Susie Cagle

The LA Fires Destroyed 11,000 Homes. Less Than 10% Have Permits to Rebuild Of the thousands of residents needing to rebuild after this year’s California wildfires, Andy Weyman would seem especially well positioned. The TV and stage director had remodeled his Malibu home just...

This post-disaster angle always perplexes me. We should do everything possible to support people after a community-destroying fire, but slow rebuilding isn’t necessarily failure. Where I’ve seen towns fast-track rebuilds, they’ve guaranteed the same future hazards. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

photo of paulina borsook

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

The U.S. relies on undocumented workers to clean up and rebuild after disasters but will not help when those undocumented people are the disaster victims. bsky.app/profile/zoes...

Read this gut punch by Hannah Dreier and you might better understand some of the genuine moral impulse behind a gold rush to fight fire with more tech and fewer people. But you still have to care for the people before the robots can do the job (assuming they ever can). bsky.app/profile/broo...

YouTube video by Farm to Taber "Everyone Drank Raw Milk!" No They Didn't

When people say "We used to drink raw milk from our own cow and it was fine,"

That's... usually not the case!

In families w their own cow, the mom usually boiled it before using.

We just forgot bc that's a boring chore that mom did. And who pays attention to that?

youtu.be/vKDPast9WFk

Survivors tethered to their abusers: An SF court’s lockdown on lives “The more Mr. Jones screams at the judge, the more visitation time he gets.” In SF, domestic violence survivors seeking safety find themselves trapped in family court for years, co-parenting with th...

“The more Mr. Jones screams at the judge, the more visitation time he gets.”

In SF, 9 out of 10 domestic violence survivors represent themselves in court cases that drag out for twice as long as the state average.

New from Anya Schulz: sfstandard.com/2025/08/28/s...

The children facing quick deportation, alone, in SF immigration court At rarely seen hearings, unaccompanied teenagers and families with toddlers face lawyers for the government.

I've been wanting to draw immigration court in SF for years but could never get the assignment. Now I'm an editor so I could make the assignment.

A heartbreaker from Jesse Alejandro Cottrell and Dan Bransfield. sfstandard.com/2025/08/11/a...

Baby’s got opsec

Anas al-Sharif, smiling, sits outdoors holding his young daughter Sham on his left and his infant son Salah on his right. Both children are smiling; rubble is visible in the background.

Journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and son Salah.

Today's assassination of al-Sharif and four other Al Jazeera staff brings the number of journalists killed by Israel to 237.

www.middleeasteye.net/news/al-jaze...

Anas al-Sharif: Four Al Jazeera journalists killed in Israeli strike near Al-Shifa hospital Al Jazeera had condemned a "campaign of incitement" by the IDF against its reporters, but the military claims one of the journalists was part of Hamas.

An entire team of journalists, outside a hospital in a tent for journalists, killed by Israel. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Of all the houses to be quickly reassessed. I'll take what I can get.

515 N Crescent Heights Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048 | Zillow This 3020 square feet Single Family home has 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It is located at 515 N Crescent Heights Blvd, Los Angeles, CA.

Prop 13 ground zero, Howard Jarvis' old house in L.A., available again after selling just last June but priced so high the sellers took it off the market in May, now for rent at $14,900: www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

Bracing for the ICE storm: SF immigrants go underground Empty shops, workers staying home, and some even self-deporting. This isn’t the calm before the storm, but an anxious scramble — a collective rush to bar the doors, board up the windows, and get the h...

"Ramon and Susana planned to wait things out, hoping the immigration raids would fizzle out. ‘But things just got more intense,’ Ramon says. ‘So we decided, no, let’s get out of here.’"

New from Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, on the people hiding, and leaving, before ICE: sfstandard.com/2025/07/23/s...

The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes With climate change making more communities vulnerable to fire across the world, adaptation may require more social change than materials engineering.

These are the kinds of places that need temporary refuge areas and education around them. Studies showed those zones saved between 1,000 to 3,000 people in the Camp Fire. But it’s a difficult policy to sell to the public.

My story from 2023: www.technologyreview.com/2023/04/18/1...

There are wildfire scenarios that would see Berkeley’s narrow roads filled to capacity before all residents could evacuate. It’s why the city has suggested preemptive evacuation in past fire weather. Walking is a bad idea imho but there aren’t many good ideas to be had here. bsky.app/profile/rebe...

The internet reminded me that I drew this ten years ago.

Now everyone seems even more certain that the robots are taking our jobs imminently, but UBI seems further away than ever.

hard to predict the vibes tomorrow, but historically the instigators most likely to disrupt a protest with violence are the police

Come work at @freedom.press, and help us keep journalists and whistleblowers safe!

We have an important job opening for the manager of our SecureDrop team. Apply in the next week, and reach out if you have questions:

Me, weakly, pleading, cold and near death on the hill:

“No more ‘clashes’ in headlines”

Polite request to please credit the photographers whose L.A. photos you’re sharing. They’re out there risking getting their shins exploded by police munitions to get those shots.

Journalist shot by Minneapolis police during 2020 protests dying from injuries Linda Tirado was in Minneapolis from out of state covering the protests and rioting when police shot her in the face with a rubber bullet, also known as a "less-lethal" round.

in so many videos out of LA i am seeing officers aiming rubber bullets right into crowds, this is filling me with a deep and anxious rage knowing what happens when they do that
www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...

This has been the fear since January. Disaster as a gentrifying force. bsky.app/profile/liam...

YouTube video by TEDx Talks Why nature is not ‘wild’ | Frankie Myers | TEDxLaguna Beach

Restoring relationships among people and between people and fire: “The idea that there is a wilderness that existed on this continent is based wholly on racism and the ideals of white supremacy… partnerships and holistic management are keys to restoring any ecosystem.” Frankie Myers

On my personal big board, the red string on this one goes all the way back to The Tragedy of the Commons.

FBI links California fertility clinic bombing to anti-natalist ideology The attack left one dead on Saturday and injured four others.

Boom times for fresh death cults. www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...

Did not notice that my 4 year old had snuck out of his room after bedtime until he'd watched ten minutes of season 2 episode 3 of The Rehearsal and suddenly emerged from behind the couch to softly declare, "I do not like this podcast."

My galaxy-brain take on risk maps is that they do more to create a false sense of safety for those outside of labeled hazard zones than they do to promote risk-reduction within those zones. We don't need more maps, we need policies that socialize risk awareness everywhere. bsky.app/profile/opb....

How We’re Using AI The rapid development of AI is already changing how journalists operate. Reporters, editors, executives, and others across the news industry share their advice on how to engage—and where to draw the l...

If you haven’t already heard my “AI is a hand, not a brain” mantra (and also if you have!) you can read about it here as part of this thoughtful package of perspectives on our near and present future.

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