In one of the latest setbacks for the Trump administration, New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney has been disqualified from the role after an appeal by the government.

On Monday, an appellate court ruled that New Jersey acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, a Trump appointee, is disqualified from the role.

‘It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place.’

A panel of three judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — two George W. Bush appointees and one Obama appointee — unanimously affirmed a lower-court judge’s ruling against Habba’s appointment.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place. Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced — yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability,” the court wrote, according to the Associated Press.

RELATED: California judge disqualifies Trump’s LA-area prosecutor — but he’s not going anywhere

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The administration can either ask for a full panel of 3rd Circuit judges to reconsider the decision or it can turn to the Supreme Court, according to Fox News.

Habba was sworn in as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey on March 28 of this year, replacing John Giordano, now the ambassador to Namibia.

The Trump administration has fought tirelessly to keep his appointed U.S. attorneys in their positions, including Bill Essayli in the Central District of California and Sigal Chattah in Nevada.

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​Politics, Alina habba, New jersey, Acting attorney general, 3rd us circuit court of appeals, Bill essayli, Sigal chattah, Trump, Trump administration 

President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that he recently spoke with Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president whom the State Department recently identified as the leader of a foreign terrorist organization and for whom the U.S. is offering a $50 million bounty.

Trump would not elaborate on the nature or details of the call, which reportedly occurred last week. When asked whether it went well, Trump said, “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call.”

‘That’s going to start very soon.’

Sources allegedly familiar with the exchange told the Miami Herald that the White House gave Maduro an ultimatum: “Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son only if he agreed to resign right away.”

The leadership in Caracas reportedly proposed in turn that Maduro surrender control to his political opposition but maintain control of the country’s military.

One source told the Herald that the call amounted to a last-ditch effort to stave off a direct confrontation.

“First, Maduro asked for global amnesty for any crimes he and his group had committed,” said the source. “Second, they asked to retain control of the armed forces — similar to what happened in Nicaragua in ’91 with Violeta Chamorro. In return, they would allow free elections.”

Washington rejected both proposals, and Caracas rejected, in turn, the demand that Maduro resign immediately, said the source.

RELATED: Europeans want US missiles to defend them, not America — and Rubio’s had enough of their hypocrisy

Photo by Gladjimi Balisage/US Navy via Getty Images

The White House did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

An individual in regular contact with regime officials recently told the Wall Street Journal that Maduro and his cohort largely regard Washington’s threats as a bluff.

The skepticism in Caracas appears misplaced, given that the Trump administration has not only proven willing to blow away scores of alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, incurring international and domestic condemnations in the process, but has amassed over a dozen warships and 15,000 troops in the region.

The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which entered the Caribbean Sea last month, features the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as over 70 aircraft, two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, and an integrated air and missile defense command ship, the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, the Navy said.

The carrier strike group joined the two guided-missile destroyers that were already operating in the Caribbean along with a pair of guided-missile cruisers — the USS Lake Erie and the USS Gettysburg — and elements of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which includes the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The source in contact with regime officials told the Journal that Maduro figures the only way the U.S. can remove him from power is by sending troops to Caracas.

In his Thanksgiving Day address to U.S. troops, Trump lauded the efforts of the U.S. Air Force’s 7th Bomb Wing for its efforts to “deter Venezuelan drug traffickers” by sea and hinted at taking the fight ashore, stating, “We’ll be starting to stop them by land.”

“The land is easier,” said Trump. “But that’s going to start very soon.”

On Saturday, Trump said in a social media post, “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”

It appears that Caracas may now be taking the Trump administration more seriously.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday, “Venezuela denounces and condemns the colonialist threat that seeks to affect the sovereignty of its airspace, constituting yet another extravagant, illegal, and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people.”

Citing sources familiar with the matter, CNN indicated that Trump will hold a meeting at the White House on Monday to discuss next steps on Venezuela.

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​Maduro, Venezuela, Regime change, Military, Intervention, War, Marco rubio, Politics 

Journey’s Jonathan Cain first met Charlie Kirk in 2016 outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The conservative firebrand was in rare form, recalls Cain. The activist held a Big Government Sucks sign and vowed, “We’re gonna change the world.”

‘I said to Paula, “He could be president someday,”‘ he says. ‘He had the drive and the wisdom of the ages. … He reached generations.’

