The Brief

The Los Angeles Police Department wants 300 new vehicles for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it's asking the city to pay for them.

LAPD officials say the request for around $30 million to procure the vehicles would help temporarily expand the Police Department's fleet during the summer of 2028, so the police force could patrol Olympic venues while maintaining its presence around the city.

City officials are skeptical. The L.A. City Council discussed the request at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting earlier this month, where councilmembers questioned why the city should cover the cost.

"I'm incredibly uncomfortable with spending $30 million on cars, and the excuse being used that we need them for the Games, when the Games are going to be a month long," Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, told LAPD officials.

The committee kicked the decision down the road, asking the city administrative officer for more information on the financial effects of procuring the vehicles, the different options to pay for them and where else LAPD might find the resources, including from other law enforcement agencies in the state.

But the request highlights an increasingly thorny question around the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Who will pay for astronomical security costs?

The price tag for LAPD activity during the Olympics is of huge importance to the city of L.A., which is the financial backstop for the Games. The Olympics are intended to be privately funded and cost-free for the taxpayer.

Private Olympics organizing committee LA28 has not included expenses for police in its more than $7 billion budget, and is banking on the federal government covering security costs.

The Trump administration has allocated $1 billion for security at the Games, but those costs will be distributed among the many cities with Olympic and Paralympic venues, and it's not clear how much Los Angeles will get.

LAPD's vehicle request is one example of the limits of that support, according to Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who wrote in a July letter to the Budget and Finance Committee that he does not expect federal funds to cover the 300 additional vehicles he's requesting.

That's because LAPD is anticipating federal dollars to go toward paying to deploy thousands of officers across the city during the Games.

According to one estimate sent to the City Council by LAPD in May, the department's personnel costs for the Olympics and Paralympics could be more than $730 million, with close to half of that money going to outside law enforcement brought in to fill staffing holes.

As the council delays a decision on new patrol vehicles, the city is moving ahead with a separate request. It already approved $13 million to procure 107 non-patrol vehicles for the Games in its 2026-2027 budget. Those include trucks, prisoner transport vans and unmarked investigative vehicles.

According to the department, vehicles acquired for the Olympics won't permanently expand the LAPD fleet. Instead, new vehicles will replace old ones once the Games are over.

Inglewood city officials are launching an audit of their financial relationship with SoFi Stadium and claiming the stadium could owe years of ticket taxes, one month after a judge voided the 2015 contract that brought the stadium to Inglewood. 

The Inglewood City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to commission the audit. Mayor James Butts said the move is a necessary next step after the court ruling, which threw the terms of the financial relationship between the city and Hollywood Park stadium development into question. 

Millions of dollars are at stake for both the city and the stadium businesses. City officials say that the ruling means a cap that limited the amount of admissions tax that Inglewood could collect no longer applies. They also plan to investigate the authenticity of $376 million worth of infrastructure bills Hollywood Park claims the city owes. The findings of the audit could also factor into discussions of how the city will address its current $30.8 million deficit.

The City Council motion — put forward by Butts and co-sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Faulk — requires the city attorney to retain an accounting firm to conduct the audit and report back to the public on its findings within 30 days. It set aside $325,000 from the city’s General Fund to pay for the audit. You can read the city’s full explanation of the audit here.

Butts, who was at the city’s helm a decade ago when developer Stan Kroenke brought his Hollywood Park pitch to Inglewood, said city officials built what they thought was a partnership with their stadium counterparts.

But that partnership has crumbled. Since last summer, the city and stadiums have been slugging it out in a complex series of court cases over the stadium’s contract and Inglewood’s network of video billboards. The conflict has spilled over into the Nov. 3 election via ballot measures that would change the city’s commercial advertising and ticket tax rules. 

The audit approved by the City Council on Tuesday will dig into the entire financial relationship between the stadium and city since 2015, unpacking what is owed and what was received from taxes on everything from tickets to parking. City officials plan to continue auditing the taxes on a quarterly basis into the future.

