* Starting off with Oklahoma. AP…

Oklahoma will require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam that the Republican-dominated state’s top education official says is designed to safeguard against “radical leftist ideology,” but which opponents decry as a “MAGA loyalty test.”

Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification. […]

The state did not release the entire 50-question test to The Associated Press but did provide the first five questions, which include asking what the first three words of the U.S. Constitution are and why freedom of religion is “important to America’s identity.”

Prager didn’t immediately respond to a phone message or email seeking comment. But Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, told CNN that several questions on the assessment relate to “undoing the damage of gender ideology.”

More from USA Today…

Oklahoma is offering teaching bonuses that go up to $50,000 to attract teachers from across the nation and has seen “a dramatic increase in teachers wanting to come to Oklahoma,” Walters said. The new test is meant to ensure they weed out teachers with opposing views from the state’s standards. The state, like many others, has a persisting teacher shortage. […]

Nonprofit conservative media company Prager U is helping Oklahoma’s state department of education develop the test.

The company previously helped develop the state’s new high school history curriculum standards, which includes lessons on how to dissect the results of the 2020 election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud, “an unforeseen record number of voters” and “security risks of mail-in balloting.”

The new curriculum also teaches the contested theory that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak and removed a prior proposal for lessons about George Floyd’s murder and Black Lives Matter.

Last month, two state board members said they saw explicit images of women displayed in Superintendent Walters’ office during a closed-door meeting. Fox 23…

Two members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education told FOX23 News they saw sexually explicit images of naked women on a TV screen connected to a computer inside State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ office during an executive session on Thursday.

Board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage said they were in Walters’ office when the images popped up mid-discussion on a TV screen that began playing videos of naked women. […]

“I was appointed to the State Board of Education to serve Oklahoma students to the best of my ability. The images that board members were exposed to yesterday in this meeting were shocking and at the very least inappropriate. There has to be accountability,” Carson said in a statement to FOX23. […]

The allegations are particularly shocking because they involve a public official who has made public statements for years that Oklahoma’s public schools have an issue with rampant nudity and explicit sexual images in their libraries and classrooms.

Walters has campaigned by saying there is porn in the classroom and he is the one who will get rid of it. Walters has also called teachers “perverts” and has actively worked to rapidly revoke teaching certificates from any teacher who has ever been in trouble with the law or even accused of wrongdoing in certain situations.

* Mississippi and Louisiana…

The governors of Mississippi and Louisiana said on Monday that they would deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, joining three other Republican-led states that have recently heeded President Trump’s request to fill the nation’s capital with troops.

Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, echoed Mr. Trump’s exaggerated portrayal of Washington as lawless, saying in a statement that he would send 200 troops because “Americans deserve a safe capital city that we can all be proud of.”

Violent crime has fallen rapidly in Washington in recent years, reaching a 30-year low. Mr. Trump claims, without evidence, that the city is fabricating crime statistics to hide its descent into a dystopian hellscape and has fudged statistics himself to justify his takeover. District leaders say the Trump administration has made combating crime harder through budget cuts and inaction.

The Louisiana National Guard said in a statement that “as directed by the president of the United States,” it was sending 135 members to Washington to “protect federal buildings, national monuments and other federal properties.”

Axios…

Eight of the top 10 cities with the highest murder rates and populations of at least 100,000 were in red states — Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Louisiana, Axios found. Jackson, Miss., had the nation’s highest homicide rate— nearly 78 per 100,000 residents, more than 15 times the national average.

* Nevada…

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte argued Monday in state court that a Nevada law requiring minors to get parental approval or a judge’s order to obtain an abortion was vague, unconstitutional and should be put on pause.

The law, unenforced since the Legislature passed it in 1985, gained new life with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and a federal right to an abortion. Called Senate Bill 510, the law is now enforceable. […]

The Nevada law requires the parent or guardian of an unmarried or unemancipated minor to receive notification before the minor can have an abortion. Alternatively, the minor can get an abortion if they navigate what plaintiffs have called “a hazy, inadequate judicial bypass process.”

Schrager asked how a doctor would verify a patient was single or emancipated, or what action a doctor could take to contact a parent that would meet the “reasonable effort” mark. He also questioned how a doctor would verify the patient’s last known address.

“Are you taking the word of the patient?” he added. “Can you do that?”

* The Texas Tribune…

The 2025 legislative session was transformative for public education in Texas.

Lawmakers approved a $1 billion school voucher program that will let Texas families use taxpayer funds to pay for their children’s private schooling. They invested back into the public school system with a $8.5 billion boost after years of stagnant state funding. In addition, they passed legislation that banned cell phones; barred diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 schools; and ordered that they display Ten Commandments posters in classrooms. […]

Senate Bill 12, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, eliminates DEI programs in K-12 schools. It prohibits schools from considering race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation in hiring and training practices. The law also prohibits public schools from sponsoring or authorizing a club based on gender identity or sexual orientation. […]

The Legislature passed Senate Bill 13, authored by Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, which will allow parents and school boards to challenge any school library material.

The law will allow school boards to delegate this responsibility to parents if 50 parents or 10% of parents in the district — whichever is less — sign a petition calling for the creation of a local school advisory council.

* Bloomberg…

Wyoming launched its long-promised stablecoin, designed to offer instant transactions and reduced fees for consumers and businesses, in the latest effort by the Cowboy State to attract digital asset businesses.

The Frontier Stable Token, or FRNT, will be backed by dollars and short-term Treasuries and is meant to track the value of the US currency one-for-one. The Wyoming Stable Token Commission is working with LayerZero to issue the tokens and plans for the coins to be overcollateralized by 2%. The reserves backing FRNT are managed by Franklin Advisers with financial audit and monthly attestations provided by The Network Firm. The stablecoin will be available on the the Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon and Solana blockchains.