Included in the House version of the 2007 defense authorization bill is language that would overturn the Air Force’s recently revised religious guidelines by allowing chaplains to pray according to their own religions even in mandatory military formations. The Air Force—and the Navy—had issued earlier this year revised guidelines that would keep prayers at official events generic and would give chaplains the option not to officiate. The service, which has said that the latest revision is not final, is still also embroiled in a lawsuit that says it has permitted proselytizing at the Air Force Academy.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China military briefing Oct. 27, part of a bi-weekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonics weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…