Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published February 7, 2025 5:00 AM
Marcia Workman holds Cupcake the classroom rabbit, who had to be rescued from Don Benito Elementary School in Pasadena.
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Topline:
The mission to retrieve Cupcake the bunny from a Pasadena first-grade classroom during the Eaton Fire grew into a district-wide effort to locate, rescue and care for lizards, snakes, rats and fish at a half-a-dozen schools.
The backstory: 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. But because of the fire, schools were closed for weeks and most visitors barred from the wildfire evacuation zones.
A history of class pets: Animals have been a feature of Workman’s classroom since she first 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.
The rescue: The operation to save Cupcake expanded: Administrators compiled a list of animals that included a bearded dragon, beta fish, rats and snakes at six different campuses.
Read on ... for the inside story of making sure the class pets were taken care of.
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.
Maybe that animal in the classroom sparks something that's going to be a whole career for that child. You just never know what's going to turn them on. So it's up to me to bring that into the classroom.
— Marcia Workman, first-grade teacher, Don Benito Elementary
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.”
Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published January 1, 2026 6:21 PM
Conditions along the Santa Ana River can become dangerous during heavy rains.
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Topline:
An unidentified body was recovered from the bed of the Santa Ana River just before noon on Jan. 1, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
What we know: Officials said a witness called 911 to report a person in the riverbed near the intersection of Warner Avenue and Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. The person traveled about two miles downstream before the search and rescue crew recovered their body in the city of Fountain Valley.
The response: About 60 firefighters from OCFA and the Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa fire departments contributed to the water rescue effort.
The danger of moving water: With more rain in the forecast this weekend, keep in mind that just six inches of fast-moving water can knock down most people, while 12 inches can carry away most cars.
How to stay safe: Emergency officials recommend limiting travel as much as possible during heavy rain and floods, including by car. If you see flooding in your path, remember the slogan, “Turn around, don’t drown.” LAist also has a guide on driving safely in the rain.
Manny Ruiz strikes alongside other workers with Teamsters 2785 at Amazon Warehouse DCK6 in the Bayview District in San Francisco on Dec. 19, 2024. Amazon workers at multiple facilities across the U.S. went on strike to fight for a union contract.
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Topline:
Under a law taking effect Jan. 1, California seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
Where things stand: The new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
Why now: The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum. President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
California under a law taking effect today seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
But the new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum.
President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, the Inglewood Democrat who wrote the bill, said when the governor signed it in September that “California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction.”
The NLRB sued California over the law in October, saying in its lawsuit that the state is trying to assert authority over “areas explicitly reserved for federal oversight.”
On the legal challenge to the law, Terry Schanz, McKinnor’s chief of staff, referred CalMatters to the state attorney general. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is responsible for defending the law in court. A spokesperson for Bonta said the office would have nothing to say about it.
With the NLRB unable to fulfill its duties, states are trying to fill the gap in enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which Congress passed in 1935. But labor experts contacted by CalMatters do not have high hopes for the California law, which is similar to a law passed in New York this year. They said courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled that states cannot decide matters pertaining to federal labor law because of preemption, the doctrine that a higher authority of law overrides a lower authority.
“It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the courts do not overturn these (state) laws,” said John Logan, professor and chairperson of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University.
William Gould, a former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board during the Clinton administration and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, agreed: “In the courts the matter is a dead letter unless (the Supreme Court) shifts gears.”
That’s what the California and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with other business groups, are hoping, according to their amicus brief in support of the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California: “Under California’s view, every state could have its own labor law for private-sector workers. Dozens of laws would overlap and collide.”
The California Labor Federation, an umbrella organization for unions that represents about 2 million California workers, said in an amicus brief that even before Trump fired the NLRB chief, the federal agency’s backlog had been a problem, leading to companies being able to delay bargaining in good faith with their employees’ unions without consequences.
If the California law is overturned, employees who have formed unions but have not succeeded in securing contracts with employers such as Amazon and Starbucks — which are among the companies seeking to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional — may continue to face delays, according to Logan. Or, he said, it’s not clear what would happen if other workers tried to organize and their companies simply fired them.
