Yusra Farzan
wants to help Southern Californians connect with faith communities around the region.
Published January 7, 2026 1:55 PM
The Eaton Fire destroyed buildings at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center a year ago.
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Mario Tama
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Getty Images
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Topline:
The Eaton Fire destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where over 400 families would gather to worship and which has served as a Jewish community space for over 100 years. Josh Ratner, the senior rabbi at the temple, says that in the year since he has been leaning on the Jewish history of resilience and rebuilding to provide pastoral care to the congregation.
The context: Thirty families of the congregation lost their homes, while another 40 families have had to relocate.
Read on ... for more of what the synagogue's rabbi said on LAist's AirTalk.
The Eaton Fire destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where over 400 families would gather to worship and which has served as a Jewish community space for over 100 years.
On the anniversary of the fire Wednesday, Josh Ratner, the senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that the congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.
“ It has certainly been a unique challenge," he said, "in a sense of us going through a double crisis, a double tragedy of the loss of our building, which has meant so much to so many of our congregants, and the loss of so many congregants’ homes.”
Thirty families of the congregation lost their homes, while another 40 families have had to relocate.
As the fire raged, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris raced to save all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including Shabbat. The scrolls are now being stored at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Everything else in the temple was lost in the fire.
In 2019, UCLA acquired temple records, including newsletters, yearbooks, board minutes, membership directories, financial reports, booklets, photographs and video and audio recordings. Community members can access that information, tracing Pasadena’s Jewish history from the 1930s to present day.
Ratner said that since the fire, he has leaned into what led him to becoming a rabbi — “the ability to provide pastoral care and love” as the congregation has grappled with losing their spiritual home.
“ The Jewish tradition and Jewish history is we're no strangers to crisis and to dislocation and to exile," Ratner said. "So there are a lot of themes from the Bible itself and the idea of the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the promised land and living in that sense of dislocation and impermanence.”
From ancient times to the recent past, he went on, temples are destroyed and Jewish people are persecuted and forced to relocate.
”We have overcome so much before as a people. I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our histories of people is one of rebuilding even stronger than before. Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve.”
A brief history of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center
The building was built in 1932 and sits on a 91,000-square-foot parcel of land, according to L.A. County records.
The congregation traces its roots to 19th century Jewish residents of Pasadena. Official incorporation of Temple B’nai Israel of Pasadena by the State of California happened in 1921.
In the 1940s, the congregation purchased the a Mission revival building that later burned in the Eaton Fire.
In 1956 the congregation changed its name to the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
Rock singer David Lee Roth had his Bar Mitzvah at the center in the 1970s.
In the late 1990s and 2010s, the congregation merged with synagogues in Sunland-Tujunga and Arcadia.
In 2014 it became the first Conservative congregation to employ a transgender rabbi when it hired Becky Silverstein as education director.
Kevin Tidmarsh
is rooting for Stonehenge the marmot. Don't tell the others.
Published August 21, 2026 2:33 PM
This marmot's name is Open Kite. Researchers say this "girl boss" didn't have a mate this year, so she "was able to allocate all of her energy to self-maintenance."
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Courtesy Dan Blumstein/UCLA
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Topline:
Fat Marmot Week, the brainchild of UCLA researchers, is happening next week to highlight one of the longest ongoing animal studies amid federal funding cuts.
What it is: Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males — and there’ll also be a “true” winner who’s announced at the end based on the lab’s observations on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.
Where the idea came from: UCLA’s Dan Blumstein had the idea for Fat Marmot Week ever since Fat Bear Week went viral – but it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, to organize it this year and see it into fruition.
About the marmots: Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.
When to vote: The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26 and the final showdown on Friday Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.
Read on... tolearn lots of fun marmot facts.
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory may run the second-longest study of individually identifiable mammals in the world, but they’re not afraid of trying something new.
The lab is launching a bracket-style competition, Fat Marmot Week, for people all over the world to vote for their favorite chunky ground squirrel.
The UCLA researchers who work there have faced a loss of federal funding in recent years, so they’re now pursuing creative fundraising efforts, including a (G-rated) OnlyFans account for marmot content called OnlyMarms and a meme coin created by supporters of the project.
Where the idea came from
Dan Blumstein, a UCLA ecology and evolutionary biology professor who came up with OnlyMarms, said he’s wanted to do a Fat Marmot Week ever since the success of Fat Bear Week, in which the public votes on grizzly bears bulking up for the winter in Alaska. But it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, along with another volunteer who helps with logistics, to see it to fruition.
“ Science isn't just writing the papers, it's also the communication side of things,” said Adler, who’s also the lab’s field team leader.
