"Do Not Mistake Compliance For Surrender" - Habba Steps Down As Acting US AG for NJ

 Alina Habba, the former personal attorney to President Trump, is stepping down from her contested position atop the federal prosecuting office in New Jersey.

"As a result of the Third Circuit's ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down in my role," she said in a statement posted on X on Monday.

Habba’s resignation came after district and appellate court rulings which found she was unlawfully serving in the role, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law.

The Trump administration had been attempting to keep Habba in place after her interim appointment expired and she had not received US Senate confirmation.

Habba’s statement Monday said “do not mistake compliance for surrender”.

pic.twitter.com/wIhEvXXZoh

— Alina Habba (@AlinaHabba) December 8, 2025

“Make no mistake, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl,” Habba’s statement said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Habba would remain at the Department of Justice as senior advisor to the attorney general for U.S. Attorneys.

“I am saddened to accept Alina’s resignation,” Bondi said, calling the appellate court's decision "flawed".

pic.twitter.com/bid0ao1y4B

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 8, 2025

Bondi credited Habba with helping to reduce crime in Camden and Newark, New Jersey, and said the DOJ would continue “to review” the appeals court ruling.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/do-not-mistake-compliance-surrender-alina-habba-steps-down-acting-us-attorney-new-jersey

Little-Known Abu Dhabi Fund Backs Paramount’s Warner Bros. Bid

 

A relatively new state-owned Abu Dhabi investor is backing Paramount Skydance Corp.’s hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

L’imad Holding Co., a company wholly owned by the oil-rich emirate’s government, is among financing partners supporting the Paramount bid, according to a regulatory filing Monday. Two other Middle Eastern sovereign funds — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the Qatar Investment Authority — are also backing the offer alongside Jared Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-08/little-known-abu-dhabi-fund-backs-paramount-s-warner-bros-bid

Border Czar Says 62,000 Illegally Smuggled Children Rescued So Far

  by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

White House border czar Tom Homan on Dec. 7 said more than 60,000 children who were illegally smuggled into the United States have been located by the Trump administration and that some were rescued from dire situations, including sex trafficking and forced labor.

In an interview with the Fox News show “Fox & Friends” on Dec. 7, Homan said that the previous administration “lost track of 300,000” children who were “smuggled into” the United States, saying some of those children were released to ”unvetted sponsors.”

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, 62,000 children who were taken into the United States had been found as of Dec. 5, he said.

Homan said that “many of them are in sex trafficking,” “are in forced labor,” or are being abused.

He also said, “[I] can’t discuss some of the mistreatment we found out about.”

Homan said that Trump committed to doing everything possible “to find every one of these children.” He did not provide more details about the rescued children but said that the administration “saved over 62,000 children’s lives.”

A statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Dec. 5 stated that the number of border encounters is continuing to decline; 30,367 total encounters were reported to the agency nationwide in November. That’s down slightly from the 30,573 encounters nationwide in October, it said.

Border Patrol also said that it has released “zero illegal aliens” into the country for seven consecutive months.

In December 2024, the final month of President Joe Biden’s administration, there were more than 301,981 encounters at the southwest border sector by Border Patrol agents, according to data from the agency. There were about 11,600 such encounters in September 2025, the most recent month for which data are available.

“Our focus is unwavering: secure the border, enforce the law, and protect this nation,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said in the Dec. 5 statement. “These numbers reflect the tireless efforts of our agents and officers who are delivering results that redefine border security. We’re not slowing down. We’re setting the pace for the future.”

The Border Patrol efforts and the mass deportation of illegal immigrants are in line with campaign promises made by Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. And since taking office, he has signed multiple executive orders and memorandums, including declaring an emergency at the U.S.–Mexico border, designating several criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, and launching federal operations targeting illegal immigrants in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities.

The Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 5 to hear a case challenging the legality of an executive order issued by Trump that sought to end birthright citizenship. Multiple lower courts have ruled against the January order, which would bar children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally from automatically becoming citizens.

