A top official at the U.S. Department of Education has been keeping a controversial flag linked to Christian nationalism and the Jan. 6 insurrection hung outside his office, according to the agency's union and a department employee who has observed it.
It's the latest in a series of instances in which the flag – which depicts a pine tree and the words "An Appeal to Heaven" – has been associated with agencies and figures at the highest levels of the federal government.
Though long tied to the American Revolution, the banner in more recent years "has been adopted primarily by evangelical Christian nationalist groups," as well as the Proud Boys and certain neo-Nazi groups, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an independent nonprofit organization. It was flown in 2021 by rioters at the U.S. Capitol as they tried to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
The symbol's emergence at the agency responsible for overseeing billions of dollars in federal funding for the nation's schools is already raising concerns about the separation of church and state.
Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union for Education Department workers nationwide, said in a statement that the agency "has no place for symbols that were carried by insurrectionists."
“Since January, hardworking public servants at the U.S. Department of Education have been subjected to threats, harassment, and sustained demoralization," she said. "Now, they are being asked to work in an environment where a senior leader is prominently displaying an offensive flag – one that, regardless of its origins in the American Revolution, has come to represent intolerance, hatred, and extremism."
At dawn on Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces escalated their invasions across multiple areas of the occupied West Bank, deploying reinforcements toward Nablus in the northern West Bank while continuing widespread military operations in refugee camps, towns, and villages.
Hamas says Israel’s violations risk jeopardising a ceasefire deal in Gaza and the move towards the second and more complicated phase of the fragile agreement.
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President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating the street drug fentanyl 
The Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank currently mired in controversy over its president’s apparent apology for extremism, has appointed as a director the founder of a secretive all-male network of Christian nationalist fraternal lodges.
The US military has launched a fresh round of deadly strikes on foreign vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics.
President Donald Trump took aim at another media outlet on Monday by filing a $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC.
