Topline:
Bella Vista Elementary School in Monterey Park is giving its after-class math club a different spin — by using mahjong.
How? It’s teaching fourth and fifth graders pattern recognition, strategy and probability through the traditional Chinese tile game.
Why now? The mahjong math club is the brainchild of fourth grade teacher Andy Luong, who learned how to play the game a couple years ago. In figuring out how to play the game, he learned how to teach it.
The math club at Bella Vista Elementary School is not a quiet affair — not with more than a dozen 10- and 11-year-olds stacking sets of mahjong.
But before the games can begin, it's time for math lessons.
"Remind me, math is the study of what?" fourth grade teacher Andy Luong asks the class.
"Pattern, patterns," the kids say.
Luong clicks through several slides, each featuring a mahjong tile the students call "seven sticks."
"When you first learned this tile, what did you use to memorize this?" Luong, co-founder of the Mahjong Math Club, asks.
"They look like sticks," a boy says.
Luong locks in on a slide for a few seconds, just a flash. It features six tiles, divided into two rows. He asks the class how many tiles they see.
"Three on the top and three on the bottom," a girl says. " So when I saw the pattern, I was like, 'Oh, it's six.'"
Luong nods. " Recognizing those patterns are a lot faster than counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6," he says.
The tile game of mahjong is believed to have started in China in the 19th century, after decades if not centuries of evolution. It spread globally, adopting regional specificities, including in the U.S. after it landed in the late 1910s from Shanghai by way of an American businessman. A few decades later, a group of Jewish American women established the National Mah Jongg League in New York.
The game never stopped being a staple of Chinese and many Asian cultures — anywhere in the world.
In recent years, fueled in part by the COVID-19 shutdown, an interest in the game has sparked among young Asian Americans. They form or attend social clubs in L.A. dedicated to the pastime, creating their own bond with the game.
Luong is one of them. When he was growing up in Illinois, the game came with certain connotations.
" Mahjong has such a bad rap in the Asian American community," Luong said, who moved to the San Gabriel Valley about a decade ago. "Part of a big reason why my parents don't play is because they associate it with gambling."
The 30-year-old finally gave the game a spin in 2024, learning it from third grade teacher and math club co-founder Rachel Hwang. She cut her teeth by watching her family play. Naturally, she threw Luong in the deep end.
" I was like, 'Here, we're just gonna play,'" Hwang said. " I just put the tiles on."
"I was so overwhelmed. It's like, 'What do you mean I had to get a set? A set of how much?' I'm like, 'I don't know what I'm doing,'" he said.
Still, Luong fell head over heels, quickly becoming a regular at the mahjong social clubs (in fact, it was at one of those events where I first met him) and a student of the game.
In learning it, Luong figured out how to teach it.
"He was the one [that] as a learner didn't grow up playing this game," Hwang said. "He was the one that found the tutorials, watched the tutorials, and he really, from a learner's perspective, figured out what a kid needed to learn and how they needed to learn in order to play the game."
Last year, Luong submitted a proposal to start a math club focused on mahjong at the school.
" It was pretty much slam dunk. It explores other avenues of the cultural experience that we want our students to learn," said Jennifer Martinez, principal of Bella Vista Elementary School. "It was something that we wanted to get off the ground right away and support."
Since September, the club has been meeting on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It was so popular Luong and Hwang brought in help to run the club.
“ I don't feel like they're really doing math,” said Ruolin Chen, a kindergarten teacher who was recruited. "It's like they're learning from playing or playing from learning.”
Back in the classroom, Luong clicks to a last slide to remind the club how to maximize "points" with certain "hands." This semester, the club is playing Hong Kong style mahjong — three point minimum win.
Finally, it's game time. The group of mainly fourth and fifth graders take their seats at the tables: mixing the tiles, stacking them into starting formation, casting the die, so on and so forth.
Then, they build their hand, meticulously rearranging the 13 tiles according to their suits — or in math club parlance, patterns.
