The Brief

The Eaton Fire didn't just take the Abdus-Shakoor family's home, business and two rental properties. It also destroyed the mosque they co-founded, Masjid Al Taqwa, the first mosque in the Altadena-Pasadena area.

And in the year since the deadly and destructive fire, the family has rallied to provide a place of worship and belonging for other community members who are also trying to make sense of the loss and devastation.

“ It's just been a devastating year, never-ending process of recovery, and a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs,” said Jihad Abdus-Shakoor, whose parents were among the mosque’s early founders.

Around 30 households from the Masjid Al Taqwa community were affected by the fire: Most lost homes; one woman’s daughter was killed.

Since July, the congregation has met weekly in a space rented from the Pasadena Covenant Church. But their goal is to rebuild the mosque on its original grounds.

The need to bring the community together

Days after the fire, they brought the community together for Jummah prayers (congregational Friday prayers) at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pasadena. A few weeks later, when Ramadan began, the Abdus-Shakoor family decided to find a place of worship.

What remained of Masjid Al Taqwa, the first mosque in the Altadena-Pasadena area, after the Eaton Fire.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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Jihad Abdus-Shakoor said he wanted a break to focus on personal losses, but his father, one of the mosque’s early founders, insisted that the community needed a space for Ramadan.

 "I believe he was correct in saying this: ‘Hey look, we have got to do this for the community,’” he said. “I think he needed it also. It was good for my mother as well.”

The family found a space at New Horizon School in Pasadena to provide congregants with daily iftars and even an Eid celebration, continuing their tradition of providing gifts to the children.

" We just had to kick into gear and try to carry on in a normal way, hopefully to bring the community back and have for them ... a place to still come as a community of Masjid Al Taqwa,” said Delores Abdus-Shakoor, Jihad Abdus-Shakoor’s mother.

But, there were moments, she said, when it felt like too much.

 ”Then all of a sudden, one day I looked up and I said, ‘No, it's not too much,’” she said. “It made me think about where the Qur’an talks about how Allah will not put a burden on you greater than you have strength to bear.”

The Abdus-Shakur family: Jihad Abdus-Shakoor; his wife, Desha Dauchan; mother Delores Abdus-Shakur; and father Aaron Abdus-Shakur.

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Having the space at New Horizons School during Ramadan offered some reprieve. The community had a space to break their fast and offer communal prayers, and she could focus on dealing with the mountains of paperwork from insurance companies, the L.A. County assessor and others.

After Ramadan, they rented temporary places for Friday congregational prayers.

The need for a permanent place was apparent.

People needed a place to pray, said Kameelah Wilkerson, who is on the mosque's board of directors.

"If you look around, you see people just hanging out and talking to each other," she said. "And see my son behind me sitting and talking to the katib [imam], and that is what this space is about."

Interfaith relations after the fire 

Jihad Abdus-Shakoor and Amir Siddiqui, a board member at the mosque, took on the work of finding a “temporary, permanent place.”

This is where interfaith relations nurtured after the fires kicked in.

The representatives of Masjid Al Taqwa asked Pasadena Covenant Church, which had previously offered them a space for Ramadan.

The church was very accommodating.

“ We had two rooms,” Jihad Abdus-Shakoor said. “We opened up the wall in between and made it a connected space, bigger, and just put in new carpet.”

The church also allowed Masjid Al Taqwa to repaint the building and remove furniture so it could look and operate like a mosque. It's a spacious room, with thick, blue and gold carpeting, the kind your feet sink into.

Flyers for a Christmas friendship dinner between the Pasadena Covenant Church and Masjid Al Taqwa.

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Aaron Abdus-Shakoor, Jihad Abdus-Shakoor's father, said the response after the fire showed "one humanity."

 "It went across religions, different religions. Everyone was trying to help, and we found kindness in humanity," he said. "And it was our oneness, our kind likeness that people emphasized, not our differences."

The church, he said, welcomes the community for regular dinners for fellowship. After the final Jummah prayers of 2025, Aaron Abdus-Shakoor made an announcement to the congregation: The Pasadena Covenant Church had invited them for a belated Christmas celebration in the new year, and they had even made accommodations for halal food.

