Middle East crisis Iran war

Hegseth Quoted Bible Verse – Was From “Pulp Fiction”

During a prayer service at the Pentagon earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quoted a prayer that he said was used by the unit that rescued the fighter pilot who was shot down over Iran in early April.

But the quoted prayer is not in the Bible. Instead, it is a reworked version of Ezekiel 25:17 that Samuel L Jackson’s character reads in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film “Pulp Fiction,” writes Variety.

A clip of Hegseth quoting the verse has gone viral on social media – and the abuse has been swift. California Governor Gavin Newsom, among others, has shared a photo montage of X in which Hegseth’s face has been cut into Uma Thurman’s character.

Hegseth's spokesman said the defense secretary knew that what he quoted was not the biblical version of Ezekiel 25:17, Reuters reports.

Food shortages on US ships: "Hungry all the time"

American soldiers on aircraft carriers in the Middle East are telling their families back home that they are getting far too little food. USA Today reports.

-They are hungry all the time, it's heartbreaking, says Karen Erskine-Valentine, a pastor from West Virginia whose parishioner has a son on one of the aircraft carriers.

The church has collected and sent 22 boxes of supplies to her son and other soldiers - but they have been stuck on the road because of the war, just like thousands of other packages.

Former Marine Dan's daughter has shared the photo on the far left above from the USS Abraham Lincoln. He has stopped drinking coffee in solidarity, because the ship's coffee maker has broken. After a month, his package of snacks, toothpaste, and socks that his daughter also misses has not arrived. He says:

- We have the world's strongest military. It shouldn't run out of food or be unable to handle the mail to our ships.