Pippi, the bookstore cat, celebrates her birthday with tuna cake and friends

Elisha Williams was a 2025 audience engagement intern at the Los Angeles Times through the NAACP and EICOP partnership. She’s a digital creator and senior at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Malia Mendez is a former Entertainment and Arts reporter at the Los Angeles Times. She previously worked at The Times as a reporting fellow. Mendez graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in journalism and began her reporting career at the Stanford Daily. Her byline can be found in Los Angeles Magazine, the Orange County Register and Peninsula Press. She is from Irvine.