Like bears, marmots prepare for the winter by fattening up, with some more than doubling in weight from about 5.5 pounds to as much as 13. But unlike bears, marmots are true hibernators. For months, their body temperature drops very low, and they breathe and have a heartbeat about once a minute. (Blumstein described a hibernating marmot as “sort of a fuzzy stone.”)
These two specimens are called Dawn and Dan's Hat.
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Courtesy Dan Blumstein/UCLA
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Adler said she likes highlighting what makes the portly rodents interesting, which is harder “ when you're covered in marmot poop and sweating your butt off.”
“I think it’s fun to think of this from an outside perspective – why do we like marmots and how can we share that with other people?” Rankey said.
Marmot fun facts
LAist asked the UCLA researchers about their favorite marmot trivia. Here’s what they said:
”They get all of their water from plants,” Adler said. “ That's why they can live in these huge meadows that don't have running water near them.”
“They can run like 20 miles an hour,” Adler said.
Physiologically speaking, “aging declines or flattens out during hibernation,” Blumstein said.
“Other species listen to their alarm calls,” Blumstein said. “They provide information for the meadows.”
”Pups triple their mass between coming out of the burrow and going back in for hibernation, which is pretty insane,” Renkey said. “They're impressive eaters.”
About the marmots
The marmots are all given names to help tell them apart based on markings the researchers dye on their fur.
Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.
“Our parties are quite boring to other people because all we do is talk about the marmots,” Blumstein said. “It's a soap opera.”
Faced with federal funding cuts, Blumstein realized he had to get creative in order to keep research going, starting with the OnlyMarms account.
But he said he wasn’t expecting the “extraordinary” response – the meme coin has made more than $100,000 in transaction fees, though it’s still short of the $225,000 to $300,000 they need to fundraise to bring in another graduate student for further research.
Blumstein said while all funding is welcome, including the OnlyMarms subscriptions, it’s much easier for them to accept direct donations for tax purposes. The money will go to support researchers like Renkey and Adler’s contributions to the nearly 65 years of marmot research at the lab.
How to support the lab
No donations will be required to participate in Fat Marmot Week — this one’s just for fun. However, the lab is still looking for money to support its ongoing research.
You can donate directly to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory here, and UCLA’s Blumstein Lab Fund here.
The tournament
Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males. There’ll also be a “true” winner who’s announced at the end based on the lab’s measurements on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.
The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26, and the final showdown on Friday, Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.
“Everyone should vote. It's very exciting,” Renkey said. “They're huge this summer.”
Makenna Cramer
leads LAist’s unofficial Big Bear bald eagle beat and has been covering the nest for several seasons.
Published August 21, 2026 2:33 PM
Shadow and Kaydee in the Big Bear nest.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Topline:
The younger bald eagle that Shadow has been seen hanging out with in Big Bear’s famous nest lately has a new name.
Why now: The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.
Why it matters: “This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District, told LAist.
The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.
The organization generally doesn’t name visiting eagles, but Kaydee is sticking around so far and could become a new online star after Shadow’s long-time mate Jackie died last week.
So, who is this new eagle in the nest?
One expert told LAist that Kaydee is more than 4 years old and was probably wandering much further than Big Bear before it was spotted on camera.
“This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” said Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District.
“In this instance, we're getting 24/7 views and people are so tuned into it that they're keeping really good track of where KD1 is, and it's really awesome.”
Meet Kaydee
Kaydee was first recorded on the livestream cameras in the Big Bear habitat on Aug. 6 — a few days before Jackie died — according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
The nonprofit said the eagle started to perch by Shadow in several trees, which it has continued to do in the weeks since. The group recently referred to Kaydee as Shadow’s “shadow.”
Kaydee is from the Prado Basin area, where its parents Ricky and Lucy nest nearby. Carpenter said Ricky and Lucy have raised around a dozen eaglets since 2021, when they first started setting up shop in the area.
About the parental pair Ricky and Lucy
The bald eagle pair believed to be Jackie’s parents were also named Ricky and Lucy, but officials have said they’re not the same birds.
“There's probably other bald eagle pairs named Ricky and Lucy just because it's a popular pair name,” said Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District. “But yeah, no relation.”
The eagle wears two bracelet-like bands on its legs, including a lavender-colored one, which can be used to track Kaydee in different areas.
“If someone sees [the color band] with a scope or binoculars or a zoom camera, it can be reported and put into a research database, which adds to the opportunity to progress conservation for raptors and eagles,” Carpenter said.
You can learn more about reporting a bird with a federal band or color marker here.
Why aren’t we sure about the sex?
