Tuesday, February 24, 2026

LA28 Surpasses 5 Million Registrations for Olympic Ticket Draw

CITY NEWS SERVICE

The organizing committee for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games has surpassed 5 million registrations for its ticket draw, officials announced Monday, calling it a “record-setting surge” of interest. Olympic Games events will be held in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl Stadium and the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center.

Registration for the ticket draw opened in January and will remain open through March 18 at tickets.la28.org. Once registered, participants are entered into a random drawing to receive time slots for future ticket purchase windows.

Fans will be notified by email between March 31 and April 7 if they have been assigned a time slot, according to LA28. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning in April.

LA28 said residents from all 50 states have registered, along with interest from 194 countries.

Organizers reported an average of about 100,000 new registrations per day, which they described as building momentum toward the 2028 Games.

Sunday, February 22, 2026

Altadena Businesses Offered Subsidized Workers to Aid Wildfire Recovery

Local businesses can receive fully subsidized temporary workers for up to 800 hours through a Los Angeles County program designed to aid recovery from the January 2025 wildfires, according to a flyer distributed through the Altadena Chamber of Commerce newsletter.

The Fire Recovery and Resilience Workforce Program, administered by the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity, covers 100 percent of wages, basic benefits and payroll costs for temporary workers matched to participating businesses. The program simultaneously supports workers who were displaced by the Eaton Fire.

According to the department’s announcement, the program offers several tiers of support. Businesses receive access to a pool of pre-screened candidates matched to their needs. On-site training can be tailored to specific business requirements, and employers have the option of permanently retaining one worker after the program concludes.

For businesses ready to make permanent hires, the program provides no-cost business services representatives and additional hiring incentives, including eligibility for the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, according to the department’s materials.

Sunday, February 22, 2026

Federal Appeals Court Blocks Pasadena Senator’s Law Requiring ICE Officers to Show ID

The 9th Circuit will hear oral argument March 3 at the Richard H. Chambers courthouse in Pasadena on whether the No Vigilantes Act violates the Supremacy Clause

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a California law authored by State Senator Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) that requires all non-uniformed law enforcement officers operating in the state to display visible identification, including their agency and either their name or badge number.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the temporary administrative injunction on Thursday, Feb. 19, freezing enforcement of SB 805, the No Vigilantes Act, while the court considers the Trump administration’s appeal.

Oral argument is scheduled for March 3 at the Richard H. Chambers U.S. Court of Appeals courthouse on South Grand Avenue in Pasadena. A ruling is not expected before mid-March, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The injunction is a routine procedural step that allows the court to maintain the status quo while it reviews the case,

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Fire Took His Home, But Not His Spirit: PCC Legend Walt Butler Headlines Today’s Pasadena Black History Festival

Traditional parade canceled a second year as organizers focus on recovery; classic car show and Grammy-nominated singer Angie Fisher headline Saturday’s event at Robinson Park

Former PCC track and field champion Walt Butler will serve as grand marshal of Saturday’s 44th annual Black History Festival at Robinson Park, leading a celebration reshaped for the second consecutive year by the aftermath of the January 2025 Eaton Fire.

The festival, organized by the City of Pasadena and the Black History Planning Committee, runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1081 N. Fair Oaks Ave. The traditional parade remains canceled as organizers focus on fire recovery, according to the committee. But the classic car show returns after its 2025 cancellation, and Grammy-nominated Pasadena native Angie Fisher headlines a live entertainment lineup.

Butler, who attended Pasadena High School and PCC, won the state junior college championship in the 120-yard high hurdles and went on to coach three consecutive state champions in the 400 hurdles at PCC from 1975 to 1977,

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Altadena Survivors Rally at Edison Black History Month Event, Demand $200,000 Relief

By EDDIE RIVERA

Protesters decry corporate negligence, call for immediate aid for families displaced by Eaton Fire

More than two dozen demonstrators gathered Friday morning outside Southern California Edison’s Energy Education Center in Irwindale, where the company was hosting a Black History Month event, to demand immediate financial relief for Altadena residents affected by the Eaton Fire.

Protesters lined the sidewalk chanting “Pay us now” and “Give us our money,” while speakers took turns to call for what they described as accountability from Edison International and its chief executive, Pedro Pizarro.

Heavenly Hughes of My Tribe Rise opened the rally, accusing the company of negligence and calling out “the audacity” to hold a Black History Month celebration while Black families in Altadena remain displaced.

Hughes repeatedly referred to Pizarro as “the $21 million man,” claiming that is his yearly compensation, and said survivors were “begging for shelter” and “begging for restoration.”

Zaire Calvin asked the crowd to observe a moment of silence for 19 people he said died in the fire,

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Helpful Honda Dealers Surprise Altadena Family With Van of Gifts After 13 Months of Displacement

The Sawyer family has moved 10 times since the Eaton Fire destroyed their Olive Avenue home

An Altadena family that has been forced to move 10 times since the Eaton Fire destroyed their Olive Avenue home received a van filled with clothing, shoes, toys, and gift cards from the Southern California Honda Dealers’ Helpful Honda campaign.

