Medi-Cal enrollees will face new work requirements and eligibility checks — the result of sweeping federal changes that could affect more than 1 million L.A. County residents, according to organizers of a new countywide outreach campaign.

If you are a Medi-Cal enrollee between ages 19 and 64, you may soon need to show you're working, volunteering, going to school or in a job training program for at least 80 hours a month or otherwise earning income to keep your public health insurance coverage.

Some enrollees will also have to prove they’re eligible every six months instead of once a year.

Parents of children 13 and younger, pregnant women, older adults and people with disabilities are largely exempt from the requirements.

What to do to prepare

• Keep your address and phone number current with your county Medi-Cal office.
  
• Watch your mail, and respond promptly to Medi-Cal notices in yellow or white envelopes.
  
• If you're unsure what a notice means, community health centers and trained volunteers can help in person and in multiple languages, county officials said.

How we got here

Nearly 4 million L.A. County residents, or 41% of the population, rely on Medi-Cal — California’s version of Medicaid, a joint federal and state insurance program providing free or low-cost coverage to low-income people.

President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the "One, Big Beautiful Bill Act," a massive spending and tax bill, at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 4, 2025.

(

Samuel Corum

/

Getty Images North America

)

President Donald Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — formally H.R. 1 — in July 2025, and it reduced federal Medicaid funding while adding a requirement that people who receive benefits work or show they are going to school, volunteering or seeking job training.

The new requirements and six-month renewal rules apply to adults 19-64 covered through Medi-Cal’s Affordable Care Act expansion, according to county officials.

In June, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the rule that implements the work requirement. CMS said in a news release that the framework is meant to promote economic stability and self-sufficiency.

“This rule helps Americans build skills and independence through work, education, job training, or community service, creating new opportunities for themselves and their families,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said in a statement.

Later that month, states including California sued to challenge the changes. In July, a federal judge denied their request to pause the rules while the lawsuit continues.

Last week, L.A. Care Health Plan, which administers Medi-Cal benefits for many county residents and other partners, launched “Keep L.A. Covered,” a public campaign to train community leaders, including pastors, teachers and health workers, to warn Medi-Cal recipients about renewal notices. The first training is Oct. 27, hosted by Maternal Child Health Access.

County officials say people and organizations that want to get involved can sign up at www.keeplacovered.org.

Paperwork hurdles

Campaign leaders say people are more likely to lose coverage because a notice went to an old address or went unanswered than because they stopped qualifying for Medi-Cal.

"One missed notice, one missed deadline, one moment of confusion can mean them losing their coverage, and it's not because they're no longer eligible," Martha Santana-Chin, CEO of L.A. Care, said at a campaign launch last week. "It's simply because they haven't been able to navigate the paperwork that's ahead of them.”

The state of California is already mailing letters about the changes, Santana-Chin said.

If the state can't verify compliance, it must send a noncompliance notice and give the enrollee 30 days to prove compliance or an exemption. Otherwise, the application may be denied, or the person disenrolled.

Advocates say the risk is greatest for people without a stable mailing address. Statewide, most people experiencing homelessness are eligible for or already enrolled in Medi-Cal, according to the California Health Care Foundation.

The 2026 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority homeless count estimated more than 73,000 people were experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. Many would qualify for medical exemptions that would allow them to receive Medi-Cal benefits without proof of work or other requirements, but claiming an exemption requires clinical documentation and regular contact with the healthcare system, the foundation said. Federal guidance doesn't let states exempt people from the requirements solely for being unhoused.

Some details of the 80-hour monthly work requirement remain unsettled. The federal government is still writing the details on what counts as qualifying work, volunteering or education, Santana-Chin said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects the requirement will reduce Medicaid enrollment nationwide by more than 3 million people. The federal agency assumes about 15% of enrollees will lose coverage, about 9% because they don't meet the requirement and about 6% because of paperwork or other administrative barriers. The actual effect depends on how states carry out the rules, according to a recent report from the federal agency.

The Congressional Budget Office, which analyzed the law using different methods, estimated the requirement would leave 5.3 million more people uninsured in 2034.

Facing growing public backlash and a pivot from his own past vetoes, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping package of seven bills on Monday that aim to force the data center industry to pay its own way in California.

Three of the new laws shift electric infrastructure costs away from residential customers and toward data center operators, three more mandate disclosures of water usage and other resources, and the last one makes data centers ineligible for environmental review exemptions.

