The Brief

When Marcia Workman left her first-grade classroom at Pasadena’s Don Benito Elementary School on Jan. 7, she anticipated she’d be back the next day.

That night, a wildfire raged out of Eaton Canyon and into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Families emailed to ask if Workman, who lives in Pasadena, was OK.

Then they inquired about the class pets.

Workman said she wasn’t worried about the gecko hibernating beneath an artificial log, or the hardy gold orange loach fish. She figured as long as the school was still standing, they’d be OK.

But … what of the fluffiest creature in Room 4?

Cupcake, the black-and-white Polish rabbit with “dramatic eye make-up,” was trapped. And the National Guard had closed off the route to school.

“I had half of my heart thinking, ‘OK, what, what is the scenario?’” Workman said.

She said she wondered how she would explain the bunny’s demise to students who’d lost so much in the fires. “You can't sleep; you can't think of anything else.”

And so a mission to save the bunny was launched. It soon grew into “Operation Paw Patrol,” a district-wide effort to locate, rescue and care for classroom pets at half-a-dozen schools as the Eaton Fire burned.

Marcia Workman has taught at Don Benito Elementary since 2002. “We have kids that can walk to school with their families,” Workman said. Most of the teachers, like her, have been there for decades.

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Teaching ‘empathy for animals’

Animals have been a feature of Workman’s classroom since she started teaching in 1973.

The very first class pet was Midnight, a rabbit donated by a family who was moving and could no longer care for her.

“I didn't have pets as a child, so I thought, ‘Well, something I can put into the class to help the children have empathy for animals, take care of them, was … some nice, wonderful bunnies,” Workman said.

When she had students who were allergic to furry animals, she brought in snakes, lizards and a tarantula. All were adopted or rescued.

Cupcake (née Oreo, née Fluff — the students vote on the animals’ names at the start of each school year) is one of at least six bunnies that have hopped through her classroom over the years.

“I think [the vote on] ‘Cupcake’ this year was a little closer to lunchtime, so they were hungry,” Workman said.

The whiskery, red-eyed loaches, which are indistinguishable from one another, are 1, 2 and 3. The gecko is Gecky.

The students take turns feeding and caring for the animals. Workman welcomes any student who walks by to come say hi.

Workman said the kids compare her freckles to those on “Gecky” the gecko. “She's wonderful to come out during math time as we talk about repeating patterns,” Workman said.

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The student animal feeders for the week of Feb. 3 are posted on a wall in Marcia Workman’s first-grade class at Don Benito Elementary.

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“Maybe that animal in the classroom sparks something that's going to be a whole career for that child,” Workman said. “You just never know what's going to turn them on. So it's up to me to bring that into the classroom.”

Aidan, 6, was one of the week’s two “animal feeders” when I visited.

Her favorite creature is Cupcake, but she also enjoys how the fish tickle her fingers, and she likes the spotted gecko.

“The only thing I don't like about him is that he eats worms,” Aidan said. “I had to feed him once, and it was disgusting, because I had to touch the worms.”

‘Operation Paw Patrol’

When the Eaton Fire broke out, Workman fled her Pasadena home along with her son, her daughter, their spouses, two dogs and a cat. She grabbed several boxes of Nilla Wafer Cookies. She forgot her late husband’s ashes.

The fire "just set us into panic mode,” Workman said.

She also grabbed the class hamster, who had joined her household over an extended winter break.

By the time she tried to return to the school to retrieve Cupcake, the National Guard had blockaded the roads.

John Maynard became the principal at Don Benito Elementary School in 2023 and has worked in Pasadena Unified since 1998. He said the Eaton Fire is hard to compare with any experience in his career.

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She reached out to Principal John Maynard to ask for help. Fellow first-grade teacher Amethyst Juknavorian had also emailed Maynard, anxious about the other animals’ conditions.

“It's so easy for people to feel so helpless when so much destruction is going on around them. And, you know, you're thinking, what can I do?” Juknavorian said. “I couldn't have this bunny sitting in that classroom.”

Maynard shared the message Friday, Jan. 10, in a virtual meeting with other Pasadena principals.

“All of a sudden, the chat started getting filled with ‘This school has reptiles in it here’ ... and then ‘there's fish here,’” Maynard said.

So began “Operation Paw Patrol.”

Administrators compiled a list of animals that included a bearded dragon, beta fish, rats and snakes at six campuses.

They just needed an inside man.

Tracking down the animals

Facilities Program Manager Michael Dunning started as a carpenter nine years ago and now oversees contracts and construction in the district’s 24 schools.

