This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The staffing at the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control center in Washington, D.C., is under review after one controller reportedly was allowed to leave early, just before Wednesday's midair crash between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a military helicopter.

All 67 aboard the two aircraft are believed to have died.

It was the New York Times that explained one air traffic controller was juggling two jobs at the same time because another worker had left early.

The report said the tragedy "appeared to confirm what pilots, air traffic controllers and safety experts had been warning for years: Growing holes in the aviation system could lead to the kind of crash that left 67 people dead in the Potomac River in Washington."

There were 19 air traffickers assigned to the office, even though union recommendations had been for 30 workers there.

There routinely would be different individuals handling helicopter and passenger jet traffic, and those duties would be handled by one person late in the evening and overnight when traffic numbers are down.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

At least twice in the week before Wednesday night's tragic midair collision between a helicopter and a passenger jet at the airport in Washington, D.C., pilots had to abort landings because of helicopter traffic.

The Washington Post reported one incident was just 24 hours before the deadly collision which is thought to have killed all 64 aboard the passenger jet and three on the Black Hawk military helicopter.

Fox News said the Tuesday incident happened when "a different plane alerted the air traffic control tower that it had to abort its landing to avoid collision with a helicopter."

"Yet another plane arriving at DCA from Charlotte scrubbed its landing on Jan. 23, again because of a helicopter," the report said.

Passenger Richart Hart said in an interview, "They had to circle back around because there was a helicopter in the flight path. At the time I found it odd. … Now I find it disturbingly tragic."

Wednesday's crash involved an inbound commercial flight from Wichita, Kansas, and the Black Hawk from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

Recovery efforts are under way and multiple bodies of victims have been recovered.

Fox News reported that the catastrophe "has raised concerns about frequent military training flights around Reagan National Airport, including a helicopter lane that intersects with the flight path of aircraft on the southeastern approach to Runway 33, where American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita attempted to land Wednesday."

There remain many questions, including why the pilots did not see each other, as it was a clear night and the lights from both aircraft would have been visible for miles.

A federal report from 2021 noted that safe paths were needed for military helicopters in the region to avoid interfering with commercial flights there, and FAA rules implemented altitude limits for them.

Air traffic controllers had asked the Black Hawk pilot that night if he could see the approaching Flight 5342, and the report said the pilot confirmed, citing "visual separation," "meaning he was trying to get out of the flight's path."

But the collision happened almost immediately after that exchange.

A former Air Force navigator told Fox that seeing other aircraft, while flying at night, may be difficult in areas like Washington because of lights from a vast landscape of tall buildings and towers. The navigator suggested it was possible the helicopter pilot saw other lights, but missed the approaching craft.

The Daily Mail reported the Black Hawk also was "not on its approved route and flying higher than it should have been."

The report said the helicopter should have been no higher than 200 feet along the east side of the Potomac River, and in that path it would have missed the jet.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Propaganda pronouns, those pronouns chosen by people who want to promote their LGTB ideologies, especially the transgender beliefs, in their government email signatures, are going away.

In fact, under an order from the Office of Personnel Management, they are to be gone by end of business Friday.

A commentary at NottheBee said, "I can just feel the sanity returning to D.C. And I can also feel half of the Swamp writhing in pain when they read this memo."

The order comes from the OPM, over the signature of Chuck Ezell, acting director.

The "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" sets out specific instructions.

Federal agencies and bureaucracies are to review all their programs, contracts, grants and more and end those that "promote or inculcate gender ideology."

Workers doing those programs are on administrative leave with notification that the efforts are being ended.

Online sites promoting the ideologies must be unplugged.

And a review is mandated of agency email systems such as Outlook and those features that prompt users for their pronouns must be turned off.

Gender training is canceled. And "resource" groups focusing on gender ideologies are disbanded.

On forms, "gender" cannot be used, only "sex" being male or female.

And the federal managers must "ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by biological sex and not gender identity."

A report on everything that's done is due in a week.

NottheBee reported, "Hear that woke D.C. losers? By the end of the day, you better be deleting all vestiges of your woke religious shibboleths from public sight. We are done playing this nonsense game."

It cited the orders that, "Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News that cited two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office seeking to curb diversity and equity programs in the federal government."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – At around 10:00 a.m. local time Thursday, Agam Berger was released from Hamas captivity as part of the ceasefire shakedown, which along with the later release of Arbel Yahoud and Gadi Mozes, and five Thai workers, will result in the freedom of some 110 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, some of them imprisoned for murdering multiple people. She was held in total for some 482 days, since her abduction on Oct. 7, 2023 from the Nahal Oz military base.

