Heathrow fire, Department of Education and Snow White
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Today, a huge fire near London's Heathrow Airport disrupts global air traffic. What's in store for students as Trump dismantles the Department of Education. And Disney's Snow White and the many controversies. It's Friday, March 21st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. And I'm Sharon Reich-Garson in New York. ♪

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First to some breaking news this side of the pond. London's Heathrow Airport is set to be closed all day after a huge fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out power. It's one of the world's busiest airports, and global flight schedules have been disrupted as the cancellations have a knock-on effect on travel around the world.

75-year-old John Moriarty was due to fly back home to Boston. I've called Delta and all the lines are busy, so they're not answering. I just called American Express Travel to see if they can help. I'm waiting. All the lines are busy. So I might be here another day, actually. Some flights from the U.S. were turning around mid-air and returning to their point of departure. Hundreds have been evacuated and nearby buildings have been left without power.

The cause of the blaze is currently unknown. U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to begin dismantling the federal Department of Education. We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It's doing us no good. The order follows an announcement last week that the DOE would lay off nearly half of its staff, but shuttering it completely would require congressional approval. And Republicans don't have enough votes.

Race and Justice Editor Kat Stafford has been looking at what this means for public schools and students.

There is a lot of confusion right now. The Department of Education provides federal grants for schools and programs and sends a lot of money toward helping children with special needs and disabilities and also oversees student loans. And for a very long time, one of the main functions of the Department of Education has been to ensure equal access to enforce civil rights laws.

And so there's a lot of concern that children and students who live in some of the poorest areas of our country could be impacted, right, because they really rely on these funds. There's questions of how this is going to impact the higher education system, particularly when you think about the disproportionate amount of students of color and low income students that rely on the Pell Grant program.

And it's college application season right now. So how will this affect those students that are applying for financial aid? The Department of Education, I believe they oversee almost $1.6 trillion in student loans. So we're talking about a significant amount of Americans who are applying for financial aid.

who cannot afford to pay for their college education outright. They rely on the student loan system. And now there are a lot of parents and high school students who are grappling with not only where they're going to start their college education career, but how are they going to pay for it? How is this going to work? Who's going to house the student loan process, right? So I think that these are all questions and answers that the administration is really going to have to grapple with. ♪♪

A judge says the Trump administration's response to a request for more details on the timing of deportation flights carrying hundreds of Venezuelan migrants is woefully insufficient. Judge James Boasberg, who Trump suggested should be impeached, says officials are evading their responsibilities. A deadline is looming for Columbia University to respond to nine demands on tightening restrictions on campus protests.

Among other things, the demands include banning face masks on campus and seeking power for security employees to make arrests. Trump says these are preconditions for opening talks on restoring $400 million in suspended federal funding. Trump has denied a report that Elon Musk will be briefed on the U.S. plan for any potential war with China.

According to The New York Times, Musk is due at a Pentagon briefing today that will feature 20 to 30 slides on how the U.S. would fight in conflict with China. Trump took to Truth Social to say China will not even be mentioned or discussed. It is significant. I think it will take a little bit of time to truly set in.

Zimbabwean swimmer Kirstie Coventry smashes through the International Olympic Committee's glass ceiling to become the organization's first female president. Uncertainty over the impact of President Trump's trade policies had major central banks scratching their heads this week.

Carmel Crimmins is here with more. So this was a busy week for the world's major central banks. Many of them held meetings to decide interest rate policy. But with the exception of the Swiss National Bank, they all stood pat. Trump's tariffs are clouding the picture for them. They're expecting import taxes to hurt growth, so that would in theory be a reason to cut rates. But they're also expecting a boost to inflation, which would be a reason to hike.

One thing is clear. The U.S. is at risk of moving from being the world's growth engine to a drag on its trading partners. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde spelled that out this week when she said a trade war with the U.S. would dent growth in the eurozone and tack perhaps half a percentage point onto inflation in the short run at least. Magic mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?

Disney's Snow White rolls into theaters today, and the studio, no doubt, hopes that its baggage stays behind. The $270 million film has been dogged by controversies from race to politics and how it portrays Snow White's friends, the Seven Dwarfs. Our entertainment business reporter Dawn Chmielewski is looking at what's at stake if the studio's big bet doesn't pay off.

From a business perspective, this is a way for Disney to ring the cash register, if you will, in multiple ways. So it's released in theaters and then it will be distributed on Disney+. It will translate to consumer products if the film is successful. So imagine more princess gowns, you know, coming to retail stores near you. So basically a successful film will reanimate characters that are known and beloved and give them fresh legs and a new opportunity for Disney to monetize them.

It's time to restore our kingdom. But the film's been caught up in a culture war. Disney cast Rachel Zegler, who's an actor of Colombian descent, in the title role as Snow White. And it began with Rachel Zegler sort of talking to her online fans about how this Snow White isn't waiting for a prince to rescue her at the end of the film. You know, and she actually described the prince as kind of a stalker in some of her online posts. You can imagine that might have been offensive, but

But she didn't limit herself to that sort of commentary. She posted, may Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace. She deleted the post on Instagram. She apologized. But it really did create a firestorm. And it's not the only instance of trouble. The Israeli-born actress, Gal Gadot, who plays the film's evil queen, voiced support for her home country in the aftermath of the October 7th terror attacks.

Her co-star was very vocally pro-Palestinian, which one might imagine that created some tensions. And there have been calls to boycott the film. And there's a further conflict about how the seven dwarves were represented in the film. In the end, families will probably set aside all of these controversies if it's a good movie. So I guess we'll see at the box office.

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For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.