On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth introduced a religious service at the Pentagon by offering a prayer, which he said he had learned from military leaders. “They they call it CSAR 25:17,” he said, using the acronym for Combat Search and Rescue missions, “which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”

The prayer he recited, though, doesn’t appear in the Bible. Rather, as internet observers quickly pointed out, it bore an extremely close resemblance to the monologue that Samuel L. Jackson delivers in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, just before he executes someone.

Unlike the invasion of Iraq, which received the support of a sizable minority of congressional Democrats, Donald Trump’s war on Iran has received near-universal criticism. Still, the party has focused primarily on process-style critiques — such as the legality of declaring the war under the Constitution and the war’s economic impact — rather than the humanitarian consequences and flagrant violations of international law.

That should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the U.S. bipartisan consensus on Iran: For over 20 years, a number of prominent Democratic leaders — and in some cases, large majorities of congressional Democrats overall — have helped pave the groundwork for Trump’s war by issuing exaggerated and alarmist statements about Iran’s supposed danger to the region, threatening the use of military force, and undermining diplomatic initiatives, sometimes even criticizing Republicans from the right.

Following the announcement of a temporary ceasefire, a fragile sense of relief is overshadowed by uncertainty and caution among people in Lebanon.

The humanitarian and medical needs of hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon remain overwhelming.

In southern Beirut, people are moving back and forth between their shelters and homes, collecting what they can and preparing to return to displacement sites if needed. People, particularly in southern Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and south Lebanon, have lost their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. Over 1 million people have been forcibly displaced due to Israel’s continuous attacks.

At a campaign rally in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday, the Democratic senator Jon Ossoff mocked Donald Trump’s rosy predictions on Iran and tore into what he called the unprecedented corruption of the president’s family.

While Ossoff is running for re-election in November, he trained most of his fire on the president, and the vice-president, amid mounting speculation that the Democrat could launch a bid for his party’s nomination for the presidency in 2028.