The clank of tiles and sounds of "pong" and "gong" soon fill the air.
Pattern recognition, strategy, situational awareness, probability, learning when to pivot or to fold — those are some of the learnings the math club intends.
"Andy is so structured," Hwang said of Luong's design of the club. " The first two weeks, they didn't even play a game. It was like, 'Let's look at the tiles. How many tiles do you see? Pick out and group them into sets.'"
Fifth grader Uma Alvarado shows me her hand. She's going all "pong" — trying to assemble four sets of three identical tiles. It'd be worth three points if she wins.
Alvarado says what brings her to the club is the opportunity to hang out with her schoolmates. But trying something new is pretty cool too.
"I get to mix the tiles and find new ways to play a game I have never been introduced to before," she adds.
At another table, fourth grader Bonnie Kuang says the game keeps her on her toes.
"I think it's fun to use different strategies, and maybe I need to change strategy mid-game," Kuang said. "And I like it when I win."
Sofia Mandic, her same grade classmate and opponent across the table, says the pace of the game makes quick tile recognition key.
"You need to think fast. You need to think to yourself if you need it or not," Mandic says, because oftentimes, there are just seconds to make a decision.
It's all part of a teaching method known as "counting collections" that focuses on hands-on, student-centered learning experiences to build informal math knowledge. It's one aspect of a body of research called Cognitively Guided Instruction, which all math teachers at Bella Vista are trained in. Luong is applying it to guide his approach.
" We need to have them see there's four different types of tiles. There's [Chinese] characters, there's sticks, circles, and there's honorary tiles," Luong said. "They're not going to know unless they actually see it and they use their hands."
Even then, it's a lot to process. It could be downright overwhelming when a kid has to juggle all the elements all at once during game play.
"The very first time that we actually started playing, some of them didn't finish a game. It took an entire period," Luong said.
It took about a month into the club before the mechanics of the game — things like drawing a tile, discarding the ones they don't want — became routine; and another two months for the kids to play faster and without supervision.
"A lot of the students who don't know Mandarin, or have any Chinese background, are starting to recognize the characters. I'm really proud to say that," Luong said.
Ultimately, the teachers want the kids to take away from the game a lesson about life.
"What we really want the kids to do is not to have such a fixed mindset," Luong said.
" We want them to, A) be flexible, B) change up your game plan," Hwang said. "It's OK. Life is going to throw curve balls at you."
Topline:
The Long Beach Pride Parade is Sunday. Several road closures are scheduled and parking will be impacted along and near the parade route.
When is the parade? 10 a.m. Sunday, May 17.
Parking impacts and street closures: Those start at 4 a.m. Sunday.
Read on for all the details…
This weekend's Long Beach Pride Festival was canceled by the city on Friday — hours before kickoff. The city said festival organizers failed to provide the required safety documentation.
The Pride Parade, managed and funded by the city, will continue as scheduled on Sunday at 10 a.m.
The parade will start at Ocean Boulevard and Lindero Avenue and travel along the Ocean Boulevard coastline to Alamitos Avenue in Downtown Long Beach.
Roads will close and parking will be restricted starting hours before the parade. Streets are expected to reopen by 2 p.m.
Between 4 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday parking won’t be allowed on:
The following streets will be closed to traffic during their designated times:
Long Beach Pride says that parking will be available at the Long Beach Convention Center at 400 E. Seaside Way. Accessible parking and viewing will be available at Junipero and First Street, near Bixby Park.
Take the LA Metro A Line and exit 1st Street Station in Downtown Long Beach. After you exit, it's roughly a 10-minute walk down Ocean Boulevard to the parade festivities at Marina Green Park.
Topline:
Harvey Weinstein's latest sex crimes trial ended with a hung jury Friday, on the third day of deliberations. It was the second time in a year a jury was unable to reach a verdict on the same charge.