Kirk did just that. He started a youth movement in Turning Point USA. The organization empowered conservative college students nationwide and played a pivotal role in President Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign.

His viral debates woke up countless Gen Zers to the power of faith and conservative values. And following his Sept. 10 murder, his legacy sparked a conservative college revival.

‘No one else’

Cain, a singer/songwriter and keyboardist for Journey for 45 years, got to know Kirk via his wife, President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain.

“It was such a blow to free speech, a mockery of everything he had done,” Cain tells Align of Kirk’s murder. The musician decided to write a pastor appreciation song for the slain leader.

“Not many pastors came close to what he accomplished … the revival, bringing kids back to church, having them look at their family values,” Cain says.

That impulse became “No One Else,” a new single dedicated to Kirk’s memory and cultural impact.

No one else reached generations
Could heal with truth and conversation
Setting all differences aside
No one else could question hate
Turn hearts and minds with true debate
From the battle our nation will arise
Faithful servant, you’ve done well
No one else

Like a few songs in his decades-long repertoire, this one came to him quickly.

“I went into my studio. … Thirty minutes later, I fleshed out everything I wanted to say,” he says.

Men of faith

The track, like Kirk’s death, brought out the worst of the venomous left.

“The social commentary was really disgusting,” Cain recalls of some online reactions. “They accused me of trying to make money. … There’s very little money in music any more.”

Cain is an industry veteran, so he shrugged off the naysayers. He still seems stunned that he tried to get Rolling Stone magazine interested in covering his song, to no avail.

“They didn’t want to touch an interview with me,” he says. “The song was about Charlie.”

Like Kirk, Cain is a man of deep faith, as is his wife. The Cains’ Trump connection found them running into Kirk often over the years. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member was continually struck by how Kirk got “into the hearts and minds” of his young followers, sharing his conservative Christian values along the way.

“I said to Paula, ‘He could be president someday,’” he says. “He had the drive and the wisdom of the ages. … He reached generations.”

RELATED: Where evil tried to win: How a Utah revival turned atrocity into interfaith miracle

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images

‘He saved you for music’

Cain credits his father, a “prayerful man,” for instilling faith in him at an early age. His faith was shaken by a 1958 fire at his school in Chicago, a disaster that took the lives of 93 children and three nuns.

“How could that evil happen?” he asked himself at the time.

His father, again, nudged him toward a spiritual path. He took the youngster to music school, imploring him to share his gifts with others.

“He saved you for music,” his father told him. The 8-year-old couldn’t initially get his hand around a guitar, but he did as he was told, and the music began to flow through him.

That wasn’t all.

“The idea of Jesus stayed with me, firmly planted,” he says.

Fateful Journey

The rest, as they say, is music history. Cain released his first solo record in 1976, joined the Babys three years later, and, in 1980, took over as the keyboardist for Journey. The band became a sensation, with Cain contributing keyboards and critical songwriting for the iconic band.

He played a key role in the band’s most famous song, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” with lyrics inspired by his father.

Now, at 75, he is prepping for Journey’s 2026 tour, complete with a reconstructed knee. Journey may keep rocking, but Cain knows when it’s time to step away from the band.

“I don’t want to die on the road. I’ve been out there for 50 years. … It feels like the time to get off the train is here,” he says.

He admits that matters have not always been smooth with longtime bandmates like Journey founder Neal Schon, including legal dustups in recent years.

“It’s sad, but it happens to most bands,” he says, noting that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards aren’t mates in the traditional sense, given their decades of acrimony. Still, the show must go on, and Cain appreciates his bandmates and, even more, the fans.

“They’re the gold that has given me a career. … I’m grateful and thankful for them. I want to go out the right way,” he says. “I’ll be 77 to 78 [by the time the tour ends]. That’s enough.”

​Journey, Christianity, Abide, Faith, Jonathan caine, Don’t stop believin’, Music, Entertainment, Culture, Charlie kirk, Donad trump, Align interview 

Two males were fatally shot Friday night in Texas — and the man who pulled the trigger said the pair followed him, tried to block his car, and physically attacked him.

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office told KTRK-TV the shooter said he acted in self-defense.

‘Looks like the 2 attackers had road rage. Is he not supposed to defend himself? Whatever it takes.’

