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Oklahoma attorney general says state schools superintendent cannot mandate students watch prayer video
The Oklahoma attorney general’s office responded after the state’s education superintendent sent an email this week to public school administrators requiring them to show students his video announcement of a new Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism. In the video, he prays for President-elect Trump.
Ryan Walters, a Republican, announced the new office on Wednesday and on Thursday sent the email to school superintendents statewide. The new department will be within the state’s Department of Education. Walters said it would “oversee the investigation of abuses to individual religious freedom or displays of patriotism.”
“In one of the first steps of the newly created department, we are requiring all of Oklahoma schools to play the attached video to all kids that are enrolled,” according to the email. Districts were also told to send the video to all parents of students.
In the video, Walters says religious liberty has been attacked and patriotism mocked “by woke teachers unions,” then prays for the leaders of the United States after saying students do not have to join in the prayer.
Sue Ogrocki / AP
“In particular, I pray for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country,” Walters said.
The office of state Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a statement Friday saying Walters has no authority under state law to issue such a mandate.
“Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents’ rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights,” said the attorney general’s office spokesperson Phil Bacharach.
Multiple school districts have also said they had no plans to show students the video.
Walters, a former public school teacher elected in 2022, ran on a platform of fighting “woke ideology,” banning books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he claims are indoctrinating children in classrooms. He already faces two lawsuits over his June mandate that schools incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for students in grades 5 through 12. Several school districts have previously stated that they will disregard the mandate.
One of the lawsuits also notes that the initial request for proposal released by the State Department of Education to purchase the Bibles appears to have been tailored to match Bibles endorsed by now President-elect Donald Trump that sell for $59.99 each.
Earlier this week, Walters announced he had purchased more than 500 Bibles to be used in Advanced Placement government classes. The education department that the 500 Bibles are “God Bless the USA Bibles” and were ordered Thursday for about $25,000. They will arrive “in the coming weeks,” the department said.
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McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.