Tom and Lydia Sawyer are raising three grandchildren — Ariel Hernandez, 11, Avery, 6, and Aaron, 2 — and lost their home and all their possessions when the fire swept through Altadena on January 7, 2025. The home, owned by Lydia’s 87-year-old uncle Richard Castañeda, had sheltered four generations of the family. Their insurance claim was denied because they were late on a payment, according to CBS LA.

Thirteen months later, the family had not been able to replace many basic items, including shoes.

“The main thing we lost is the memories,” Tom Sawyer said, according to CBS LA.

Members of the Helpful Honda campaign — a community outreach program run by the association of roughly 50 Southern California Honda dealerships — said they saw the family’s story on CBS LA and decided to act.

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Classic Car Show Returns as Pasadena’s Black History Festival Marks First Anniversary of Eaton Fire

Grammy-nominated headliner Angie Fisher and Grand Marshal Walt Butler anchor a day of music, tradition and recovery at Robinson Park

Pasadena’s 44th Annual Black History Festival returns to Robinson Park on Saturday with the classic car show restored and a full live entertainment lineup, one year after the Eaton Fire prompted organizers to cancel both the parade and the car show and convert the celebration into a resource fair.

The parade remains canceled for a second consecutive year. But the return of the car show — which organizers shelved in 2025 out of respect for local car and bike clubs whose vehicles were destroyed in the fire — and a lineup headlined by Grammy-nominated Pasadena native Angie Fisher signal a shift back toward the celebration that has anchored this community for more than four decades.

The fire destroyed more than 9,400 structures, according to Catalyst California, and disproportionately affected Altadena’s Black households: 61% fell within the fire perimeter compared with 50% of non-Black households,

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Soil Summit Saturday Brings Testing, Remediation Training to Altadena Burn Site

Two-day event offers hands-on workshops as hundreds of properties show elevated lead levels more than a year after Eaton Fire

A two-day soil summit offering hands-on contamination testing and remediation training is to begin Saturday at a burn site in Altadena, where hundreds of properties continue to show elevated lead levels more than a year after the Eaton Fire.

The LA Soil Summit, organized by Pasadena-area nonprofit Community 3.0x and Earthstock Enterprises, aims to give residents practical skills for assessing and treating contaminated soil on their properties, according to the organizers. The first day features field demonstrations at 3300 Lake Ave. in Altadena. A virtual session with expert panels is scheduled for Sunday.

The event comes as Los Angeles County Department of Public Health data shows 571 properties in and around the Eaton Fire burn zone tested with lead levels between 81 and 200 parts per million — a range that can pose health risks to children and pregnant people with long-term exposure.

Friday, February 20, 2026

At Altadena’s Fire-Recovery Hub, Art Fills the Space Between Loss and Tradition

A free exhibition pairs an Afrofuturist painter’s Kwanzaa assemblage with a fire survivor’s jazz-inspired work through March 31

The candles on Jasimen Phillips’s assemblage are melted, the wax pooling in shapes that record time the way a family records it — by gathering, by staying.

The piece, “7th Day of Kwanzaa,” anchors “Culture of Black Excellence in Art,” a free exhibition now on view at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory at 540 W. Woodbury Road. The show brings Afrofuturist paintings, mixed-media work, and assemblage into a building that opened four months ago as a disaster-recovery center — a pairing that, during Black History Month, gives the space a second purpose.

The exhibition, co-presented by the Eaton Fire Collaborative and Altadena-based nonprofit Soul Force Project, features Phillips alongside Samuel Pace, a mixed-media artist and Eaton Fire survivor whose work draws on jazz and blues. It opened February 7 and runs through March 31, free and open to the public during the Collaboratory’s regular hours.

Friday, February 20, 2026

Fire Survivors Will Find Insurance, Rebuilding and Mental Health Help Under One Roof Saturday

A free summit at the Pasadena Convention Center puts recovery experts in the same room as the Eaton Fire families who need them

Thirteen months after the Eaton Fire, the questions haven’t stopped. How to challenge an insurance denial. Where to find a licensed contractor who isn’t a scam. Whether to rebuild or relocate. On Saturday, a free summit at the Pasadena Convention Center aims to answer as many of those questions as possible in a single day.

“Stronger Together: A Solutions Summit,” organized by the nonprofit Rebuilding California, will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 300 East Green Street. The event offers approximately 13 panels, eight programming tracks, an expo hall and resource fair, hands-on demonstrations, wellness and art therapy stations, live entertainment and food — all at no cost.

The programming spans financial recovery, insurance reimbursement, rebuilding options, permitting, mental health support, wildfire safety and scam prevention. Representatives from the district attorney’s office are scheduled to offer guidance on verifying contractor licenses through the Contractors State License Board.