“The NLRB defunctness is a scandal which cries out for political reform,” Gould said.
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Why now: As the clock struck midnight across time zones, people gathered to celebrate the new year.
Keep reading... for those photos.
As the clock strikes midnight across time zones, people gather to celebrate the new year.
We take a look at the shared joy and traditions in these photos.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Reveler use their smartphones to film the falling balloons and confetti as they celebrate the start of 2026 during the New Year countdown event held at a shopping mall in Beijing, early Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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Revellers watch a fireworks and light show for children on Museumplein as part of New Year's Eve celebrations in Amsterdam on December 31, 2025.
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Members of the public gather to celebrate the New Year during the annual bell-tolling ceremony at the Bosingak Pavilion on January 01, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea.
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Fireworks explode over skyscrapers during New Year celebrations on January 01, 2026 in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines.
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People buy batons that read happy New Year 2026 on December 31, 2025 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thousands lined the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok as the country welcomed the new year.
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Fireworks explode from the Taipei 101 building during the New Year's celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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Revellers watch the New Year's Eve fireworks from the The Huc Bridge at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi on Jan. 1, 2026.
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People attend the New Year countdown event to celebrate the start of 2026 in the Central district of Hong Kong, on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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Fireworks explode around the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, during New Year's Eve celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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People pose for pictures near illuminated decorations on New Year's Eve in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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Revellers watch fireworks during the New Year celebrations in Karachi on January 1, 2026.
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Iraqis gather in Baghdad's Al-Zawraa Park during New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31, 2025.
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Onlookers stand beside light ornaments on New Year's Eve at Bakrkoy Square in Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2025.
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People strike a giant bell to celebrate the New Year at the Zojoji Buddhist temple, minutes after midnight Thursday Jan. 1, 2026, in Tokyo.
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A couple takes a selfie as the last sunset of 2025 is seen over the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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People watch and take photos as the Ferris wheel displays "Happy New Year" in 16 different languages at Pacific Park on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025 in Santa Monica.
Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire.
Where things stand: Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.
What's next: Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who is part of that effort, says he thinks the Senate can pass a "retroactive" Affordable Care Act subsidy extension, but "we need President Trump."
Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.
"There's a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this will be for families that they represent," Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said on Morning Edition Thursday. "That's the common ground here, and it's a doable thing."
Welch said he joined a bipartisan call Tuesday — first reported by Punchbowl News — in which a handful of senators charted out a possible health care compromise.
"We could extend the credits for a couple of years, we could reform it," Welch said of the call. "You could put an income cap, you could have a copay, you could have penalties on insurers who commit fraud. You actually could introduce some cost saving reductions that have bipartisan support."
But according to Welch, this legislation is only doable with President Trump's blessing.
"It would require that President Trump play a major role in this, because he has such influence over the Republican majority in the House and even in the Senate," Welch said.
Last fall, Republicans and Democrats fought bitterly over the Obamacare subsidy extension, causing a political standoff that led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Trump has remained relatively hands-off, withholding his support for any health care legislation.
Despite these obstacles, Welch said he believes the jump in prices that people across the country now face will break the logjam in Congress.
"A farmer in Vermont, their premium is going to go from $900 a month to $3,200, a month," Welch said. "So they're going to really face sticker shock. There's going to be a secondary impact, because the hospitals, particularly in rural areas, are going to lose revenue."
But even if the Senate advanced a compromise bill on the ACA, the House would also have to get behind it. And the lower chamber has its own bipartisan effort on an ACA subsidy extension.
Just before the recess began in mid-December, four House Republicans joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies — forcing a floor vote on the bill when the House returns.
Hours after bucking House Speaker Mike Johnson and joining Democrats, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., told Morning Editionback in December that he thinks this vote will get even more Republican support.
"I don't like the clean extension without any income cap," Fitzpatrick said. "But given the choice between a clean three-year extension and letting them expire, that's not a hard choice for me. And I suspect many of my other colleagues are going to view it the same way."
Fitzpatrick and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., have held meetings with moderate senators on legislative paths to extend the ACA subsidies, a source familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak publicly tells NPR.
The Senate returns on Jan. 5 and the House comes back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.
