The Daily Briefing highlights the news of the day and research that reveals the spirit of the day.
The Daily Briefing is a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every morning that provides biblical insight on today's news.
Top News
6. Blanche refuses to say he’ll always be independent of Trump as attorney general (NY Times)
“Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed attorney general, refused to say on Sunday that he would always act independently of White House control but claimed during an interview that President Trump has “never” demanded he prosecute specific people.
“Mr. Blanche sought to balance his loyalty to the president and a commitment to the evenhanded administration of justice during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “There’s a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case, and act independently of the White House,” Mr. Blanche said when pressed to pledge his independence by the show’s host, Kristen Welker.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he said. But he suggested in another interview that he was not afraid to push back. “It’s my job to talk to him about those issues, which I have done for many years and I will continue to do,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Been to Macy’s lately? Perhaps the president who most demanded loyalty was LBJ, who famously noted about a staffer: “I want him to kiss my XXX in the Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.” From FDR with Hopkins to Nixon with Haldeman to Obama with Holder, presidents often attract those willing to exercise great loyalty -- such is the power of close proximity to power. And while we as a culture value loyalty, we do have questions regarding the lengths one is willing to go to maintain it…
Loyalty is the vexing virtue, according to Eric Felten. In some instances, it can be a good thing (e.g., steadfastness toward a noble cause). However, in other instances, it can be a bad thing (e.g., commitment to a disreputable initiative). Drawing on the work of Josiah Royse, Felten argued that the goodness of loyalty was contingent upon the justice of its attachment.
The loyalty of Ruth… After her sons and husband die in Moab, Naomi prepared to return to Judah alone and urged her young Moabite daughters-in-law to stay behind to rebuild their lives. Orpah left, but Ruth clung to Naomi. Ruth abandoned her homeland, culture, and security to care for her destitute mother-in-law. In doing so, she uttered one of the most famous vows of loyalty in literature. At this moment, I’m less concerned about the AG's independence and more interested in his commitment to justice. (Ruth 1)
5. CENTCOM chief meets with troops aboard USS Abraham Lincoln amid morale concerns (CBS News)
“The head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, met with troops stationed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the Pentagon said Saturday, which has been deployed for nearly nine months. It comes after families expressed alarm in recent weeks that some service members aboard were dealing with mental health struggles. The aircraft carrier is expected to be replaced by the USS George Washington.
“Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, praised the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln after he visited the cruiser on Saturday. In a statement shared on social media, Cooper said his time aboard the Lincoln was awe-inspiring. "I wish every American could see the crew in action," he said. "You would beam with absolute pride when witnessing their camaraderie, teamwork and resilience."
“The Lincoln, which has about 5,000 service members, arrived in the Middle East in January and has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran. It deployed in November 2025 to the Pacific before it moved to the Middle East. It has spent a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days. U.S. military vessels are normally deployed for about six months. In the last few weeks, reports have emerged of mental health concerns among the crew and supply issues on board. Cooper acknowledged the concerns in his statement.”
A good leader influences others; a great one takes responsibility for others, according to Brene Brown. In her book Dare to Lead, she defines a leader as “anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” But how do you identify that potential? Rumbling…
Are you ready to rumble? Brown writes that a rumble is “a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving.” You can’t obtain the courage to act, according to Brown, until you lean into the discomfort of vulnerability. You have to “listen with the same passion with which you want to be heard.”
Not all opinions are created equal, according to Brown. “If you are not in the arena getting your XX kicked on occasion, I’m not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their lives but who will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those who dare greatly.”
Are you eating with Gentiles? In Antioch, Peter happily shared meals and fellowship with Gentile believers. However, when strict Jewish believers arrived from Jerusalem, Peter shrank back and withdrew from eating with Gentiles. Paul recognized that Peter's public actions were marring the Gospel message of faith alone by grace alone. So Paul confronted Peter, and as a result, Peter realigned his behavior. Years later, Peter even affectionately referred to Paul as a “beloved brother." In this moment, problems are inevitable, and great leadership is invaluable. (Gal. 2, 2 Pet. 3)
4. Former Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism found dead, say reports (NY Times)
“Jason Arday, the former Cambridge University scholar whose remarkable rise to stardom was followed by a rapid fall from grace in recent weeks, has died, his family said on Friday. Mr. Arday, who had written and lectured on racism in higher education, became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023 when the university hired him for a prestigious post, an established chair of education at the school’s Jesus College.
