Jessica Koslow

Troy Alsobrook and David Thomas have fairly similar life stories. They are both LA natives who met playing football at Martin Luther King Jr. High in Riverside. They both moved to the desert to attend rival colleges, then to the Midwest, then back to LA — and both are passionate about beach clean-up, which their nonprofit, DAILY dEPOSITSx, has been hosting quarterly for the past three years in Playa del Rey. The next one is July 5.

Their differences are in the details: Alsobrook went to Mt. San Jacinto College and Thomas attended College of the Desert in Palm Desert. Thomas moved to Colorado. Alsobrook ended up in Kansas.

Back in LA, the two found themselves looking for outlets to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Their bond had always been over sports and physical activity. Thomas lived in Culver City and Alsobrook in Torrance, so Playa del Rey beach was a good middle ground meeting spot. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Caroline Paules and Karin Najarian are both young, ambitious and think about the local — and global — housing crisis a lot. At least eight hours each day. Both have been directly affected by the national emergency; Paules more directly as the occupant of the lone house standing on her block after the Eaton Fire in Altadena.

As a team of two, they are using different tactics to help solve the problem: Paules as an engineer and Najarian as an architect. They are the CEO and COO, respectively, of Nova Cottage Co., a new affordable housing startup headquartered at tech incubator Idealab Studio in Pasadena.

UN-Habitat predicts that by 2030, 40% of the world population (about 3 billion people) will not have access to adequate, safe and affordable housing. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

On Dec. 26, 1927, Hollywood’s elite arrived for the screening of the silent film, “My Best Girl” starring Mary Pickford, at the grand opening of DTLA’s United Artists Theatre on Broadway. Almost a century later, invited guests mingled inside the majestic movie palace to celebrate the relaunch of STILE DTLA, the design-forward lifestyle hotel in the storied United Artists building.

Food and drinks flowed inside the cultural-historic landmark as the hotel team explained the changes made to the property since 2023, when it officially changed its name from the Ace Hotel to STILE DTLA.

LA-based interior design firm Design, Bitches transformed the hotel’s 182 guest rooms, which now include skincare products made in Korea exclusively for STILE, Copper Cow Coffee and Harney & Sons tea. On the first and second floor, SparkHouse will soon offer state-of-the-art studios and collaborative workspaces through private membership. The rooftop bar, Somewhere Special, has been upgraded, and The Goodie Shop in the lobby, which includes a cassette library and Walkman listening program, has been revamped. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

After spending 28 years editing other people’s books — more than 500 across every nonfiction genre — Marisa Solis decided to write her own. She and her co-author, Elizabeth Dougherty, penned a book for the first time about writing a book for the first time.  

Solis and Dougherty will be reading from and signing “The Complete Expert-to-Author Guide: Plan, Write, and Publish Your Nonfiction Book” at Vroman’s Bookstore on July 14.

Although Solis is currently a freelance editor and book coach, she did not always think she would help other people express themselves with words. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Anand Pandian was born and raised in the United States, and like many people, he has been increasingly concerned about the direction things are going in the country, especially as someone whose parents came to America with the hope of finding a better life for themselves and their children.

“The xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric of these last years was disturbing to me,” said Pandian, the Krieger-Eisenhower professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

He put his skills to work and did what he knew how: He wrote his fifth book, “Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down,” for which he will receive the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize on June 25 at ASU California Center Broadway. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.