Important Takeaways:
- United Nations investigators have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Gaza’s health facilities and killing medical personnel during its war on the besieged enclave
- A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay released on Thursday in advance of a full report accused Israel of “committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in its assault on Gaza
- “Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 30.
- The Israeli government has routinely said that its attacks on hospitals and schools in Gaza are to target members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
- Hamas has denied it uses the locations as command centers.
- The COI said the “institutional mistreatment” of Palestinians was under direct order from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- Israel did not cooperate with the inquiry after arguing it had an “anti-Israel” bias.
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Important Takeaways:
- State Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters threatened to hold “rogue” public school districts accountable if they didn’t incorporate the Bible as part of their curriculum.
- At least a dozen of the state’s largest districts – Norman, Moore, Stillwater, Bixby, Deer Creek, Piedmont, Yukon, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Collinsville, Owasso and Tulsa – have publicly said they have no intention of altering their curriculum to incorporate Walters’ directive.
- Without providing examples, he said those same districts “want pornography in front of kids under the name of inclusivity but don’t want the historical context of the Bible.”
- In a five-page guidance document, issued in late July, Walters reiterated his demand: “Immediate and complete implementation of these guidelines for the 2024-2025 school year is required. This memorandum and the included standards must be provided to every teacher as well as providing a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments as resources in every classroom in the school district. These documents are mandatory for the holistic education of students in Oklahoma.”
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Important Takeaways:
- State Superintendent Ryan Walters said during opening comments of Thursday’s State Board of Education meeting that “every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.”
- According to the memo obtained by StateImpact, “all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum across specified grade levels, e.g., grades 5 through 12.”
- The memo to schools says the State Department of Education “may supply teaching materials for the Bible, as permissible, to ensure uniformity in delivery,” and “further instructions for monitoring and reporting on this implementation for the 2024/35 school year will be forthcoming.”
- Finally, it says adherence to the mandate is compulsory, and “immediate and strict compliance is expected.”
- Though many Oklahoma schools start fall classes within the next two months, Walters indicated there was still significantly more guidance to come on implementation and compliance monitoring of the mandate.
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Important Takeaways:
- Every public school classroom in Louisiana has been ordered to display a poster of the Ten Commandments
- The Republican-backed measure is the first of its kind in the US, and governs all classrooms up to university level. Governor Jeff Landry signed it off on Wednesday.
- The state law requires that a poster include the sacred text in “large, easily readable font” on a poster that is 11 inches by 14 inches (28cm by 35.5cm) and that the commandments be “the central focus” of the display.
- The commandments will also be shown alongside a four-paragraph “context statement” which will describe how the directives “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries”.
- The new law describes them as “foundational” to state and national governance. But opponents say the law breaks America’s separation of church and state.
- Similar laws have recently been proposed by other Republican-led states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah.
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Important Takeaways:
- The California Senate has approved a bill that would ban school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child asks to go by a new pronoun at school
- Lawmakers approved the legislation along party lines after more than an hour of an emotional debate in which Democratic LGBTQ+ senators recounted stories about how they delayed coming out to their parents or were outed by someone else. They argued gender-noncomforming students should be able to come out to their families on their own terms. But Republican lawmakers said the state shouldn’t dictate whether school districts can enforce so-called parental notification policies and that schools have an obligation to be transparent with parents.
- It is part of a nationwide debate over local school districts and the rights of parents and LGBTQ+ students. States across the country have sought to impose bans on gender-affirming care, bar trans athletes from girls and women’s sports, and require schools to “out” trans and nonbinary students to their parents. Some lawmakers in other states have introduced bills in their legislatures with broad language requiring that parents be notified of any changes to their child’s emotional health or well-being.
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Important Takeaways:
- Map Shows Warnings for People to Stock Up on Food Ahead of Solar Eclipse
- Texas officials have issued a slew of warnings, including that people living within the path of totality should stock up on groceries and gas and run any errands—such as filling prescriptions—in the days before the eclipse. One official also urged pet owners to stock up on supplies for their animals.
- A webpage dedicated to solar eclipse preparation for southeastern Oklahoma said that several state agencies are preparing for the eclipse.