Deputies responded around 8:45 p.m. to reports of a possible roadway shooting on Greengate Drive near Spring Stuebner Road in the Spring area, KHOU-TV said.

First responders told KTRK they found two males with gunshot wounds in the 22100 block of Greengate Drive; one died at the scene, and the other was taken to a hospital where he died.

The shooter said the pair followed his car for a while and tried to block him when he reached the neighborhood where the final confrontation took place, the sheriff’s office told KTRK.

Deputies added to KTRK that all three exited their vehicles, and the man who pulled the trigger said the pair started kicking him and his car.

“The shooter in the incident stayed on scene and surrendered himself to arriving deputies,” Sgt. Jason Brown noted to KHOU. The man who pulled the trigger is cooperating with investigators, the sheriff’s office told KTRK.

The fatally shot males have been identified as 57-year-old Timothy Underwood and 59-year-old Keith McDonald, KTRK said, citing the sheriff’s office.

No charges have been filed, officials told KTRK, and the shooter was not in custody.

However, the case was under investigation, and the district attorney’s office will review it, the sheriff’s office told KTRK.

RELATED: Elderly Texas homeowner armed with hunting rifle spots burglar who broke through back door. It doesn’t end well for intruder.

When asked if the two males were armed, Brown told KHOU, “Not that we know of. We’re still in the process of going through the scene … but as of right now, we don’t believe that they were armed.”

Reactions under KHOU’s Facebook post about the fatal shootings were mixed:

“They don’t have to be armed to do bodily harm or even kill you,” one commenter said.”They do if you’re in a car … because why don’t you just jump the curb to get away,” another commenter countered. “How are unarmed men going to hurt you if the doors are locked?””FAFO,” another user bluntly noted before later adding, “Looks like the 2 attackers had road rage. Is he not supposed to defend himself? Whatever it takes.””IDK … call me crazy, but if I felt my life was in danger, I would not park my car and get out of it … would you?” another commenter wondered. “Self-defense doesn’t work here. He was trigger happy and probably had road rage.”

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​Crime thwarted, Self-defense, 2nd amend., Texas, Fatal shooting, Two males killed, Guns, Gun rights, Physical attack, Harris county sheriff’s office, Crime 

President Donald Trump leaned into his criticism of Somalia and its apparent top spokeswoman in Congress, telling reporters on Air Force One why America is better off both without asylum-seekers from the failed African nation and without Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D).

America First versus Somalia First

Trump announced on Nov. 21 that he was terminating the Temporary Protected Status designation for Somalia following a report detailing instances of alleged and confirmed fraud perpetrated by numerous members of the Somali community in Minnesota as well as the alleged direction of stolen taxpayer funds by members of the Somali community to terrorists abroad.

‘If that’s true, she shouldn’t be a congressman.’

“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing,” Trump noted on Truth Social. “Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Omar, a native of Somalia who claimed last year that the “U.S government will do what [Somali-Americans] tell the U.S. government to do,” did not take the news well.

The Democrat ethno-nationalist wrote on Bluesky, “I am a citizen and so are majority of Somalis in America. Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate. We are here to stay.”

Omar then held a press conference with Minnesota state Democrats in which she claimed Trump lacked the authority to terminate Somalia’s TPS designation, suggested that the corruption referred to by the president was not systemic among Minnesota’s Somali community, and accused Trump of endangering Somalis across the United States.

RELATED: ‘Send them back’: Somalia First pitted against America First in Minnesota as Ilhan Omar attacks Trump over special status

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Image

Following the fatal attack on National Guard members in the national capital last week, allegedly by an Afghan shooter, the president not only revealed that he was cutting off the flow of migrants to the U.S. from third-world backwaters such as Afghanistan but laid into Omar and rogue actors among the Somali community once again.

Trump noted in his lengthy announcement on Truth Social:

Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.

After suggesting that “the seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz,” had failed to tackle the problem, Trump turned his sights on Omar, who he claimed “does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated,” adding that Omar “probably came into the U.S.A. illegally.”

Family matters

When asked on Sunday about how long he intends to block asylum claims from various nations into the U.S., Trump told reporters, “I think a long time.”

“We don’t want ’em. We don’t want those people. We have enough problems. We don’t want those people,” said the president.