Still, it’s not guaranteed the city would be able to force the stadium development to pay any debt the audit does claim. Hollywood Park could still appeal the court ruling that voided its contract with Inglewood, while Butts said the city wants to negotiate a new contract to replace it. 

A Hollywood Park spokesperson said the stadium development has lived up to its financial obligations, including paying all of its taxes.

“This is yet another thinly veiled attempt to distract from scrutiny surrounding the City’s own fiscal mismanagement and the questionable actions of its Mayor,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Some locals at Tuesday’s meeting said during public comments they were baffled why the city hadn’t set up an audit process earlier.

“We have needed an audit from day one. We can’t sit here and claim we didn’t know or have an inkling what we were doing with Hollywood Park,” Diane Sambrano said. 

Exterior of Sofi Stadium in Inglewood

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Speaking during the meeting, Butts said the audit was triggered because of the void left by the development agreement and because major events including the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics are about to hit Inglewood.

The mayor first claimed the development agreement was illegal in a letter written directly to Stan Kroenke last year, saying the city’s lawyers made the determination while researching billboard litigation.

Millions in tax revenue at stake

After the judge ruled in agreement with the city, Butts told The LA Local that city officials were still researching the specific implications of the court’s ruling. In Tuesday’s council motion, city staff highlighted what they say is one major change they’ve discovered: There’s no longer a limit on how much admissions tax the city can collect.  

Inglewood collects a 10% tax on tickets sold at SoFi Stadium, but the 2015 initiative that brought the stadium to the city put a cap on that revenue, starting at $15 million a year and increasing annually with inflation. 

The admissions tax cap also happens to be the subject of the current ballot Measure AT. WOW Media, the billboard operator allied with the city in its dispute with the stadium, is funding a campaign in favor of the initiative.

Admissions tax has been a sizable revenue stream for the city — bringing in an average $20 million a year since SoFi Stadium opened — but city officials have said it could be significantly bigger. A city analysis of Measure AT estimated that getting rid of the cap could bring in as much as an extra $50 million in future years. The city did not estimate how much admissions tax revenue it has missed out on while the development agreement was in effect.

The Inglewood audit seeks to clarify basic questions about how taxes are assessed on ticket sales and whether those taxes are actually forwarded to the city. Officials say it will provide transparency about ticket sales, pricing and fees, which have been heavily scrutinized in recent years across the state. 

Gray gets support on proposal for future billboard revenue audit

Councilmember Gloria Gray attempted to amend the audit motion Tuesday, asking the city manager to also audit the revenue the city gets from billboard fees.

“I believe the same standard of financial transparency should apply to every city agreement,” Gray said.

Though her motion didn’t receive a second, Councilmember Eloy Morales said he’d support putting a billboard revenue audit on the council’s agenda in the future. 

“I think we all support all those audits,” Morales said. 

Gray’s move was a rarity for a council that seldom debates motions during public meetings and almost always votes unanimously. The councilmember is currently running for mayor against Butts.

Inglewood pulls in as much as $8 million a year from billboards, according to budget records. Much of that comes from a series of deals the city cut with WOW Media, allowing the billboard company to construct and operate the billboards on public medians and sidewalks. In return, WOW gives the city a cut of ad revenue along with other concessions.

The post Inglewood is investigating if SoFi Stadium owes years’ worth of ticket taxes appeared first on LA Local.

Netflix plans to lay off about 6% of its workforce, amounting to nearly 1,000 positions, as the streaming giant makes wider “organizational changes.”

Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos announced the job cuts in a memo to employees Wednesday. They said the company’s product, tech, legal and human resources teams would be the most impacted.

“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press. They maintained business was strong — but that Netflix needed to be “disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources” as it invests in future growth and “high impact areas to improve our service.”

Beyond the memo from its chief executives, Netflix declined to comment further about Wednesday’s cuts.

Between membership signups and price increases, Netflix’s profit has grown this year. In its second financial quarter, the company earned $3.4 billion and racked up revenue of $12.56 billion — up 9% and 13%, respectively, from the same period last year.

