News Wrap: Harvard Review, US Ambassador to China, and WWII Heroines

Harvard University's Review

• 💡 Harvard University announced a review of its academic offerings and admissions policies in response to internal reports on antisemitism and Islamophobia.
• 🎯 The review was commissioned by Harvard's president, Alan Garber, following pro-Palestinian protests last spring.
• 🔑 The goal is to ensure Harvard is a place where ideas are welcomed and contested in the spirit of seeking truth.
• ⚠️ This action occurs while the university is in a legal battle with the Trump administration over frozen federal funding due to accusations of antisemitism.

Iberian Peninsula Power Outage

• ⚡ A massive blackout affected Spain and Portugal, impacting millions of customers.
• 🔌 Power has been largely restored, but the cause of the outage remains unclear.
• 🚆 Train stations were packed as stranded passengers tried to get home, with nearly 35,000 people rescued along railways and underground in Spain.
• 🕵️ Spain's prime minister dismissed claims of a cyberattack and stated that reforms and necessary measures will be taken to prevent future occurrences.

US Ambassador to China and Holocaust Museum Board

• 🇨🇳 The Senate confirmed David Perdue as the U.S. ambassador to China, a former business executive and senator from Georgia.
• 📈 Perdue takes on the role amidst a tense tariff war and deepening strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China.
• 🏛️ The Trump administration dismissed several of former President Biden's nominees to the board overseeing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, including Doug Emhoff.
• 🕊️ Doug Emhoff stated that Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized.

Other News Briefs

• 💔 In Illinois, three children and a teenager were killed when a vehicle plowed through an after-school program building.
• ⚖️ Los Angeles County workers went on strike for the first time, demanding higher wages, potentially disrupting critical government services.
• 🌳 A prosecutor in England stated that the famous Sycamore Gap tree was cut down in a deliberate and mindless act, with two men pleading not guilty to criminal damage.
• 📈 Wall Street stocks ended higher, with the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all closing in positive territory.
• 🏅 Congress bestowed its highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the Six Triple Eight, the only Black all-female unit that served in Europe during World War II for processing millions of mail pieces.