The Brief

At Aleppo’s Kitchen in Anaheim, Syrian revolution songs play on the speakers while Sammy Hajomar and his family put up revolution flags at the restaurant.

The restaurant has become a gathering place for Syrians looking to celebrate the end of Bashar Al-Assad’s rule in Syria. While people are hopeful about the future, they are also anxious at who will take over next. The Al-Assad family ruled the country for half a century, a period marked by authoritarian rule and violence. The Syrian revolution began during the Arab Spring in 2011, but Al-Assad cracked down on protests, leading to bloodshed and imprisonments.

Omar Issa and Sammy Hajomar.

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Courtesy Sammy Hajomar

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“The flag for us has symbolized since the early days of the revolution a kind of separation or liberation from the Ba'athist Assad regime,” Hajomar said.

Omar Issa, a Syrian American living in Santa Clarita, said he began to lose hope that the Al-Assad regime would be toppled in his lifetime. Issa last visited Syria in 2000 when he was 6 years old. The plan was to return when he completed high school. Then, the revolution started. Since he was of age for military service and because he began speaking out about the atrocities of the Assad regime, he could never go back.

“Up until two weeks ago, I was like, I may never be able to go back to Syria again, I will never be able to take my kids to my country,” he said. “Now I feel like within the year I could be there.”

For the community, Issa said, “it feels like Eid, the community is just celebrating.”

Life under the Assad regime

For Dima Kedraki, a Syrian American living in Orange, she is happy but anxious about the fall of the Assad regime. She was born two years after Bashar Al-Assad’s father, Hafez Al-Assad, assumed power in 1971 and lived in Syria until 1998.

“We lived in the city of fear, in the country of fear,” she said of her time in Syria. “I never lived in something called freedom.”

She recalls how she wasn’t allowed to speak about the regime’s atrocities even in the privacy of her home with family members for fear of retribution.

The Al-Assad regime tore apart families. Since the revolution began, she was not able to travel back meaning she didn’t see her father for 13 years. Her voice cracking, Kedraki said she didn’t get to see him before he died two years ago. In the over 10 years they have been apart, Kedraki has communicated with her family via hand signals and symbols over video calls, worried someone could be listening in to their conversations.

“I want my nephews and nieces to have the ability to say what they want just like my kids, I want them to fulfill their dreams just like my kids,” she said.

A Syria for everyone

Kedraki is hoping for a “Syria for everyone, for the Muslim, the Christian, the Jew, the Alawite, the Druze, the Shia, the non-believers, whoever you live with, Turkmens, Armenians.”

“I expect a country that's inclusive for all of us equal in duties and rights,” she added. “There is no difference in any possible way.”

Issa said he’s hopeful that in the 14 years since the revolution began, leaders have been planning for what comes next and who will be in charge.

He added that the rebels took over the country with minimum bloodshed, installing an interim leader in Mohammed al-Bashir, who has a background in civil engineering, rather than opting for someone with a military past.

These are positive signs, Issa said.

Celebrations planned in Southern California

• Aleppo’s Kitchen is offering free tea and baklava from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Dec. 12
• Syria Block Party, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Dec. 14 at 513 S. Brookhurst St., Anaheim 
• Victory Celebration in Irvine, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 15 at Mason Park, 18712 University Dr., Irvine 

LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.

The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.

The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.

“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.

Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.

“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.

And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.

Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!

The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.

Van Gogh's "Irises"

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Courtesy Getty Museum

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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Hop over to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, where you’ll see “Hospital at Saint-Rémy,” one of three paintings by Van Gogh in the collection.

Then head west on Wilshire Boulevard to the Getty to see “Irises,” one of the paintings that’s made Van Gogh an art star.

"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum

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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.

The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.

The new year doesn’t just bring new gifts and new resolutions. It also brings new laws.

State and local lawmakers have a lot on tap for 2026 when it comes to housing laws that will affect Southern California renters and landlords.

From refrigerators to fire damage, from development streamlining to rent control caps, LAist has rounded up the legal changes coming next year that you need to know.

AB 628: No more ‘no fridge’ apartment listings

Starting Jan. 1, landlords must provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove. Many landlords already offer these appliances, but the L.A. area stands out nationwide for having an unusually high proportion of fridge-less apartments.

Next year, L.A. newcomers will no longer be taking to social media to express incredulity at all the city’s bring-your-own-fridge apartments. If landlords fail to provide refrigerators or stoves in good working condition, apartments will be considered uninhabitable under the new law.

SB 610: Landlords must clean smoke damage

In the weeks and months after the January fires, many renters struggled to get their landlords to address toxic ash that blew into apartments and rental homes that remained standing. Some landlords said cleaning up the smoke damage was not their responsibility. Initial communication from local public officials was confusing on what tenants were supposed to do.

This new law, which partially was driven by LAist’s reporting, clarifies that in the wake of a natural disaster, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

SB 79: Upzoning LA neighborhoods near transit

L.A.’s City Council voted to oppose it. Mayor Karen Bass asked the governor to veto it. But California’s big new upzoning law passed anyway. Its changes are set to take effect July 1, 2026.

Under the law, new apartment buildings up to nine stories tall will be allowed next to rail stations, and buildings up to five stories tall will be allowed within a half-mile of rapid bus stops. This upzoning applies to neighborhoods within those transit zones, even if they’re currently zoned only for single-family homes.

Next comes the implementation. The law could give renters more options once new housing is constructed. But L.A. could choose to delay the law’s effects in some areas for years. Ahead of the law’s passage, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent legislators a letter opposing the bill, signaling what could turn into a legal showdown over the bill.

AB 246: Protecting Social Security recipients during government shutdowns

Tenants can face eviction three days after missing their rent. During this year’s federal government shutdown — the longest on record — that swift timeline was a cause for anxiety among tenants who count on federal benefits to cover their rent.

Though this year’s shutdown did not affect regular Social Security payments, this law will give Social Security recipients a defense in eviction court if they ever stop receiving benefits because of any future shutdowns. Under the law, renters will be required to repay their missed rent, or enter a repayment plan, within two weeks of their Social Security payments being restored.

Lower rent control caps in the city of LA

After years of debate, the L.A. City Council passed a new cap on annual rent hikes in the roughly three-quarters of city apartments covered by local rent control rules.

The City Council enacted a new 4% limit, replacing a 40-year-old formula that allowed increases as high as 10% in some units during periods of high inflation. Councilmembers also ended a 2% additional increase for landlords who cover tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The city had a nearly four-year rent freeze in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended in February 2024. That means many L.A. tenants are scheduled to receive their next rent hike Feb. 1, 2026. They should be getting a 30-day notice soon. Each year’s limit is determined by recent inflation data. The current cap of 3% is set to last until June 30.