“ I know every nook and cranny of this district for the most part,” Dunning said. “I've been in the basements, to the attics, to the roofs.”

Dunning helped coordinate the more than 1,500 contracted workers who joined existing maintenance staff to clean schools and remove more than 159 tons of debris.

“ I haven't stopped since that first morning of the fires,” Dunning said. “Seven days a week, just trying to get the kids back, get everybody safe ... get as much back to normal as much as possible. But I'm one of lots of people that are doing the same thing.”

And as a member of maintenance and operations, he could pass through the National Guard checkpoints.

Marcia Workman adopted Cupcake from the Pasadena Humane Society. "I think that some animals, when you rescue them, they give you even more love," she said.

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Workman said she picked up this rabbit pin while shopping for new shovels for the first-graders' garden.

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Dunning worked with school staff to assess whether each class pet needed to be relocated or whether a wellness-check and some food would suffice.

He escorted the principal of Sierra Madre Elementary as she retrieved a gecko. He brought the bearded dragon at San Rafael Elementary some Dubia roaches to snack on courtesy of his own family's bearded dragon, Fiji. A contracted cleaner had already started to feed the fish at Marshall High School.

“ I love all these schools,” Dunning said. “Just knowing that the schools are in danger for me was difficult to deal with.”

Maynard hitched a ride from Dunning in a maintenance and operations pick-up truck on the morning of Jan. 11 to retrieve Cupcake.

Despite having prior clearance, they still had to tell the National Guard “we were coming up to rescue a rabbit,” Maynard said.

The principal wasn’t sure what he’d find at Don Benito, which sits at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. There were rumors the school had burned down. Ash and debris covered the hill that borders the school’s north side, but the buildings were still standing. Several homes across the street to the east were leveled. The mountains were charred brown in the distance.

“Looking at the damage around the school and what had occurred.” Maynard said. “I don't have words for it. It's just shock, just not really even sure how to process that.”

The classrooms were coated in ash … but Cupcake was unscathed.

Maynard texted Workman’s son: “Bunny lives.” And he arranged to meet at the district office near downtown Pasadena.

Workman wanted Cupcake back in her classroom when school resumed.

“That would kind of give a sense of relief to some of the students who had lost everything,” Workman said. “They needed to see the classroom as they remembered Tuesday afternoon leaving it, and that certainly included the animals.”

Maynard welcomes students back to school on Jan. 29, 2025 along with Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco, right.

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Lessons from Cupcake

Don Benito reopened Jan. 29, more than three weeks after the Eaton Fire burned more than 14,000 acres and destroyed 9,400 buildings, including Eliot Arts Magnet Academy and several charter schools in the district.

Principal Maynard stood at the school’s front gate holding a sign that said “Welcome Back, Bobcats!” and offering hugs and high-fives.

“For today and the next couple days, I really just hope we actually have space for healing and the ability to express what we're feeling,” Maynard said that day.

A student works on a feelings sheet in Workman's class this week.

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In Workman’s class, students selected which of 20 colorful faces on a worksheet represented their feelings.

Ella, 6, drew an arrow to the yellow frowning sad face.

“My house didn't make it through the fire — it's gone,” she said.

District-wide, at least 862 student families lost homes, and 90 students have unenrolled since the start of the fires. It’s unclear how the fallout will reshape a district that, like other Los Angeles-area districts, has shrunk in recent years.

Workman is focused on helping students make up for three weeks away from the classroom.

“It's so important for us to get back on track, because everything is based on what we accomplished in first grade,” Workman said. “Every grade is on our shoulders.”

On Wednesday, a parent volunteer practiced reading with individual students while Workman rearranged magnetic letters on a white board and sounded out the words aloud with the rest of the class.

After discussing the A sound in "always," Workman asked the students to take out their feelings sheets again.

Ella hasn’t selected the sad face since the first day back.

“I was very excited to learn,” Ella said. “And happy that my school didn't get burned down.”

This week she's one of the animal feeders, which means she gets to top the bunny’s bowl of pellets with hay and vegetable scraps from the soup Workman made the night before.

Cupcake was called Oreo and Fluff by previous first-grade classes. "We have kids that'll knock on the door if they're in other grades. They come and visit her," Workman said.

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“We feed [Cupcake] hay," Aidan, a first-grader, said. "Sometimes we feed her carrots. Sometimes we feed her celery. Sometimes we feed her apples. She's living her best life right now."

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“I think her ears are cute,” Ella said. “Her whole body is cute, and the design on her back is cute too.”