“You know why we don’t want ’em? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”

Trump clarified that by “those people,” he meant “people from different countries that are not friendly to us and countries that are out of control themselves — countries like Somalia that have virtually no government, no military, no police. All they do is go around killing each other. Then they come into our country and tell us how to run our country. We don’t want them.”

After using Somalia as an example of a nation whose asylees the U.S. could do without, Trump suggested that Omar “supposedly came into our country by marrying her brother.”

“Well, if that’s true, she shouldn’t be a congressman. And we should throw her the hell out of our country,” said Trump.

Omar has long been accused of immigration-related marriage fraud and bigamy.

Years after coming to the U.S. as a refugee, Omar reportedly took out a marriage license to marry Ahmed Hirsi. While she married Hirsi in a Muslim ceremony and had children with him, she did not initially marry him legally.

After supposedly separating from Hirsi, Omar formally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi — a British-Somali national reportedly identified by numerous Somalis as Omar’s brother — in 2009. Over the next few years, she would separate and secure a legal divorce from Elmi, then reunite and have another child with Hirsi.

Omar called the allegations “absolutely false and ridiculous” in a 2016 statement, adding that “insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive.”

Despite Omar’s denial of the allegations, an individual identifying as one of her friends, Abdihakim Osman, told the Daily Mail in 2020 that Omar had confirmed that Elmi was her brother and that she married him so he could remain in the United States.

Osman indicated that in the early 2000s, “People began noticing that Ilhan and Southside [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy.”

“He was very feminine in the way he dressed — he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him,” said Osman. “[Hirsi] and Ilhan both told me it was Ilhan’s brother and he had been living in London, but he was mixing with what were seen as bad influences that the family did not like.”

“So they sent him to Minneapolis as ‘rehab,'” claimed Osman.

After Omar married Elmi, he started school at North Dakota State University, where he graduated in 2012.

Osman told the Mail that following their wedding, Omar and Elmi moved to Fargo and began attending university together.

“She said she needed to get papers for her brother to go to school,” said Osman. “We all thought she was just getting papers together to allow him to stay in this country.”

“Once she had the papers, they could apply for student loans,” continued Osman. “They both moved to North Dakota to go to school, but she was still married to [Hirsi]. In the Somali way, the only marriage that mattered was the one in the mosque.”

Omar’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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​Ilhan omar, Donald trump, Trump, Incest, Somalia, Denaturalization, Denaturalize, Deport, Minnesota, Democrat, Leftist, Politics 

In the latest update to the unprecedented trial of a sitting prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has made an unusual request to the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu officially requested a pardon amid his ongoing corruption trial, which consists of three separate but related cases.

‘I will consider solely the best interests of the State of Israel and Israeli society.’

The Associated Press reported that Netanyahu submitted the request to the president’s office, which called it “an extraordinary request” carrying “significant implications.”

RELATED: Israeli attorney general says he’s about to indict PM Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption, bribery charges

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In a video statement, Netanyahu argued that a pardon would bolster national unity, but his critics disagreed.

Yair Lapid, former prime minister of Israel and current leader of the opposition in the Knesset, demanded that Herzog withhold the pardon.

“You cannot grant Netanyahu a pardon without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse, and an immediate withdrawal from political life,” he said, according to the New York Times.

Herzog responded to the official request, noting its serious nature.

“The issue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon is clearly provoking debate and is deeply unsettling for many people in the country, across different communities. I have already clarified that it will be handled in the most correct and precise manner,” Herzog said in a statement on December 1.

“I will consider solely the best interests of the State of Israel and Israeli society,” Herzog added.

In June, President Trump released a long post on Truth Social about the trial, calling it a “politically motivated case” and a “witch hunt.”

Trump called for the trial to be “CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the State. Perhaps there is no one that I know who could have worked in better harmony with the President of the United States, ME, than Bibi Netanyahu. It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu. THIS TRAVESTY OF ‘JUSTICE’ CAN NOT BE ALLOWED!”

Netanyahu was charged in three separate corruption cases in November 2019 by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

Netanyahu faces separate charges of breach of trust and of taking a bribe. He has not been convicted of any charges and has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

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​Politics, Benjamin netanyahu, Isaac herzog, Corruption trial, Prime minister benjamin netanyahu, Pardon, Israel, Israeli government, Trump, President trump, President of israel