The Brief

All five passengers aboard the missing Titan submersible are believed to have died, according to OceanGate, the company that developed the submersible.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said the debris found indicates a "catastrophic implosion of the vessel."

"We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

A remote operating vehicle operating on the seafloor near the wreck of the Titanic identified debris that is confirmed to be the remains of the Titan submersible.

Officials said they will begin to demobilize vessels from the scene over the course of the next 24 hours but added that remote operations will continue on the sea floor.

Earlier in the day rescue teams hunting for the missing Titanic-touring submersible uncovered a field of debris near the site of the wrecked ocean liner, the Coast Guard said.

Remote-operated vehicles searched for the sub, called Titan, near the site where a surveillance aircraft first detected "underwater noises" late Tuesday.
Here's a guide to what we know.

What do we know about the debris field?

The U.S. Coast Guard said that the debris field was uncovered by an ROV deployed by the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic, which had reached the sea floor early Thursday.

Other than that, there's not much known about the U.S. Coast Guard's findings. Experts say the seabed around the Titanic is littered with bits of the wreck, which shows tell-tale signs of its age, including the effects of an iron-eating bacteria.

The U.S. Coast Guard said that maritime surveillance planes operated by Canada detected underwater sounds late Tuesday, then again on Wednesday.

Various underwater search efforts were moved to the location of the noise to discover its source, but the Coast Guard said efforts "yielded negative results" up until news of the debris field.

As of Wednesday, underwater acoustic experts from the Navy were still analyzing the sounds, which one expert described as "banging noises."

The U.S. Coast Guard and other experts with knowledge of the search warned that the sounds may not necessarily be proof of life.

"You have to remember that it's the wreck site of the Titanic, so there is a lot of metal and different objects in the water around the site," Rear Adm. John Mauger said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday morning.

What kind of equipment is being used in the search?

A photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday shows a ship searching for the lost submersible near the wreck site of the Titanic.

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The U.S. Coast Guard says that the data from the Canadian aircraft, known as a P-3 Orion, is nevertheless serving as a focus point for its unified search efforts.

The remoteness of the location and the size of the search area — extending 10,000 miles on the surface and 2.4 miles down to the ocean floor — has complicated efforts to locate the vessel and its passengers. Thursday's weather, at least, may prove more favorable to search crews, with winds slowing to 14 mph and wave swells dropping around 4 to 5 feet.

In addition to the ROV deployed by Horizon Arctic, a second deep-diving ROV, deployed by the French vessel L'Atalante, was searching for the Titan as of Thursday morning.

Multiple maritime surveillance planes from U.S. and Canadian armed forces have flown over the site and dropped sonar buoys in the area.

Also en route is the U.S. Navy's Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS), a motion-compensated lift system which can lift heavy undersea objects.

The design of the Titan means that only those outside the vessel can unseal it, so regardless of whether it rises to the surface or not, the passengers will require outside help to escape.

The Canadian ship Glace Bay, which contains a mobile decompression chamber and is staffed with medical personnel, is also expected to arrive Thursday morning.

The unified search command led by the U.S. Coast Guard has been criticized by industry experts and U.S. lawmakers who say the teams didn't send equipment to the site early enough.

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of the Explorers Club, tweeted that members of the research group continually offered their expertise and equipment — including a deep-diving ROV with the ability to attach a lift cable to the Titan — but were not approved to send the equipment until Wednesday, putting the estimated arrival time hours behind when the Titan's emergency oxygen supply is due to expire.

When will the sub's oxygen supply run out?

At the beginning of the search on Sunday, officials estimated the submersible, if still fully functional, contained about 96 hours of reserve oxygen. At a 1 p.m. ET press conference on Wednesday, the Coast Guard estimated that supply was down to about 20 hours.

That means the the oxygen on board the Titan could run out early Thursday morning.

But U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said that's only "one factor" in what is still "a search-and-rescue operation, 100 percent."

"We need to have hope," he said in a Wednesday media briefing. He added that he wasn't ready to speculate about when the search efforts might end.

On Thursday morning, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said that crews would continue their efforts throughout the day on the assumption that the people on board are still alive.

