Susie Cagle

She begged for help. The hospital sent her home — citing religion A young couple rushed to the ER during a pregnancy emergency. What happened next wasn’t medical care — it was religious doctrine. Their case exposes an emerging crisis in California’s maternal health ...

California has positioned itself as a beacon of hope post-Roe. But 1 in 3 hospital beds in the state is controlled by Catholic religious directives that deny life-saving maternal care in crisis.

New from @anyaviolet.bsky.social: sfstandard.com/2025/11/20/c...

How one judge’s decision led to a child’s abduction — and exposed a broken system A toddler was abducted after a court ruling that allowed one of his parents to take him out of the country. Our investigation reveals how SF family court’s secrecy and lack of oversight puts families ...

For the last few months, @anyaviolet.bsky.social has delved into SF's mishandling of domestic violence. Today's installment in the series is a heartbreaker.

Family court dysfunction forced one father to become an expert in international child abduction. sfstandard.com/2025/11/09/s...

And after you read, consider signing up for a newsletter or subscription so that we can do more of this kind of important work.

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 whole series is worth your time:

The family court trap: sfstandard.com/2025/08/28/s...
Broken promises of free legal help: sfstandard.com/2025/09/09/s...
A withering police unit: sfstandard.com/2025/09/30/s...
The gutting of women’s rights: sfstandard.com/2025/10/14/k...

How one judge’s decision led to a child’s abduction — and exposed a broken system A toddler was abducted after a court ruling that allowed one of his parents to take him out of the country. Our investigation reveals how SF family court’s secrecy and lack of oversight puts families ...

Family court judges decide cases alone, with no juries and often no attorneys. But ppl familiar with the bench call it a judicial "dumping ground" for those without seniority. These judges have tremendous power -- and they receive the most complaints of any CA court. sfstandard.com/2025/11/09/s...

How one judge’s decision led to a child’s abduction — and exposed a broken system A toddler was abducted after a court ruling that allowed one of his parents to take him out of the country. Our investigation reveals how SF family court’s secrecy and lack of oversight puts families ...

For the last few months, @anyaviolet.bsky.social has delved into SF's mishandling of domestic violence. Today's installment in the series is a heartbreaker.

Family court dysfunction forced one father to become an expert in international child abduction. sfstandard.com/2025/11/09/s...

There are confused and distressed phone calls — and also some boost to business?

“Some guy came in last night and was really confused that it wasn’t a Spirit Halloween. But then he sat down and had four beers.”

My husband dresses his music venue up every year for Halloween with a Spirit Halloween banner, but things are so grim for Bay Area bars in 2025 that some people think it’s actually a Spirit Halloween now

The pro bono attorneys performing miracles at immigration court Just before the judge arrives at immigration court, attorney Diana Mariscal prepares the dozen migrants for their hearings. She explains in Spanish that there’s a chance ICE will detain them today. Bu...

Incredible reporting by @sfstandard.com on the non-profit legal team representing people in SF's immigration courts.

Their work to secure same-day release and avoid transfers to remote immigration jails via on-site intake and immediate habeas petitions is life-saving. sfstandard.com/2025/10/20/c...

The pro bono attorneys performing miracles at immigration court Just before the judge arrives at immigration court, attorney Diana Mariscal prepares the dozen migrants for their hearings. She explains in Spanish that there’s a chance ICE will detain them today. Bu...

Just before the judge arrives at immigration court, attorney Diana Mariscal prepares the dozen migrants for their hearings. She explains in Spanish that there’s a chance ICE will detain them today. But what comes next surprises them all.

New longread from Jesse Alejandro Cottrell @sfstandard.com:

Another thing they don’t tell you is that Play Doh does not in fact come in dozens of colors. This is but the transient state of Play Doh before it matures into its true and only color: brown.

Something they don’t tell you about parenthood is how many different types of small batteries you will be forced to own. Sizes and styles you never would’ve dreamed of, each of them bespoke for just one toy, but only sold in packs of 144.

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