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Donald Trump’s border czar, who oversaw the president's demands to deploy ICE agents to the nation’s overwhelmed airports, was at a loss for words on CNN on Sunday morning as to why the president just didn’t pay TSA agents from the start when funding ran out.With the country’s airports in chaos due to TSA no-showing at their jobs since they were not being paid, Tom Homan filled in the gaps to a slight degree with ICE agents pulled from their jobs, rounding up immigrants off the streets to help out overwhelmed TSA agents and harried travelers.On “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper had to ask Homan twice why Trump didn’t alleviate the problem weeks ago.On his second try, Tapper asked, “But if if President Trump had the power to pay TSA agents this whole time, why only start doing it now?” After a pause, Homan admitted, “Look, I don't understand. Look, I'm a cop, I don't understand the whole, you know, appropriations language, appropriations law. I just, you know, I'm just glad that President Trump is able to pay the TSA agents –– at least that's a start. But again, there's a lot more, many more, thousands more, tens of thousands of more DHS employees who are not being paid that need to be paid.”The CNN host pressed, “Once TSA agents start getting paid, will ICE agents leave the airports?”“We'll see,” the Trump official replied. “You know, it depends how many TSA agents come back to work, how many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plan coming back to work. I'm working very closely with the TSA administrator and the director to decide what airport needs what. But you know, God bless the men and women, right? So they're doing the job, they're plugging those holes or they're keeping the security airport at a high level, again, because of heightened threat.” - YouTube youtu.be

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has alienated a critical group within the military establishment — religious leaders and chaplains — by weaponizing Christianity to justify the Iran war and creating an atmosphere of fear for those who refuse to comply with his ideological demands.According to Washington Post analyst Michelle Boorstein, Hegseth's inflammatory rhetoric at a recent Pentagon prayer service has triggered serious alarm among military chaplains and senior officials who view his approach as a dangerous departure from Pentagon norms.At the prayer service, Hegseth invoked religious language to justify military violence, saying: "Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision … and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy."The language represents a troubling shift in how the Pentagon frames military operations, according to military leadership."The Pentagon's shift from previous historical norms is dangerous, according to multiple former high-ranking military officials, heads of chaplain corps, some veterans groups, current Pentagon staff and current officers," Boorstein wrote.Retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, who trained hundreds of interfaith military chaplains and served as second-in-command at the National Guard from 2011 to 2012, has been hearing from active-duty chaplains about systematic retaliation."Manner said he has talked with 'dozens and dozens' of active-duty chaplains in recent weeks who say those who don't identify with Hegseth 'are being marginalized.' They feel they can't voice their concerns to their own superiors, and feel their work as the primary advocate for troops' spiritual, mental, and moral health is being threatened."The situation has become dystopian. "I've had people tell me they're not included in staff meetings," Manner added.Pentagon insiders describe the atmosphere as chilling. An anonymous Department of Defense source characterized the environment as "terrifying," noting that personnel working under Hegseth fear being punished or fired for failing to embrace his Christian nationalist worldview.An unnamed member of a recent Joint Chiefs chairman's leadership team articulated the constitutional threat directly: "I don't approve of cramming your religious faith down people's throats, and when the top of the chain couches these operations in this hyper-Christian tone, it flies in the face of the freedom of religion that the Constitution enshrines and that our men and women in uniform sign up to defend."

Minister’s decision to ditch town’s colonial-era identity and honour anti-apartheid activist divides residentsA South African town is divided over changing its name from the colonial-era Graaff-Reinet to Robert Sobukwe, after the anti-apartheid activist, in a debate that has inflamed racial tensions.Petitions have been signed, rival marches held and a formal letter of complaint sent to the sports, arts and culture minister, Gayton McKenzie, who approved the name change on 6 February. Continue reading...

More than 3,000 No Kings protest events in the United States were bolstered by activists across the world opposing Donald Trump. Rallies against the president were formed across the US, but also in Germany, Italy, and Australia. Protestors in Paris, France, were spotted holding up "Dump Trump" signs while those in the streets of Madrid, Spain, rallied around a sign reading, "Power to the people." A previous No Kings movement occurred on June 14, 2025, the same day as Trump's birthday. Further protests followed in October, and a third set of rallies across the world took place today (March 28). Protestors in Amsterdam carried a placard reading, "WTF America," The Daily Beast reported. In Sydney, a man held up a sign that read “We can’t stand him either."Naveed Shah, who founded the Common Defense group in 2016 to rally military veterans for the sake of progressive politics, spoke of the rapid No Kings growth. He said, "When I stood at the first ‘No Kings’ rally, we were fighting to protect democracy at home and against federal agents and troops that were deployed on American streets, against a government that was manufacturing a crisis to justify using its power against its own people."Today, we’re still fighting that same fight, but now that manufactured crisis has gone global." MoveOn executive director Katie Bethell added their grassroots support to the No Kings protests. "Our members will be turning out peacefully in the streets because they believe in a better future for this country, and they can’t sit by on the sidelines about what Trump and his administration are doing to our home," she said. "Let’s be clear, the Trump administration has become a threat to the American people at every level. They are waging violence at home and abroad."An estimated 7 million people showed up to rally against the Trump administration in October — more than the 5 million or so who protested in June — and No Kings organizers are anticipating nearly 9 million people will take to the streets this weekend.

