The Brief

While Labor Day is meant to celebrate your hard-earned time off from work, many people mark it with a barbecue — which often means manning the grill while everyone else relaxes with a plate and a cold beverage.

This year, let someone else handle the shopping, the setup and the cleanup — but you still get to do the grilling. We found three spots around L.A. and Orange County where the whole point is cooking your own meat, no backyard or grocery shopping required.

Venice Room (Monterey Park)

The Venice Room's vintage neon sign has marked the Monterey Park dive bar and steakhouse since 1955.

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Courtesy The Venice Room

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If you're from the San Gabriel Valley/East L.A. area, there's a good chance you know The Venice Room. Open since 1955, it's an old-school Italian-themed dive bar/steakhouse. In other words, heaven on earth.

The move is to order an NY strip or ribeye, and they'll hand you raw-cut beef, plus a potato and garlic bread, which you grill yourself on one of the gas grills in the back. Don't forget the seasoning at the prep bar, 'cause no one wants a bland steak.

Vibe: Think dim lighting, warm leatherette red booths, weekend karaoke and plenty of regulars — ex-bikers and retired cops rubbing elbows — belting out their own versions of War's "Slippin’ Into Darkness”.

Price: $25-35 for a steak dinner; "for 2" special with house wine runs about $75-79

Thien An Bo 7 Mon (Garden Grove)

Thien An Bo 7 Mon has served Little Saigon's bò 7 món for over three decades.

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Courtesy Thien An Bò 7 Món

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The Little Saigon institution, Thien An Bo 7 Mon, has built a reputation around bò 7 món, the Vietnamese "seven courses of beef" tasting menu. While that kind of menu is common at similar restaurants, what makes the version at Thien An Bo 7 Mon unique are the two courses that call for a hands-on approach.

That starts with bò nhúng dấm, where you cook thin slices of beef yourself in a simmering vinegar hot pot, along with bò nướng sa tế, lemongrass-marinated beef that you grill tableside on a small cast-iron grill. Just make sure to leave room for the remaining five courses.

A spread from Thien An Bo 7 Mon's bò 7 món, the "seven courses of beef" tasting menu that's made the Little Saigon spot a Garden Grove institution.

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Ben Wishner

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Courtesy Thien An Bo 7 Mon'

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Vibe: Family-owned since 1989, the warm, lively dining room is great for big groups and feeding a crowd. Expect long tables, lots of family celebrations and friendly, helpful staff who will walk you through each course if it's your first time.

Price: The seven-course beef runs around $21.99 per person; expect a full bill closer to $30 a head once you add sides and drinks, or go the extra mile and order their famous baked catfish (which starts around $50 for a whole fish).

Dollar Hits (Historic Filipinotown and West Covina)

Be transported to a street party in Manila.

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Courtesy Dollar Hits

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The Filipino street-food-stall-meets-buffet, which has been running since 2013, is one of my favorite L.A. dining experiences. Where else can you enjoy $1.50 skewers you've grilled yourself in a parking lot while gazing up at the DTLA skyline, contemplating these moments of greatness as an Angeleno?

Choices include pork, chicken, offal cuts, and items such as kwek-kwek (deep-fried, hard-boiled eggs) and longaniza. The move: grab skewers from inside, pay and then head out to the charcoal grills set up in the parking lot to cook them yourself.

Customers grill their own skewers over open flame on the sidewalk outside Dollar Hits.

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Brandon Killman

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LAist

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Vibe: Long communal tables, red plastic stools, charcoal smoke drifting through the parking lot, families and big groups crowding in late — it can feel like you've been transported to a street party in Manila.

Price: Most skewers run $1.50 each; easy to eat well for $10-15 a person, though it adds up fast if you're loading up a table for a crowd. The L.A. location also offers cafeteria-style lunch combos under $12 before 2 p.m.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Inglewood is staring down the barrel of a $30.8 million budget deficit next year, the city’s largest in at least two decades, but officials said locals don’t need to be worried. 

Inglewood’s budget ballooned after SoFi Stadium opened in 2020. City officials roughly doubled their spending from the general fund — the pot of money that pays for basic services from police to parks. 

Revenue also boomed in the first few years after the stadium’s opening, but since then hasn’t quite kept up with what’s been spent. 

City officials downplayed the projected deficit last week, saying in reports and presentations that reserves of more than $150 million will cover the gap this year and that they expect increased tax and other revenues to help take care of the problem in the future.  Mayor James Butts said locals have no reason to worry, and that the city’s reserves have enabled officials to be ambitious in their planning. 

Whether they have to dip into those savings at all depends on how locals vote for a ballot measure on Nov. 3. Officials predict Measure AT could wipe out the deficit entirely by bringing in as much as $45 million to $50 million extra in taxes on tickets to major events.

