Despite winning two MVP awards, Lamar Jackson still has his fair share of critics.

Fresh off yet another playoff disappointment, the Baltimore Ravens quarterback had arguably the worst season of his career last year.

It was the first time he finished under .500 as a starter and the first time since 2021 he was not in the playoffs after the season came down to a field goal attempt.

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Perhaps the doubters were on Jackson’s mind earlier this week because he issued a faith-filled message toward them on X.

“Instead of trying to bring me down, ask GOD to bring you up,” Jackson wrote with emojis of praying hands, a purple heart, and an army helmet. “#JESUSCHRISTKINGOFKINGS.”

Jackson missed four games with a hamstring injury that appeared to affect him for most of the year. His 2,549 passing yards were the third-lowest mark of his career, while he only rushed for 349 yards, the lowest he’s ever had.

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The quarterback has shared several faithful messages this week, including wearing an “I LOVE JESUS” hoodie. Many of Jackson’s reposts on X show his faith.

Jackson will have a new head coach this season after his Ravens fired John Harbaugh following 18 seasons. Jesse Minter was hired after being the defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers, who are coached by Harbaugh’s brother, Jim.

Jackson has made it as far as the AFC title game but lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 season.

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Kacey Musgraves had an out-of-this-world experience on a recent flight.

In a series of Instagram Stories, the “Space Cowboy” singer detailed “the craziest f—ing orb, UFO experience” she had while on a recent flight from Fort Worth, Texas, to Nashville, Tennessee.

“I’ve seen many crazy things. I’ve seen fire burning in the sky, things that I can’t explain, so this is not the first time,” she said. “I was about to lay down and take a nap, and I saw these lights that caught my eye that just didn’t look normal, and I watched them for a minute.”

She went on to explain that she “watched them for about 45 minutes,” noting they were “about 50,000 feet up.”

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Musgraves described them as being “an orange-ish color” at times, but then “sometimes they would get extremely bright and change color, change size.”

“These orbs were not moving like any craft that we can control. They were intermittently coming and going, forming triangle patterns,” she explained. “The craziest thing is, so they were following us from about the Little Rock area, that’s when I noticed them, all the way to Nashville.”

The “Merry Go Round” singer shared that once they landed in Nashville, the pilots came out of the cockpit and “were laughing” as they told the passengers on the plane that “we’ve seen these every single night and all the other pilots are seeing them too and nobody knows what they are.”

She said one of the pilots shared that he saw them recently while flying in New York, and the other said he saw them while in Dallas.

“S— is weird, but um, here for it! I am open to it, I’m here for it,” Musgraves said before adding that the orbs “were changing direction with us, [and] they were following the plane.”

Musgraves shared videos of the orbs in subsequent stories, but noted they look as if they were taken “on a f—ing toaster” and that they were difficult to capture “because they were far off and it’s nighttime.”

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The country star is gearing up for the release of her latest studio album, “Middle of Nowhere,” set to drop in early May.

During an interview with NPR in March, she shared that the album will feature a collaboration with Miranda Lambert, with Musgraves saying that although they had lost touch over the years, “and wouldn’t consider each other friends,” she chose to reach out to the singer after seeing her riding horses on Instagram.

“Wait, that could be a really funny song. What if it’s a duet with her? What if I got her to write on it?” she recalled thinking. “I just randomly reached out to her and I was like, ‘I know we’ve had our s— over the years, but listen, we’ve at least got two things in common. I’m not trying to be your friend. You got your life, I have mine. But I think this would be a pretty f—ing funny song, and we should write it with Shane [McAnally].’ And she was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m in, let’s do it.'”

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The two powerhouse country singers were rumored to have been feuding since 2013, when the song, “Mama’s Broken Heart” was included on Lambert’s album, “Four the Record,” when it was originally intended to be Musgraves’ first single.

She explained that she had “a lot of excitement” around her and the song at the time, but it was pitched to Lambert “without my knowledge or consent.” Lambert “ended up loving the song, and she really wanted it.” Ultimately, it ended up being a good thing, as Musgraves went on to write “Merry Go Round.”

Musgraves called working with Lambert a “full-circle” moment, saying they “aired out any of the old laundry” and were able to write the whole song in just a few hours.