Democrats have been broadly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. A House lawmaker introduced a bill in May that would prohibit the use of federal funds to enforce any order barring birthright citizenship. At the state level, multiple governors and mayors have also been opposed the federal deportation operations.

Meanwhile, in the past week, the Trump administration paused all immigration applications, including applications for green cards, for people from 19 countries that are also subject to a travel ban imposed earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.

A policy memo issued on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits, said the policy applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

The Epoch Times contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border- and immigration-related matters, for additional comment but did not hear back by publication time.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/border-czar-says-62000-illegally-smuggled-children-rescued-so-far

India Plans Coal Expansion Through 2047 Despite Supposed "Climate Goals"

 It's funny how no one actually seems to care about climate change malarky when there isn't an environmentalist Democrat in the White House to try and impress...

Along that vein, India is weighing a major expansion of coal power that could extend new plant construction until at least 2047, according to people familiar with ongoing discussions between the power ministry and the government policy think tank NITI Aayog. The move would represent a sharp departure from earlier projections that expected additions to peak around 2035, Bloomberg reported this week.

The talks align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to make the country energy independent and reclassify it as a developed nation by its 100th year of independence. With domestic reserves expected to last a century, officials see coal as the most reliable option to support that goal. Total capacity could reach 420 gigawatts by 2047 — roughly an 87% increase from today, the people said.

Bloomberg writes that the people added that the government still plans to expand renewable energy and battery storage, but warns that solar and battery supply chains remain vulnerable, especially because “China…dominates much of the supply chain for batteries and solar panels.” Some of the planned coal units would be geared toward balancing intermittent renewable generation, with the ministry offering incentives for plants that operate more flexibly.

Such a move risks complicating India’s climate commitments. NITI Aayog projections indicate that emissions must peak by 2045 to meet Modi’s target of becoming net zero by 2070. India, the world’s third-largest emitter, has yet to submit updated emissions-reduction strategies for 2035 under the Paris Agreement, arguing that richer nations should shoulder a bigger share of decarbonization to allow developing economies to grow.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/india-plans-coal-expansion-through-2047-despite-climate-goals

5 Depression Trials That Failed in 2025

 

The R&D pipeline for depression therapies faced a demoralizing 2025 as five high-profile candidates, including KOR antagonists by Johnson & Johnson and Neumora Therapeutics, flunked late-stage clinical trials, underscoring the persistent challenges of CNS drug development.

The pipeline of investigational depression treatments has had a difficult year. It often seems the only news coming out of this space is bad news, with potential therapies being abandoned and endpoints missed. Even Johnson & Johnson, which aims to become the number one company in neuroscience by 2030, axed a Phase III trial in major depressive disorder.

The reality is that developing treatments targeting the central nervous system (CNS) is challenging, and drug candidates often come off the rails when moving into mid-to-late-stage trials. There is an estimated 85% failure rate of CNS drugs in Phase II and III trials, according to WCG Clinical Services. Between 2009 and 2025, the FDA approved just 15 medications for depressive disorders, despite major depression affecting more than 8% of the U.S. population each year.

But the market potential for successful candidates is so great that companies keep trying, Myles Minter, partner at William Blair, told BioSpace.

“You’ve got 21 million patients in the U.S. and around 50% of them get treated,” he said. “But, of these, there are 8 million that really don’t respond after several lines of therapy, including all the relapses.” There are several reasons for this, Minter explained, including side effects, lack of efficacy and time to efficacy—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) take around six weeks to work and even then, only work half the time. “Hence, the unmet need.”

Minter said there are various hurdles to successful clinical development, but the major barrier is placebo response. Due to the naturally subjective endpoints in depression trials, which rely on the patients’ self-reported outcomes, there is a higher likelihood of patients in the placebo cohort reporting improvements, he explained.

This was the key factor that led J&J to discontinue development of aticaprant in March, as the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) blocker was unable to show greater efficacy than placebo in major depressive disorder (MDD). For Minter, this was the most significant trial failure in recent years, representing a major blow to the KOR antagonist class.

