The Justice Department notified a federal judge Wednesday that it is dropping a high-profile discrimination lawsuit against Yale University that was brought by the Trump administration.

A two-sentence filing in U.S. District Court in Connecticut gave notice of the government's "voluntary dismissal of this action."

The case marked an escalation in the Trump Justice Department's attacks on affirmative action programs that many conservatives consider illegal.

Yale said it was gratified by the decision to drop the lawsuit.

"Our admissions process has allowed Yale College to assemble an unparalleled student body, which is distinguished by its academic excellence and diversity. Yale has steadfastly maintained that its process complies fully with Supreme Court precedent, and we are confident that the Justice Department will agree," it said in a written statement.


Filed last October, the lawsuit said a two-year investigation determined that the Ivy League college illegally discriminated against Asian American and white students in admissions. It said they were only one-tenth to one-fourth as likely to be admitted as African American applicants with comparable academic records.

Russia's president has warned that social media giants are making decisions about what to publish and what to censor in their own interests alone, and without any regard for the broader consequences of their actions.

Addressing the winners of the Russia-wide Teacher of the Year competition on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said:

"These platforms are, of course, primarily businesses ... and what is the primary concern of a business? Making a profit. They don't care if this content or that content causes harm for the people at whom it is directed. After all, these modern IT companies are more and more beginning to control people's consciousnesses."

Putin added that there was sometimes a case for restricting access to certain types of post, saying that

"we must think about it, and react to it. But we must not make decisions that would limit human freedoms - the freedom of choice and freedom of speech."

His comments come weeks after his former counterpart, ex-US president Donald Trump, faced suspensions or bans for his accounts on social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is reportedly looking into potential state charges against Stephen Bannon nearly two weeks after former President Trump pardoned his onetime chief strategist.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that the office of District Attorney Cyrus Vance is looking into whether a case could be brought against Bannon in the state for his role in a fundraising scheme for Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Trump's presidential pardon, issued in his final hours in office, cleared Bannon on federal fraud charges in connection with the border wall. The pardon applied only to federal crimes, meaning Bannon could still be charged in state courts.

According to the Post, two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal office conversations said investigators in the district attorney's Major Economic Crimes Bureau are currently in the early stages of determining whether there is enough evidence to bring a state case against Bannon in connection with the "We Build the Wall" fundraising campaign.

A group of more than 370 congressional aides, all Democrats, wrote to the Senate this week urging the upper chamber to vote in favor of convicting former President Trump for inciting the riot that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

In a letter obtained by The New York Times, the staffers wrote that "Trump and his political allies, some of whom we pass every day in the hallways at work," were guilty of encouraging the mob that swarmed the building, overtaking security checkpoints, battling with police and killing one officer. The letter read:

"Six people died. A Capitol Police officer — one of our co-workers who guards and greets us every day — was beaten to death. The attack on our workplace was inspired by lies told by the former president and others about the results of the election in a baseless, months-long effort to reject votes lawfully cast by the American people. And for our sake, and the sake of the country, we ask that they vote to convict the former president and bar him from ever holding office again."

The Senate appears unlikely to convict Trump in his historic second impeachment trial, with many of the chamber's Republicans citing hesitancy to pursue the conviction of a former president. Trump's trial is set to begin next week.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to cancel upcoming hearings challenging President Trump's border wall and asylum policies after the Biden administration signaled its plans to reverse course on each.

President Biden on his first day in office suspended construction of the border wall pending a review of its legality. The next day the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suspended Trump's "remain in Mexico" policy, which blocked migrants from crossing the border to apply for asylum.

The order places the cases in abeyance, essentially pausing litigation while the Biden administration reviews the legality of each policy and develops their own.

The border wall case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sierra Club and others and challenges $2.5 billion in Department of Defense spending that was diverted to complete construction. The administration wrote to the court Monday:

"The President has directed the Executive Branch to undertake an assessment of 'the legality of the funding and contracting methods used to construct the wall'. It would therefore be appropriate for the court to hold further proceedings in this case in abeyance to allow for the completion of the process that the president has directed."

Myanmar police have charged ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi with possession of illegally-imported walkie-talkies, which could result in a two-year prison sentence, as a civil disobedience campaign grew against the military's coup.

A document from a police station in the capital, Naypyitaw, said military officers who searched Aung San Suu Kyi's residence had found handheld radios that were imported illegally and used without permission by her bodyguards. The charges, confirmed by members of her party, appear to carry a maximum prison sentence of two years.

A state newspaper also reported that the new military government would investigate what it has described as fraud in November's election, in which its proxy party was heavily defeated by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). The ousted president, Win Myint, is meanwhile to be charged for allegedly breaching coronavirus laws by meeting people on the campaign trail.

The moves are likely to fuel already simmering anger towards the military. In one of the first organised acts of defiance against the army since Monday's coup, health workers in 70 hospitals and medical departments in Naypyidaw, Yangon and other towns and cities said they would not work under the military regime, accusing the generals of placing their own priorities above those of ordinary people during the pandemic. Doctors are instead treating patients in their homes and at charity health clinics. Kyaw, a surgeon at West Yangon general hospital who has resigned from the government hospital where he worked said:

"We refuse to obey any order from the illegitimate military regime who demonstrated they do not have any regards for our poor patients. They will not stop this movement until the elected government is restored. I am upset about being apart from the patients, but I have no regrets, knowing that I did my best to help fight the pandemic."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is stepping down and being replaced by the head of Amazon Web Services, which deplatformed Parler.

Bezos became the world's second-richest man building Amazon from a small online bookseller into one of the world's most valuable companies. He will transition to the role of executive chair during the third quarter of 2021, Deadline reported.

Andy Jassy, who has led the company's Amazon Web Services (AWS) division, will reportedly take over as the company's CEO. AWS is the division of Amazon that canceled services to the free-speech site Parler following the Jan. 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol building. That effectively removed Parler from the internet.

Clinical trial data published in The Lancet medical journal this week shows the Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine works for more than nine in 10 people, making it among the most efficacious jabs available.


The formula has been at the center of a fierce information war, with a number of commentators casting aspersions on the evidence that underpinned Russia's decision to urgently register it in August last year. However, it appears that the final word on subject lies with the scientists who published their results on Tuesday.

New York Times, quoting newly released interview, says the display of nuclear strength was a 'doomsday' scenario not needed after IDF victory

One the eve of the Six Day War, with the country surrounded by enemies and unsure of its future, Israel developed a "doomsday" plan to detonate an atomic bomb in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as a warning to the Arabs, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The report was based on an interview conducted by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov, who reportedly oversaw the plan.

"It's the last secret of the 1967 war," Cohen told the paper.

Germany could end up divided like the US if the country's left won't stop with moralizing and attempts to suppress any opposing opinions, Sahra Wagenknecht, former Left Party leader, said in a harsh attack on her own allies.

The "increasing intolerance" of the German liberals may have catastrophic consequences for the country, Wagenknecht warned in an interview with Die Welt. Branding anybody with a different stance, "a Nazi who should be 'canceled'" was no way to go, she added.

"This is a typical approach of the left-liberal milieu: anyone, who is in favor of restricting immigration, is a racist; anyone, who criticizes CO2 taxes, is a climate change denier; and anyone, who doesn't think that schools, restaurants and gyms should be closed, is a 'Covidiot,'" she said.