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:
With KNX's shift last month back to AM radio only, we asked Southern Californians to share their memories of listening to the radio.
Why now: Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced it was moving KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — off 97.1 FM, but keeping the long-running news format on 1070 AM where it's been for more than 100 years. The move officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station.
A radio time capsule: AirTalk, LAist's flagship daily news show which airs on 89.3 FM, asked listeners to share their favorite memories of listening to the radio.
Continue reading... for vintage photos from The Los Angeles Public Library's digital archive collections highlighting Southern California's rich radio history.
Southern California was built on radio.
"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”
Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.
The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.
Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.
“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”
Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:
“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.
Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”
Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."
"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."
"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations — Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said Carrie in Desert Edge.
“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”
Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.
As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.
Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…
“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.
Topline:
After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.
What's in the deal? The private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.
What happens now: The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the city council. The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.
Concerns remain: The contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Read on...for more on concerns over security costs for 2028.
After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.
According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.
The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.
The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.
Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.
Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.
"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.
But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.
The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.
To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.
But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.
Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.
" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.
The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.
The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.
Topline:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a pair of executive orders Monday to ramp up efforts to clean the mess left by the fire that burned for a week at a Boyle Heights warehouse.
Why now: Since the warehouse fire was put out, the 85 million pounds of frozen food stored inside is now rotting, spreading foul smells throughout surrounding neighborhoods and raising concerns about an influx of pests. Residents have also been left with worries about air and water contamination after the fire and possible long-term public health effects.
Spoiled food removal: Bass and city officials said Monday the warehouse owner, Lineage, began moving food debris on Sunday to landfills in Ventura and Riverside counties. The company predicts it will take 5,000 truckloads to remove it all.
Reducing odors: Lineage plans to apply a chemical deodorizer, likely chlorine dioxide, to the food, debris and trucks leaving the warehouse. It’s also installing devices within the warehouse that will spray mist over the food inside until it is moved.
Pest control: Lineage is responsible for pest management inside the warehouse, while the city of Los Angeles is responsible for it outside the warehouse. Both have hired private contractors to manage pest control.
Air and water testing: The South Coast Air Quality Management District is overseeing efforts to measure harmful material in the air and posting data to its online air quality map. Lineage also hired private contractor Onterris to monitor air quality in the community surrounding the warehouse, with South Coast AQMD’s oversight. The Los Angeles Department of Sanitation has been monitoring water flowing from the site since firefighting operations began. It’s using a variety of methods, including containment tanks and catch basins, to divert the runoff into the sewer and prevent it from flowing into the L.A. River.
What’s next: Bass’ two executive orders are intended to accelerate cleanup efforts, protect residents and hold accountable the companies responsible for the facility and its safety. One order directs the Fire Department to report on its investigation into the cause of the fire within 90 days. The orders also include a number of provisions to help Boyle Heights residents and businesses, including free public transit, financial assistance and expanded public health resources.
Why it matters: Officials and advocates have called for transparency around the cleanup, especially because they say the neighborhood has been historically under-resourced and disproportionately subjected to environmental burdens. One of the orders signed Monday directs city officials to compile a report within 45 days on industrial areas across Los Angeles that sit close to homes and schools. The report also must include possible zoning and land use changes that would reduce negative health effects from existing and future industrial facilities.
Topline:
L.A.’s lead homelessness agency, LAHSA, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday, asking a judge for relief from a federal funding suspension it calls unjustified.
How we got here: On June 11, HUD suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from federal grant activity pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement. The federal agency said the suspension means LAHSA cannot fulfill its role as collaborative applicant for the entire region’s application for federal homelessness dollars for the upcoming fiscal year. In its lawsuit, LAHSA says the suspension is the Trump administration’s back door attempt to eliminate the Continuum of Care program in L.A., which gives local officials discretion over homelessness projects submitted for federal funding.
LAHSA’s challenge: LAHSA says HUD has failed to identify any public agreement or transaction that LAHSA has violated or cite proper evidence of mismanagement. LAHSA also claims several inaccuracies and misrepresentations in HUD’s original suspension letter, including relying on reviews that LAHSA says were irrelevant to federal funding. “HUD supports its position with an amalgamation of uncorroborated hearsay information apparently cherry-picked from the internet,” the complaint states.
Legal argument: LAHSA's attorneys contend that HUD unlawfully suspended funding, arguing that the action violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Constitution's separation of powers principle, and the Tenth Amendment. LAHSA is asking for a stay of the HUD suspension pending judicial review and a permanent injunction barring head from suspending LAHSA or blocking the work of the Los Angeles Continuum of Care.
Why it matters: The deadline for the L.A. region to submit its application to HUD for regional homelessness grants is Aug. 26. LAHSA says the suspension jeopardizes $241 million in federal funding that supports more than 11,000 people across L.A. County. LAHSA says the HUD suspension could prevent the agency from other activities, including releasing the findings of its 2026 homeless count conducted in January.
