During his briefing on the Iran war last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that Americans take a knee and pray to Jesus for the success of U.S. forces in the Middle East. A few days later, he read out a sermon praying that “wicked souls” be “delivered to the eternal damnation” in the fight against Iran.
The Defense secretary has increasingly used his bully pulpit to promote his combative, controversial brand of Christianity. While the Pentagon says Hegseth is embracing America’s proud history as a Christian nation, some experts and veterans worry that Hegseth’s move to inject the military with more explicitly religious sentiments threatens to divide America’s forces.
“The ideological consolidation of the military is something that we have historically not wanted. We want the military to be diverse. We want the military representative of the American people,” he added.
“I think it’s extremely concerning the way that he is operating. It’s concerning to me as a Christian, and it’s concerning to me as an American,” said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.
Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a Fox News host, has presided over prayer services in the building led by controversial Christian pastors and revamped the military’s Chaplain Corps, and official Defense Department social media posts often amplify ultraconservative Christian views.




U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on a residential area in Isfahan in central Iran on Friday killed 26 people, including seven children, according to Press TV.
Residents of Israel's southern Negev region say they've been left defenceless against Iranian missile fire, and have called the government's response "a complete failure" rooted in years of policy neglect.
Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles at Israel on Saturday for the first time since the war on Iran broke out a month ago.
A federal judge ruled on Friday that officials at Florida’s state-run immigration jail, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, must give attorneys better access to their detained clients.
James Tolkan, known for his roles as an authoritarian figure in the Back to the Future and Top Gun films, has died. He was 94.
A Palestinian middle school student in Michigan who was publicly admonished for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance as part of a personal protest against the war on Gaza has settled with her school district following a lawsuit around her first amendment free speech rights.
As the calendar soon turns to April, it appears that we can finally shed all talk of the polar vortex until next winter as milder weather takes hold across much of the eastern U.S. and a cool-down ends the western heat wave.
"No Kings" protesters gathered from coast to coast, holding signs, chanting and donning elaborate costumes on Saturday, capping off the third such coordinated demonstration against President Donald Trump's actions and policies amid his second term. More than 3,000 events were expected throughout the nation.





























