Hegseth Built a New Pentagon Office for Religion. Military Religious Leaders Wish He Hadn’t.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has created a new Pentagon office dedicated to religion, a move that has drawn criticism from military religious leaders. One Army chaplain told The Intercept about the ethical dilemma: how to counsel a soldier who believes an action is immoral but also believes God commanded it. The office, reportedly intended to support religious freedom or accommodate faith within the military, is seen by some chaplains as potentially problematic, blurring the line between church and state and raising concerns about undue religious influence in the armed forces. Critics worry that institutionalizing religion at the Pentagon could marginalize minority faiths and interfere with the military’s secular mission.
Source: https://theintercept.com/feed/?rss — Published: 25 October 2026 10:00 — Summarized with AI
An American lawyer helped open a backchannel between Biden’s White House and Putin. A Financial Times report details the exchanges, a later unofficial peace bid, and how it fell apart.
The Financial Times has revealed details of back-channel talks between U.S. leaders and Vladimir Putin in 2022 and early 2023, initiated by American lawyer Richard Conn. Conn, who had worked in Russia for years, feared Putin might use nuclear weapons after the war began. In fall 2022, he used Russian and American intermediaries to deliver a conciliatory message from Joe Biden’s administration to Putin. He later received responses to peace proposals. However, by early 2023, official negotiators Yuri Ushakov and Eric Green ended Conn’s channel. Subsequent U.S. attempts to negotiate an end to the war have involved other people and have yet to succeed.
Source: https://meduza.io/rss/en/all — Published: 25 October 2026 04:42 — Summarized with AI