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He lost his first LA Marathon medal in the fires — this weekend he got his second
Abel Rivera wears his medals after finishing the LA Marathon on Sunday in Century City.
Elise Hu
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Elise Hu
FIRE SURVIVOR COMPETES IN L.A. MARATHON
Burn zones from the most catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles history have yet to be fully cleaned up, and thousands of Angelenos remain displaced. But on Sunday, people turned out in droves along the 26.2 mile route of the Los Angeles Marathon, to cheer on more than 21,000 runners who took part. It marked a reaffirmation of vitality in a community that endured disaster just a few months ago.

Among those who finished the race was 15-year-old fire evacuee Abel Rivera, whose home in Altadena burned down in January. Rivera is on his high school running team, and competed in the LA Marathon for the first time last year. For both Rivera and the Los Angeles community, the event was a show of resilience in the aftermath of tragedy.
‘Fifteen years of my life is basically gone’
Rivera lost almost everything when the Eaton fire leveled his home on January 7th.
“I lost a house and not really the way I wanted to. I didn’t want to leave it behind that way,” Rivera tells NPR.
NPR listeners may remember Rivera from a piece on the radio in mid-January, just days after the fires tore through LA.
“Fifteen years of my life is basically gone,” he said at the time. “Everything that I’ve accomplished, every single medal I have, every single collection – everything I had is gone.”
Abel Rivera and his mother, Lupe Melchor, pin on their race bibs at Dodger Stadium, the starting point of the 26.2 mile LA Marathon.
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Elise Hu
Everything, including his prized medal for finishing last year’s marathon, and his running shoes. When listeners learned this detail, some reached out to offer him their own 2024 medals. The McCourt Foundation, which puts on the marathon, provided a replacement upon learning of Rivera’s story.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Rivera relied on running as a way to keep calm and centered. Except for a month-long pause due to concerns about air quality, he and more than a dozen other teammates from Pasadena’s Blair High School continued training and participating in shorter road races to prepare for Sunday’s big event.

