Katya Cengel

Don’t mess with her shoe, I mean pillow.

The Hardest-Working Art Thief in History The 'Social Register' was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of 'Mayflower' passengers. It was also the perfect hit l...

My favorite thing about @atavist.com stories is what I learn while being entertained. I had no idea there was a social register for our American aristocracy and that robbers used it in the 70s and 80s. Great storytelling by Jack Rodolico The art is also nice.
magazine.atavist.com/2025/blue-bo...

The last surviving Woolworth's lunch counter is officially open again. If you missed my Smithsonian story in the spring you can now find it on MSN
www.msn.com/en-us/foodan...

From Chernobyl with Love is 6 today! @univnebpress.bsky.social

Can Anyone Rescue the Trafficked Girls of L.A.’s Figueroa Street?

One of the best feature stories I have read in a long time. @nytimes.com journalist Emily Baumgaertner Nunn weaves the story of a trafficked young woman trying to escape alongside that of girls get pulled in.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/m...

Big Tech Makes Cal State Its A.I. Training Ground

Critics say Silicon Valley’s efforts to make A.I. chatbots integral to education amount to a mass experiment on young people.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/t...

I first learned about Big Foot scholar Jeffrey Meldrum while writing this story for @atavist.com Meldrum was a fascinating man who recently died.

Read about Meldrum here www.sltrib.com/news/nation-...

And the atavist story here magazine.atavist.com/2023/the-tru...

Happy Friday from Echo the rescue dog

The future of journalism looks good! College student input on why they got into journalism. @calpolyslo.bsky.social

I finally found a way to tie minor league baseball and youth mental illness together. Oct. 25 at 2 p.m. I will be talking about how my time in a children's psychosomatic ward led to Ukraine and other stories. At Maravilla, 5486 Calle Real, Goleta CA @univnebpress.bsky.social

The human stain remover: what Britain’s greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job | Tom Lamont From murder scenes to whale blubber, Ben Giles has seen it – and cleaned it – all. In their stickiest hours, people rely on him to restore order

I love the way this feature by Tom Lamont weaves in fascinating insights on stains and our attitude toward them, making this piece about so much more than a human stain remover. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

Happy dog

THE FLORIDA DIVORCÉE'S GUIDE TO MURDER | Vanity Fair

Fascinating feature by @AbbottKahler on a woman who wrote a book on how to kill and what happened when it worked. archive.vanityfair.com/article/2025...

On Sunday, October 19, 1:35 pm, at the Berkeley Bird Festival, I will read poems featuring birds I have seen in Mexico, Costa Rica, and California. Chris Olander and Kirk Lumpkin will read with me. The festival will be at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley. FREE. berkeleybirdfestival.org

Of course. The essay really made me think about a lot of important questions.

Thanks everyone who came to listen to my book talk about Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back, refugees and deportees Saturday. @univnebpress.bsky.social

Uncanny Testimony - Longreads As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.

"Even if we could fully reanimate Holocaust survivors with AI, doing so would be to reject the natural and inevitable metabolism of memory and mortality that is required of us, no matter how painful."
Great essay by @bcgl.bsky.social for @longreads.com longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...

This dog has a shoe fetish, doesn’t chew them just keeps them close.

AI book promotion spam gets better and better, now they don't even name my "book". "I recently came across your book and found its concept truly engaging. The way you explored I felt both original and resonant. It’s rare to see such clarity and depth woven into storytelling"

I thought AI was replacing writers but when I left for coffee I found a far more cuddly challenger in my seat.

U.S. President Donald Trump was the dominant source and distributor of disinformation appearing in the ethnic and Indigenous press during the 2024 election, according to our latest study. Read more: www.icfj.org/news/us-ethn...

A week from today I’ll be talking about a subject I have been covering my entire journalism career (I won’t say how long that’s been) - refugees and migrants. Please join if you can, it’s free and they’ll be snacks. @univnebpress.bsky.social

One of many cross topped bundles awaiting bonfire lighting as part of mescal celebration in southern Ethiopia.

“When you’re alone, you can become part of nature and your humanity doesn’t get in the way. It’s almost like an out-of-body experience when suddenly you hear different sounds and you smell different smells and you’re actually part of this amazing tapestry of life.”

Jane Goodall, 2021.

Syria’s quest to build its own Silicon Valley Tech founders in Damascus are rebooting a war-torn country.

Great feature by Emily Wither about a hopeful happening in Syria where tech startups are making a go of it and women techies are in abundance. restofworld.org/2025/syria-t...

🌍 What’s Next: Global 'Creator-model Journalists to Watch' lists Plus: Silencing dissent Is the strategy. Independent voices are the solution

We’re thrilled to partner with @lizkellynelson.com's Project C to map the news creators currently transforming the global media landscape! Learn more about this initiative, and let us know who your favorite news creators are: newsletter.projectc.biz/p/what-s-nex...

Instead of goats and soda it was goats and coffee in Ethiopia.

Sunday’s pup from southern Ethiopia. His collar was an old belt cut down to size but the buckle was still bigger than his head.

While I am mostly a dog person, I make exceptions for cute kittens. These two were outside a restaurant in southern Ethiopia.