Here, BioSpace takes a closer look at this development and four more trial failures that rocked the depression space in 2025.

Johnson & Johnson’s Aticaprant

It’s been an especially rough year for the KOR antagonist class, cemented by the Phase III failure of J&J’s aticaprant.

The KOR antagonist class in depression emerged from the National Institutes of Health, which had been searching for signals relating to brain reward circuitry. KOR antagonists surfaced as a potential therapeutic approach for depression after showing potential in preclinical studies.

This promise led J&J, as well as other companies—including Neumora Therapeutics—to pursue the development of KOR assets for MDD. J&J, for its part, took aticaprant as far as Phase III trials as an adjunct therapy for MDD with anhedonia—the inability to experience joy—before abandoning the program in March due to “insufficient efficacy in the target patient population.”

Prior to the readout, expectations were very high for this drug class, Minter said. Now, those expectations “are absolutely rock bottom.”

Neumora’s Navacaprant

J&J’s KOR disappointment may have been presaged in January, when Neumora announced that the first of its Phase III trials for its KOR antagonist navacaprant in MDD failed to show statistically significant improvement over placebo. Unlike J&J, however, the company elected not to discontinue development in MDD, but did make adjustments to two ongoing Phase III studies, KOASTAL-2 and KOASTAL-3.

The adjustment involved reducing the number of sites used, adding medical monitoring, and implementing a screening tool to prevent people enrolled in multiple clinical trials at once from participating in the KOASTAL studies. The results from these ongoing studies are expected to read out in 2026.

“We believe these changes strengthen the studies and look forward to delivering topline data in 2026,” Neumora CEO Paul Berns said during the company’s fourth-quarter 2024 business update in March.

Minter noted that site variability and trial execution have been major issues facing the broader depression drug development space, as the diverse conduct of clinical trial sites adds to the heterogeneity of results.

KOASTAL-2 has a primary completion date of May 2026, while KOASTAL-3 is expected to read out in February.

Alto’s ALTO-203

Another asset that failed to meet expectations was Alto Neuroscience’s ALTO-203. The oral H3 receptor blocker was unable to significantly improve mood in patients with MDD, Alto reported in June. However, as the trial was considered exploratory and proof-of-concept, the biotech pointed to other treatment outcomes that could validate further development, such as reported improvements to sustained attention and wakefulness.

The news emerged less than a year after Alto’s other depression asset, ALTO-100, which targets the BDNF protein, also failed to improve symptoms in MDD compared to placebo in a mid-stage trial.

One of the compounding factors for these trial issues, according to Minter, could be patient adherence to the treatments. In ALTO-100’s Phase IIb trial, upwards of 30% of patients assigned to take the study drug failed to do so, he said.

This marks one of the challenges broadly for depression trials, Minter noted. “It’s very different from oncology trials, where they’re coming in for an infusion or a scan, as the patients are going to be 100% compliant, unless adverse events put them off therapy.”

Supernus’ SPN-820

Another contender, Supernus Pharmaceuticals, took a different approach with an oral activator of the mTORC protein. The outcome was the same, however—a Phase IIb trial for SPN-820 in February failed to meet its primary endpoint in treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

The asset failed to show a statistically significant difference in the reduction of depressive symptoms compared to placebo, according to Supernus’ press release at the time. The secondary endpoint, which sought a treatment difference between SPN-820 and placebo from baseline to week four of the trial, was also missed.

Supernus might have expected better, as the trial followed a positive Phase IIa readout in MDD in October 2024. However, Jefferies analysts at the time cautioned that drugs that could work for both major depressive disorder and TRD are “rare.”

As for SPN-820’s future in TRD, Supernus CEO Jack Khattar said in a statement alongside the February press release that the company would “continue to analyze these data” with development partner Navitor Pharmaceuticals. In its third-quarter report, the company confirmed plans to initiate a follow-on Phase IIb trial for SPN-820 in MDD, with no mention of further trials in TRD.