"In all of our search and rescue efforts that the Coast Guard does every day, we use all available data and information to prosecute those searches," Mauger said in an interview with NBC. "But we continue to find, especially in complex cases, that people's will to live needs to be accounted for as well."

When and where did the sub go missing?

Titan lost contact with its support ship — a Canadian research vessel called Polar Prince — an hour and 45 minutes after it first entered the water on Sunday, around 8 a.m. ET.

At that point, it was already more than halfway down to the Titanic's wreck on the Atlantic's ocean bed, roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The Coast Guard said it was first notified of the missing vessel at 5:40 p.m. ET, nearly three hours after the Titan was expected to resurface at 3 p.m. ET.

Who was on board?

The people on board Titan include pilot Stockton Rush, the head of OceanGate, the company that developed the submersible; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French underwater wreck expert who has written about the Titanic and visited the wreck dozens of times; a British entrepreneur Hamish Harding; and father-son Pakistani nationals Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.

A former passenger of the Titan described the vessel as like being in a "minivan without seats" and says its interior design relies on "off-the-shelf parts," including a video game controller for steering.

What was the sub's mission?

The OceanGate logo is seen on a vehicle stored near the company's offices on Wednesday in Everett, Wash. The company owns the submersible that has been missing since Sunday.

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The missing vessel is owned by OceanGate, a company based in Washington that's become a major chronicler of the Titanic's decay.

In May, OceanGate shared the first-ever full-size digital scan of the wreck site, which is slowly succumbing to a metal-eating bacteria and at risk of disintegrating in a matter of decades.

For $250,000 a person, the company promises tourists an underwater voyage to explore the remains of the Titanic from the seafloor. From St. John's in Newfoundland, Canada, explorers travel 380 miles offshore and 2.4 miles below the surface. A full trip can take eight days and include multiple dives.

If successful, the dives offer a glimpse of what's left of the 1912 crash into an iceberg, which took the lives of all but 700 of the Titanic's 2,200 passengers and crew.

Did anyone warn OceanGate that the Titan wasn't safe?

Years before the Titan went missing, OceanGate faced several complaints and warnings about the safety of its submersible vessels.

Records from a 2018 lawsuit show that the company's former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, flagged potential safety issues with the Titan as it was under development in 2015.

Lochridge was particularly concerned about the company's lack of testing on the Titan's 5-inch-thick carbon fiber hull, which employed an experimental design developed in collaboration with NASA. He also said that the Titan's port window was only designed to withstand depths of about 4,200 feet — far shallower than the 13,000-foot depth of the Titanic.

OceanGate responded in legal filings by saying it relied on acoustic testing "better suited" to detect safety issues. The company fired and sued Lochridge, accusing him of breaching his contract.

Separately, but in the same year the lawsuit was settled, the chairman of the Marine Technology Society's Submarine Group wrote a letter to OceanGate saying 38 industry experts had "unanimous concern" about the Titan's lack of adherence to industry standards.

"We have submarines all over the world diving at 12,000 to 20,000 feet every day of the year, for research. We know very well how to design these machines and operate them safely," the chairman, Will Kohnen, told NPR's Morning Edition on Wednesday.

How did OceanGate respond to warnings about Titan's safety?

OceanGate has seen at least two documented safety incidents with the Titan after these warnings.

During a 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that its sub had experienced a battery issue during a dive and had to be manually reattached to its lifting platform, court filings show.

In the same year, the vessel lost contact with its surface crew for nearly five hours during a dive, according to CBS correspondent David Pogue, who was observing the mission for a journalistic report on the company.

Pogue reported that a waiver for passengers of the Titan clearly states the vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body.

OceanGate's founder, who is reportedly on board the missing Titan, said in a 2019 interview that the commercial submarine industry's regulations stood in the way of progress.

"It's obscenely safe because they have all these regulations," Rush told The Smithsonian Magazine. "But it also hasn't innovated or grown."

NPR's Willem Marx, Ayana Archie and Juliana Kim contributed reporting.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

For 16 years, Carlos Ortez, 64, has opened the doors of his restaurant, Un Solo Sol, near Mariachi Plaza, eager to share the philosophy behind his plant-based dishes and the importance of nourishing the body through holistic food. 

