Arkansas Sued Over Ten Commandments in Schools
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Seven Arkansas families filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging a new state law that will require public school classrooms to post copies of the Ten Commandments, saying it will violate their constitutional rights.
"Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library—rendering them unavoidable—unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state's favored religious scripture," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit challenges a measure that Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law earlier this year. The law, which requires the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in public school classrooms and libraries, takes effect in August.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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When the pardon was issued, Lang was facing a number of serious charges, including "assaulting, resisting, or impeding" law enforcement and civil disorder, with prosecutors alleging he struck police officers with an aluminum baseball bat and kicked one who fell on the ground. Lang has consistently denied any wrongdoing and insists he acted in self-defense after violence was initiated by the police. Lang is currently running for Congress, hoping to take the Florida Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio when he was appointed as Secretary of State by Trump and currently occupied by Republican Senator Ashlee Moody on an interim basis. A special election for the seat is scheduled for November 2026 and Lang is hoping to beat Moody in a primary contest to become the official Republican candidate. January 6, 2021 Lang, an e-commerce entrepreneur originally from New York State, was one of tens of thousands of Trump supporters who gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, to protest what the then-president claimed was the "rigged" 2020 presidential election. The day held great significance as Congress was expected to certify the election result, rebuking Trump's allegations of systematic fraud, though some Republicans refused to do so. Like Trump, Lang remains convinced the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden, though the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency insisted it had been "the most secure" election in American history. A plethora of legal challenges issued by Trump's team failed to get the election result overturned either nationally or in any single state. The January 6, 2021, demonstration turned violent, with hundreds of Trump supporters storming Congress in a bid to block the election result's certification, sparking chaos in which one demonstrator was shot dead by police whilst dozens of officers were injured. Jake Lang is running for Marco Rubio's old Florida Senate seat following his release from prison. Jake Lang is running for Marco Rubio's old Florida Senate seat following his release from prison. Blessed News According to prosecutors, Lang, wearing a gas mask and wielding a baseball bat, struck officers whilst shouting taunts such as "This is our house, we paid for this f****** building." When interviewed by Newsweek, Lang didn't deny handling a baseball bat and wearing a mask but insisted he didn't take them to the demonstration, adding: "I presume whoever brought that was probably worried about an Antifa gang jumping them." He also said he only acted in self-defense. The Congressional hopeful blamed law enforcement for the violence, commenting: "During the course of the police brutality, it escalated to such a crazy nature, people were literally dying, and in order to stop the loss of human life, me and a group of men literally had to put ourselves between the unarmed protesters and this thuggish police group that killed people." This version of events is contradicted by a 40-minute documentary released by the New York Times and largely based on raw footage, which showed demonstrators approaching a police perimeter outside Congress and attempting to overpower them at what it said was the start of the violence. Lang told Newsweek that at times, police were "shooting things over the crowd," which were "landing in the middle of thousands of people," causing them to surge forward towards the police, though video shared on social media appears to show the police being engaged before any tear gas or pepper spray was deployed. 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Trump supporters clashing with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Brent Stirton/GETTY During Lang's stint in prison, he remained active with both religion and politics, spending time as an unofficial pastor "doing Bible studies" and "baptizing people." He said there was "a big black market in prison" with "the prison smuggling in whatever, and so if I could get my hand on a phone, that's a great weapon on information warfare to use." Lang claimed that in one prison, somebody even told him, "They could get me a cat." Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice for comment on Thursday via online inquiry form. January 6 Love Story During his time in prison, Lang first came across his now fiancé Rachel, another January 6 defendant who was convicted before being released on probation. He said: "It's a J6 love story, the greatest love story every written in the January 6 world. So Rachel was a Jan 6er and I was on a Twitter space I was doing from my prison cell and she was listening. This is one of the times, very rare, where I had a cell Brooklyn Federal Prison, Brooklyn, New York. "We met basically through one of my media interviews...I reached out and we started talking, she started becoming one of the people I trusted and like a right hand of mine while I'm in an amazing woman and I couldn't help but love her and ask her to marry." Run for Congress Following Trump's pardon, Lang quickly re-engaged with politics, announcing his Florida Senate bid in March 2025 after Rubio joined Trump's cabinet. Lang painted Senator Moody, Rubio's replacement, as an establishment figure, commenting: "Ashley's an interesting character because she feigns a lot of Trump's policy positions, but at the end of the day, she is a DeSantis loyalist, and on top of that, she has this extremely established background. 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I mean, first of all, you have people that lost their entire livelihoods, and there are real monetary damages that happened. People's careers, homes, cars, marriages – all of them dissolved... "I believe that the Jan 6ers are going to come out of this not even just financially stronger but also in a position to start to make real change. People are going to see us as the vindicated patriots that stood up for the stolen election."