Neurocrine’s NBI-770

Last month, Neurocrine Biosciences became the latest company to run into trouble at the Phase II mark with NBI-1070770, also known as simply ‘770. The drug, a negative allosteric modulator of the NMDA NR2B receptor in development for MDD, failed to significantly improve depression severity, missing the study’s primary endpoint.

Neurocrine CMO Sanjay Keswani said in the company’s press release that there are “aspects of the data that warrant further exploration,” and that Neurocrine will assess these before determining next steps.

NBI-1070770’s failure to show efficacy came as something of a surprise to analysts, with BMO Capital Markets noting that it had a similar mechanism of action to J&J’s esketamine TRD treatment Spravato, first approved in 2019. The FDA has also approved Axsome Therapeutics’ oral NMDA receptor antagonist for MDD. With this treatment precedent set, BMO analysts said the asset was viewed as “somewhat derisked.”

For all the challenges drug developers have faced in the depression space in 2025, Minter stressed that significant steps are being made by the treatments that do make it across the regulatory finish line. Of Spravato, he said, “Most people say the product is literally a lifesaver because you don’t know when that patient is coming back. If you can’t treat a depressive episode, then that may be the last time you see them.”

https://www.biospace.com/drug-development/5-depression-trials-that-failed-in-2025

'Overview of 2026 prospects published by the largest banks'

 

To attempt a balanced article, two American banks, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, and two European banks, BNP Paribas and Barclays, were selected.

Stability under constraint in Europe

No one expects a boom in Europê. However, banks seem convinced by the stability that Europe can offer. In all the analyzed publications, the German budget plan appears to be the main catalyst. However, the effects of this stimulus are not magical: growth in Germany, like that of France, is expected to be only modest in 2026. As Berlin plans to devote a fifth of its €500bn investment program next year, it is mainly the hope of seeing Europe's locomotive regain its status that fuels trust.

On the monetary front, all banks agree that the euro zone will hit its inflation target before the US, which could give the ECB more latitude than the Fed. Several of these banks emphasize disinflationary dynamics in Europe and anticipate a cut, or possibly several cuts, next year. A phenomenon partly due to Chinese goods pouring into Europe as US demand for those same products continues to decline. JPMorgan notes that the share of the United States in Chinese exports has fallen from 22% in 2017 to 12% today.

In short, Europe constitutes a constructive investment zone, ideal for diversification into assets valued lower. If political instability is comfortably settled across the continent, the rise in investments to secure strategic autonomy deserves close watching.

2035 target for China

The globe's second power is at the heart of shifts in global trade. Despite persistent trade tensions with the United States, its trade surplus remains historically high.

Government policies have targeted 5% growth this year. The four banks are more pessimistic for the years to come, with BNP Paribas leading as it expects growth below 4% in 2027.

Nevertheless, one must acknowledge China's resilience, which has identified new growth engines as its traditional pillars-real estate and massive exports-no longer meet Xi Jinping's ambitions, notably the goal to double GDP between 2020 and 2035. An anecdotal but necessary figure: to reach this objective, China would need an average annual growth of 4.17% over the coming decade.

Industrial innovations, artificial intelligence, and energy supremacy can certainly take over. Since last year, the digital economy generates more revenue than the real estate and construction sectors together: the baton has passed.

In the coming weeks, leaders will announce the policy guidelines for 2026. Then the government will publicly declare its annual growth target in March.

A fourth year of gains on Wall Street?

Should we expect a fourth year of growth for the American stockmarket? Time will tell. For now, the domestic economy remains robust, particularly thanks  to an American consumer optimism seen as unparalleled and enviable by the rest of the world. If the Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick envisions GDP growth of above 4% next year, Barclays contemplates about 2%.

While the Fed would like to press both the button supporting the economy and that fighting inflation, the major banks expect a year of rate cuts with a new Fed chair in May. It would amount to continuing the cycle: an economy in need of a nudge but with inflation still elevated.

AI should remain the key growth driver for stockmarkets. And none of the four banks fears a bubble at this stage, although signs are emerging according to them. These institutions agree that high valuations worry them less than the market's concentration. Indeed, Goldman Sachs notes that seven stocks account for 40% of the S&P 500's capitalization.

