Southern Methodist University has banned a fraternity for two years amid allegations a student from another fraternity was beaten.

Sigma Phi Epsilon was put on deferred suspension after three members were charged with misdemeanor assault following the Feb. 10 incident. A fourth was charged with unlawful restraint.

The Texas Senate isn’t going to debate the sweeping proposal to overhaul high school graduation requirements yet.

Sen. Dan Patrick, the head of the chamber’s Education Committee, had suggested that his Senate Bill 3 would be taken up Wednesday. But now it’s off at least until next week.

For nearly 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the hated symbol of the division of Europe, a gray, concrete mass that snaked through neighborhoods, separating families and friends. On Wednesday, it took hundreds of police to guarantee the safe removal of 15 feet (less than 5 meters) of what’s left of the wall.

Construction crews, protected by about 250 police, hauled down part of the three-quarter of a mile (1.3-kilometer) strip of the wall before dawn to provide access to a planned luxury apartment complex overlooking the Spree River.

Raising tensions with South Korea yet again, North Korea cut its last military hotline with Seoul on Wednesday, saying there was no need to continue military communications between the countries in a situation “where a war may break out at any moment.”

The hotline — a dedicated telephone link between the two militaries — was used mainly to arrange for South Koreans who work at an industrial complex in the North to cross the heavily armed border. When the connection was last severed in 2009, some workers were stranded in the North.