For all of his saber-rattling at Iran, Donald Trump is desperately looking for a way out of the war he initiated four weeks ago now that he is not finding it to be the cakewalk he anticipated, according to MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire.On Friday morning, the “Morning Joe” co-host reported that a recent counterattack by Iran drove home to the president that the leadership of on the Middle Eastern country has the upper hand — and he may have painted himself into a corner.“The president, yeah, he wanted a quick victory, he wanted to put another scalp on the wall,” Lemire told the panel. “Like, you know, he wanted to have another win like Maduro. He's not gotten that. And now he's playing this game.”“There was very little surprise yesterday,” he said of Trump’s press availability. “He extended the deadline. Again. He doesn't want to do this in terms of that obliteration that he keeps threatening. And I think he was really spooked when Iran hit the Qatari LNG plant because that showed him that they have a big say over the energy crisis, energy markets, now and potentially for years to come.”“He's looking for an off-ramp, but at the same time, keep sending ground troops to the region, at least as a negotiating tactic, threatening he may go in with boots on the ground, which of course would be a real escalation, potentially very bloody for Americans,” he predicted. - YouTube youtu.be

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's "Operation Epic Fury" is draining America's precision missile arsenal at a rate that has triggered serious alarms inside the Pentagon, according to the Washington Post.In just four weeks of war with Iran, the U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles — a staggering burn rate that has prompted urgent internal Pentagon discussions about ammunition replenishment and the crippling strategic consequences.The Tomahawk has been the backbone of American military operations since its combat debut during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These missiles are prized for their ability to travel more than 1,000 miles, eliminating the need to send pilots into heavily defended airspace. But there's a critical problem — only a few hundred are manufactured annually, meaning the global supply is severely limited and not easily replenished.The frantic pace of consumption has forced the Navy to conduct emergency resupply operations at sea — a capability that has only recently been developed. Each destroyer carries dozens of these massive weapons, 20 feet long and weighing about 3,500 pounds each.Pentagon officials are sounding the alarm in private. One official characterized the remaining Tomahawk supply in the Middle East as "alarmingly low." Another used military slang to describe the dire situation: the Pentagon is approaching "Winchester" — military terminology for running out of ammunition — for Tomahawk missiles in the Middle East.The strategic implications are staggering. Heavy reliance on Tomahawks in the Iran conflict will force Pentagon planners into painful choices — whether to relocate missiles from other critical regions, including the Indo-Pacific, and whether to launch an expensive long-term manufacturing surge.Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, laid out the grim mathematics. If the military has indeed fired more than 800 Tomahawks against Iran, "that would be about a quarter of the total inventory and would leave a large gap for a conflict in the Western Pacific." His think tank estimates the Navy possessed approximately 3,100 Tomahawks when the war began a month ago."It would take several years to replenish," Cancian warned.

President Donald Trump's diplomatic approach was under question on Thursday as the global economy took a massive hit amid the Iran war — reviving an old comment from Vice President JD Vance. Trump has admitted that the war has gone on longer than he would have preferred, and it's uncertain what next steps would prompt the United States to end the conflict in the Middle East, The New York Times reported. It's also unclear who would lead the potential negotiation. Trump had sent his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff before the war to handle negotiations, but after his cabinet meeting on Thursday, he also added that Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were planning to join the talks expected to happen in Pakistan in coming days — after Iranian leaders refused to talk with Kushner and Witkoff. "The situation is testing the bravado many Trump officials expressed about their early foreign policy initiatives," according to The Times."Turns out a lot of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill: don’t be an idiot," Mr. Vance posted on X last March, praising Witkoff.Former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush, Daniel Kurtzer, called Trump's handling of diplomacy with Iran "a failure," and pointed out that Trump doesn't seem to realize his own goals in the conflict, The Times reported. "Trump says he wants to de-escalate, but does he even know what that means?" Kurtzer said. Kurtzer also explained that Trump's 15 demands for Iranian leaders "are nonstarters, because they would require Iran essentially to give up on everything."

U.S. stocks plummeted on Thursday to their lowest since the war in Iran broke out following Trump administration comments.The largest daily decline hit as oil prices skyrocketed after President Donald Trump signaled he was turning up the pressure on Iran to accept his terms to end the ongoing war, The New York Times reported. “We’ll just keep blowing them away, unimpeded,” Trump said during his cabinet meeting, which was the first gathering of his top administration officials since military strikes began. The drop sank even lower after the meeting, just after the S&P 500 opened lower.The index slipped 1.7 percent, which was the largest daily drop since January. That set the index now for the fifth straight week of losses — the first time in four years that has happened. Economic uncertainty, climbing gas prices, and higher interest rates, combined with ongoing negotiations with Iran, had set the market on a downward spiral. The factors were all part of the continued concerns among investors over when the Iran war would end, according to The Times.