FIRST ON FOX: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche huddled with President Donald Trump in the hours after Pam Bondi was forced out last week to make his pitch for the job full-time, Fox News Digital confirmed. 

Blanche was encouraged by top White House officials to speak with the president while other names, like Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, briefly circulated as possible contenders, two sources familiar told Fox News Digital. During that conversation, Blanche made his case for why he should be the next attorney general.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to Fox News Digital that the president and his then-deputy attorney general spoke on Thursday, as did a source familiar with Blanche’s movements that day. 

Trump announced Bondi’s departure from the Justice Department and in the same social media post last Thursday said that Blanche would be taking over the role in an acting capacity, as Fox News and Fox News Digital previously reported.

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The next moves could prove crucial for Blanche if he wants to clinch the president’s nomination – and with the countdown ticking to the midterm elections, he only has a few months to convince the president he can lead the roughly 120,000-employee DOJ before a potential party power change in Congress.

“It’s really Todd’s role to lose at this point,” one of the sources who spoke with Fox News Digital said. 

A 30-year department veteran, however, speculated that Blanche won’t get the nomination and will continue to run the DOJ in an acting capacity.

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“The safest thing for Trump to do is just to keep Blanche, the ultimate loyalist, in place as Acting, at least through the midterms, and avoid a confirmation fight,” former DOJ prosecutor Kevin Flynn told Fox News Digital. “In terms of advancing Trump’s retribution agenda, I think Blanche could do pretty much everything as Acting [Attorney General] as a confirmed AG could do.”

Trump fired Bondi on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, during an Oval Office meeting ahead of his speech to the nation on the war in Iran, Fox News Digital first reported a day after her ouster.

Trump confirmed her departure on Truth Social at 1:17 pm, roughly 45 minutes after the report became public. 

In the hours after Bondi was dismissed and before Trump made his official DOJ personnel announcement, Blanche allegedly had a consequential conversation with the president where he was informed he would be acting attorney general. Blanche lobbied to get the full-time position in a following discussion, one source familiar said. 

They also said that Blanche went to the White House a few times for various reasons in the days after he became acting AG.

The other source said it was this follow-up conversation that provided the president with the confidence to give Blanche the nod – at least for now.

Trump told his one-time personal attorney, “Here’s your audition,” the source paraphrased.

Blanche “got a call from POTUS after leaving a podcast taping on Thursday following the report on Fox,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.

When Leavitt was asked if the two chatted on Thursday, the president’s spokesperson replied, “Yes they spoke.”

Neither the DOJ nor White House would comment on what the two discussed last week and whether Blanche made his case for a promotion.

Either way, now it’s up to Blanche to prove he’s up for the job full-time. 

His first test was a Tuesday afternoon press conference focused on Trump’s push to crack down on fraud.

Blanche likely passed the pulse test as he showered praise on the president and said there would be no love lost if he wasn’t selected to be the next attorney general. “I love working for President Trump,” he said. “It’s the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I’ll say, ‘Thank you very much, I love you, sir.'”

He got to work right away shaping the DOJ. 

On Thursday, Blanche announced his appointment of Trent McCotter as the principal associate deputy attorney general. He also stood up the new DOJ fraud division at Tuesday’s press conference and put Colin McDonald in charge as assistant attorney general for the Fraud Division.

Additionally, he took two trusted advisers with him to the attorney general’s office, Shane Hedges and James McHenry.

Blanche will likely need to differentiate himself from Bondi and distance himself from her failures – namely the Jeffrey Epstein files debacle – if he wants longevity in the role, one of the sources familiar told Fox News Digital.

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In February 2025, Bondi said she had the Epstein files on her desk. A trickle of releases over the next year would yield no new investigations or prosecutions related to the sex trafficker’s crimes and left Americans unsatisfied. 

The source familiar said every move Bondi made after that was an effort to “clean up” her broken promise to release the Epstein client list. 

Convincing Trump he’s the right guy for the job is only the first hurdle. Blanche would also need to get past Congress and a confirmation process that is sure to be grueling. 

Bondi passed with a Senate vote of 54–46, with all 53 Republicans and lone Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voting for her to be attorney general. Every other Democrat voted against her confirmation. 

Blanche, with the legacy of Bondi tied to his tenure in the Trump administration, could face an uphill battle even with some Republicans who have grown critical of the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files.