Cornell University will pay $60 million to the Trump administration and adopt federal interpretations of civil rights law after authorities restored more than $1 billion in suspended research funding. The Ivy League institution agreed on Friday to remit $30 million over three years to resolve outstanding allegations and invest an additional $30 million in agricultural research.
Federal agencies had accused the university of racial discrimination in admissions, financial aid, and campus programming under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Cornell becomes the fourth Ivy League school to settle with the administration after Pennsylvania, Brown, and Columbia reached similar agreements.
University President Michael I. Kotlikoff emphasized...
Amnesty International accused Tunisia on Tuesday of escalating human rights violations against sub-Saharan migrants through mass deportations to remote border regions, arbitrary detentions, and physical violence by security forces. The rights organization warned that European nations providing financial support for Tunisian border enforcement may share responsibility for these abuses.
President Kais Saied's February 2023 statement claiming that African migrants threatened the country's demographic character triggered widespread racist attacks and forced removals. Proposed legislative changes would impose harsher penalties on undocumented individuals and those assisting them. Authorities have transported groups to desert areas bordering...
The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to lift sanctions against Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab, removing them from a list targeting Islamic State and Al-Qaeda affiliates. Fourteen council members supported the measure while China abstained, arguing the American-backed resolution ignored dissenting viewpoints and advanced Washington's political interests.
Syrian Ambassador Ibrahim Abdulmalik Olabi characterized the decision as recognition of growing international trust in the country's new leadership following the December 2024 overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. The United States and United Kingdom previously freed roughly 15 billion dollars in frozen assets and removed terrorist designations from...
A federal district judge in Oregon blocked President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops to Portland over state objections, determining that his actions violated constitutional limits on federal power. Judge Karin Immergut issued an injunction on Friday evening after concluding that the administration lacked statutory justification to federalize Oregon Guard members and dispatch units from California and Texas to monitor protests near an immigration facility.
The 106-page opinion found that evidence failed to demonstrate either active rebellion or insufficient federal resources to maintain order at the location. Testimony from local law enforcement contradicted presidential characterizations of widespread violence...
Canada's highest court determined on Friday that trial judges must evaluate all relevant evidence when assessing whether someone possessed the capacity to consent to sexual activity, rather than relying solely on a complainant's recollections. The ruling in R. v. Rioux established that circumstantial indicators such as physical impairment, confusion, or memory gaps can independently demonstrate incapacity even without direct testimony about mental state.
The case involved Quebec resident Frédéric Rioux, who faced sexual assault charges after an encounter with a woman he previously knew. She testified that alcohol consumption at a picnic left her unable to control her body and with only partial memories of events. Lower courts initially...
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a temporary stay on Friday, pausing a lower court mandate that required the Trump administration to maintain full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding for November. The emergency order allows the First Circuit Court of Appeals time to consider the government's appeal, expiring 48 hours after that court renders its decision.
The dispute began when the USDA suspended SNAP benefits during a government shutdown that had reached 37 days. A district judge in Rhode Island ruled on Thursday that the administration acted arbitrarily by choosing to withhold assistance rather than provide relief, ordering immediate restoration of benefits for roughly 42 million Americans.
The appellate court has...
Two senior private equity partners have departed the London office of Ropes & Gray for Akin, strengthening the latter firm's transactional practice in a major European market. Dan Oates and Angela Becker are leaving after three years with Ropes, which they joined in 2022 from Fried Frank.
The moves continue a challenging period for Ropes in London, where veteran partner Helen Croke departed for White & Case in June along with two other lawyers. Another partner, Simon Saitowitz, who had also arrived from Fried Frank with Oates and Becker, left for Weil in April. Ropes has simultaneously expanded its European private equity presence by opening new offices in Paris in March and Milan in September.
Oates, who served as global co-head of...
Global legal institutions are demonstrating resilience against efforts by the Trump administration to undermine the post-World War II international order, panellists reported on Wednesday at the International Bar Association conference in Toronto. Case Western Reserve University co-dean Michael Scharf noted that despite unilateral defunding of the United Nations, the organization has responded with reform momentum, while NATO funding has become more balanced, and the Council of Europe established a tribunal addressing Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Delegates heard that although domestic attacks on legal norms have encouraged authoritarian regimes worldwide, they have simultaneously strengthened determination among other countries...
Legendary journalist Bob Woodward delivered sharp criticism of Donald Trump during a Toronto conference, telling the International Bar Association that the former president dismantled constitutional safeguards and wielded authority in ways never before witnessed in American democracy. During interviews conducted in 2020, Woodward learned Trump received explicit warnings from National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien about the coronavirus posing catastrophic risks comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, yet the president dismissed these concerns publicly.
Woodward drew distinctions between the Watergate era and recent years, noting Richard Nixon faced accountability when Republican colleagues abandoned him during impeachment...
