School newspapers thousands of miles apart team up to heal from wildfires

After a wildfire decimated a California high school’s newsroom, destroying its cameras, computers and archived newspapers spanning six decades, one of the first offers of help that its journalism adviser received came from the other side of the country.

Claire Smith, founding executive director of Temple University's sports media center, had known Lisa Nehus Saxon since they helped carve out a place for women journalists in Major League Baseball more than 40 years ago. They’d supported each other through the days of being barred from locker rooms, and now with much of Palisades Charter High School damaged, Smith wanted to be there for her friend again.

“I just thought, ‘What can we do? How can we help with healing?’” Smith said.

Earlier this week, she traveled from Philadelphia to deliver the result of that offer: a university paper featuring the high school students’ articles.

Across nearly a dozen pages, the insert showcased articles on price gouging in the rental market after the wildfire and the school returning to in-person lessons, along with poignant firsthand accounts of losing everything to the fire. There were also poems and hand-drawn pictures by students from Pasadena Rosebud Academy, a transitional kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Altadena, California, that was destroyed in the fire.

Wildfires in January ravaged the Los Angeles area, wiping out nearly 17,000 structures including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship.

The Palisades high school, made up of about 3,000 students in Los Angeles, saw about 40% of its campus damaged and had to move temporarily into an old Sears building. Nehus Saxon estimated that around a quarter of its newspaper staff members lost their homes, with some forced to move out of the community and switch schools.

This project, she and Smith said, was a way to give students a project to focus on after the tragedy while also providing them a place to tell a larger audience the experience of their community.

Smith said she thought the project would be healing for the students “but also give them something that they could hold in their hands and, when they grow up, show their children and grandchildren."

Inside a basement classroom in Santa Monica on Wednesday, Smith and Samuel O’Neal, The Temple News’ editor-in-chief, handed out the papers to the high school staff.

It was the first time they had seen their Tideline articles in print, as the paper had moved online years ago due to the cost.

Kate Swain, 18, a co-editor-in-chief for the paper, said it felt surreal to finally flip through the printed pages.

“Because of everything that we’ve gone through together, everything that we’ve had to persevere through and everyone’s had all these personal things that they’ve been dealing with," she said. "And yet simultaneously, we’ve been pouring all this time and energy and all of our passion for journalism into writing these articles.”

Gigi Appelbaum, 18, a co-editor-in-chief of the paper who lost her home in the fire, said the project felt especially distinct because it involved people thousands of miles away.

“The fact that people from across the country are aware of what's going on with us and emphasize with our situation and want to get our voices out there, it’s really special,” said Appelbaum, who has been on the paper for four years.

One of the things she lost in the fire was a box filled with important cards and messages. She said she plans to store her copy in a new box as she works to restart the collection.

Smith and Nehus Saxon met in 1983 during a game between the Angels and Yankees in Anaheim, California. Nehus Saxon said she walked over to Smith to introduce herself and found her hustling to meet a deadline.

“Who knew that little introduction would blossom into this,” said Nehus Saxon.

In the years since, they’ve traveled to London together for Major League Baseball’s first games in Europe, and they cried together in 2017 as Smith became the first woman to win the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award.

“We don’t talk every week,” Nehus Saxon said. “Sometimes we can go, you know, months and months without talking. But all we have to do is send each other a text message and we know the other will be there immediately.”

That bond was made all the more clear when Nehus Saxon heard from Smith as fire engulfed her community. Her home was only three blocks from the school. While it survived the blaze, it’s filled with led laden ash and may not be safe to live in for years.

But with the help of Smith, she and her students have been able to move forward and produce the final edition of the school year. After the papers were handed out, Nehus Saxon kept one for the school's archive.

“When you’ve lost everything you’ve got to start somewhere,” Smith said.

Copies of Tideline, Palisades High School's student newspaper, are placed on a table in their newsroom, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Samuel O'Neal, left, editor-in-chief of Temple News, shows a copy of his school's publication to Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during a visit to Dodger Stadium, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Jayne Kamin-Oncea)

Members of of the Palisades High School newspaper staff, from left to right, Cloé Nourparvar, Gigi Appelbaum, and Kate Swain, hold a copy of the school's publication, which was printed in Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Claire Smith, founding executive director of Temple University's sports media center, center, and Samuel O'Neal, left, editor-in-chief of the Temple News, deliver copies of the Palisades High School newspaper to staff, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Staff members of Tideline, Palisades High School's newspaper, Sophia Masserat, left, and Eve Keller read a copy of the publication, freshly delivered from Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Members of Tideline, the student newspaper, pose for a group photo showing the publication at the interim location for Palisades High School Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)