Newsweek
an hour ago
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Map Shows Where Hegseth Wants US Military on China's Doorstep
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. U.S. defense chief Pete Hegseth on Wednesday stressed the role of regional partners in the Pentagon's bid to counter an increasingly assertive China. "The Indo-Pacific is our priority theater, and China is our pacing threat,' he said while making the case for the defense budget requested by the Trump administration for the next fiscal year. Those words echoed his May 31 remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore, where he hailed examples of U.S. and allied military cooperation—including those illustrated on the Newsweek map below. Why It Matters China's rapid military buildup and competing territorial claims have strained ties with several neighbors, including U.S.-allied Philippines and Japan, both of which share defense treaties with Washington that could potentially draw American forces into a conflict. Chinese threats and increasing military activities around Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing claims as its territory, have further raised concerns. The tensions have driven some of China's neighbors to deepen military cooperation with the United States and one another. Newsweek contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment by email, but did not receive a response before publication time. What To Know In Singapore, Hegseth praised President Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy while blaming former President Joe Biden for the U.S.-Mexico border crisis to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yet, he added, "America First certainly does not mean America alone." Taking aim at what he called China's "destabilizing actions," Hegseth said the U.S. should be prepared for war, although deterring Chinese military aggression by raising its costs was preferable. "We're doing this here in the Indo-Pacific in three distinct ways: first, by improving our forward force posture. Second, by helping allies and partners strengthen their defense capabilities. And third, by rebuilding defense industrial bases," he told attendees. These efforts include deploying to the first island chain assets such as the U.S. Marine Corps' NMESIS high-precision anti-ship missile system to the Luzon Strait—a maritime choke point frequented by Chinese warships. A U.S. Army Mid-Range Capability, or Typhon missile system fires a Standard Missile-6 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, on November 8, 2024. A U.S. Army Mid-Range Capability, or Typhon missile system fires a Standard Missile-6 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, on November 8, 2024. The platform was delivered to the Philippines' far-northern Batanes province about 120 miles south of Taiwan. The deployment "enhanced our interoperability and improved our readiness on cutting-edge platforms, where we need them and when we need them," Hegseth said. The NMESIS missile system adds to the growing U.S. firepower in the Southeast Asian country. Last year, the U.S. deployed a U.S. Army Mid-Range Capability, also known as the Typhon missile launcher, to the Philippines ahead of joint military drills last spring. Philippine officials initially suggested the system would be removed after the drills, but later indicated it could remain indefinitely, irking officials in Beijing over the system's ability to reach China's eastern seaboard with weapons like as the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk cruise missile. A second Typhon system will be deployed to AUKUS partner Australia this summer, where the U.S. Army plans to conduct its first-ever live-fire test of the system on foreign soil, Hegseth said. This year, Washington and Canberra also reached an agreement for Australia to produce 155-millimeter artillery rounds and assemble guided multiple-launch rocket systems, boosting Australia's potential as a force multiplier in the event of a conflict. Washington's efforts to deepen cooperation with Japan, a key Pacific security treaty ally, are also advancing, with upgrades to the joint headquarters of the U.S. Forces Japan. The move will increase deterrence and mark "progress the alliance has made toward improving interoperability and strengthening Japan's capabilities," Hegseth said. The changes, which began in April, will integrate U.S. land, air, sea, space and cyber forces under a single headquarters. There are currently over 50,000 active-duty American military personnel in Japan—the most stationed in any foreign country. The U.S. is also ramping up cooperation with India, one of the four Quad nations and a country that continues to experience friction with China along its disputed border regions in the Himalayas. The Pentagon is working with the South Asian country—an increasingly capable arms manufacturer—to "co-produce equipment needed to deter aggression, and this includes negotiating an agreement to bring our industrial bases ever closer," Hegseth said. Following February talks in Washington between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two leaders announced an "Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance" that will see the two countries co-develop and co-produce sea drones and counter-drone systems. What People Are Saying: Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Beijing's Tsinghua University, told Newsweek:"What I want to stress is we are on the path to better relations with regional countries—so we don't need the U.S. to teach us." "I think Secretary Hegseth is kind of trying to [come] between China and regional countries. I don't think this will be successful." What's Next The House Appropriations Committee advanced the Pentagon's request for a base defense budget of $892.6 billion, lower than the $1 trillion figure previously pledged by Trump. That, along with a $150 billion reconciliation package providing additional funds for priority programs such as shipbuilding and munitions, is expected to pass in the overall congressional vote.