Background: The mistrial concludes a month-long trial that was quieter than Weinstein's previous court appearances, with a diminished media presence and less public attention. Earlier this year, Weinstein hired a new legal team, including high-profile criminal defense attorneys such as Marc Agnifilo, known for representing Luigi Mangione and Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Read on ... for more the Weinstein trials.
Editor's note: This story includes descriptions of allegations of sexual assault and rape.
Harvey Weinstein's latest sex crimes trial ended with a hung jury Friday, on the third day of deliberations.
It was the second time in a year a jury was unable to reach a verdict on the same charge.
Accusations against the former Hollywood mogul came to define the #MeToo movement, and he was first convicted of assaulting Jessica Mann in 2020. The former aspiring actress testified Weinstein raped her at a DoubleTree hotel in Manhattan in 2013. But that verdict, along with another charge, was later overturned.
In a second New York trial last summer, Weinstein was found guilty on one count of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and not guilty on another. But a third charge, of raping Mann, ended in a mistrial after the jury foreperson declined to return to deliberations, citing concerns for his safety.
Weinstein had returned to court for a third New York trial in April, this one focusing on Mann's allegations. But on Friday morning, Judge Curtis Farber received a note from jurors stating they were unable to reach a unanimous decision. Farber then read jurors a modified deadlock charge, known as an Allen charge, urging them to resume deliberations.
Jurors soon responded with another note restating their position. "We feel that no one is going to change where they stand," it said. Nine jurors fell on the side of not guilty; three supported a guilty verdict, Weinstein's lawyers told press outside of the courtroom.
The prosecution has until late June to decide whether they'll try the case again.
Outside of court, 55-year-old juror Rick Treese said that the group diverged on "where we actually had facts." He told reporters, "We didn't have enough facts to grasp onto, so it was emotion." People in the group "had varying emotions about it based on [their] experience in life."
"Everybody respected each other. Everybody respected their backgrounds. It was very civil. I feel certain that we dug into it enough."
Another juror, Josh Hadar, said his vote was for "not guilty," in part because he felt there might be parts of Mann's testimony that were "fabricated."
"I think the prevailing thought was that the witness had a lot of inconsistencies in her story," he said.
The mistrial concludes a month-long trial that was quieter than Weinstein's previous court appearances, with a diminished media presence and less public attention. Earlier this year, Weinstein hired a new legal team, including high-profile criminal defense attorneys such as Marc Agnifilo, known for representing Luigi Mangione and Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Defense attorneys argued that Mann and the then-married Weinstein had a consensual, on-again, off-again relationship over many years. But Mann testified that on that 2013 morning at the DoubleTree hotel, Weinstein "command[ed]" her to undress and penetrated her despite Mann repeatedly saying "no." Weinstein has denied all allegations of sexual assault.
Now 74, Weinstein has been incarcerated since 2020. In 2022, he was convicted of rape and sexual assault in a separate case in California and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He is appealing that verdict.
Agnifilo said outside court on Friday, "It's our job not just to win this case. There is an entire legal knot that needs to be untangled. And we're going to start untangling that knot strand by strand with the New York case and then the California case. So this really is just a first step." He said that this latest mistrial might not be "the win [Weinstein] wanted, but it's a win."
A statement from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said prosecutors were "disappointed that the proceedings ended in a mistrial" and would consider next steps in consultation with Mann.
"For nearly a decade, Jessica Mann has fought for justice. Over the course of many weeks during three separate trials, she relived unthinkably painful experiences in front of complete strangers," the statement said. "Her perseverance and bravery are inspiring to the members of my office, and more importantly, to survivors everywhere."
Weinstein's lawyers have said that he is in poor health. He used a wheelchair in court and did not testify on the stand in this trial, nor during any of his previous criminal cases. At one point during jury deliberations, Judge Farber announced Weinstein could not appear in court due to complaints of "chest pains."
Weinstein has given a limited number of interviews from prison, including with far-right podcaster Candace Owens and the Daily Mail. Most recently, he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter from Rikers Island.