Kaydee is believed to be a female, but O.C. officials did not do a DNA test, which can be used to definitively identify the sex.
Female raptors are generally bigger than males, and Friends of Big Bear Valley has said Kaydee is larger than Shadow.
Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District, said it’s “still a wait and see” situation, at least until mating and egg-laying season rolls around.
Will Kaydee stick with Shadow?
Kaydee is what's known as a subadult eagle, a stage in which Carpenter said raptors are still trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want to be.
“Big Bear’s a nice habitat, obviously they've been visiting this nest, you know, there's some interest there whatever it may be,” she said. “So it's possible that they stick around and find a mate, whether that be Shadow or another adult eagle.”
But it’s also possible Kaydee moves onto another habitat after the off-season. Whatever happens, Carpenter said us humans get to go along for the ride through the livestream, which she described as a privilege.
“We get this chance to witness something that we would not normally get to witness, because we know exactly who this bird is and we happen to have cameras in the area,” she said. “It might be everything and it might be nothing, and either way, I think that's really exciting that we get to have a little peek into this world.”
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Mexico taco chain Taqueria Tijuanero has locations in San Diego and East LA.
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Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero
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Topline: Taqueria Tijuanero — a Tijuana, Mexico, taco chain — has made it a lot easier in recent years for Californians to try their food, with a locations in San Diego and East L.A. You’ll find tacos, vampiros and burritos. We talked to one of the family members behind the popular taco chain.
Listen
14:04
Taqueria Tijuanero brings Northern Mexican food across the border to LA
Restaurant details: The Esquivel family opened their first brick-and-mortar at Playas de Tijuana in 2011. The family has been in the process of opening its third SoCal location, which will be in Echo Park.
Taqueando After Dark: Taqueria Tijuanero will be one of multiple vendors involved in Taqueando After Dark, an event that’ll have multiple Northern Mexico vendors/restaurants, happening in DTLA on Aug. 27 and 28.
The Esquivel family opened their first taqueria at Playas de Tijuana 15 years ago, with a focus on individually crafted tacos, each with its own pairing of salsa.
Since then, Taqueria Tijuanero — formerly Tijuanazo — has become an increasingly popular SoCal taco chain.
Owner Aria Esquivel sat down with AirTalk Friday host Austin Cross to talk about how it all started from a humble Tijuana brick-and-mortar and how they stay true to their distinct North Mexican menu.
The art of the taco
Esquivel’s father and mastermind behind Taqueria Tijuanero, Antonio Esquivel, began working in kitchens when he was 16 years old, working his way up from dishwasher to cook at French restaurants in Beverly Hills.
“What he really loved about the taco and the art of the taco in Tijuana is how these ingredients mesh so well together,” Esquivel said.
That’s when the family opened up their own restaurant in Playas de Tijuana in 2011.
Mexico's taco diversity
Because of Mexico’s diverse landscape of crops, history and even weather patterns, taco styles can actually vary quite a bit depending on where you are in the country.
“ The tacos in Mexico City are different," Esquivel said. "The tacos in Sonora are different. The Tijuana tacos are different."
Fresh al pastor
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(Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero
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Al pastor taco
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Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero
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Bill Esparza, the James Beard Award-winning food writer who's spent the last two decades chronicling L.A.'s taco scene, helped curate Taqueando After Dark, a new food festival that will feature eight L.A. taco vendors, including Taqueria Tijuanero.
“When I see theirs, I see what I see in Mexico,” Esparza said of Taqueria Tijuanero’s tacos, adding, “It’s a taco that really has a lot of intentionality behind it.”
How to experience Taqueando After Dark festival
Taqueando After Dark takes over Level 8 for two nights, Aug. 27 and 28. (Courtesy of Level 8)
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Courtesy Taqueando After Dark
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Location: Level 8, inside the Moxy Hotel — 1254 S Figueroa St., 8th Floor Dates: Thursday, Aug. 27 and Friday, Aug. 28, 6 p.m.– late
Cost: $40–$135 (each ticket valid for one night only; general admission includes 5–6 bites)
Add-ons: Early chef access, all-you-can-drink package, $35 guided tequila tasting
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published August 21, 2026 1:47 PM
The Olympic cauldron is lit at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in January ahead of ticket registration. The IOC's new policy takes effect for the 2028 Summer Games.
Why now: The second ticket drop closed yesterday — it was the last chance regular folks could buy Olympic tickets this year.
What’s next: Ticket sales will reopen to the public next year on a first-come, first-served basis. Unlike this year’s ticket drops, there will be no cap on the number of tickets people can buy for more sports.