The rebuilding process  

In January 2025, I visited Masjid Al Taqwa soon after the fire. All that remained then was soot, ash and the charred skeletons of chairs in a line pointing toward Mecca.

“It was very painful to go and look at the site and see it all burn down and try to wrap our minds around that,” Delores Abdus-Shakoor said about the first time she saw the ruins.

Since then, the lot has been cleared, Jihad Abdus-Shakoor said, and mosque leaders are in talks with architects to imagine the mosque’s new iteration.

" We’re in flux on whether we're going to just be rebuilding on the one lot or we're going to be able to have the opportunity to acquire the adjacent lot to expand the mosque,” Jihad Abdus-Shakoor said.

There are also ongoing talks about whether to add other components, such as transitional housing. But, Delores Abdus-Shakoor said, before any plan can be finalized, they will gather community input.

Kameelah Williams, Kameelah Wilkerson, Kamal Wilkerson and Jihad Abdus-Shakur grew up attending Masjid Al-Taqwa.

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Soon after the fires, the greater Muslim community rallied around Masjid Al Taqwa, helping raise just under $1 million to support affected congregants and the mosque.

And Jihad Abdus-Shakoor is confident he can rely on the community again when it comes to rebuilding.

 "We're going to need more support. We're going to have to do more fundraising,” he said.

And that, he said, is true for all of Altadena.

"It's going to take a lot longer to rebuild, and it's going to take more resources, more money to bring the city back,” he said. “Hopefully, people will not forget about us and look closer into what are the actual needs in the community.”

Kameelah Williams, a longtime Masjid Al Taqwa attendee, said she can't wait to see the mosque rebuilt so the community can be continued.

" I also hope to see a space that is welcoming to all in terms of maybe creating some type of business within the masjid, maybe a coffee shop," she said. " Maybe we have a community kitchen, maybe we can do a Meals on Wheels. In my profession, I'm a funeral director, so maybe a Muslim mortuary."

Najla Henderson and her son Zavian stands next to her parents Daarina and Rashad Abdus-Samad.

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Loss of a space she grew up in

While some in the community are staying put and hoping to rebuild, others like Najla Abdus-Samad, who was born and raised in Altadena and grew up attending Masjid Al Taqwa, have had to leave Altadena.

Her new home in Los Angeles is “beautiful,” she said, but there’s nothing like Altadena. And though she has found a new place of worship and community at Islah LA in South Los Angeles, she misses Masjid Al Taqwa.

“I  was born into Masjid Al Taqwa. The women there, the people there, I've known since I was a baby,” Abdus-Samad said. “There's absolutely nothing that can replace that.”

She went from living 5 minutes from Masjid Al Taqwa to about an hour’s drive away in L.A. traffic. But she still makes the trek when she can “for my self preservation.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops. 

Now, though, the whole country is in on the secret. 

The breakfast and lunch spot on Centinela Avenue was announced Wednesday by the James Beard Foundation as one of six winners of the America’s Classics Award, an honor the foundation says goes to “timeless” local institutions. The foundation is also responsible for the James Beard Award, one of the nation’s top culinary honors. 

The Serving Spoon joins a pantheon of other L.A.-area eateries to win the classics award including Guelaguetza, Langer’s Deli and Philippe the Original. 

Jessica Bane, part of the third generation to run the family-owned restaurant, said the honor is still sinking in, but that it validates decades of work. “It’s being done out of love,” Bane said.

The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops.

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Isaiah Murtaugh

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The award announcement hailed The Serving Spoon as an “anchor” of L.A.’s Black community, run by staff who genuinely care for their customers.“The restaurant is cherished for its joyful hospitality and as a place where all can gather and feel at home,” the announcement read. 

The Serving Spoon didn’t exactly need Beard recognition — the diner is often packed and already has  pedigree as Snoop Dogg and Raphael Saadiq’s breakfast spot of choice in the 2000 Lucy Pearl song “You” — but Bane said the award takes the diner’s reputation national.“The recognition is beyond appreciated,” Bane said. 

The Serving Spoon was founded in 1983 by Bane’s grandfather, Harold E. Sparks. He passed the restaurant down to Bane and her brother, Justin Johnson, through their parents. 

