CLIPS
Below is a selection of my clips including text and multimedia pieces. My work has appeared online and in print in a number of national and local news publications.
I've covered housing, criminal justice, environmental issues, and reproductive rights.
Local
After Thorny Debate, Supervisors Approve Plan for Police Raises.
The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to approve an extended contract for the City’s police department, marking the end of a heated months-long public debate over the negotiations.
If Power Shutoffs Are the New Normal in California, PG&E Needs to Do More than Provide Charging Stations
In Merritt College’s parking lot, high up in the hills of Oakland, California, the big white tent is supposed to serve as an “community resource center” for PG&E customers that have been left without power since last night.
Housing
COVID-19 Exposed the Urgency for a Right to Housing.
New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie saw the writing on the wall. After helping to enact landmark tenant protections in 2019, Myrie, whose district covers much of central Brooklyn, wanted to clear a pathway for those renters to become homeowners.
The Rent in the Bay Area Is Too Damn High. So These Moms Occupied a Vacant House.
By the time Dominique Walker started squatting in an Oakland home with her five-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, she’d exhausted all other options. Walker, who had fled domestic violence in Mississippi, knew it would be hard to find a place, amidst the housing crisis, in the city where she’d grown up.
California’s Controversial Housing Bill Just Died. It Wasn’t Just Because of NIMBYs. (ANALYSIS)
The controversial housing bill, SB 50, that’s been roiling California’s state legislature—which would have revolutionized land use and housing in the state—failed yet again in dramatic fashion Thursday afternoon...Many will blame the bill’s defeat on the NIMBYs—who vocally argued against top-down control imposed by SB 50 and intrusion into their neighborhoods. But it’s more complicated than that.
Criminal Justice
'No Longer Human': Women's Prisons are a Breeding Ground for Sexual Harassment, Abuse.
Incarcerated women and gender minorities are largely left out of the #MeToo discussion. Stacy Rojas wants to change that.
California Is Letting Thousands of Prisoners Out Early. Its Housing Crisis Is Keeping Them From Starting Over.
After 15 long years behind bars, Terah Lawyer needed to show the parole board she had somewhere lined up to live. She landed a spot in a facility on Treasure Island and was so grateful to be out that at first she didn’t mind being forced to spend dozens of hours a week in treatment classes for a substance abuse problem she didn’t have, and in fact, as a drug and alcohol counselor, was certified to teach about.
A 2015 Case Was Supposed to Overhaul California’s Solitary Confinement. The Reality Is Much More Complicated.
The September 2015 day that Ashker v. Brown was settled, Dolores Canales’ son had been held in solitary confinement for 15 years. “It was such an emotional morning,” Canales, a founder of the advocacy group California Families Against Solitary Confinement, recalls of the time spent sitting in an Oakland hotel room surrounded by other families like hers as they prepared for the announcement.
Reproductive Rights
Iowa’s Supreme Court Protected Gay Marriage and Abortion Rights—and Republican Lawmakers Are Out for Payback.
Conservative Iowa lawmakers are advancing a bill that would change the long-standing way judges are selected in the state. Critics of the legislation, introduced in early February, say it is motivated by displeasure over state courts blocking abortion and same-sex marriage bans.
The Anti-Abortion Strategy Closing the Last Clinic in Missouri Is Sneakier Than a Ban.
Unless the courts step in, on Saturday, June 1, Missouri will become the first state in the country without an abortion clinic since Roe v. Wade was decided almost 50 years ago. But it’s not because of the law that Gov. Mike Parson signed earlier this month banning abortions after eight weeks.
Environment
EPA cuts likely to hurt children most, experts say.
Many things a child does -- from playing outside to sprawling out on carpets and lawns -- puts them at greater risk for exposure to environmental hazards such as pollution in the air, pesticides on grass and treatments on rugs.
Grids and Greed: An Expert Breaks Down Where PG&E Went Wrong and What It—and California—Needs to Do Now.
In the wake of PG&E’s decision to cut power to over one million people in California last week, there has been a torrent of frustration, outrage, and suspicion—about who should be held accountable, what their motivations are, and whether there is a way to keep blackouts from becoming the new normal.
Features
Shelter From the Storm: How the New Administration Can Tackle the Nation’s Housing Crisis. (Feb/Mar 2021 Print Issue)
Heidi Breaux didn’t want to send her two daughters back to school. Her eldest, who is thirteen, has asthma, putting her at greater risk of getting sick from COVID-19. But, with no childcare and facing eviction, Breaux had no choice but to return to work.
Funny Girls: Unexpected Players are Changing the Comedy Game in Pakistan. (Print Cover Story)
On a Friday night in Karachi, people of all ages packed into T2F. They lined the walls and spilled onto the floor, filling every inch of space at the small cultural center to watch nine budding comics try their hand at standup.
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Home Was a Nightmare. Then Home Was Prison. Finally Home is Now a Refuge. ("The Big Feature")
The first thing you notice when you walk into Nilda Palacios’ apartment is that it’s spotless—a blanket is carefully folded on the back of the couch, the floors shine, and cereals and supplements are meticulously arranged on top of the fridge and microwave.
They’re Doctors. They’re Also Incredibly Effective—and Dangerous—Anti-Abortion Activists. ("The Big Feature")
In April 2019, when meetings like this still took place, Diane Foley took the stage in Indianapolis, looking out into the faces of anti-choice advocates and doctors who were gathered for their annual conference.
Audio / Video
Tech Company Free Meals Beget a Lot of Leftovers. Meet the Man on a Mission to Rescue Them. (Podcast)
I meet Les Tso on a corner in San Francisco’s SoMa district on a wet Thursday afternoon. He pulls his silver Isuzu SUV into an alley. “Today because it’s the first rain, people are going to be driving cluelessly—there are a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers that come from out of the area,” Tso warns me. “Makes it more exciting, I guess.”
At Arlington National Cemetery, Russia and the U.S. briefly cool their heels. (Podcast)
Russians and Americans came together at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to honor the U.S. and Soviet forces who met in Germany on April 25, 1945, marking their shared defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Passover in Prison. (Podcast)
On a recent Friday evening just north of San Francisco, I sat with more than 60 people at long tables covered with white tablecloths in a barebones chapel room. We were there to celebrate Passover; to read the Haggadah, the holiday’s central story; and to eat the symbolic seder meal meant to represent each part of the journey that Jews took from slavery to freedom. It could have been your typical Passover seder—except for a few things.
This Ancient Fruit Holds Secrets for How to Farm in Climate Change. (Podcast)
Cloverleaf Farm, a small produce operation in Davis, California, managed to do okay during the extreme drought that lasted from 2012 to 2016. But in the first wet year after the long dry period, the farm lost its entire apricot crop to disease—$40,000 to $50,000 down the drain.
International
Édito: La Californie ou la frénésie des consultations populaires.
(editorial piece in French on California's electoral system)
Je n’ai jamais espéré devenir, à 25 ans, assistante parlementaire à la législature de l’Etat californien, mais je le suis désormais.
Propaganda's new goals: Create confusion, sow doubt.
If pro-Kremlin media stories are to be believed, Ukraine is at risk of being taken over by Nazis, Germany has criminalized the criticism of immigration laws and Austrian courts are acquitting refugees of child rape.