US Defense Secretary Austin to return to Pentagon Monday

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to return to the Pentagon on Monday, nearly a month after being secretly admitted to a hospital for complications from an undisclosed prostate cancer surgery in December, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday.

Austin's secrecy surrounding his condition and his Jan. 1 hospitalization caught the White House and Congress off guard, and even President Joe Biden didn't know Austin was hospitalized during much of the first week of January.