• Some Bush-era hawks whom Trump has chastised for initiating “endless wars” were prominent last week in sticking up for his aggressive actions against Iran: Among those who appeared: Paul Wolfowitz, widely called the “architect” of the 2003 Iraq invasion, which he denies; Marc Thiessen, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s speechwriter; Bush Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff; and Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. All gave a thumbs-up to the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and other moves Trump is making to make Iranian leaders give in to U.S. demands.
• Residents seek to rescue Ohio alternative weekly by making it a community co-operative: Since 2008, according to a Pew Center study, fully one-fourth of newsroom employment throughout the nation has been axed. The bulk of this has occurred at newspapers, with the 71,000 employees—reporters, photographers, editors, and videographers—on the payroll in 2008, and only 38,000 by the end of 2018. A few digital-native outlets have sprung up as stand-alone operations—instead of as web versions of print newspapers—but the number of people hired by these have obviously come nowhere near what is needed to replace those laid off in print media. Five years ago, one of those new online outlets, The Devil Strip, started up in Akron, Ohio, a city of about 200,000 population, with a venerable daily newspaper, the 123-year-old Beacon-Journal. That paper’s fall can be seen from the fact it sold in 2006 to Black Press for $165 million and in 2018 to Gatehouse Media for $16 million. Daily circulation in the 1990s was 190,000; it’s now 60,000. The Devil Strip was founded just as many other alternate weeklies were folding, and focuses on arts, culture, and citizen journalism. It became apparent that advertising alone would not keep the operation afloat. So it was decided to turn the operation into a community cooperative. Publisher Chris Horne said, “I was interested in turning The Devil Strip into a co-op because we relied so much on Akronites who often didn’t have professional journalism experience or training, but were willing to share their talents to tell Akron’s story,” says Horne. So far, the paper has raised thousands of dollars locally, which will be matched by Newsmatch. “The co-op model is just another business structure with its pros and cons, just like an LLC or B-Corp or whatever,” said Horne. “So the key is to think about how it can protect or improve your mission.”
• Here are a few ways to help Puerto Ricans affected by the island’s latest series of devastating earthquakes: One key element highlighted by Jay Polish at Bustle: “Even though people born on the island are U.S. citizens, the United States does not offer equal governmental representation for Puerto Ricans as it does to residents of the 50 states. Asking your local government officials to prioritize relief efforts in Puerto Rico is key.”
MIDDAY TWEET
• Scientists discover cellular pathways they say could extend human life to 500 years: The discovery was a collaboration of researchers at the MDI Biological Laboratory, the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, and Nanjing University in China. They found “synergistic cellular pathways for longevity” in C. elegans, a nematode worm used as a model in aging research. "The synergistic extension is really wild," said Jarod A. Rollins, who was the lead author with Jianfeng Lan of the study in Cell Reports, an online journal. "The effect isn't one plus one equals two, it's one plus one equals five,” he added.
• Check out the video of this dog that sniffs out koalas in Australia so they can be rescued.
• Researchers say ice-free Arctic in the ancient past released carbon from permafrost:
Deep in a cave in Siberia, Israeli, Russian and British scientists have identified evidence of periodic losses of carbon from the permafrost. And the unexpected link is not simply with peak periods of bygone global warming, but with an ice-free Arctic Ocean.[...]
“This discovery about the behaviour of the permafrost suggests that the expected loss of Arctic sea ice in the future will accelerate melting of the permafrost presently found across much of Siberia,” said Gideon Henderson of the University of Oxford, and one of the authors of a new study in the journal Nature.
• Justin Amash and other critics blast Trump for treating U.S. soldiers like mercenaries for Saudi Arabia: The critiques came flying after Trump bragged to Fox News’ Elisabeth Hasselbeck Laura Ingraham that Saudi Arabia has deposited “$1 billion” in an unnamed bank to get more U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. “Listen, you’re a very rich country,” Trump claimed to Fox that he had said to Saudi officials. “You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank.” He didn’t say which bank, prompting some critics to label his claim bogus.