First American wins Man Booker Prize for satirizing race in LA

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Los Angeles-born writer Paul Beatty is the first American to win the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He won for The Sellout, a satire based in south LA. It’s laced with cutting insights on race, slavery, segregation and Oreo cookies.

The rate of sexually transmitted diseases is at a 20-year high in California, and it’s growing faster than the rest of the country. That’s according to a new report from the California Department of Public Health.

More people than ever have died when attempting the dangerous crossing from Africa to Italy, according to the United Nations. The small Italian island of Lampedusa has been intensely experiencing the flow of migrants, and life there is depicted in the new documentary, Fire at Sea.

LA County alone has a population bigger than 42 states. Yet housing hasn’t kept pace. Architect Thom Mayne has a plan that he says will make room for 1.5 million more people, using just one percent of the county’s land.

Photo: courtesy of FSG Books