It’s what he’ll miss the most when the restaurant closes on Sept. 28, Ortez said. 

“This decision was not made lightly,” Ortez wrote in an Instagram post announcing the restaurant’s closure. “Rising operational costs, inflation, and the broader challenges facing the restaurant industry have made sustaining a small footprint increasingly difficult.”

The announcement comes after years of declining sales and mounting economic crises that have driven customers away, including the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration raids, and recently, the Lineage warehouse fire. 

The restaurant stopped making a profit in 2022, and ever since, Ortez has been using personal funds to sustain it, he said. 

“We’re closing the front door right now so that I can think,” Ortez said. “How am I going to fit a small restaurant with these ideals … in Los Angeles, in Boyle Heights, in the world?”  

Carlos Ortez, 64, owner of Un Solo Sol, stands in front of the restaurant on Sept. 10 in Boyle Heights.

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Un Solo Sol’s origin 

Ortez, a career engineer-turned-business owner, launched Un Solo Sol in 2005 with his ex-wife as a food-service provider for charter schools. In 2010, Ortez opened the brick-and-mortar across the street from Mariachi Plaza, serving primarily vegan and vegetarian dishes before becoming fully vegan in 2022. 

The menu features Latin-American staples like pupusas from Ortez’s native El Salvador, pozole and enchiladas, as well as cuisine from cultures around the world.  

The yellow and green storefront near the corner of Boyle Avenue and 1st Street has become part of the fabric of the 1st Street business corridor. In neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, losing a small business disrupts “the cohesiveness of the community,” Ortez said. 

On social media, customers grieved the loss of one of the only vegan restaurants on the Eastside.  

“Thank you for the many years of delicious meals made with love,” one user commented. 

“Carlos you poured your heart out for the Vegan community and Boyle Heights,” another wrote. 

What’s next

While the restaurant will close its doors, Ortez said his work isn’t over. He plans to stay in the community and take time to consider how his naturopathic, whole-foods-oriented restaurant concept can continue in a different form.

“The plan is to reemerge,” Ortez said. “It’s not that I don’t have the capacity to let go, it’s that I’m still alive.” 

Want to visit?

The restaurant will close on Sept. 28. Until then, hours are Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 12 to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 3 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m The restaurant closes Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

Un Solo Sol is located at 1818 E. 1st St.

California teens will be barred from “addictive” social media products and limited in their interactions with chatbots under two of the 13 bills signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday to protect kids online.

The law on addictive social media may be the most controversial. It will require social media companies to either stop offering “addictive” tools like infinite scroll and autoplay to users under 16 or to keep those users off their platforms entirely.

Authors say the law is necessary to address a teenage mental health crisis and that it will force social media companies to take long-awaited action.

“Parents can’t compete. Can’t compete with the engineering, can’t compete with the algorithms,” Newsom said at a press conference announcing the laws. “You feel like you’re a lousy parent.”

But digital rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation urged Newsom to veto the bill, calling it “well-intentioned, but deeply flawed.” That organization said the bill defines “addictive features” so broadly that it would effectively create a full ban on social media for kids under 16 and cut off youth from “essential information and experiences.”

The measure limiting artificial intelligence chatbots is more broadly supported, even by tech juggernaut OpenAI. Named after California teen Adam Raine, who died by suicide in 2025 after receiving tips from ChatGPT, the new law will impose time limits for minors and require built-in mental health resources. It will also mandate safety plans for chatbots. If a chatbot detects a threat of self-harm, the chatbot operator will be required to alert parents. Companies like OpenAI or other creators of chatbots could face legal liability for failing to act.

“Raising teens at this moment, those of us that are, we know the youth mental health crisis in an everyday reality,” Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, one of the bill’s authors, said after the bill’s signing. “There isn’t one of us that hasn’t seen it first hand.”

OpenAI has said the law “pairs strong protections with continued access to useful AI tools.”

The law builds on existing regulations on chatbots in California, like requiring the tools to notify users that they are interacting with AI.

Those two were the most notable among several related measures Newsom also signed.

