Jessica Koslow

Luther Vandross once told Barry Krutchik the meaning behind his middle name: Ronzoni (yes, like the pasta). Vanilla Ice was the first cover story he ever wrote, and he was paid $200. R. Kelly revealed the time he almost fainted when he met his idol Stevie Wonder in the men’s room, and he sang for him on the spot.

What’s a person to do with so many spoken treasures — verbal gems collected over a lifetime of interviewing celebrities? During the pandemic, when life slowed to a standstill, Krutchik decided to move into high gear and compile his sessions into a book: “Classic Conversations: ’90s Hip Hop & R&B.”

Krutchik has lived a “crazy, interesting,” celebrity-filled life, one that he could never have imagined growing up in North Miami Beach, Florida. After attending college in the Midwest, he decided on a whim — responding to what he called a gravitational pull — to move to Los Angeles. He had big plans to be a screenwriter . . . until, he explained, “reality stepped in and you kind of have to go with it.” . . .

TRead the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Malia Mills has loved having a store for her swim and ready-to-wear brand at the Brentwood Country Mart for the past 17 years, but as of March 1, her seventh store nationwide has moved to Montana Avenue. 

“I think that change is good for everybody,” Mills said. “It’s good for the Mart community. It’s good for our community. We were lucky that we moved not too far away. We have a space that’s much bigger, and we also have a beautiful back garden that gets sun from both sides, and we can keep four glass doors open in the back. It creates such a different vibe when you come into our store.”

Mills was born and raised in Honolulu, and at age 13 her parents moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. As far back as she can remember, she has always loved fashion. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Since the January 2025 wildfires, rebuilding has become a hot topic for Angelenos, even for those who did not lose their homes. Aaron Liu, founder of Builtech Construction and a certified wildfire mitigation specialist, is especially concerned. He has seen that many of the new homes look similar to the old ones that burned. Hoping to affect change, Liu is dedicated to helping people rethink fire safety.

His interest in advancing resilient construction solutions was piqued before 2025. It was when he witnessed the devastation of the 2020 wildfires that he set out on his current path: building non-combustible homes in high-risk wildland-urban interface (WUI) zones in Los Angeles and San Jose.

Since 2025, Builtech has been constructing noncombustible homes using insulated concrete form (ICF) technology, including the first known ICF-based residential project in California designed to meet Type I, the highest fire-resistance classification under the International Building Code (IBC) and California Building Code (CBC). . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

What Estela Zarate was seeing and hearing from the city’s school leaders and administrators, teachers and Loyola Marymount University (LMU) faculty and staff was that mental health had become a defining challenge for schools and communities. As LMU’s School of Education Dean, Zarate had the power and resources to do something about it.

On March 12, K-12 principals, educational leaders, policymakers, practitioners and clinicians, district and community partners and other stakeholders invested in the mental health of today’s youth convened in the Life Sciences Building at LMU to discuss the far-reaching impacts of federal immigration enforcement actions on children and adults. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

In 2001, Lise Bornstein joined — and now co-leads — KFA Architecture, which has completed approximately 60 buildings in Santa Monica, Venice, The Marina and Westchester, including Santa Monica Swim Center, Santa Monica Boys & Girls Club’s JAMS Clubhouse and Mar Vista Youth Center. She alternates projects between market rate and affordable housing and community-enhancing buildings.

“I love creating places where people flourish,” said Bornstein. “I love working with great people, both in our office and partnering with great developers, who have vision and also similar values of community-building: making sure that we have a good pedestrian experience, that we are not closing ourselves away from our neighbors and that we’re creating neighborhood.”

Bornstein was always building things as a kid. Her dad was an engineer, so she followed suit and started out in engineering. But then she switched courses to dig deeper into her fascination with cities and the built environment—”all the complexity and simplicity that goes into it,” she said. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

To say Sandra Mejia and her husband Bantalem have green thumbs is an understatement. The owners and founders of The Plant Chica, now located in Leimert Park, are spreading green love and oxygenating the atmosphere one indoor plant at a time.

The Plant Chica started as a side project in 2018 when the couple welcomed their son, Alem. They grew and cared for the indoor plants at their at-home greenhouse.

“We didn’t think anything of it,” Mejia explained. “It was just us setting up on random corners, selling plants and then it kind of took off. We started selling plants online on Etsy, and we became very popular there.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

CORE, according to its website, was started by a scrappy team of idealists determined to ease the suffering and destruction around them. One of those idealists was actor Sean Penn, who met CORE’s (Community Organized Relief Effort) co-founder, Ann Lee, at a displacement camp in Haiti while responding to the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, that killed more than 220,000 people and left another 1.5 million homeless.

Since 2010, CORE has grown into a global team and, on Jan. 7, 2025, the organization prepared to respond to what would become the tragic aftermath of the wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

CORE Program Area Manager Matt Gsell lives in Sherman Oaks, just between both fire areas. He is responsible for the 14 caseworkers who each work with about 35 clients/families from the affected areas. CORE helps with everything from basic needs to rebuilding, housing to educational support — “anything that people need to get them back to where they were pre-disaster,” said Gsell. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

As the co-founder and CEO of the e-commerce platform Stan, John Hu identified a problem: Even the most promising creators rarely get the resources or funding to turn early momentum into sustainable businesses.

Successful entrepreneurs find solutions, and so Hu launched the Dare to Dream Challenge to, according to its press release, “flip the traditional American Dream narrative, moving away from the ‘white picket fence’ ideal toward a new version of success defined by creative freedom and doing work you love.”

More than 2,500 creators from around the world shared their dreams as part of the 2026 challenge, which ran from late 2025 through early 2026, with the winners announced on February 27. The grand prize is $100,000 to dedicate 2026 to building your dream, and five runner-up Creators each received $10,000 in funding. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Bryant Acosta may look young, but his resume is impressive. As a chief creative officer, he has built systems using advanced technology and helped shape global brands. As the CEO of Nightbreed, he has brought communities together through events that amplify marginalized voices and create safe spaces for all people.

He is also a first-generation American, openly gay Latino, and he is running for LA mayor alongside around 40 other candidates.

“I did my research on my opponents, and I don’t see anybody that’s bringing the experience that I’m bringing to the table,” said Acosta. “No shade to people, but there are a lot of community organizers, lawyers, people that are working in the public space, but they don’t have the organizational skills and multimillion-dollar budget experience. They don’t have multidisciplinary team experience. I feel like that is my lane and I’m sticking to.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

There are quite a few characters roaming around on Venice Beach, so why would the beachfront paddle tennis courts be any different? Loving both the sport and the eclectic beachside community, Sveinn Ingimundarson and S.D. Saltarelli picked up their cameras and began to shoot the players and the game. The result is “Kings of Venice,” which premiered at Slamdance Film Festival this month and won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.

“We both have a deep love of Venice,” said Saltarelli. “Sveinn and I were both out in Venice Beach, playing this little sport, paddle tennis, and Venice is just a magical place. It attracts some magical people, and we decided to try to put a camera on them, and we think we ended up with something kind of magical.”

According to the documentary, in 1961 there were over 8,000 paddle tennis courts in the U.S. Today only 50 remain, and 11 are in Venice Beach. The game is similar to tennis except it is played on a quarter-sized court with a lower net, wooden paddles and a tennis ball with its pressure reduced by a hypodermic needle. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.