News briefs

Tribune News Service on Jul 7, 2026

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Half of Americans support placing the Ten Commandments in public schools, survey says

A new national survey has found that half of Americans support displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools, a policy that was recently championed and implemented in Texas.

The survey, conducted in April by the Pew Research Center that was recently released, did not include data specific to Texas, but found that residents in the southern region of the U.S. (which includes Texas) were more supportive of religious expressions in public schools than the coastal regions.

"One of the things that's clear here is that many Americans support some religious expression in public schools," Chip Rotolo, the lead author on the survey, said in an interview.

The Ten Commandments are a moral code central to the Christian and Jewish faiths that can be found in biblical texts. The order of the commandments differs and there are slight differences in the texts between different Christian and Jewish faith traditions.

—The Dallas Morning News

Democrats including Mamdani, Sanders pressure Platner to drop Maine Senate bid

Democratic pressure mounted on Graham Platner on Tuesday to drop out of the crucial Maine Senate race over a new sex assault allegation by an ex-girlfriend who claims he raped her in 2021.

Progressive allies and establishment rivals alike yanked support for Platner and called on the winner of the Democratic primary to pull the plug on his campaign ahead of a Monday deadline to replace him on the November ballot.

Sen. Bernie Sanders added his voice to the chorus of calls for Platner to quit the race.

“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine,” Sanders, who was one of Platner’s earliest and most passionate backers, said in a brief statement. “In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.”

—New York Daily News

Federal court deals blow to Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE’ education law on race, gender

A federal court on Tuesday blocked part of a controversial Florida law restricting how public university and college professors can teach students.

A majority opinion from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the law from restricting how professors and instructors can teach about certain topics.

The law targeted promotion of eight concepts related to race, gender and identity. The concepts included the idea that one “race, color, national origin, or sex” is superior to another, the idea that someone “bears responsibility, or should be treated worse” because of past acts by people in their identity group, and that a person should be treated worse “to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion,” among others.

The opinion is limited to the application of the law as it relates to postsecondary institutions, though the law also applies more broadly to other educational institutions and businesses.

—Miami Herald

NATO agrees to $50 billion in defense deals to placate Trump

NATO allies have agreed to at least $50 billion in defense industry deals, according to an alliance official, to show to U.S. President Donald Trump that Europe is heeding his spending demands.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte revealed some of the contracts Tuesday during a defense industry forum in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, where the military alliance’s leaders are meeting for their annual summit this week. Those included $12 billion in deals to buy next-generation drones, surveillance planes and military aircraft.

Notably, some of the contracts show Europe moving to locally source some equipment it previously bought from the United States. Eleven countries, for instance, will now buy airborne radar-detection systems from Swedish aerospace firm Saab AB, replacing a U.S.-made Boeing Co. model. The deal is worth $5 billion, according to a NATO diplomat.

Others deepen ties to U.S. manufacturers for crucial items. Denmark, Finland, Germany and Norway will buy up to five Northrop Grumman Corp Triton surveillance aircraft at a cost of $2.7 billion, the diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the agreements.

—Bloomberg News