The menu looks much the same as it did four decades ago, Bane said, though some of the dishes have been renamed for regulars. 

During the Thursday lunch rush a day after the announcement, The Serving Spoon’s vinyl booths were packed, as usual. Bane oversaw the dining room while Johnson marshaled plates of fried catfish through the kitchen. 

Tina and Kevin Jenkins waited for a table outside. The L.A. natives each have been coming to The Serving Spoon since childhood. They live in Lancaster now, but make sure to come back to the diner whenever they’re in town. 

“It’s the atmosphere, our people, our music,” Tina Jenkins said.

Despite taxes on imports at levels not seen in a century, Long Beach’s seaport had a good year in 2025. And a decent January.

Port officials said Wednesday they started the new year by leading the nation in trade, responsible for moving more than 847,000 shipping containers in January — 51% of the total cargo at the San Pedro Bay Complex, which it shares with neighboring Port of Los Angeles.

In a call with reporters, Port CEO Noel Hacegaba said that despite a “fair share of doom and gloom” at the time, the seaport finished 2025 as its busiest year on record.

This comes days after President Donald Trump signed new, across-the-board tariffs on U.S. trading partners, and later added he would raise the tariffs to 15%. It’s a direct response to a recent Supreme Court decision that found his tariffs announced last April were unconstitutional.

The new tariffs would operate under a law that restricts them to 150 days, unless approved by Congress.

Asked to measure how much this will affect the seaport, traders, logistics companies and consumers, Hacegaba reiterated a word he has evoked heavily in the past 10 months: uncertainty.

“Our strong cargo volumes do not suggest we are not being affected by tariffs,” Hacegaba said, adding the Port saw a 13% decline in imports driven by major reductions in iron, steel, synthetic fibers, salt, sulfur and cement.

Economists are somewhat more confident, saying it would take nothing short of a national economic crisis to reverse the seaport’s fortunes. “Even if the market is affected, our standing at the Port of Long Beach, even compared to other ports, is strong,” said Laura Gonzalez, an economics professor at Cal State Long Beach.

But experts caution that the ruling will heap the most damage on businesses, especially smaller enterprises, as well as the average consumer who already bore the tariff’s costs last year.

Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, held his first State of the Port in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.

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Tariffs added $1,700 in costs to the average U.S. household, as importers raised prices to offset higher import taxes — especially on clothes, shoes and electronics from China and other Southeast Asian nations.

Consumers, Gonzalez said, should budget over the next six months “for essentials.”

Priyaranjan Jha, an economics professor at UC Irvine, said historically trade policies since 2018 have shown that for every dollar of duty imposed, consumer prices rose by about 90 cents.

Even if tariffs are reduced or reversed, and pressure is relieved on importers, consumers shouldn’t expect lower sticker prices right away, he said. “Firms do not always reduce prices as quickly as they raise them, especially if contracts or inventories are involved.”

Richer San, a former banker and business owner in Long Beach, said he’s in regular talks with shops across the city’s historic Cambodia Town that have been crushed by the increased prices of imported ingredients.

“Most of these are family-owned businesses operating on very small profit margins,” he said, adding there is little to no margin to “absorb higher costs.”

Many companies managed to avoid price increases last year in part by stockpiling inventory in the first half of the year to be sold through Christmas and the start of the year. As stock dwindles, many businesses might be less willing to eat the cost of a new set of tariffs.

Marc Sullivan, president of Long Beach-based Global Trade and Customs, said his logistics company saw a brief boom last year in ordered goods, mostly medical equipment and pharmaceuticals.

But by June, orders dropped 35%, a trend that continues today. It’s forced him to freeze any new hiring in the past year and at least through the next six months as he waits for federal officials to settle on tariffs that will determine the cost of shipped goods.

“For the companies that I work with that are importing into the state here, it’s just ‘hold on and let’s see what happens,’” he said.

“I’d like to hire a salesperson to go out and chase new business, … but it’s just a bleak outlook,” he added.