When asked whether he had apologized to any of the women who brought charges against him, Weinstein told The Hollywood Reporter, "I apologized to them generally. You can't call them when you're in a trial with them. But I'll say it here today: I apologize to those women. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been with them in the first place. I misled them."
Citing his health issues, including bone marrow cancer, Weinstein said, "I'm dying here. And the DA's idea is probably to have me dying in prison. But I am dying."
Topline:
More than 30 teams will take their handmade cars through a custom downhill course of twisty turns and obstacles Saturday as the Red Bull Soapbox Race returns to Los Angeles for the first time in nearly a decade.
Why it matters: One of the homegrown teams trying their luck this year is made up of a group of renters and friends in Santa Monica and Victorville who built their “Runaway Hot Dog Stand” soapbox on an apartment patio.
Why now: Saturday's race includes competitors from across Southern California and beyond.
The backstory: Another entrant on Saturday is the Los Ingenieros, a group of mechanical engineering students from Cerritos College in Norwalk, who have taken inspiration from the team’s Hispanic heritage and Los Angeles culture.
Read on ... to meet some of the teams.
More than 30 teams will take their handmade cars through a custom downhill course of twisty turns and obstacles Saturday as the Red Bull Soapbox Race returns to Los Angeles for the first time in nearly a decade.
Teams from across the country were selected from hundreds of applicants to compete on creativity, design, showmanship, course navigation and time.
There are no engines allowed in this race — all soapboxes must be gravity-powered.
Fully-functioning brakes and steering are required, but almost every other aspect of the engineering and design is left up to the competitors’ imaginations. According to Red Bull, the soapbox should be an extension of its team, the wilder and more outrageous the better.
The race includes competitors from across Southern California and beyond.
UCLA Bruin Racing, made up of the school’s Formula SAE Squad (which also design and race specialized cars), entered with its “Mk. 9 racer” soapbox that was originally an out of commission EV car.
Metro LA repurposed parts from some of the unclaimed bikes left behind on the transit system for its “carrot-colored” bus design (and yes, that is the agency’s nod to Tyler, the Creator’s song "Rah Tah Tah." IYKYK).
The Seagrave 13 team from Las Vegas is dedicating their soapbox to Pasadena first responders who battled last year’s Eaton Fire. They’re planning to donate the car to the L.A. County Fire Museum after the race.
One of the homegrown teams trying their luck this year is made up of a group of renters and friends in Santa Monica and Victorville who built their “Runaway Hotdog Stand” soapbox on an apartment patio.
“The fact that we're able to do this shows that I mean anybody could do this, and honestly could do anything else,” Carlos Monson, captain of the Speedy Wiener team, told LAist.
The Speedy Wiener team drew their design inspiration from L.A.’s iconic hot dog carts, typically a small grill that serves bacon and veggie toppings outside concerts, sporting events and tourist attractions.
“For us, luckily, a majority of them are Latino and we're like, you know what, this is actually a perfect opportunity because the whole team is Latino,” said Monson, who will also be driving the soapbox.
The group of friends, between 18 and 21 years of age, built most of their cherry-red car on Monson’s apartment patio under Victorville’s glaring sun.
They repurposed the base using an old, rickety go-kart frame that Monson said took about an hour just to carry up the stairs and get through the front door.
They worked on the soapbox in between classes and shifts at work. The final touches include stamping their Speedy Wiener logo and adding a mock-menu to the frame. There’s also ketchup and mustard bottles with yellow and red streamers hanging from the nozzles and a rainbow umbrella over the wheel.
For the car’s structure, Monson turned to a collection of cardboard boxes he had lying around after a recent move and attached the various pieces with zip ties.
“We'll be able to hopefully last when they make it down the race track,” he said.
Another entrant on Saturday is the Los Ingenieros, a group of mechanical engineering students from Cerritos College in Norwalk, who has taken inspiration from the team’s Hispanic heritage and Los Angeles culture.
Their car is lucha libre-themed with rails modeled after a wrestling ring and the driver donning a muscle suit and mask.