One makes social media companies legally liable for damages if their platforms harm a child. Another expands and revises age-checking requirements, while a third expands companies’ responsibilities for acting on child abuse content.

Another will place a four-year moratorium on AI-powered chatbot toys for kids under 16.

Earlier this week, Newsom also signed two bills that create standards for independent AI tool auditors. Another new law clarifies requirements for businesses that create products “likely to be accessed by children,” preventing them from collecting children’s data as a condition of using their services.

The laws come amid mounting concern over how social media and AI tools may be damaging kids’ mental health.

Adam Raine’s death was one in a string of incidents that alarmed parents about how their kids might be interacting with chatbots. Those concerns go beyond teens, too, as the tools are linked to increasing incidents of so-called “AI psychosis,” in which chatbots seem to encourage and feed delusional thinking.

The new legislation also comes on the heels of a landmark legal settlement between Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta and a coalition of state attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta.

In a major suit, the states accused Meta of knowingly damaging teens’ mental health through addictive features like infinite scrolling and continued to promote those products even after the damage became clear internally. The suit has been compared to the Big Tobacco lawsuits of past decades.

Last month, as the trial started, Meta agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle the case. Some of that money will be earmarked to address mental health harms for kids and states will decide where to spend the rest.

The settlement also requires Meta to change its products to address some of the mental health concerns. Under the terms of the agreement, the company will limit “likes” for underage users’ accounts and stop sending notifications during school hours, among other limits.

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

When the 9/11 terrorist attacks began on a blue-sky morning 25 years ago, the Rev. Eric Olsen was working in upstate New York. The National Guard unit where Olsen served as chaplain scrambled to deploy and served for months on a security detail around the massive pile of wreckage at ground zero, site of the World Trade Center's fallen twin towers in New York City.

"There was all this uncertainty," Olsen recalls. "Are there going to be more attacks? Is this just the forerunner?"

A quarter century later, a politically and culturally divided United States is commemorating a day of violence, loss and heroism that altered the trajectory of the nation, sending people's lives spiraling in directions they could never have expected.

"I intend to take some time to myself to pray, contemplate and grieve," says Olsen, who served a harrowing tour in Iraq and spent more than a decade of active Guard service counseling military personnel caught up in ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I did a lot of death notifications for families who lost sons and daughters. It was just a very sad time," he says, now 68 and retired.

The Rev. Eric Olsen, who lives in Saranac Lake, N.Y., served as a chaplain in New York's National Guard, deploying to support a security detail at ground zero in Manhattan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later serving a tour in Iraq.

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The toll from 9/11 and the events that followed has been devastating. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida, an Islamic extremist group, hijacked four commercial airliners. Two planes were flown deliberately into the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. A third jetliner slammed into its target, the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Historians say at least 2,977 people died in the initial attack. A study by Brown University found that an additional 7,000 U.S. service members died in post-9/11 wars. Tens of thousands more fell ill, and many died from illnesses linked to toxic debris that spread after the planes crashed.

A call to Americans, especially the young, to remember 

To mark the first quarter-century after 9/11, ceremonies are being held around the United States. In New York City, officials including Vice President Vance and former President Joe Biden will gather at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan. There will also be vigils at New York City Fire Department stations and a special baseball game between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets that will include tributes to first responders and those who lost their lives.

"I encourage every American, particularly people who are young enough to not remember that day, just to tune in for a couple of hours and see what it meant," Vance said during a press conference last week. "I think that sense of commonality and common purpose that we all had on 9/11, that's something we really try every single day to get back to."

President Trump will commemorate the anniversary at an event held at the Pentagon, where he is expected to give a speech. A memorial service will also be held at the site in rural Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers disrupted the terrorists' plan to use the plane in an attack on Washington, D.C.

One treatment of the aftermath of the attacks is a new exhibition at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City called "In Their Honor: 25 Years of 9/11-Inspired Service." It recognizes people who committed their lives to public service after experiencing the trauma of that day.

A visitor stands at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennyslyvania., on Sept. 11, 2025.

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A couple pauses to read the nameplate on a memorial bench at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, on Sept. 10, 2025.

