War, Weightloss & This HEAT 🌡️
This Week in Review☕️: The Biggest Beauty & Healthcare deals this month | Harvard wins over Trump | Unilever buys Soap brand | Iran and Israel agree to ceasefire | Heatwave torches most of the West |
Quick Bites:
Education 📚: The court indefinitely blocks Trump from cutting off Harvard's ability to host international students.
Basically, the school’s ability to welcome foreign students is still very much intact- atleast for now. 🧳
🎉 How International Harvard Students are celebrating right now:
🧃Popping a bottle of aged kombucha: Because champagne is too Yale. Harvard wins are fermented, artisanal, and probiotic
🍲 Host a Latin-themed dinner party: Not culturally Latin. Literally Latin- as in quoting habeas corpus over bone broth and roasted chickpeas
🎥 Reenact the courtroom scene from Legally Blonde- but make it Harvard-core: Someone definitely shows up in a pink suit, says “Objection!”
📕 Flash mob in the Law Library: Because nothing says academic flex like breaking out in a synchronized victory dance under fluorescent lights and pressure
🖊️ Open a Google Doc titled “How We Saved the Semester”: Collaborative, color-coded, and 37 pages long. Nobody will read it, but it feels important
💻 Start a LinkedIn thread titled "What this legal win taught me about leadership.": And you know someone’s adding “Policy Change Advocate” to their bio
💬 Dunk on Princeton in a group chat that no one from Princeton is in: Just because ✨
💡Celebrate with a mock trial roast: everyone gets assigned a role. Someone plays Trump. Someone plays the mean Judge. It’s oddly well-scripted
Background💡: Earlier this month, Trump pulled a fast one trying to suspend visas for new international students altogether.
(Yes, like a “you can’t sit with us” moment, but make it immigration policy.)
Judge Allison Burroughs emergency-blocked that one too. Harvard can continue enrolling international students while the legal process continues- for now, the door is firmly open.
Students gain stability and clarity for the upcoming semesters- even though long-term resolution is still pending.
Our Thoughts💡:
Guys, let's not forget we're talking about the nation's oldest and WEALTHIEST college. Harvard Law school has some of the best legal minds in the world- they need to gather them all and keep Trump in court until he f**king CHOKES🖕🏻🖕🏻
Consumer Goods 🧼 : Unilever buys Dr. Squatch brand.
Unilever has officially acquired viral men’s grooming brand Dr. Squatch- the soap company known for its all-natural formulas and ads that scream “you don’t have to smell like a teenage locker room to be a man.”
💸 The price tag? As mysterious as the ingredients in your ex’s 12-step skincare routine. (i.e they didn’t say 🤐)
So, who is Dr. Squatch?
A DTC (direct-to-consumer) brand that made a name by going hard on memes and a sense of humor in its ads:
-“This is soap for men. Not detergent.”
-“Tired of smelling like regret and cheap cologne?”
-Think Axe, but if Axe did a wellness retreat in Big Sur and found its soul.
Why Unilever wants it💡: The consumer goods giant is beefing up its personal care lineup in a world increasingly doing buyouts- especially in beauty and healthcare.
Some recent M&As:
-L'Oréal took a stake in Medik8
-Touchland got scooped by Church & Dwight
-E.l.f. Beauty dropped a BILLION on Hailey Bieber’s Rhode 💅
-And now Unilever adds some hairy-chested humor to the mix
Our Thoughts💡:
Long story short: Unilever just bought the brand that convinced millions of men to care about soap again- using memes, armpits, and nature as their marketing hack.
World News 📰 : President Trump announced a complete and total ceasefire between Israel and Iran, marking an end to their 12-day conflict.
The plan unfolds in phases: Iran stops first, and Israel follows 12 hours later.
Background, reported by ABC News:
-Iran launched several missile volleys at Israeli cities- Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva included- with at least three civilians killed
-Israel targeted Iranian sites, including nuclear infrastructure, in response .
Will this actually stick?
-Iran’s foreign minister said the ceasefire depends on Israel halting its strikes by 4 AM Tehran time
-Meanwhile, missiles struck after the deadline- so the peace plan is officially “under review”
🧭 Why it matters for you (especially if you're planning trips or have family in the region):
-Regional calm: A stable ceasefire helps ease volatility in air travel, currency markets, and general tension across the Middle East
-Reset moment: Trump called it a diplomatic win- and with Gulf states helping mediate, there’s newfound momentum in nuclear and peace talks .
-Still tense: But with the clock already broken once, this could easily unravel if either side re-engages.
Finance 📈: Speaking of Iran.. Oil prices dropped after the ceasefire announcement, Bloomberg reports.
Investors exhaled, oil prices slipped, and U.S. stock futures moved higher- because apparently, Wall Street thrives on drama with a side of diplomacy.
🛢️ Background:
-Oil prices continued to fall Monday evening, after fears of a regional oil disruption faded post-ceasefire.
-US stock index futures rose, suggesting market optimism now that the threat of full-scale escalation has (temporarily) cooled off
-Earlier in the day, Iran launched a retaliatory strike on U.S. bases in Qatar- but investors mostly shrugged it off.
-Over the weekend, global markets were bracing for a possible shutdown or disruption near the Strait of Hormuz, a major artery for global oil shipping.
-With cooler heads (barely) prevailing, the narrative shifted from “World War” to “watch and wait.”
🧠 What It Means:
-For now, markets are betting on peace- or at least, no fresh headlines overnight.
-Oil traders remain cautious, as even a small flare-up in the region could send prices swinging wildly again.
-Investors are watching geopolitical headlines like reality TV: messy, unpredictable, and always trending.
Quicker Bites:
-Sephora Amplifies Black Founders: Four emerging beauty brands from Black founders have joined Sephora’s 2025 Accelerate Program, covering everything from fragrance to scalp care
-Heat alerts across the US.: Nearly 190 million Americans are currently under heat-related warnings as scorching temps shatter records- experts warn this “heat dome” is fueled by climate change
-UK's deadly early heatwave: England and Wales might see nearly 600 heat-related deaths, prompting urgent public health warnings
-South Africa floods declared disaster: Torrential rain and winds in the Eastern Cape killed around 98 people and displaced thousands.
-Markets Pop: Global markets rallied- US futures, Asian equities, and the shekel all gained ground, while gold and the dollar softened on reduced geopolitical risk.
-Apple Ups the Audio Game: iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe will allow third-party apps to use Apple’s AI-powered “Audio Mix,” enabling cleaner, studio-grade sound in your favorite apps.
-Global Tariffs & Trade: Australia’s Treasurer Chalmers preps meetings with the US over tariffs and Middle East fallout.