But_, if Inglewood continues to spend more than it takes in over the coming years and pulls too much out of its reserves, city officials could be pushed to lay off staff and cut funding for services, as they did during a fiscal crisis 15 years ago.

The City Council approved the budget proposal in a 4-0 vote at its Tuesday meeting. Councilmember Eloy Morales Jr. was absent.

Here’s a breakdown of Inglewood’s budget

Inglewood’s annual general fund revenue has grown by about $100 million over the last 10 years, driven in large part by increased property taxes and admissions tax.

But that growth has plateaued over the last five years, while expenditures continued to grow. The city plans to spend $279 million out of its general fund this year, more than double its annual spending prior to 2020.

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The LA Local

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The city’s total budget is $675 million. It includes the general fund as well as special funds that pay for things like major construction projects and affordable housing.

Police take the largest bite out of Inglewood’s general fund, followed by the public works and parks departments.

Outside the general fund, the city has also budgeted $239 million for capital projects.

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The LA Local

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Some of Inglewood’s largest sources of general fund revenue are property tax, sales tax and admissions tax. 

Property tax revenue has grown by leaps and bounds over the last five years, according to budget documents, but admissions tax and sales tax haven’t matched the growth.

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The LA Local

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Officials hope city reserves and a ballot measure will fill the deficit

Inglewood has had budget issues before. The deficit approached $18 million in 2010, just before Mayor James Butts was elected, while reserves fell to around $11 million.

This time around, officials say Inglewood has over $150 million in reserves. 

Butts said those reserves have allowed the city to take an aggressive approach to improving streets, traffic lights and other city infrastructure.

“We put the money there because we want the city to be rehabilitated,” Butts said.

Pulling from reserves, though, isn’t something a city can do indefinitely. City Manager Louis Atwell wrote in a budget report that staff expect tax revenue to keep increasing and new developments to give the city an additional boost. With staff keeping an eye on operating costs, Atwell wrote, those revenues would narrow the city’s budget gap down the line. 

This year’s election could also come into play. The two city ballot measures voters will see — AT and BB — are the product of a larger battle between the city and its stadiums over billboard advertisements and the development deal that brought SoFi Stadium to Inglewood.

Either measure could have a substantial effect on the city’s books. 

Inglewood currently pulls in a 10% tax on SoFi Stadium tickets, but with an annual ceiling on how much the city can get. Measure AT, backed by billboard company WOW Media, would remove the cap and add a new 2.5% tax for the Intuit Dome.

Officials estimated it would bring in between $45 million and $50 million extra annually, more than enough to cover the city’s current deficit. Atwell cautioned, though, that the figures aren’t guaranteed and could depend on economic conditions, the timing of the measure’s roll-out and other factors. 

On the flip side, officials said Measure BB could curtail billboard fees and ratchet the deficit up to almost $39 million. 

The initiative would ban most commercial advertising on the large video billboards that have cropped up along the city’s main roads. Measure BB would cut off a revenue stream that, according to past budget documents, has brought the city between $3 million and $7.5 million. 

City officials itemized how much Inglewood made from billboards in each of the last 10 years, but did not do so in this year’s budget. 

The ballot measures are just a few items on a packed Inglewood ballot that includes elections for mayor, two city council members and three Board of Education trustees. 

International politics moved front and center in the Los Angeles mayor’s race Tuesday night, with the candidates offering differing views on how to describe what’s happening in Gaza.

Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and challenger City Councilmember Nithya Raman answered questions separately at a forum sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles at the Skirball Cultural Center in the Sepulveda Pass. The candidates were interviewed back-to-back on stage by moderator Alex Cohen.

The forum was designed to address the concerns of Jewish Angelenos.

Raman was asked about her use of the term “genocide” and whether it is appropriate to describe Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, right, on stage with moderator Alex Cohen at the Skirball Cultural Center during a mayoral forum on Tuesday, September 29, 2026.

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Jeff Rowe

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”I used it because other experts have used it to describe what’s happening,” she said. “And I used it because I felt compelled to speak out about issues that we saw, the images that we saw, the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children.”

Bass had a different response from her opponent when asked whether she believes the term applies in Gaza.

“When I think of foreign affairs, especially conflicts, my focus is on how they impact the city of L.A. — no, I don’t,” Bass responded.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass answers questions at a mayoral candidates forum held at the Skirball Cultural Center.

The Gaza Health Ministry estimates 74,000 Palestinians have died in the war, including many children and noncombatants.

The war started on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251.

Genocide is an international crime defined by the United Nations as any act committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The U.S. government and Israel vehemently deny genocide is going on in Gaza. Many other countries and human rights organizations disagree, saying it is genocide.

