Aug. 12: MacKenzie Scott ’92 Donates $1.7 Billion, Terence Tao *96’s Breakthrough

Since pledging a year ago to give away her fortune, author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott ’92 said she has donated $1.7 billion to historically Black colleges and universities and other organizations. Lily D. McNair ’79, president of Tuskegee University, said Scott gave $20 million to that university. — The New York Times
 
Lane Russell ’18 and Adam Bragg ’16 have bought out hotels in Hawaii and Arkansas where college students can live in a “bubble” this year while their courses are virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic. — Business Insider
 
Douglas Holtz-Eakin *85, president of the American Action Forum, said the government money sent to families and small businesses because of the pandemic was not a bailout, but “simply an effective cash flow replacement program.” — National Post
 
Rep. Terri Sewell ’86 of Alabama said the Voting Rights Act needs to be updated “because some state and local elections officials have reportedly changed polling places with little notice, pared-back voting hours and purged voters from their rolls.” — Newsweek
 
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi ’95 of Illinois introduced a bill requiring an independent panel to sign off on any coronavirus vaccine before it’s distributed to the public. Speed is important, but “it is even more important that quality is not sacrificed for speed in testing and evaluating,” Krishnamoorthi said. — ABC News
 
Terence Tao *96 made a breakthrough in a math problem from 1937, finding that “any counterexamples to the Collatz Conjecture are going to be incredibly rare.” — Popular Mechanics

“The assault on civil liberties and civil rights is greater under this administration than any other in modern history … It’s meant we’ve been living with a three-alarm fire in every part of our house.”

— ACLU president Anthony Romero ’87 on the nearly 400 lawsuits the organization has filed against President Trump. Of those decided, the ACLU “has won far more often than it has lost,” Romero said. — The Associated Press

Craig Forman ’82, CEO of McClatchy newspapers, called a bankruptcy court’s approval of the sale of most company assets to a New Jersey hedge fund “a major milestone” toward resolution of its court-supervised reorganization and “the sustainability of independent local journalism in the 30 communities that we serve.” — Sacramento Business Journal
 
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen ’15 “continues his rise in the opera world” by playing David in a Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra recording of Handel’s Saul. — Hollywood Soapbox