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"That we can come together with compassion, with courage to serve after suffering an incredible set of losses, on 9/11 and after, is a really powerful message," says museum director Elizabeth Hillman, a historian and U.S. Air Force veteran.

Questioning 9/11's impact on a divided America

Hillman says that like many, she is taking stock, on this milestone anniversary, of how 9/11 reshaped American society. "It changed the [nation's] foreign policy, the shape of the armed forces and the ways we understood what a threat was and what constitutes being safe," she told NPR.

Questions about the impact and legacy of 9/11 remain fraught for many. On Tuesday, New York City officials unveiled a repository for air quality documents linked to 9/11 that had been withheld from the public by past administrations. During a press conference, Jon Stewart, the comedian who has emerged as an activist supporting 9/11 survivors, voiced anger over a disclosure that he described as long overdue.

"They didn't recognize that the air everybody was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001," Stewart said. "So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years."

Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who was in office when the attacks happened, told NPR that he's proud of how New York City recovered from the disaster. But Pataki voiced concern about fault lines in American society that he believes grew after 9/11.

"We are just in so many ways unable to work politically toward finding common ground," Pataki said. "The biggest disappointment to me since Sept. 11 is that polarization. It's the opposite of the sense of unity — that we were all Americans — that we felt on Sept. 12."

On Sept. 18, 2001, New York Gov. George Pataki (left) stands with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (center) and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the World Trade Center attack site in New York.

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Olsen, the former National Guard chaplain, says he also feels alarm about the nation's direction in the decades after the attack.

"I don't like the way it's gone. I love this country, but we're more disjointed and un-unified than we've ever been in my lifetime. Everybody's afraid of everything. And now we're back in the Middle East bombing again," Olsen says.

One of the twin reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City on Sept. 2. The two pools sit in the footprints of the original twin towers at the World Trade Center.

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Political and cultural divisions surfaced again ahead of Friday's commemoration, when two prominent Republicans who led New York on 9/11, Pataki and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, suggested in interviews, including with NPR, that the city's current Democratic leader, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, should stay away from memorial ceremonies.

Speaking with NPR, Pataki criticized Mamdani for failing to break all ties with controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said that America "deserved" 9/11. Piker later distanced himself from his remarks and apologized. During a mayoral debate in 2025, Mamdani described Piker's statement as "objectionable and reprehensible." 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democrats condemned efforts to dissuade Mamdani from attending Friday's ceremonies. Mamdani, who has taken part in numerous 9/11-related events honoring families and first responders over the last week, told reporters that he will be present at Friday's ceremony in Lower Manhattan.

"I love this city — I love this country," Mamdani said. "What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them."
Copyright 2026 NPR

About a week before Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year, which starts Friday evening — a group of youngish, hairnet-wearing adults were hunched over metal tables, spreading Nutella, sprinkling chocolate chips and slathering other gooey yumminess onto long, glistening slabs of dough.

“I’ve tried some of the best babka,” said baking instructor Jackie Elkins, referring to the Ashkenazi dessert bread. “From New York, everywhere — I’ve tried it.”

But Elkins, 64, stopped before finishing the thought. Someone completed it for her: “Not as good [as ours].”

Elkins nodded.

This babka filling was taking place at Beit T’Shuvah, a unique Jewish institution on the border of L.A. and Culver City that provides substance and addiction recovery, while also running a bakery operation that helps fund treatment.

‘We understand addiction’

The nonprofit’s Hebrew name can be translated as “House of Return.” Other than one Chabad outpatient facility, also in L.A., Jewish-based recovery institutions aren’t really a thing, said Zac Jones, Beit T’Shuvah’s executive director.

“It’s like part Jewish summer camp, part residential treatment center, part school for living,” said Jones, himself a former resident. He noted that being Jewish isn’t required to get one of the approximately 140 beds in the facility.

Beit T’Shuvah’s baked goods spinoff is called Baked T’Shuvah. The bakery’s website says, “Our challah is addictive. Trust us, we understand addiction.”

Rabbi Igael Gurin-Malous leads weekly services at Beit T'Shuvah's addiction recovery center.

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According to Head Community Rabbi Igael Gurin-Malous, who leads weekly services, the concept of “return” embedded in the word t’shuvah informs the process of addiction recovery.