Candidates differ on Israel boycott

The two also split on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

Raman called it “a legitimate form of peaceful protest” against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians, prompting loud boos from some in the crowd.

“I support people’s right to protest,” she said. “And I will fight for that right even when I don’t agree with protesters, or when I agree with protesters.”

Raman is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which supports the boycott and divestment of Israel.

Bass said she would oppose any effort to enact sanctions against Israel.

Cohen also asked Raman about her appearance with Hasan Piker, a left-wing Twitch streamer and outspoken critic of Israel.

Raman said she disagreed with some of Piker’s views, saying it’s important for elected officials “to go speak to them even when you disagree.”

Raman said she has been an outspoken critic of antisemitism and was the first L.A. elected official to denounce the 2023 attack on Israel.

National polls on Gaza

The divergence in views between Bass and Raman represents a larger shift in the Democratic Party over Israel.

A new AP-NORC poll found erosion of support for the longtime U.S. ally, with rising opposition from Democrats.

About one-third of U.S. adults — including roughly half of Democrats — believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, according to The Associated Press. About 2 in 10 Americans say Israel has not, and the rest, about half, don’t know enough to say.

A similar share, 30%, of Jewish adults say Israel has committed genocide, although about half, 49%, say it has not.

“40 hours, $2M+ AI credits, solve an open problem.”

So read the splashy announcement for the “Mathathon” at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Dozens of teams would work to solve vexing math problems with the help of artificial intelligence as part of “the first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics,” according to the early September post. AI juggernauts Anthropic and OpenAI were set to sponsor the two-day competition.

The backlash came swiftly. Critics objected not only to using AI to tackle open problems, but also to the involvement of AI companies whose models and research practices they have criticized.

Within days, current and former Caltech mathematicians published an open letter calling on the undergraduate organizers to suspend the event. The Mathathon, they argued, would only fuel the creation of “slop mathematics” and serve as public relations for the companies.

Instead of canceling the event, Caltech student organizers responded as any mathematician would — they tried to solve the problem.

The undergraduates redesigned the competition. Instead of trying to solve open mathematical problems, teams will now aim to develop alternative proofs for existing, yet unsatisfying solutions. The November event will also no longer be sponsored by the companies that develop proprietary AI models.

“We came to the decision that we want to put up an event that unites the math community, rather than divides it,” Brian Zhao, one of the Mathathon organizers and a junior studying applied mathematics at Caltech, told EdSource.

The controversy over the Mathathon event laid bare the growing tensions unfolding in the mathematics community over what role AI should play in advancing the field.

AI has already helped to solve elusive math problems. OpenAI announced this month that it used an internal AI model “significantly more capable” than the latest publicly available models to solve one of the remaining six Millennium Prize Problems. But mathematicians have warned about AI’s negative impact on mathematics students, and criticized these companies’ approach to solving high-profile problems.

“To put it bluntly, AI companies are engaging in research misconduct,” wrote the authors of the open letter, which gained the signatures of 2,038 academics as of this week.

‘That’s not the culture of mathematics’

Earlier this summer, Zhao and his roommate came up with their idea of a fun weekend: lock themselves in a basement and try to solve math problems for 40 hours straight. He was inspired by hackathon-style competitions in which programmers and designers compete to build hardware or software under deadline.

The idea of using AI to try to solve open math problems was two-fold. With mathematics undergoing one of the biggest changes in decades because of AI, the Caltech undergrads wanted to organize an event to experiment with AI and better understand how the field may evolve by the time they start graduate school.

Also, the students hoped that advertising the event with flashy statements — like suggesting teams would have access to $2 million in AI credits — would attract high-profile professors as judges and big lab sponsors.

“What is the role of a mathematician when AI can solve conjectures faster?” Mathathon organizers initially asked on the event’s website.

The AI-infused premise of Mathathon drew the ire of current and former Caltech mathematicians.

“I found it pretty outrageous, taking $2 million worth of sponsorships from OpenAI and Anthropic (and) partnering with these companies that have been, in my opinion, and many other mathematicians’ opinion, very disrespectful to our field,” said Yujin Kim, a postdoctoral fellow in Princeton University’s math department.

Kim had been critical of OpenAI’s approach to solving elusive mathematics problems in viral social media videos. The companies’ sponsorship of the event “felt like aligning with the empire,” Kim said.

“I can’t imagine [the Mathathon] would go any way other than just essentially button pressing and prompting,” Kim said. “That’s not the culture of mathematics. That’s not how we operate.”

After the backlash, OpenAI pulled its support from the event.