Newsom, in a written statement, contrasted the new regulations with President Donald Trump’s hands-off approach to data centers and artificial intelligence.

“We know that we don’t have to sell out Californians or sacrifice our well-being to innovate and succeed,” the statement read. “California has proven that time and time again. With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense.”

Trump has aggressively pushed to accelerate data center development nationwide, arguing that they represent a significant economic opportunity for states that embrace them. He said last week at the All-In Summit, an invite-only conference for business leaders, that the industry is the “oil of the next 20, 25 years.”

Newsom’s signature on the new laws represents a significant departure from his actions on data centers last year, when he vetoed a water disclosure bill over concerns that regulation could stifle AI growth and signed into law only a single stripped-down environmental study bill.

Environmental advocates and the lawmakers behind this year’s bills previously told CalMatters that intensifying public backlash to data center construction propelled the legislation this year, despite a flood of lobbying funds from Big Tech and other business interests that aimed to soften the proposals.

“When you’re looking down the barrel of public outcry that says we don’t want [data centers] at all, and you’ve got localities that are saying they’re going to ban them, then you know the atmosphere has changed,” Assemblymember Diane Papan, a San Mateo Democrat who authored two of the bills which were signed into law on Monday, previously told CalMatters.

Other state legislatures as well as Congress are also advancing new measures to regulate the industry. In May, a Gallup poll found seven in 10 Americans oppose data center construction in their communities, while a July Public Policy Institute of California poll found similar opposition statewide. Hundreds of cities nationwide — including Monterey Park and Bay Area cities like Pittsburg — have either passed data center bans or walked back approvals following public outcry.

Arnab Pal, the executive director of Deploy Action, a nonprofit that promotes clean energy, told CalMatters the new laws are a good step toward preventing data centers from harming consumers through utility rate increases or environmental damage. Still, Pal said, more can be done to ensure such projects actually benefit everyday people through advancements to the electrical grid and the acceleration of clean energy infrastructure.

“I don't think these bills are the end of this fight; I think we're gonna have to do a lot of implementation on the back end and, as other states roll out their policies next year, I think California is going to look back and be like, ‘maybe we should have done more,’” Pal said. “I'm interested to see what we do next year on this.”

Business interests that oppose the measures, like the Data Center Coalition — which counts companies like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI among its members — warn that further regulation could push the data center industry out of California. According to the latest figures from the Data Center Coalition, the industry contributed 665,500 jobs, more than $159 billion in economic activity, and $14.1 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in California in 2024.

Khara Boender, the director of government affairs west for the Data Center Coalition, told CalMatters that “the data center industry shares the goal of ensuring growth of this critical infrastructure is responsible and well managed,” but more work needs to be done “to promote responsible data center growth while maintaining California as a key, competitive market in the global economy.”

Newsom signed the following bills:

• Senate Bill 1168, SB 886 and Assembly Bill 2383, which shift electric infrastructure costs away from residential customers and toward data center operators
• AB 2469, AB 1577 and AB 2619, which mandate disclosures or estimates of water usage and other resources
• SB 887, which makes data centers ineligible for blanket environmental review exemptions, and offers fast-tracked approval for facilities that meet state standards for water and energy conservation

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a pair of bills that will create a new system for approving community college bachelor’s degrees.

Senate Bill 960 and Assembly Bill 2694, which were sent to Newsom as a two-bill package, will let community college districts create between two and 12 new bachelor’s degrees to fill local workforce needs.

The bills take effect Jan. 1, 2028, and will create a five-tiered system determining how many bachelor’s degrees each district can offer. Districts will be placed into tiers based on the percentage of students who complete a degree or certificate or transfer to a four-year university. Districts with higher graduation and transfer rates will be allowed to create more bachelor’s degrees — up to the maximum of 12.

The tiered system, which was among several last-minute amendments to the legislation, has drawn backlash from community college presidents and chancellors, who say the system will pit colleges against one another.

However, the legislation does make at least one significant change supported by the community colleges: It only prohibits degrees that duplicate CSU programs offered in the same local service area as the community college proposing the degree. In the past, duplication wasn’t tied to location, and community colleges sometimes faced duplication objections from CSU campuses located in different regions of the state.

The legislation also allows for certain circumstances when community colleges can create bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby CSU campus has a similar program. That will be permitted if the CSU program has had a transfer acceptance rate of less than 75% for three consecutive years.