In the interim, he’s received a steady flow of calls (that started “within minutes” of the ruling) from importers looking to claim refunds or recoup their tariff expenses. The U.S. Treasury had collected more than $140 billion from tariffs enacted under emergency powers, and the Supreme Court left the decision of how to appropriate the refund proceedings to lower courts.

His response: They might be stuck waiting for a while. “Customs doesn’t pay anything back quickly,” he said. “It could be a year before you ever see anything back to you.”

Sullivan said he knows of companies that spent upwards of $20,000 per shipment for months.

“They’re going to want that money to be able to reinvest it,” Sullivan said.

But some experts say that consumers, as well as small businesses, deserve a share of refunds.

“The importer may receive a refund even though consumers bore much of the cost,” Jha said. “Courts generally refund the statutory payer, not downstream buyers, but that opens the possibility of follow-on litigation. Small businesses that directly imported goods and paid tariffs should qualify for refunds.”

Topline:

A long turtle lineage: Dubbed “Porkchop” by aquarium staff due to her hefty appetite, the young female green sea turtle represents one of seven sea turtle species worldwide (six of which occur in U.S. waters). These animals have called our oceans home since at least the time of the dinosaurs — about 110 million years ago, according to NOAA. All species of sea turtles found in the U.S. are listed as either endangered or threatened and are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Porkchop’s healing journey: Aquarium vets had to amputate Porkchop’s right front flipper after tangled fishing lines severely cut off her blood flow. She also had a fishing hook removed from her throat. First rescued after being spotted in the San Gabriel River by volunteers with the aquarium’s sea turtle monitoring program last March, her healing journey took nearly a year. She now swims and eats as well as her four-flippered kin and after a final physical exam, blood sample and X-ray, vets determined she was ready to return to her wild roots. She also now has a microchip, so if she ends up stranded again, scientists will know it’s her.

An ambassador for conservation: Porkchop became the aquarium’s first public-facing ambassador for its expanded green sea turtle rescue efforts. A new holding tank, viewable by the public, doubles the aquarium’s capacity to rescue green sea turtles and provides firsthand education about their conservation efforts. The aquarium is currently caring for another larger and older female green sea turtle — she weighs more than 200 pounds — rescued from the San Gabriel River in January. She’ll be in the public viewing tank in the coming months when she’s recovered a bit more.

How to help local green sea turtles: Green sea turtle populations are actually doing quite well in the San Gabriel River, but trash, debris and pollution remains a big threat. If you fish the San Gabriel River, never litter fishing lines or hooks. If you see a stranded sea turtle in the San Gabriel River or elsewhere, call the West Coast Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Network’s hotline at (562) 506-4315. You can also donate to the aquarium’s rescue program.

If your child’s teacher hasn’t threatened to go on strike recently, they probably will soon.

Thousands of California K-12 teachers have walked off their jobs or voted to strike in the past few months, as part of a strategic, statewide effort by the California Teachers Association to boost salaries and benefits — and get the public’s attention.

“All these districts going out on strike — it’s not a coincidence at all,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “Everywhere in the state there are people with unmet needs. The conditions have been ripe for a long time.”

San Francisco teachers went on strike for four days this month. West Contra Costa teachers went on strike in December. San Diego, Woodland, Apple Valley, Duarte and Madera teachers planned to strike in the past few months but reached a settlement at the last minute. Teachers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Dublin, West Sacramento, Twin Rivers and Natomas have voted overwhelmingly to strike. In Berkeley, Soquel and other districts, teachers are holding rallies and appear headed for strike votes.

Ten local teachers unions under the umbrella of the California Teachers Association worked for years to align their contracts so they’d expire at the same time: June 30, 2025. The idea, Goldberg said, was to trigger a wave of negotiations and potential strikes to garner public attention and flex political muscle. Teachers unions from at least a dozen other districts have also joined the effort, even though they weren’t part of the original cohort.

“We’re a strong union with a lot of resources, and we’re taking advantage of that,” Goldberg said, whose union represents about 310,000 teachers. “Teachers are learning from each other, and getting some clarity on how to win resources for public schools.”

Public and political priorities

Teacher contracts vary by district, but the demands are similar: higher salaries, better benefits and amenities that affect student well-being, such as sanctuary protection for immigrants.