“We recognize that the rapid progress of AI in mathematics is disruptive,” Dan Roberts, OpenAI’s research lead, said in a social media post after the open letter was published. A spokesperson for Anthropic declined to comment.

The updated Mathathon competition will allow participants to use AI, but highly encourage them to use open-source tools that can be modified by the public instead of proprietary models run by private entities like OpenAI.

“We are proud of all of our students for the passion, drive, and maturity they have shown throughout this development,” Caltech spokesperson Emily Velasco said in a statement. “The spirit of open inquiry is central to the scientific process, and we hope to see a continued exchange of ideas as the math community charts its course forward.”

Zhao said he and his fellow organizers are determined to move forward with hosting the event. He said organizers hope the Mathathon will allow students to discover ways to use the technology responsibly, and build a bridge between AI developers and the math community.

AI can act like a shortcut to solving math problems

AI has conjured much debate in the math community, some of which has been overdue, said Dimitri Shlyakhtenko, a UCLA math professor who has followed Mathathon developments but did not sign the open letter.

From the outside, it may look like AI is upending the field by solving high-profile problems that have stumped mathematicians for decades. But the reality is more nuanced, Shlyakhtenko said.

“It is very rare that some result in mathematics is obtained out of nothing,” he said. “It usually builds on a mountain of other works that happen, and usually there’s a community of people that care about a particular set of problems.”

Mathematics problems aren’t about the destination of finding a solution, he said. Rather, mathematicians develop new techniques and understandings along the journey to solve a problem. He likened it to hiking to a waterfall. The end goal is to see the waterfall, but the things you discover along the journey are also quite interesting and of value.

With AI, he said that “what we’re seeing right now is that it is sometimes possible to take a kind of a direct shortcut.”

Some mathematicians worry that using AI to solve problems robs training opportunities from younger mathematicians.

Training problems provide opportunities for graduate students to learn skills and approaches to mathematics, but “if those just get solved, then the motivation to do it is kind of gone, right?” Shlyakhtenko said.

Over the past several months, as the Mathathon drama unfolded, Zhao said he has learned two important lessons: Be ambitious and be humble.

Maintaining the lofty goal of the event — of trying to help unravel the thorny debate of AI’s role in mathematics — has helped the team persist in the face of challenges, Zhao said. He added that it also developed the event into something more than just a fun, competitive weekend. The conversations with mathematicians around the world about the event have also taught him to be wary of flashy statements.

“If we just present ourselves honestly as undergrads who are curious about AI, we actually attract more sympathy,” Zhao said. “We actually attract more mathematicians who are willing to help us.”

The Orange County Transportation Authority approved $10.5 million for Metrolink services for the second quarter of the fiscal year as the rail service faces a dip in ridership and rising operational costs.

A majority of Metrolink’s budget is funded by Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties’ transportation departments.

The OCTA board’s approval this week follows a previous $14.5 million contribution in June to support Metrolink services for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Funding for the remainder of the year depends on a formal Metrolink budget request, board approval and approval from neighboring transportation authorities.

How did we get here? 

In December, OCTA told Metrolink that its fiscal year 2026-27 contribution would need to remain at no more than $46 million. But in July, Metrolink submitted an operating budget draft that would exceed OCTA’s contribution limit by about $6 million. OCTA tasked Metrolink with coming back with a revised budget that is within its contribution limits.

“Metrolink ridership has suffered since the pandemic began over six years ago,” Andrew Oftelie, OCTA's chief financial officer, said. “Metrolink ridership today is at about two-thirds of what it was prior to the pandemic. Lower ridership combined with higher costs has meant that Metrolink has asked member agencies like OCTA to fund a greater percentage of the service.”

The amount Metrolink asked for from OCTA has almost doubled since pre-COVID, Oftelie added, and OCTA’s contribution has not been a huge budget issue in the last five years because of a “significant amount of one-time” state and federal funds.

“Those one-time funds have all been exhausted at this point, which is why we gave Metrolink a budget target this year,” Oftelie said. “That budget target was commensurate with the amount of ongoing revenues we expect to receive from Metrolink service going forward.”

Why it matters

In a presentation to the OCTA finance and administration committee on Sept. 17, Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle said the Orange County line is the rail’s highest revenue generator.

Ridership has grown slightly over the last two years, he added, but challenges remain. In creating a budget for this fiscal year, Metrolink officials have made $16 million in budget cuts. In April, LA Metro also proposed to reduce its subsidy to Metrolink by 3%.

“The last thing I want to do … is pin this on our member agencies,” Kettle said. “The fact of the matter is we would have a challenging financial situation without those reductions from LA Metro and OCTA.”

What’s next? 

Oftelie told the OCTA board that a revised budget request from Metrolink is expected this week.