- Officials in Ohio have said that traffic delays are inevitable, according to News 5 Cleveland. The Ohio Department of Transportation is urging Ohio residents to fill their cars with gas and keep snacks and water handy in case of long delays
- Up to 1 million people are expected to travel to Indiana to view the eclipse, according to Indianapolis news station WTHR, and state police are urging residents to prepare for overwhelming traffic. State officials suggest keeping cell phones charged, stocking up on essentials and filling cars with gas ahead of the eclipse.
- The State of New York is urging residents and visitors to “plan to stay in one place for the day,” as traffic was expected to be overwhelming.
- The last total solar eclipse in the U.S. was on August 21, 2017. The next one will not occur in North America until 2044.
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Important Takeaways:
- At its July 19 meeting, amid heated discussion about Black history and personal pronouns, the State Board of Education took a little noted step requiring schools to use a student’s given legal name unless parents give written permission otherwise.
- As families started to fill out myriad permission slips, for everything from media releases to library usage, that form asking if it would be OK to call children by something other than their given name popped up throughout the state.
- Some district officials told teachers one way to avoid the issue — along with the related matter of personal pronouns and titles — would be to call students by their last names.
- They also noted that no one could be required to call a transgender student by different pronouns even if their parents authorized the use of a different name.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- 34 Casualties as Russian Missiles Rain Down on Ukrainian Civilians in Early Morning Raid
- Eighteen cruise missiles were fired in total from the Murmansk region and the Caspian region, and 15 of them were intercepted, said Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
- The attack follows Friday’s launch of more than 20 cruise missiles and two explosive drones at Ukraine, which was the first to target Kyiv in nearly two months.
- In Monday’s attack, missiles hit Pavlohrad, in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding 34 people, including five children, according to Serhii Lysak the region’s top official.
- Seven missiles shot at the city and “some were intercepted” but others hit an industrial facility, sparking a fire, and a residential neighborhood where 19 apartment buildings, 25 homes, six schools and five shops were damaged, he said.
- Missiles also hit three other areas in the region, damaging residential buildings and a school, he said.
- Ukraine has also been building up its mechanized brigades with armor supplied by its Western allies, who have also been training Ukrainian troops and sending ammunition, as Kyiv prepares for an expected counteroffensive this spring.
- On Saturday, two Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil depot in Crimea in the latest attack on the annexed peninsula as Ukraine gears up for its counteroffensive
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview last week that his country would seek to reclaim the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 in the upcoming counteroffensive.
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Romans 1:28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
Important Takeaways:
- New Jersey requiring schools to teach middle schoolers about ‘anal sex,’ ‘pregnancy options’
- The New Jersey Department of Education is imposing sex education standards that require school districts to teach middle school students about anal sex and pregnancy options like abortion or face potential “disciplinary action.”
- The new standards expect students by the end of grade eight to be able to “describe pregnancy testing, the signs of pregnancy, and pregnancy options, including parenting, abortion, and adoption” and be able to define “vaginal, oral, and anal sex.”
- Melissa Varley, superintendent of the Berkeley Heights Public Schools, told Fox News that while parents can have their children opt out, the sex education requirements still have to be taught in her school district.
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Romans 1:18 “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Important Takeaways:
- Florida school board member demands ‘disciplinary action’ over pornographic books in schools: ‘I’m disgusted’
- A Florida school board member said she was “disgusted” by the pornographic books available to kids and described a race against time to remove them before the start of the 2022-2023 school year.
- I’ve identified 75 books that I’m working to challenge to get off of ourselves,” Ashley Gilhousen of the Clay County School District board told Fox News Digital. She added that she believed “disciplinary action” was appropriate to address those responsible
- One of the books Gilhousen mentioned was “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, which describes a boy recalling oral sex from when he was “ten years old.”
- Another book, “Julian is a Mermaid” is for elementary-aged children and is regarded as an introductory text to gender fluidity.
- Another book formerly in the district, “Lucky” by Alice Sebold, discussed details of a college girl being raped.
- Gilhousen was part of a June 30 meeting that went viral. During the meeting, a dad named Bruce Friedman attempted to read passages from pornographic books in the district’s library – but had his microphone abruptly cut off.
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