Donald Trump signed an executive action on Thursday forcing colleges and universities to submit data to prove they do not consider race in admissions, as the White House intensifies its scrutiny of higher education institutions that receive federal funding.
The Trump administration is accusing colleges of using personal statements and other proxies in order to consider race, despite a 2023 supreme court ruling reversing affirmative action, as part of its wider attack on diversity-, inclusion- and equality-related initiatives at American institutions.
“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights,” the presidential memorandum reads, “the persistent lack of available data – paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies – continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice.”
In the memorandum, Trump directs the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to require that higher education institutions submit “the data necessary to verify that their admissions do not involve unlawful discrimination”. McMahon is to overhaul the US higher education database, expand the scope of required admissions reporting and increase accuracy checks to help provide additional “transparency”.
The Trump administration is doubling to $50m a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narcotraffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
The Air Force will deny early retirement benefits to transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of military service, even in cases where an early retirement was already approved, according to a new memo.
A federal judge on Aug. 7 ordered a temporary halt to further construction at an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," while a lawsuit over its environmental impact unfolds in court.
Israeli authorities are moving forward with plans to dramatically expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite growing international condemnation and warnings that the move would destroy already moribund prospects for a two-state solution.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff will return from Moscow with a framework for peace between Russia and Ukraine. 
The Israeli military has put parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis under new enforced displacement orders amid fears that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is preparing to order the full occupation of the Palestinian territory later this week.
