Features

As the 21st century advances, social media is playing an increasingly important part in daily communication. It’s becoming a household name, and it’s expanding to every part of the world. But what is the effect on the people? Does it help them, or does it break them? Social media stands for forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities...

A petite woman with peach-colored skin and pearly white hair closes her eyes as she practices singing Christmas carols. Her passion for performing shines bright in her eyes while the ENCORE Singers rehearse in Room 3400 of the Pierce College music building. Eileen Guliasi, 81, is back in school for the first time since she graduated Theodore Roosevelt High School...

Mommy loves you so much,” I whispered to my non-existent baby bump. “But you have to go back home.” He was no larger than the size of grape, the first—and only—time I saw my son. The doctor could not tell if it would have been a boy or a girl, but they say a mother knows. Then again, they also say...

The sound of seventeen carefully blended voices fills the room in a swelling crescendo as the cohesive group of UCLA students concentrates on executing the songs they’ve spent more than one hundred hours rehearsing. One soprano with shiny dark hair and a powerful falsetto stands out among the assembly. Ali Hepps is a 19-year-old student starting her sophomore year at...

Mannequins resembling life-size Barbie dolls and photos of fashion-standard models wearing the latest trends are displayed at every corner of each store at a Los Angeles mall. Alexus Gregg, who wears sizes 12-14, has been at the mall for more than an hour, trying to find a trendy outfit in her size, with limited success. Most of the stores only...

 Photos and Story by Magdalena Bleu Briggs Her journal was all that was left behind. Sad evidence within the pages showed how she struggled with the notion that everything she was told growing up was a lie. She wrote she was talking to God and still trying to get prophecies. As a child she...

Model Ashley Cardenas. Photo illustration by Rachael Rosenberg. In his Beverly Hills office, which is like his second home, Dr. Jay Calvert’s fingers hold a scalpel drenched in red liquid that slides into the flesh of a patient lying on an operating room table.  As he cuts through the cartilage,...

Santiago Cisneros (L) trains his client Tiffany La during a boxing session at Self Made Training Facility in Long Beach, Calif., on Sept 28, 2021.  When Santiago Cisneros was 4 years old living in San Jose, Calif., his father was arrested for selling drugs, leaving him, four siblings and a mother with no...