“When someone is interested in changing, and becoming better, and growing, and contributing to society — there's no greater force,” Gurin-Malous said.

Braiding challah and creating community

As the bakers filled in their babka or braided their challah (a traditional Jewish Shabbat and holiday bread), a large TV fixed to the wall flashed statements such as “You Matter!” before changing to display a weekly schedule of liturgical events and daily to-dos.

Program staff said these tasks ensure everyone stays on top of their communal responsibilities, an important part of recovery.

Elkins, the baking instructor, started the program in 2017. On the surface, it’s a vocational training program. Residents in the addiction recovery program can join the bakery as interns. They learn professional baking and business skills designed to help them land on their feet upon release.

Jones, the recovery center’s director, said the baking classes also teach “life building” and help patients learn to “master your environment.”

For Elkins, who grew up in L.A., this endeavor has become a lifeline for family members. Her son Bradley went through Beit T’Shuva and recently celebrated 10 years of sobriety. He’s now the facility’s director of community care. Elkins’ brother and nephew were also residents. Three of her five siblings have struggled with addiction.

The bakery’s busiest time of year

Elkins currently works with three interns and one employee. Interns must commit to six months to ensure they can turn out a consistently dependable product.

During the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the bakery receives hundreds of orders. Elkins said that after paying her employees and covering expenses, the profits go right back into the addiction treatment program.

Their challah comes in many varieties, including churro, za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice blend), everything (like the bagel), jalapeño cheddar, chocolate, raisin and salted caramel. Their babka comes in chocolate hazelnut and bear claw flavors.

Jackie Elkins oversees bakery operations at Baked T'Shuvah. She initially got involved when her son entered the center's addiction treatment program.

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Elkins didn’t start out as a professional baker. But she said she has always loved to cook. When her son Bradley was a resident, she approached facility founder Harriet Rossetto and said she wanted to give back.

Elkins noticed the facility imported all its challah. She said maybe she could bring in some mixers and teach residents how to make it. She got the go-ahead and the group grew quickly. After six months, Elkins said, they no longer needed to buy outside challah.

How the bakery’s leader leveled up her challah game

Like many Angelenos stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Elkins spent lockdown improving her baking skills. That’s when she first connected with Mahsa Golabi, a veteran baker who was in the process of leaving Bub & Grandma’s, the famed restaurant and bakery whose breads permeate the L.A. restaurant scene.

“I had her over my house for like three months,” Elkins said. “We got everything down to the science, all the proportions, butter versus dairy versus nondairy, how to set everything up, how to make sure everything was exactly the same every time.”

“It was Bashert,” Elkins said, using the Yiddish word for “meant to be.”  

Getting sober and reconnecting with Judaism 

Michael Sonekh, 29, is Elkins’ newest intern. He was a biology major at UC Berkeley before he first fell into addiction. The son of Iranian Jewish refugees, Sonekh grew up attending  an Orthodox Jewish day school in L.A. But it was “pretty rough,” he said, due to “being queer,” among other things.

In adulthood, Sonekh decided it was time to seek professional help for his addiction issues. He said choosing to enter Beit T’Shuvah helped him not only with his substance use problems but also with the lingering resentment he felt toward Judaism.

“I was like, ‘This is something I'm probably gonna have to deal with,’” Sonekh said.

He gave Baked T’Shuvah a shot after the facility’s leaders suggested he “try new things.” He said the precision he learned in undergraduate lab work has come in handy.

“The vast majority of days here, it almost never feels like work,” Sonekh said.

Bakers look forward to ‘kadima’

When he gets kadima’ed, the facility’s Hebrew term for being released, Sonekh said he plans to continue studying at USC for a master’s degree in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. He said he’s still considering whether to continue with more schooling after that.

Sonekh said his experience at Beit T’Shuvah made him believe he could one day start a business of some kind.

A baker presents a braided challah ready to be baked.

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Elkins, the bakery director, said participants discover many things through the program. Some end up “even finding a spouse here,” Elkins said. Her son Bradley did.

She pulled out her phone to show off a picture of a blond toddler: “Our first grandson.”