New York DA ready to frop DSK charges

While the investigative efforts uncovered a trail of previously unknown phones tied to the alleged victim as well as suspicious financial transactions, and even a prison call with a drug suspect in which the idea of financial gain was discussed, no evidence has been found to suggest premeditated extortion, sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Prosecutors also have testimony from hotel colleagues that bolster the maid's contention that she believed Strauss-Kahn had already left his hotel suite when she entered to clean the room moments before the alleged incident -- undercutting the suggestion of a premeditated plot, the sources said.

On Independence Day weekend, here's an open letter to the femmes of France about gender relations and sexual harassment in the French workplace, in light of the ongoing DSK saga playing out in New York:

To French women who want to see sexual innuendos dropped, and sexual harassment stopped, in your workplaces, American women offer vigorous support.
Finally, to French women who have the guts to confront the status quo, American women, including those who don't consider themselves feminists, offer a most un-French shout out: You go girl!
In American law, sexual harassment is conceptually related to basic civil rights. The French may call Americans prudes. I've always bought the Francophile line that French men are so very charming, that French women have a je ne seis quoi style, that sweet nothings are somehow more romantic when uttered with a French accent than a Texas twang.
Has the mystique of French fashion and romance obscured the reality of French sexual politics? For the record, the EEOC defines the latter thus: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment." There can be neither liberty nor happiness for working women who face a culture of male sexual aggression in offices, factories and on the job.
Privately, President Sarkozy's ministers spoke of Mr Strauss-Kahn as politically dead.
While still restricted to stay within the US - the authorities have retained his passport - Mr Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday.
He and his wife, Anne Sinclair, ate a celebratory four-course dollars $US600 supper with another couple. A diner said Mr Strauss-Kahn appeared "in a very good mood". On Saturday afternoon, the Strauss-Kahns left their Tribeca townhouse pursued by media crews. A ferocious character assassination against the Guinean maid dominated the New York tabloids at the weekend. She was accused of demanding money immediately after the sexual encounter with Mr Strauss-Kahn.
DNA evidence shows that a sexual encounter did take place between the maid and the politician.