By SEAN MURPHY

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s new public schools superintendent announced Wednesday he is rescinding a mandate from his predecessor that forced schools to place Bibles in classrooms and incorporate the book into lesson plans for students.

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Superintendent Lindel Fields said in a statement he has “no plans to distribute Bibles or a Biblical character education curriculum in classrooms.” The directive last year from former Superintendent Ryan Walters drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and prompted a lawsuit from a group of parents, teachers and religious leaders that is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It was to have applied to students in grades 5 through 12.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Fields to the superintendent’s post after Walters resigned last month to take a job in the private sector.

Jacki Phelps, an attorney for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said she intends to notify the court of the agency’s plan to rescind the mandate and seek a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they were encouraged by Fields’ decision and plan to discuss next steps with their clients.

“The attempts to promote religion in the classroom and the abuses of power that the Oklahoma State Department of Education engaged in under Walters’ tenure should never happen in Oklahoma or anywhere in the United States again,” the attorneys said in a statement.

Many schools districts across the state had decided not to comply with the Bible mandate.

FILE – Copies of the Bible are displayed Aug. 12, 2024, at the Bixby High School library in Bixby, Okla. (AP Photo/Joey Johnson, File)

A spokeswoman for the state education department, Tara Thompson, said Fields believes the decision on whether the Bible should be incorporated into classroom instruction is one best left up to individual districts and that spending money on Bibles is not the best use of taxpayer resources.

Walters in March had announced plans to team up with country music singer Lee Greenwood seeking donations to get Bibles into classrooms after a legislative panel rejected his $3 million request to fund the effort.

Walters, a far-right Republican, made fighting “woke ideology”, banning certain books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he claims were indoctrinating children in classrooms a focal point of his administration. Since his election in 2020, he imposed a number of mandates on public schools and worked to develop new social studies standards for K-12 public school students that included teaching about conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election. Those standards have been put on hold while a lawsuit challenging them moves forward.

Thompson said the agency plans to review all of Walters’ edicts, including a requirement that applicants from teacher jobs coming from California and New York take an ideology exam, to determine if those may also be rescinded.

“We need to review all of those mandates and provide clarity to schools moving forward,” she said.

By CHAN HO-HIM

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s biggest state-owned air carriers have hit back at a U.S. proposal to bar them from flying over Russia when traveling to or from the U.S.

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The U.S. side has said such flights give Chinese airlines an unfair cost advantage over American carriers, which cannot cross through Russian airspace. Moscow closed Russian airspace to U.S. air carriers and most European airlines in 2022 in response to Western sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Air China, China Eastern and China Southern are among six Chinese airlines filing complaints over the order proposed last week to prohibit such flights by Chinese carriers.

China Eastern said in its filing this week to the U.S. Department of Transport that the proposed ban would “harm the public interest” and “inconvenience travelers” from both China and the U.S. The additional flight time would result in higher costs and elevated air fares, which increases the burden on all travelers, it said.

China Southern warned that a Russian airspace ban would adversely affect thousands of travelers. Air China said it estimates at least 4,400 passengers would be affected if the ban takes effect during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

Last week, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun also hit back at the proposed ban, saying the move would be “punishing” passengers around the world.

David Yu, an aviation industry expert at New York University Shanghai, said that U.S. carriers’ inability to fly over Russian airspace has increased flight paths for some U.S.-China routes by roughly two to three hours. Longer journeys require more fuel and pressure U.S. carriers’ profitability.

“The U.S.-China route historically has been a money-maker for airlines on both sides,” Yu said. “From the Chinese carriers’ perspective, if you can go through Russia, your costs go down.”

Despite that, Chinese carriers have struggled with losses, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said in its proposed order that Chinese carriers’ ability to cross Russian airspace has caused “competitive imbalances” between American and Chinese airlines.

“Being able to use the most efficient route provides a competitive advantage because it usually results in the shortest flight time duration, thereby offering a more appealing option to travelers,” the department said last week.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said it would consider public comments before finalizing the plan.

European airlines including Air France-KLM have also complained.

In a filing to the Department of Transportation, United Airlines urged that Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific, which is not included in the list of Chinese airlines, also be subject to the ban.

The chancellor for the troubled University of Minnesota-Morris will step down from her role by the end of December. The news comes from a letter by President Rebecca Cunningham of the University of Minnesota.

According to the office of the president, Chancellor Janet Schrunk Ericksen will be stepping down from her role by Dec. 31. In her letter, Cunningham wrote, “Chancellor Ericksen has laid a strong foundation that will allow us to build on the successes she fostered and lead the University of Minnesota Morris to its next chapter.”

The Morris campus, with its focus on liberal arts education, has been beset by declining enrollment and related financial and sustainability challenges, many of them related to its location in rural western Minnesota.

Michael Rodriguez, dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, has been selected to be the new chancellor beginning on Jan. 1, pending approval from the Board of Regents, according to Cunningham.

Rodriguez is a University of Minnesota-Morris alumnus. Rodriguez’s biography with the University of Minnesota describes him as a fifth-generation Minnesotan and a first-generation college graduate.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota-Morris before going on to earn his master’s degree in public affairs at the Twin Cities campus. He also earned a doctorate in measurement and quantitative methods from Michigan State University.

Rodriguez became a university faculty member in 1999 and was previously named the Campbell Leadership Chair in Education and Human Development in 2013. He is also a member of the UMN Academy of Distinguished Teachers and chairs the Technical Advisory Group of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.

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Crews have nearly contained a wildfire burning in a North Shore state park, and a portion of the Superior Hiking Trail will reopen Thursday.

The 300-acre Crosby Fire, burning through fallen leaves in and near George H. Crosby Manitou State Park since it was ignited by lightning on Oct. 8, was 95% contained as of Wednesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

That means control lines — either natural or artificial gaps in vegetation — exist around nearly all of the fire’s perimeter and are expected, but not guaranteed, to stop the fire from spreading. It does not mean fire within the perimeter is completely out.

With the help of rain overnight Sunday, the fire has not grown since the weekend, and containment of the fire has grown steadily.

“Things are looking good,” Mary Nordeen, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Incident Command System, said Wednesday.

“The firefighters are just going to be working along the containment line, mopping up hotspots, checking the fire area,” Nordeen said.

The Superior Hiking Trail Association said a section of trail from Caribou Falls State Wayside Rest to Lake County Road 7 (Cramer Road) that was closed because of the fire will reopen Thursday at 8 a.m. Users should stay on the trail and not be alarmed if they see or smell smoke, the association said.

“There are no threats of fire to the trail any longer, however the fire did burn up to, and across the trail,” the association said on Facebook.

More rain is expected Thursday and Friday, said Woody Unruh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Duluth.

“Conditions are favorable for helping to contain the fire, just given that we’re seeing the precipitation coming in, no dry days and then the winds are also cooperating,” Unruh said.

Although the weather has improved, firefighters will remain on scene.

“We’ll keep crews in the area for a while yet to keep monitoring, patrolling. … That weather has really helped and those crews really worked hard,” Nordeen said.

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