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Maine Father Seeking Restraining Order to Allow His Son to Attend School Without Required Vaccinations
A hearing was held in federal court Thursday morning in the lawsuit of a Turner man against the Maine Department of Education and MSAD 52 over vaccine requirements.
James Childs said he refuses to vaccinate his 12-year-old son citing religious beliefs. However, state law requires all students be vaccinated regardless of beliefs. The state only allows medical exemptions for not having a student vaccinated.
Childs and We The Patriots USA, the non profit providing his legal counsel, are hoping to get a temporary restraining order so that his child can attend school without getting vaccinations. The hearing addressed a new filing to request a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the DOE and school from enforcing the mandate against Childs’ son while the case is ongoing.
“Parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children and the state can’t interfere with that,” said Cameron Atkinson, Special Counsel for We The Patriots USA. “The suggestion that the state somehow has the power to coerce a parent into violating their religious beliefs violates every settled principle of first amendment law in this country for the past 250 years and it violates the colonial principles that led to our first amendment.”
More Wisconsin Parents Opting Out of School Vaccine Requirements, Data Shows
A 15 Investigates review of years of state data found more Wisconsin parents are opting their children out of required school vaccines, a trend that started before the pandemic and has grown since. Wisconsin parents can opt out of school vaccine requirements three ways: a health waiver verified by a doctor, a religious waiver, or a personal-conviction waiver, which means a parent decided against vaccination.
The personal-conviction waiver is driving the trend. Across 13 districts reviewed, the average personal-conviction rate climbed from 4.6% before the pandemic to 5.5% last year.
Some districts saw larger increases. New Glarus reported a personal-conviction rate of 9%. Baraboo also reported 9%. Lodi’s rate doubled, from 4% to 8%. New Glarus, Dodgeville, Platteville and Reedsburg also rank among the highest in the area.
Off-Label GLP-1 Use Skyrockets in Young Kids
Prescribing GLP-1 receptor agonists to children ages 8 to 11 years with obesity surged 310-fold since 2019, despite a lack of FDA approval in kids under 12, a large cross-sectional analysis showed.
Among over 3.5 million children in this age group, annual prescribing of GLP-1 drugs — including tirzepatide (Zepbound), semaglutide (Wegovy), and liraglutide (Saxenda) — increased from 0.03% in 2019 to 9.3% in 2026, reported Babak J. Orandi, MD, PhD, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues.
Even so, overall prescribing remained low. Just 20,282 children with obesity (0.6%) received a GLP-1 prescription across the entire study period, they noted in Pediatrics. The prevalence of pediatric obesity in the U.S. is 20%.
LA’s Ban on AI for All Students Follows Limits on Screen Time
For the second time this week, a major public school system has barred students from using most generative artificial intelligence. But the ban imposed by the Los Angeles Unified School District goes much further than the one put in place on Wednesday by New York City’s public schools.
The Los Angeles district, the second-largest in the nation, restricted access to AI for students in all grades for the 2026-27 school year.
The move follows a school board vote in June to limit students’ screen time in classrooms. Under that new policy, students are not given access to screens until second grade, then their allowed time with screens gradually increases in successive grades.
Can Warning Labels on Social Media Protect Teenagers?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Your teen has been flipping through Instagram for nearly an hour when they get a pop-up that says: “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Social media is associated with significant mental health harms for children and young adults.” What are the odds this will stop their scrolling?
Pretty good, according to a new study that’s being published days after a landmark $18 billion settlement with social media giant Meta. Slapping warning labels on social media platforms has the potential to protect teenagers and young adults from harm, researchers report today in the journal JAMA Health Forum.
Young people said they felt particularly swayed by warnings aimed at their mental and physical health, results show.