The way Cupcake hops and zooms around her cage? “So cute.”

I asked Ella if she’d learned anything from the animals. She looked at the rabbit as she lay still, except for the wiggling of her nose.

“She's very calm,” Ella said. “And she teaches me how to be calm sometimes.”

The Los Angeles Metro Board unanimously voted Thursday to proceed with developing a 14-mile-long subway under the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s one of the first significant steps in what city and county leaders are describing as the region's most consequential transit project and perhaps one of the most important in the country.

Metro staff said in a report to its board that it has secured funding through county tax measures for about 14% of the $24.2 billion it’s preliminarily estimated to cost to build the route, which will involve extensive tunneling. They added the cost estimate would be updated as further refinements are made, but having this amount of funding secured is “not uncommon” for projects early on in development.

Still, leaders underscored that while the need for a rail link between the Valley and Westside couldn’t be overstated, staff for the countywide transportation agency should remain mindful of financial constraints and push for cost reductions through the next several years before shovels hit the ground.

“Ambition matters, dreaming big matters, but honesty matters too,” L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who also is a member of the Metro Board, said during Thursday’s meeting. “We can't afford to approve transformative projects without being clear about the path to funding and delivery.”

The price tag certainly is “eye-popping” and Metro’s “largest project to date,” as Ray Sosa, the chief planning officer for the agency, recently wrote in an op-ed about the project.

With today’s vote progressing the project, the Metro Board enthusiastically endorsed the investment, for now, in theory.

The project and selected route 

The Sepulveda Transit Corridor, as the project is known, was conceived to relieve Angelenos of the sometimes 90-minute drive between the Valley and Westside via the 405 Freeway, provide a crucial artery to connect with other regional rail and bus routes and link residential areas to job centers.

In June 2025, Metro released its draft environmental review of five different subway and monorail options. Of the more than 8,000 public comments Metro received, fewer than 70 expressed opposition to the project as a whole, according to agency staff.

Metro staff in January published its recommendation to move forward with further study of a modified version of one of the subway options.

That’s what the transportation agency’s board approved Thursday.

The route is projected to see as many as 124,000 rides per day and reduce the total amount people would otherwise travel by car by nearly 800,000 miles a day.

An end-to-end trip on the proposed route between Valley and the Westside is slated to take 20 minutes, with trains arriving every 2.5 minutes at peak times.

The 405 Freeway during rush hour March 10, 2022, in Los Angeles.

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Station locations for the proposed train would connect to the Metro D, E and East San Fernando Valley rail lines, the Metrolink stop in Van Nuys and also the G bus rapid-transit line. Crucially, the route also will stop at UCLA, which over the years had become a non-negotiable necessity among students and other advocates of the train.

“Higher education deserves to be easily accessible for everyone,” Mariela Diaz, a UCLA commuter student who described herself as low income, said at the meeting Thursday. “Future UCLA students deserve to have their first on-campus station.”

As it’s currently planned, there wouldn’t be a stop providing direct access to the Getty Center, for which the museum had been publicly campaigning.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who has a seat on the Metro Board, asked Thursday that agency staff report back on “transportation alternatives to address fast and last-minute connections to the Getty Center.”

The proposed route would run from Van Nuys to the Westside.

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Report details economic benefits 

A report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation details how construction would generate as much as $40 billion in economic output and spur more than $16 billion in labor income countywide.

You can read the full report, commissioned by L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office, here. 

Leaders urge continued engagement and not to compromise on vision 

Today’s vote directed Metro staff to focus on the proposed route for forthcoming technical and environmental analyses and clearances, as well as to further refine design and cost estimates.

There also will be continued community engagement.

Yaroslavsky amended the item the board approved Thursday to include language asking Metro staff to, among other tasks, report back on a community engagement plan focused on the communities that might be impacted by tunneling or construction and to maintain a publicly accessible outreach calendar.

Metro’s final environmental documents, which will be the culmination of the continued engagement and study, will be subject to future approval from the board.

Los Angeles City Councilmember and Metro Board member Katy Yaroslavsky advocated for continued community engagement as the countywide transportation agency pursues the Sepulveda Transit Corridor project.

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When construction starts, the focus will first be on the middle segment of the train running from the G-line stop in Van Nuys to the future D-line stop in Westwood.

The additional segments on the north and south sides of the route would be built afterward.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who also is on the Metro Board, urged that the full route be built as envisioned.

“Phasing is a given, but the true value of this line will not be realized until it is fully built out,” Padilla said.

