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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.
Elise Hu
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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.
Elise Hu
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Elise Hu
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.
Crime scene tape surrounds a bicycle in front of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Atlanta on May 14, 2026. (SKYFOX 5)
ATLANTA – The woman stabbed to death on the Beltline has been identified as 23-year-old Alyssa Paige, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner.
The backstory:
Paige was killed by a 21-year-old man Thursday afternoon while she was on the Beltline. Officials confirmed to FOX 5 that the stabbing happened near the 1700 block of Flagler Avenue NE.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the department was alerted around 12:10 p.m. that a woman had been stabbed just north of the Montgomery Ferry Drive overpass. She was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital where she later died. Another person was also stabbed during the incident, but their condition remains unknown.
According to officers, the man responsible attacked a U.S. Postal worker prior to the stabbing before getting away on a bike. He then used that bike to flee the scene of the stabbing as well.
The suspect was arrested near St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Peachtree Street in Midtown around 5:25 p.m.
What we don’t know:
While officials haven’t released an official motive, they noted the man may have been suffering a mental health crisis.
The Source: Information in this article came from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office and previous FOX 5 reporting.
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.
The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.
Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.
The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.
The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.
Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.
The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.
“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”
The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.
Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.
“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”
Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.
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