Rivera expected the run – starting from LA’s Dodger Stadium, and winding through downtown, past City Hall, Hollywood landmarks, and down Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive – to be painful.
“I think for the first 10 miles, I’ll probably be alright, then mile 11-12 I’ll probably be struggling. I’d say 20-24 I’ll probably be hurting a lot,” Rivera said shortly before the race.
But unlike the emotional pain he’s endured as a result of the fires – this is a kind of pain he gets to choose.
‘Doing it for our city’
Rivera isn’t the only student from his running team who was personally affected by the blazes earlier this year. Two other students from Blair High School running club also lost their homes, according to their teacher and coach Eric Glenn, and half the team had to be evacuated from their homes for weeks. Their school district, Pasadena Unified, closed its campuses – also for weeks – since several schools in the district burned.
Participants prepare for the start of the Los Angeles Marathon Sunday, in Los Angeles.
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Glenn said it was rewarding to hit the streets of Los Angeles as a team: “It just feels like we’re doing it for our city, you know?”
Rivera and his teammates started the marathon just past seven in the morning. He ran side-by-side with his mother, Lupe Melchor, for the first half. And in the early afternoon on Sunday, after about six hours of running, Rivera crossed the finish line to earn his second LA Marathon finisher medal in a row.
“It feels like a milestone,” he said at the finish line. “And running the marathon is nostalgic. It reminds me of times before I had the fire.”
His mom finished about 50 minutes later.
“We didn’t finish together, but we did it,” she said, after giving her son a hug and walking through the finisher’s area arm-in-arm with him.
Marathon runners wind down Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday, in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, a popular tourist landmark and the site of many film premieres.
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Every runner on Blair High School’s marathon team finished, including Coach Glenn. In all, about 3,000 Los Angeles area middle and high school students ran the LA Marathon, as part of a non-profit program called Students Run LA.
“They just did a hard thing while going through a hard thing. And it’s really a testament to their resilience and it’s super inspirational,” Glenn said.
Cleanup and rebuilding is only getting started in Los Angeles. Rivera and his family are still without a permanent home. But they aren’t without hope.
“I feel really good about myself, that no matter what, I can always push through,” Rivera said.
It’s a reminder of resilience, and the capacity to keep going, even when it really hurts.
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Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links
Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.
During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.
The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.
Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.
Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.
The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.
“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.
The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.
During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.
Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.
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Read Judge Schiltz’s Order
CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM
Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26
Page 5 of 17
and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.
Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)
On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.
Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)
On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.
Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)
On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.
5
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Chicagoans pay respects to Jesse Jackson as cross-country memorial services begin
James Hickman holds a photo montage of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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CHICAGO — A line of mourners streamed through a Chicago auditorium Thursday to pay final respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. as cross-country memorial services began in the city the late civil rights leader called home.
The protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate will lie in repose for two days at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition before events in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, where he was born.
Family members wiped away tears as the casket was brought into the stately brick building. Flowers lined the sidewalks where people waiting to enter watched a large screen playing video excerpts of Jackson’s notable speeches. Some raised their fists in solidarity.
The casket with the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Inside, Jackson’s children, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Rev. Al Sharpton were among those who stood by the open casket to shake hands and hug those coming to view the body of Jackson, dressed in a suit and blue shirt and tie.
“The challenge for us is that we’ve got to make sure that all he lived for was not in vain,” Sharpton told reporters. “Dr. King’s dream and Jesse Jackson’s mission now falls on our shoulders. We’ve got to stand up and keep it going.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks as Jesse Jackson Jr. listens after the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Jackson died last week at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and ability to speak in his later years.
Remembrances have already poured in from around the globe, and several U.S. states, including Minnesota, Iowa and North Carolina, are flying flags at half-staff in his honor.
But perhaps nowhere has his death been felt as strongly as in the nation’s third-largest city, where Jackson lived for decades and raised his six children, including a son who is a congressman.
Bouquets have been left outside the family’s Tudor-style home on the city’s South Side for days. Public schools have offered condolences, and city trains have used digital screens to display Jackson’s portrait and his well-known mantra, “I am Somebody!”
People wait to enter the security checkpoint for the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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His causes, both in the United States and abroad, were countless: Advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues including voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.


“We honor him, and his hard-earned legacy as a freedom fighter, philosopher, and faithful shepherd of his family and community here in Chicago,” the mayor said in a statement.
Next week, Jackson will lie in honor at the South Carolina Statehouse, followed by public services. According to Rainbow PUSH’s agenda, Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to deliver remarks; however, the governor’s office said Thursday that his participation wasn’t yet confirmed. Jackson spent his childhood and started his activism in South Carolina.
Details on services in Washington have not yet been made public. However, he will not lie in honor at the United States Capitol rotunda after a request for the commemoration was denied by the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office.
The two weeks of events will wrap up next week with a large celebration of life gathering at a Chicago megachurch and finally, homegoing services at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Family members said the services will be open to all.
“Our family is overwhelmed and overjoyed by the amazing amount of support being offered by common, ordinary people who our father’s life has come into contact with,” his eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., said before the services began. “This is a unique opportunity to lay down some of the political rhetoric and to lay down some of the division that deeply divides our country and to reflect upon a man who brought people together.”
The family of the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives as Yusep Jackson wipes his eyes before public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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The services included prayers from some of the city’s most well-known religious leaders, including Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. Mourners of all ages — from toddlers in strollers to elderly people in wheelchairs — came to pay respects.
Video clips of his appearances at news conferences, the campaign trail and even “Sesame Street” also played inside the auditorium.
Claudette Redic, a retiree who lives in Chicago, said her family has respected Jackson, from backing his presidential ambitions to her son getting a scholarship from a program Jackson championed.
“We have generations of support,” she said. “I’m hoping we continue.”
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