The Port of Los Angeles reported another standout year in 2025, handling 10.2 million container units and being the busiest port in the country for the 26th year in a row, despite industry challenges.

“2025 was a year like no other, from accelerated dips in volume to record highs,” Gene Seroka, executive director at the Port of Los Angeles, said. “It truly was a roller coaster.”

The highlights came at the annual State of the Port in San Pedro on Thursday. It was also the first State of the Port since the Trump administration adopted its tariff and trade policies.

Seroka laid out a vision for the upcoming year that included expanding the port and reaffirming its environmental commitments

“We are moving more cargo than ever before with the lowest pollution footprint on record for every container shipped,” Seroka said.

The Port of L.A. is in an agreement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Port of Long Beach to achieve zero-emission operations at both ports. The ports also adopted the Clean Air Action Plan in 2006, which has since cut overall emissions of diesel particulate matter by 90% and nitrogen oxides by 73%, according to the Port of L.A.

The past 12 months marked a volatile year for the port amid changing tariffs, according to Seroka.

“The global trade map is being redrawn," he said. "Shifting trade policies are creating uncertainty and volatility, and the maritime supply chain is at the center of it all. But here's what hasn't changed: Cargo remains the lifeblood of the US economy.”

In July, Port of L.A. officials reported import traffic jumping to 32% in June compared to the month prior. The yo-yoing volume came as many customers tried to get in as much as they could in response to the tariffs.

Seroka said to meet the demands of tomorrow, the Port of L.A. needs to build bigger, smarter and more sustainably.

Pier 500 and the Maritime Support Facility are part of the port’s plan to boost capacity and improve efficiency.

Another essential part of building smarter, Seroka added, is the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

“The bridge needs redecking to make it safer for the 50,000 vehicles that cross it daily, but here's the bigger issue,” Seroka said. “We also need to raise it or replace it to unlock our full capacity north of the bridge.”

Plans to raise the bridge during the redecking project, however, were nixed last November by the state’s transportation agency, according to the L.A. Times.

Seroka said the port was working with the governor's office and California Transportation officials to establish a formal partnership exploring all options, which could include building a new crossing.

Among other future projects, the port is looking to break ground on the Avalon Pedestrian Bridge next month to connect visitors to the new Wilmington Waterfront Promenade.

Before it passed last year, a major new California housing law that allows more apartments near public transit stops faced stiff opposition from Los Angeles politicians.

L.A. elected leaders are continuing to fight it, arguing the law jeopardizes efforts to expand local transportation infrastructure.

The latest round of resistance comes from the L.A. Metro Board of Directors, which voted Thursday to formally oppose local implementation of the law, SB 79. The only members who declined to join in opposition were L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath.

The transit agency recently published a staff report that recommended the board stand against a bill that seeks to clarify certain points on how SB 79 will be implemented.

The Metro staff report went beyond asking for technical tweaks to the legislation. One of its suggestions called for “exempting Los Angeles County from SB 79.” Another recommendation suggested “limiting the bill’s applicability to the Bay Area as a pilot project.”

‘Absolutely ridiculous’ say housing proponents

Advocates for more housing development said that seeking to override the law, which takes effect July 1, would be counterproductive for L.A.’s troubled transit agency. They said resisting new housing will reduce the number of riders living within walking distance of a Metro stop.

Azeen Khanmalek — executive director of Abundant Housing L.A., a co-sponsor of SB 79 — called the report’s recommendations “absolutely ridiculous.”

“We can't just continue this recalcitrant opposition in perpetuity,” Khanmalek said. “We really hope Metro is on board and wants more riders near their transit stations.”

But Metro’s Board of Directors is made up of elected leaders who have, in some cases, already made their positions on SB 79 clear.

Before Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law in October, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass asked him to veto it.

Two other board members, L.A. City Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Imelda Padilla, voted with a slim majority of the council last year to oppose SB 79.

Metro says law will boost transit opposition

About three-quarters of all residential land in incorporated L.A. County is zoned for single-family homes. But under SB 79, some of those neighborhoods could now be eligible for dense apartment buildings, as long as they lie within a half-mile of a major transit stop.

The Metro staff report said SB 79 could harm the transit agency’s expansion goals by galvanizing housing opponents against new light rail stations and dedicated bus lanes.

“SB 79 has become a catalyst for local opposition to Metro’s transit projects,” the report said. “By linking increased housing density to both existing and future transit investments, the law has intensified resistance from some cities and community groups that now view new transit projects as a trigger for state-mandated upzoning.”

Asking for tweaks, or total exemption?