“Last month, a public firestorm over Mr. Arday’s career erupted after a blog post accused him of plagiarism in his dissertation and embellishing his personal story. Scrutiny intensified ahead of the publication of Mr. Arday’s memoir on Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, as journalists found more inconsistencies in his story. He resigned from Cambridge last week.
“Hours before his death, Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Arday told him he was afraid to leave the house because he was being “bombarded” by the media to paint him as a fraud. “His last voice note was that he couldn’t go on,” Simon Baron-Cohen recalled, adding that the author and academic “was an incredibly kind and gentle and caring and generous man”
Anne Sexton described suicide as a white picket fence that was unable to keep out the nightmares. To Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, suicide was a reluctant answer for a weary soul. In the US, overall suicide rates have shown a slight decline after reaching a historic peak. The total number of suicide deaths in the US reached a record high of 49,476 in 2022. Last year, that number was 48,824.
In David Foster Wallace's The Depressed Person, he noted that “emotional isolation rendered the depressed person’s every waking hour an indescribable hell on earth.” Why? “The impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.” Suffering in silence, Wallace wrote how “these people have… already killed themselves, where it really counts... When they “commit suicide,” they’re just being orderly.”
In the biblical narrative, we read about individuals who suffered from suicidal symptoms. We don’t know why they didn’t go through with it, but we do know a God who walked quietly yet closely with them through it (Psalm 23:4, 77:19). Jesus weeps as we weep (John 11:35). He experienced every pain we feel (Hebrews 4:15). He is not absent in our sufferings but is sympathetically present with us in the sufferings. (Psalm 34:18, Acts 16:25–26)
Cultural News
3. A New Study Says Better Decisions Start With Breaking 1 Habit: Choosing What You Chose Before (Inc)
“A new study from TUD Dresden University of Technology may have made a breakthrough discovery for understanding how people make everyday decisions. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Psychology, found that people lean heavily on what they chose before, even when equal or superior options are sitting right in front of them. Simply repeating a choice can quietly reshape what you prefer, making a familiar option feel better than the alternatives.
“According to lead author Ben Wagner, PhD, chair of cognitive computational neuroscience at TU Dresden, people tend to repeat decisions they’ve made before, even when those choices are no longer the right fit. “In reality, human information processing is limited by several factors, such as memory capacity, processing bandwidth, motivation, and the model humans employ for a specific situation,” he told Inc. “Because of these limitations, humans are prone to a range of decision biases.”
I Have Decided… that we face a lot of decisions. The average American makes 35,000 decisions every day. But according to Friedrich Hayek: “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
How do you process and make decisions? Building on Daniel Kahneman’s concepts of System 1 and System 2 thinking, David Bessis, in his book Mathematica, adds a third system. System 1 is your "gut feeling" and is used for everyday tasks, while System 2 is for complex problems that require conscious effort and rational thought. But System 3 involves more of your intuition. This type of thinking is the slowest of the 3, drawing on those thoughts that are not usually top of mind, requiring reflection and the exercise of the hidden imagination to draw on those deep experiences.
It’s been said we make decisions, but in the end our decisions make us. David’s decision to stay home was detrimental, Ruth’s choice to stick with Mara was inspirational, and Rehoboam’s determination to listen to his young advisors resulted in his downfall. Essentially, decision-making is just value clarification in real time. (2 Sam. 11, Ruth 1, 1 Kings 12)
News You Can Use
2. An ode to Pizza Hut
Watch it here. “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” (Ps. 34:8)
1. For incoming freshmen at Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it's hard to imagine a more mortifying tradition on first-day dropoff
Watch it here. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Ex. 20:12)