Still, Netflix’s forecast for the third quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations. The company plans to report those earnings next week.

Competition in the streaming space is growing more crowded overall. Netflix continues to be a dominant player (accounting for 19% of the market per the latest data from streaming guide JustWatch), but rivals like Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ are close behind.

HBO Max and Paramount+ are also now under the same roof — Skydance — after Paramount’s $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery closed last week. The new Hollywood giant plans to unify its streaming products “into a single service over time.” Netflix initially inked a deal to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business late last year, but walked away from that offer back in February.

At the end of 2025, per regulatory filings, Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees worldwide. The layoffs announced Wednesday mark the biggest round of cuts the California-based company has rolled out in years.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday’s news of the layoffs.

A craving for dumplings can hit at any moment. If you live near a dumpling stronghold like the San Gabriel Valley, satisfying that urge is pretty easy. But what if that hankering for steamy, soupy goodness strikes miles away from Valley Boulevard?

The answer may surprise you: Torrance.

Sure, the offerings aren’t as deep as the SGV’s. But within a few miles, you’ll find great options at every price point, from an outdoor market stand to a sit-down dining room.

Buckle up. We’re heading out on an old-fashioned dumpling crawl, South Bay style.

Bun Boss

An $8 order of pork dumplings from Bun Boss at the Torrance Farmers Market topped with chili crisp.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Let’s ease into things at the Torrance Farmers Market, held every Tuesday and Saturday. If you love some of the freshest, hard-to-find seasonal produce in the L.A. area, you probably already know about it.

Enter Bun Boss, the locally beloved small stand near the market’s Oak Street entrance. The tiny stand might not look like much, but it serves a range of dumplings, bao and even a few dim sum items.

Keeping things light, I went with the pork dumplings (small, $8). They’re steamed half-moons, with the wrappers expertly folded around the filling. They’re great on their own, but a small spoonful of chili crisp over each one adds a savory, spicy kick to every bite.

Bafang Dumpling

Bafang's Taiwanese dumplings — the combos offer the most value.

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Gab Chabran

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LAist

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Moving from ultra-casual to fast-casual, less than 10 minutes away is Bafang Dumpling, a Taiwanese chain founded in Taipei in 1998. It opened its first U.S. location in 2022 and has since spread across SoCal, with 14 locations from L.A. to San Diego.

It sits in a newly remodeled strip mall not far from the Del Amo Fashion Center. The space is bright, and you order at the counter. With plenty of options, the combos offer the best value. I went with the 12 signature potstickers and a mini wonton soup ($14.95).

The potstickers alone are enough to fill you up. They’re slender, with crispy bottoms made for dipping in the sauces on hand, from black vinegar to chili sauce. I kept going back to the garlic sauce, upping the savory factor, just how I like it. My few slurps of the mini wonton soup hit just as hard, with a full-bodied broth and plump wontons.

Din Tai Fung

Crab and pork xiao long bao ($19.50 for 10) at the Din Tai Fung in Del Amo Fashion Center.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Is it an obvious choice? Sure. But despite its omnipresence on the SoCal dumpling scene, Din Tai Fung still holds its own as the sit-down dumpling experience. Being a five-minute drive from Bafang makes it a no-brainer for our crawl.

The always-busy location is on the second floor of the Del Amo Fashion Center, and you’ll usually need a reservation at peak lunch and dinner hours. That’s no surprise: DTF built its reputation on a lineup of dumplings you can turn into a meal at any time of day.

Once you’ve nabbed a table and gotten the rundown from your headset-wearing server, order the dish that gave the place its name: xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. Start with the crab and pork ($19.50 for 10 pieces), which gets a hint of sweetness from the crab and richness from the pork. To make the most of the broth inside, bite a small hole near the twisted tip and sip some. Then douse the rest with black vinegar and chili oil, and pop the whole thing into your mouth.

Save room for the potstickers, another fan favorite ($13). They’re fried together into a single rectangular sheet, adding another hands-on element to an already fun meal.