The report also called on state lawmakers to clarify the term “light rail transit,” which could affect how SB 79 will apply to neighborhoods around Metro’s A, C, E and K rail lines.

At an earlier Metro meeting, Board Vice Chair Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker supported calls to carve L.A. County out of the law.

“We’ve found that the effort to have one-size-fits all planning didn’t work,” she said. “It is ingenious to suggest that any modifications be tested in the Bay Area first.”

Hahn said she supported asking for more moderate amendments to the SB 79 clean-up bill, SB 677, but she did not think lawmakers would take seriously calls for a countywide exemption.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re willing to dialogue,” Hahn said. “I would just like to see some amendments that feel a little bit more realistic.”

Every Sunday, crispy waffles, breakfast “stanwiches” and a wagyu pastrami brisket on rye await you at Stanley's, a to-go window on Fountain Avenue in Hollywood.

Michelin-starred chef Michael Tang has worked in renowned kitchens like Leopardo in Los Angeles and Quince and Saison in the Bay Area. But now he’s bringing fine-dining technique to nostalgic diner fare at his new pop-up, creating food that's, as he puts it, "approachable instead of esoteric."

The self-funded operation, which is named after his father, is all about embracing constraints: a to-go format, less expensive equipment, and tighter margins. For Tang, those limitations became creative fuel.

"I'm figuring out my voice and developing a style," he said.

The food: technique meets nostalgia

Tang has been obsessed with creating the perfect waffle for two years, aiming for something "fully crispy outside, moist inside, not overly dense." The result is a hybrid that borrows from Belgian Liège-style waffles, studded with pearl sugar that caramelizes on the hot iron, while using an American-style batter rather than dough, resulting in a lighter texture.

When I tried it recently, it was sweet and eggy, with the caramelized sugar creating pockets of crunch along crispy edges. It costs $5, yet comes with French Bordier maple butter. "Why serve something that doesn't taste special?" he said.

Meanwhile, for his $13 pastrami sandwich, he makes the pastrami himself, taking on a challenge others avoid. "The fridge space is insane for pastrami production," he said — one reason most restaurants outsource to specialty purveyors.

Stanley's pastrami sandwich: eight-day Tajima Wagyu brisket on Bub and Grandma's sourdough.

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His eight-day process starts with Tajima Wagyu brisket, brined to season the meat evenly without over-curing. After brining, he applies a custom spice blend, then smokes it over California red oak and almond wood.

The effort shows. Served on Bub and Grandma's sourdough, Tang offers fatty or lean slices — I asked for both. I'm picky about pastrami in Los Angeles (it's hard to nail unless you're Langer's), but Stanley's version delivers: meaty, flavorful, with a proper fat ratio that doesn't turn greasy.

Tang also offers a vegan pastrami made from celery root, which takes four days instead of eight because vegetables are more porous. The choice wasn't random: celery root, apple, and horseradish, topped with a miso mustard that adds brightness, pairing well with the pastrami spices. I sampled it alongside the Wagyu version — it was delicious and substantial enough to satisfy anyone, vegan or not.

The sleeper hit

But the revelation came from an item Tang recommended I try: the Shumai Slam, also $13. The shrimp-and-pork croquette on a Martin's potato roll didn't initially catch my eye — until I noticed the steamed egg.

The Shumai Slam didn't initially catch my eye until Tang insisted I try it.

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As the name suggests, the shrimp-and-pork filling is an ode to Cantonese dim sum, with familiar notes of Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil. That alone would be impressive, but the steamed egg elevates it entirely.

Tang steams eggs in a hotel pan until they look almost like cheese slices, then lays them across the sandwich. The result is velvety smooth and intensely eggy, elevating the entire sandwich beyond its humble components. I haven't stopped thinking about it and now I want steamed eggs on all my breakfast sandwiches.

Sourcing with purpose

Stanley's breakfast beverages.

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The housemade sodas, sourced through farmers' markets, use "seconds" — bruised peaches and imperfect fruit still good for juicing. The coffee soda, made from a local roaster, tastes more like an espresso tonic: robust, cool, refreshing. I'd order it again, despite not being a regular cold brew drinker.

On good days, Tang and business partner Ivana Ruslie pay themselves minimum wage if they hit about 55 customers per pop-up. The rest of the week, they hustle through consulting work, private dinners, and R&D projects.

It's the new chef playbook: multiple income streams instead of single paychecks, community over prestige, sustainability over stars. Tang's redefining success on his own terms — though he admits he wouldn't say no to an angel investor with brick-and-mortar dreams.