St. John Barned-Smith

Kavanaugh stops in action: ICE tackled a non-verbal kid near his school, left him with injuries requiring surgery, and then left the scene when they realized he wasn't the person they were looking for www.independent.com/2026/10/23/i...

Has a pool reporter ever stood up on behalf of their colleagues when this happens?

HOLY SHIT. In a sworn statement yesterday, an ICE agent told a federal judge that an ICE flight to Equatorial Guinea had been cancelled and so couldn't be used to bring Ahmed Soliman back to the United States. The plane just landed in Equatorial Guinea. prospect.org/2026/10/23/t...

Huge follow-up reporting to my scoop: The Guardian confirmed America Next—the conservative nonprofit founded by Bobby Jindal that was offering students $ to disrupt El-Sayed events—paid a firm registered to Tommy Teepell’s dad Timmy $250k for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed.

Is there a better independent, spot-news reporter out there than @marisakabas.bsky.social? I don’t know of one. If you do, pls cite.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Top Trump adviser Ric Grenell allegedly outlined a stunning pay-for-influence offer to a Turkish billionaire last year that included access to Trump, according to a text message reviewed by Axios that the White House counsel is investigating.

Incredible stuff.

A Trump Loyalist, a Turkish Investor and a Battle for Wealth and Influence www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...

Here's Cat Murphy, a student journalist with the University of Maryland's Capital News Service, refusing to honor Rep. Andy Harris's false claim that she could not legally record his comments in this public setting @merrillcollege.bsky.social @cnsmd.bsky.social

Heh

NEWS Kimberly Guilfoyle, the newly ousted U.S. ambassador to Greece, tried to convince the White House that the messages in which she pleaded with a donor to pay off her Amex bill were AI-generated. Officials didn’t believe her. Full Story: on.wsj.com/4yoopSV

Bad bad bad bad bad all over www.bloomberg.com/news/live-bl...

New W.H. press secretary held many legal roles but is not licensed to practice law in the U.S. www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

Ken Paxton received campaign contributions from the staff or political arms of *five organizations* with interests in legal matters on which his office weighed in, WaPo reports. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The difference between the Paxton scandals vs. the Talarico scandals is that the Paxton scandals are a) demonstrably worse, and b) demonstrably real.

This story makes it sound like the major problem is that the Trump Admin did this w/in 60 days of an election. Yes, that's a real abuse. But the major problem is they're basically threatening to denaturalize an opposition legislator, based on racist insinuations. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...

Massive skyscraper with 528 apartments proposed on S.F.’s Mission Street www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

The NYPD just released surveillance video of the ICE shooting (which occurred off camera). Two men in civilian clothes run up to a car with guns drawn. One second later, one man begins smashing the butt of his gun into the driver’s side window. The driver appears to panic and hit the gas.

lol Good god. Well done @zachdespart.bsky.social Ken Paxton took nearly 1,000 trips with state-funded security detail costing millions of dollars www.texastribune.org/2026/10/09/k...

A year ago, @propublica.org told you immigration agents had detained more than 170 U.S. citizens. We’ve updated our count, and we’ve got all the receipts. The tally: At least 506 citizens detained. Sometimes held at gunpoint, handcuffed, or even deported. projects.propublica.org/american-cit...

Samuel Alito: We won't overturn Obergefell because it's engendered reliance interests. Jan Crawford: Well, many people had organized their lives around Roe v. Wade. Alito: No, they didn't. Women merely had an "abstract" interest in "ideas about the kind of society that they were going to live in."

"‘But I’m Not From Ghana’: ICE Targets Longtime New Yorkers for Third-Country Deportation" -- www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/05/t...

Susan Collins claims that @propublica.org’s reporting about CEO Martin Kao’s bribery allegations took him at his word. That’s not true. We reviewed a trove of FBI evidence and legal records. 📽️ Here’s how we independently corroborated much of Kao’s account. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqyi...

Did Jed York get special treatment in Ohio following his prostitution sting arrest? www.sfchronicle.com/crime/articl...

NEW: DHS agents tracked people observing ICE arrests, photographed them, ran their plates, pulled personal information, and added them to a Palantir database, according to newly unsealed court filings. w/ @regret.bsky.social

Scoop: At a secret meeting this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out Trump administration's plan to make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people — by pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.

One of Hawaii’s most famous landmarks just collapsed into the Pacific Ocean www.sfchronicle.com/travel/artic...

New: Chris Rufo & his co-host devoted a podcast to "The Indian Question," framing Desi people as a problem to be solved. Their "solution?" Mass expulsion. For those allowed to remain: an “assimilation hazing process” w/ instances of “vulgar, defamatory racism" talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chris-r...

When Matthew Soerens of World Relief tells Christians the Trump administration has banned persecuted Christians, many don't believe him. We talked about why. Listen to the whole conversation: austinkocher.substack.com/p/president-... @matthewsoerens.bsky.social

Troubled S.F. housing nonprofit is shutting down amid investigation into deaths, financial dysfunction www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

This is the 59th death in ICE detention since Trump took office.

“Years ago, you put a fence up because people were stealing stuff. Now you put the fence up because ICE is stealing workers. “There was even a fence shortage in the summer.” — Ariel Salinas, whose Texas construction company has hit the skids due to a worker shortage www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/u...

S.F. sheriff’s deputy accused of bullying employees as mayor of small California town www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

Something remarkable is happening: James Talarico is running an expansively pro-immigrant campaign in Texas, a state Trump won by 14 points, speaking in Biblical terms about our duty to "the stranger." And it's resonating. That's seismic. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2160...

NEW: ICE published — then removed — internal mortality reviews detailing medical failures in detainee deaths across U.S. www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

BREAKING: Internal ICE documents show pattern of medical failures before detainee deaths www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

The validity of laws like this have been debated for decades. Now, we’re going to finally see whether they withstand federal court challenges.

Federal oversight of Oakland police is finally over after 23 years, judge says www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

NYC’s congestion pricing program cut ambulance travel times by over a minute

A Bay Area nurse tried to relocate her family to Canada. ICE stopped them www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

NEW: Food banks across America are being overwhelmed by surging demand. Scott MacFarlane went inside to see the crisis firsthand. Here’s what he found:

At the height of the ICE raids earlier this year, agents in armored military vehicles rolled through residential neighborhoods. Masked agents patrolled public parks and stationed themselves outside elementary schools; squadrons of ICE agents snatched pedestrians off the streets. 🧵

The whitest town in the Bay Area proposed affordable housing. Then some neighbors blocked it as segregation www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Our country is staring into the abyss, and much of our national press corps lacks the fortitude that this moment demands www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/b...

I’ve been reporting on the CDC for years, and have written about many of its troubles over the past year. I was still shocked by the extent of the staff losses and political interference I found when reporting this one. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/h...

great piece. man social media is a cancer themomoftheyear.substack.com/p/im-the-mom...

A booming local gift store chain is opening in an S.F. shopping district. It’s tearing the neighborhood apart www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/t...

No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, this argument should be chilling. Trying to limit freedom of the press under the guise of national security is what tinpot dictators do. That’s not how a functioning democracy works.

BREAKING: An Iowa state court dismisses President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer (represented by @thefireorg.bsky.social) and the Des Moines Register newspaper, a victory for First Amendment rights. Opinion here: www.fire.org/research-lea...

Oh, and the best part is the reason they think they can turn off the traffic hose and point everyone to AI is because they built AI by stealing newspaper stories en masse.