WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Monday to reinstate the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, saying a judge’s decision that dismissed the prosecution was at odds with longstanding Justice Department practice and must be reversed.

Smith’s team said U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon made a grievous mistake by ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. That position, prosecutors wrote in a brief filed with the Atlanta-based appeals court, runs counter to rulings by judges across the country as well as “widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government.”

If allowed to stand, they warned, it could “jeopardize the longstanding operation of the Justice Department and call into question hundreds of appointments throughout the Executive Branch.”

The appeal is the latest development in a prosecution that many legal experts have long considered a straightforward criminal case — given the breadth of evidence, including surveillance video and an audio recording of Trump’s own words — that Justice Department investigators accumulated during the investigation.

But over the past year, the case has been snarled by delays as Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge, entertained Trump team motions before ultimately dismissing the prosecution in a stunning decision that brought the proceedings to at least a temporary halt.

It’s unclear how long it will take for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the matter, but even if it overturns Cannon’s dismissal and revives the prosecution, there’s no chance of a trial before the November election. Trump, if elected president, could appoint an attorney general who would dismiss the case.

Burkina Faso attack: At least 100 villagers and soldiers were killed in central Burkina Faso during a weekend attack on a village by al-Qaida-linked jihadis, according to videos of the violence analyzed by a regional specialist, who described the assault as one of the deadliest this year in the conflict-battered West African nation.

Villagers in the Barsalogho commune, which is 50 miles from the capital, were forcibly helping security forces dig up trenches to protect security outposts and villages Saturday when fighters with the JNIM group invaded the area and opened fire on them, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank.

Al-Qaida claimed responsibility Sunday, saying it gained “total control over a militia position” in Barsalogho, in Kaya, a strategic town where security forces have fought off jihadis who have tried to close in on the capital, Ouagadougou.

The country has been ravaged by increasing jihadi attacks. The jihadis linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State have killed thousands and displaced more than 2 million people.

Knife attack in Germany: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to toughen knife laws and step up deportations of rejected asylum-seekers Monday as he visited the scene of the knife attack in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.

Scholz, speaking after he joined regional officials in laying a white rose at a makeshift memorial in the western city Solingen, said he was “furious and angry” about the attack that also wounded eight people.

The suspect turned himself in to police Saturday evening, a day after the attack at a festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary. Federal prosecutors said Sunday that he shared the radical ideology of the Islamic State, which he joined at a point that remains unclear, and was acting on those beliefs when he stabbed his victims repeatedly from behind in the neck and upper body.

The 26-year-old had his asylum application rejected and was supposed to be deported last year to Bulgaria, where he first entered the European Union, but that failed because he disappeared for a time, according to German media reports.

Polio vaccines to Gaza: Polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, Israel’s military said Sunday, after the first confirmed case of the disease in the territory in a quarter-century.

It was not clear how, or how quickly, the 25,000-plus vials of vaccine would be distributed in Gaza, where fighting and unrest have challenged humanitarian efforts for 10 months.

Other polio cases are suspected across the largely devastated territory; the virus was detected in July in wastewater in six locations.

Aid groups plan to vaccinate more than 600,000 children younger than 10 and have called for an urgent seven-day pause in the war to increase vaccinations.

The U.N. has aimed to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza. Polio is highly contagious and transmits mainly through contact with contaminated feces, water or food. It can cause difficulty breathing and irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. It strikes young children in particular and is sometimes fatal.

Texas elections raid: A Latino voting rights group called Monday for a federal investigation after at least six of its volunteers said Texas authorities raided their homes and seized phones and computers as part of an investigation by the state’s Republican attorney general into allegations of voter fraud.

No charges have been filed against any targets of the searches that took place last week in the San Antonio area. Attorney General Ken Paxton previously confirmed that his office had conducted searches after a local prosecutor referred to his office “allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting” during the 2022 election.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The federal Justice Department declined to comment.

Black airman’s killing: A former Florida sheriff’s deputy charged with killing a Black U.S. Air Force senior airman who answered his apartment door while holding a gun pointed toward the ground was arrested Monday.

Former Okaloosa County deputy Eddie Duran, 38, was charged Friday with manslaughter with a firearm in the May 3 shooting of Roger Fortson, 23. The first-degree felony is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Duran was booked into the county jail Monday, records show.

“He did, in fact, turn himself in,” Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille said, adding that Duran’s initial court appearance will be via video link Tuesday.

An attorney representing Duran did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.