Considering the ever-escalating cost of living in California, the demands are not a surprise, said Julia Koppich, an education consultant who specializes in labor-management relations.

Teachers in expensive cities like San Francisco often can’t afford to live near their jobs, she said, noting that starting teachers in San Francisco Unified earn about $80,000. San Francisco’s starting police officers, by comparison, make about $120,000.

It’s been a frustration for the teaching profession for decades, she said. But districts don’t have much control over their revenues and substantial increases in spending would have to come from the state, she said.

“To be sure, the issue of marshaling sufficient resources is a district conversation about teacher worth,” Koppich said. “But, ultimately, it’s a state discussion about public and political priorities."

District financial hardships

At the same time that teachers are demanding more money, school districts are facing financial hardships. Declining enrollment, especially in urban districts, has meant half-empty classrooms and less money from the state, which funds schools based on how many students show up every day. Closing schools is the obvious answer, but that’s proven to be deeply unpopular and few school boards appear willing to take that step.

Another financial challenge has been the end of pandemic relief money. California schools received more than $23.4 billion in one-time grants intended to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss. State and federal authorities advised schools to spend the money on temporary tutors, after-school and summer programs and other short-term expenses. But some districts, including Los Angeles Unified, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified, used some of their funds to increase teacher pay or hire permanent staff, which they’re now struggling to pay for after the grant money ended.

So even though the state has increased K-12 school funding the past few years, some districts are financially strapped. It’s unclear whether they can afford teachers’ demands for higher salaries or more generous benefits, said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

Los Angeles Unified, for example, gave its teachers 5% raises plus a $2,000 one-time stipend and a $500 bonus. The district’s nurses, who are also represented by the union, got $5,000 stipends.

“The unions are saying, ‘We know you have an ATM back there. If you were nice, you’d push the buttons,’” Roza said. But districts’ money is tight, she said, “so we’re at a stand off.”

If districts agree to teachers’ demands, cuts will have to come from somewhere — most likely from programs considered non-essential, such as sports, electives, advanced placement classes and other offerings, she said.

It could also mean staff layoffs. Tutors, classroom aides and newer teachers would be the most vulnerable.

Those cuts would harm low-income students the most, Roza said, because they’re more likely to rely on special school programs and attend schools with newer teachers. Low-income students are also more likely to be affected by a strike, she said, because families typically have fewer options for child care and those students are more likely to suffer from academic disruptions.

School boards need to stand up for those students, she said, and do a better job negotiating with teachers unions. That entails more transparency about finances and a willingness to close under-used schools.

“It’s so irresponsible to erode services for vulnerable students because you don’t have a spine,” Roza said.

‘Kids as leverage’

Lance Christensen, vice president of education policy at the California Policy Center, said California should get rid of teachers unions altogether. Teachers deserve higher salaries, he said, but the teachers union does not always act in the interests of students.

The union devotes too much time to defending incompetent teachers, he said, and strikes are harmful to students and families. He also said the California Teachers Association has a political stranglehold on Sacramento that “overshadows every conversation in the Legislature, even if it’s not about education.”

He noted that charter schools and private schools are rarely unionized, and sometimes have better outcomes than traditional public schools. A handful of other states don’t allow teachers to collectively bargain, and at least 35 don’t allow teachers unions to strike.

“The union uses kids as leverage,” said Christensen, who ran for state superintendent of public instruction in 2022. “Right now, CTA is the biggest evil in California education.”

Next steps in San Francisco

In San Francisco, parent Meredith Dodson said she’s relieved the strike is over. Although most parents support teachers and believe they deserve better compensation, the strike was stressful for families and disrupted learning for thousands of students.

The $183 million settlement includes raises and improved benefits for teachers, which the district plans to pay for by draining its reserve funds.

Parents now are bracing for the inevitable cuts. The district’s finances remain shaky, and aren’t likely to improve any time soon.

“What comes next? Layoffs? Increased class sizes? State intervention?” said Dodson, who is executive director of the San Francisco Parents Coalition, a parent advocacy group. “There’s going to be some hard questions for the board, and they’re going to have to ask themselves, what’s best for kids?”

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