The rapid adoption of AI with, for example, already 800 million weekly active users on ChatGPT and the still reasonable debt levels of tech companies ease the fears.

Whether in the European or American market, 2025 will have rewarded portfolio concentration at the expense of diversification. It was necessary to know what to focus on. Barclays rightly notes that such dynamics rarely endure.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/overview-of-2026-prospects-published-by-the-largest-banks-ce7d51ddda8cf72c

'Should the ECB's mandate change?'

 

In an interview with Les Echos, Emmanuel Macron revived the idea of changing the ECB's mandate to take growth and employment into account. The ECB has long been criticized for focusing solely on inflation, to the detriment of a monetary policy that is more favorable to growth.

"The European monetary policy seems to me to be clearly adjustable today... we cannot have inflation as the sole objective," the French President said, in an interview published on Sunday.

These remarks echo his April 2024 speech at La Sorbonne, where he called for changing the ECB's mandate to add "at least one growth objective, or even a decarbonization objective, in any case a climate objective."

The head of state is not the first to propose this idea. The ECB has long been criticized for focusing solely on inflation, to the detriment of a monetary policy that is more favorable to growth.

A hawkish central bank

The European Central Bank in a sense has a restrictive bias, dating back to its origins. The ECB was created in 1998 on the model of the Bundesbank (the German central bank). It thus has a single mandate: price stability.

This is the major difference with the Fed, which has a double mandate: price stability and maximum employment. This means that the Fed must keep inflation under control, while also supporting growth.

That is what currently enables the US central bank to cut rates even when inflation is closer to 3% than 2%. The Fed is thus expected to make a third 25bp rate cut this year.

By contrast, no one imagines the ECB lowering rates in the near future. Yet inflation was 2.2% in November, and most projections (including those of the ECB) anticipate inflation below the 2% target in 2026.

EBC Economic Projections - September 2025

A growth problem

This argues for a change in the ECB's strategy, as the euro zone indeed has a growth problem. At the turn of the century, GDP per capita in the US and the euro zone were similar. Since then, Europe has clearly fallen behind.

Evolution of GDP per capita in the euro zone and the United States. Source: Financial Times

Although monetary policy cannot solve all competitiveness problems (the euro zone is too fragmented, too regulated...), an ECB that does not keep its foot on the brake at all times would nonetheless be welcome.

Beyond interest rates, there is also the issue of the balance sheet. While the Fed stopped shrinking its balance sheet on December 1, the ECB continues to shrink it at a significant pace (around €420bn this year and next according to Generali's calculations).

Mechanically, this puts pressure on long-term rates. However, European countries need lower rates at a time when they must issue a lot of debt, notably to invest in their defense.

According to Generali's estimates, net issuances by euro-zone member states should reach €900bn in 2026.

Higher rates are of course a drag on growth, while also constraining governments' budgets.

A board to renew

There are thus arguments in favor of a more accommodative ECB stance. However, for now, the hawks are watching carefully. In an interview with Bloomberg News published on Monday, Isabel Schnabel said that the next ECB move could be a rate hike, while adding that "this will not happen soon."

And this while the ECB has just brought its main policy rate back to 2% - the consensus estimate of the "neutral" rate - and inflation is expected to be below target next year.

One can nonetheless hope to see the ECB change in the future. Remember that this year Germany broke with budgetary orthodoxy. An about turn, which seemed impossible not long ago.

One of the factors that could push the ECB to change its posture is the renewal of the board. Indeed, four important Executive Board members will see their terms expire in the next two years: Vice-President Luis de Guindos (May 2026), Chief Economist Philipp Lane (May 2027), President Christine Lagarde (October 2027), and Isabel Schnabel (December 2027).

ECB members hold non-renewable eight-year terms. They are appointed by the European Council, by qualified majority. Strategic nominations that are always the subject of tough negotiations amongst heads of state and government.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/should-the-ecb-s-mandate-change-ce7d51ddd081f224