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House File 2054, which, if enacted, would have reversed Iowa's decision to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, died in committee on February 19, 2016, when a deadline for bills to be reported out of committee expired. The NGSS's treatment of evolution and climate change appears to have been part of the motivation for the bill.

Explore the Grand Canyon with NCSE! Reservations are still available for NCSE's next excursion to the Grand Canyon — as featured in the documentary No Dinosaurs in Heaven. From June 30 to July 8, 2016, NCSE will again explore the wonders of creation and evolution on a Grand Canyon river run conducted by NCSE's Steve Newton and Josh Rosenau. 

Idaho's Senate Bill 1321 (PDF), introduced on February 12, 2016, and referred to the Senate Committee on State Affairs, would, if enacted, permit the use of the Bible in Idaho's public schools "for reference purposes to further the study of" a variety of topics, including "astronomy, biology, [and] geology."

Antonin Scalia

Antonin Scalia, a justice on the United States Supreme Court, died on February 13, 2016, at the age of 79, according to the obituary in The New York Times (February 14, 2016). Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Scalia served on the court from 1986 until his death. The Times wrote of the controversial Scalia that his "transformative legal theories, vivid writing and outsize personality made him a leader of a conservative intellectual renaissance in his three decades on the Supreme Court."