The red, white and green colors represent the Mexican flag and features Chicano-style pinstriping from L.A.’s lowriders, as well as some Aztec patterns.
“It's definitely going to be a powerful testimony to our culture,” said Ruben Orozco, a Los Ingenieros member from La Mirada.
The team never expected to be picked for the race, and Orozco said the invitation has been “mind-blowing” and “surreal.”
Arelie Marquez, another member from Long Beach, told LAist she sketched the design for the modified go-kart frame before the team chopped the wheels, boosted the back axle and added suspension. While some of the students drew up blueprints on engineering computer software, Marquez used her welding experience to help mount the brackets — all in Orozco’s backyard.
As a community college student, Orozco said he’s felt like he’s missed out on opportunities to showcase their knowledge and innovations compared to students in the Cal State or UC system, but the Red Bull Soapbox Race has helped shed that notion.
“Not only has it been reassuring to myself, but also we've used it as a platform to kind of show others in STEM, in community colleges, that you could do crazy things as a student,” he said.
And yes, the team is already highlighting the unique engineering experience on their resumes, according to Gabriel Ramirez, a Compton resident and another member along with his twin brother, Hector.
Their next challenge? Cramming for finals next week.
The Red Bull Soapbox Race in downtown L.A. is free and open to the public:
Topline:
The Surfrider Foundation is hosting a protest in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday to oppose what it sees as mounting threats to our California coastline.
The backstory: In 2015, a pipeline operated by Plains All American spilled more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. Hundreds of marine mammals were killed or injured and beaches across the region were contaminated. In March, the Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to bring that same pipeline, now run by Sable Offshore, back online.
The pushback: The restart, along with the Trump administration’s push to open the California coast up to new oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades, has the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental protection groups sounding the alarm.
The paddle out: On Sunday morning, the Surfrider Foundation will host a spiritual ritual in surf culture: a paddle-out into the ocean at Refugio State Beach. Read on for details.
The Surfrider Foundation is hosting a protest in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday to oppose what it sees as mounting threats to our California coastline.
In 2015, a pipeline operated by Plains All American spilled more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. Hundreds of marine mammals were killed or injured and beaches across the region were contaminated.
Bill Hickman, a senior regional manager with the Surfrider Foundation, remembers it well.
“I live in Ventura. We had a bottlenose dolphin wash up here that was covered in oil,” Hickman told LAist. “That was really sad to see. And there was oil on the beach all the way down to L.A.”
The spill also “shut down fisheries, closed multiple beaches, and impacted recreational uses such as camping, non-commercial fishing, and beach visits,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In March, the Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to bring that same pipeline, now run by Texas-based Sable Offshore, back online. The company says that the system will produce tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day, as well as “provide a secure, consistent source of domestic crude oil, replacing approximately 1 million barrels per month of imports.”
Refugio paddle out
Refugio State Beach
10 Refugio Beach Rd., Goleta
Sunday, May 17. Event starts at 8:30am
But Hickman and other environmental advocates say restarting the pipeline raises serious concerns. California sued the Trump administration in March to keep it shut.
The restart, along with the Trump administration’s push to open the California coast up to new oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades, has Hickman sounding the alarm.
“Right now it seems like if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention,” Hickman said. “And luckily a lot of people are really fired up about all of the threats to the environment and particularly the Santa Barbara channel.”
Oil spills like the one in 2015 could also deeply affect tourism, the fishing industry and lead to billions in cleanup costs, according to Gov, Gavin Newsom’s office. In a January 2026 statement opposing the Trump administration’s new offshore drilling plans, the governor’s office said the state's coastal economy “supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates over $44 billion annually.”
On Sunday morning, Hickman will be part of a spiritual ritual in surf culture: a paddle-out into the ocean at Refugio State Beach.
He said anyone with a human-powered craft is welcome to join the circle to oppose drilling on our coasts.
“People are standing up. There’s a lot of opposition,” Hickman said. “Californians really treasure our coast, our beaches, our waves and really want to protect them.”