Like her recently released colleagues – Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Daniela Gilboa, and Karina Ariev – Berger was subjected to a Hamas media circus, as she was led down a narrow walkway with a camera in her face, while led out and flanked by masked men carrying automatic rifles, who were wearing black uniforms and balaclavas, as well as the terrorist group's green bandana. As part of the game-playing, Hamas released Berger to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jabaliya in the Strip's north, although it is thought to release some of the remaining hostages due to be set free today in Khan Yunis in the south, close to where the organization's former leader Yahya Sinwar met his end.

Berger was reunited with her relieved and delighted family near the border, and will undergo psychological and physical assessment at an as-yet undisclosed hospital.

"Thank God we have reached this moment and our heroine Agam has returned to us after 482 days in the hands of the enemy," the family said in a statement after the reunion. "Our girl is strong, believing and brave."

"We would like to thank the security forces and the entire people of Israel for all the support and prayers," added the family's statement.

Dr. Lena Koren Feldman, director of Rabin Medical Center's Beilinson Hospital, told Israel's Channel 12 News the four IDF soldiers kidnapped alongside Berger and who were released by Hamas on Saturday screamed with excitement when they saw her being freed.

As a postscript, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who is in Israel and Gaza to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire and the attendant hostage "deal" has reportedly requested an opportunity to meet with the four female IDF spotters who were released on Saturday.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Now it is the Jan. 6 prosecutors who are under investigation.

They were the government prosecutors who jailed those who trespassed at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They are the ones who piled charges on top of charges, including the inappropriate claims about trespassers "obstructing" the government. They are the ones who demanded long prison sentences for those who did nothing more than walk into the building, often through doors held open for them by security officers.

It is the Epoch Times that reports a federal prosecutor confirmed recently "he's investigating why federal prosecutors brought a felony obstruction charge against hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol."

It is Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who has directed employees to hand over files, emails and other documents that address the issue.

He described the use of the obstruction charge, a felony that later was disallowed by the Supreme Court, as "a great failure of our office."

Of course, piling on charges, demanding no release before trial, insisting on long prison terms, and more aligned with the Democrat agenda of describing the incidents that day as the greatest "insurrection" against America since the Civil War.

Actually, it was a protest that got out of hand when a few hundred rioted. Protesters were objecting to what they saw as an unfair election system that, in fact, was under pressure from several undue Democrat influences, including the FBI's election interference.

"We need to get to the bottom of it," Martin explained in his messaging.

He's calling it the "1512 Project," because the offense falls under that section of the law, said the report, which explained Section 1512 of U.S. law bars people from obstructing, influencing, or impeding any official proceeding, or attempting to do so. It carries a prison term of up to 20 years.

Hundreds of the protesters on Capitol grounds that day were faced with that charge. Former policeman Joseph Fischer challenged that, and the Supreme Court said prosecutors were applying the law incorrectly.

"On the government's theory, Section 1512(c) consists of a granular subsection (c)(1) focused on obstructive acts that impair evidence and an overarching subsection (c)(2) that reaches all other obstruction," said the opinion, from Chief Justice John Roberts. "Even setting surplusage aside, that novel interpretation would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison."

The government already had been dropping those counts against defendants before President Donald Trump took office and pardoned some 1,500 prosecuted by government officials in the leftist jurisdiction of the Washington courts.

Martin has, the report said, watched thousands of hours of video from that day.

"If you watch it for a while you realize that 99.9% of it is normal people doing normal things: sauntering around and through the Capitol grounds and building," he has explained on blog postings.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

President Donald Trump has outlined one plan that would provide America with an income instead of a federal income tax.

And he cites a time period that for decades, it worked.

He said, "America's going to be very rich again and it's going to happen very quickly. It's time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before."

He continued, "You know the United States in 1870 to 1913 all tariffs and that was the richest period in the history of the United States relatively speaking. In other words, relatively, and they set up the great tariff commission of 1887 and this commission had one function. What to do with all the money that we took in.

"It was so enormous that they had no idea, it was a blue ribbon committee set up in 1887, and what to do with all of the money, that we had and again, Teddy Roosevelt was a beneficiary, because when McKinley was killed he took over this vast sum of money, and he did all of those national parks, and all of the other things and I'm not knocking him, but he was given a vast amount of money. And that was all made through tariffs. We had no income tax. The income tax came in in 1913, As I said in my speech last week instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens. Does that make sense?"

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Citing an inability to trust they would be able to implement President Donald Trump's agenda, acting Attorney General James McHenry has fired a long list of Department of Justice workers who participated in, and helped with, Jack Smith's schemes to prosecute Trump.

The official action announcing the dismissal of an unspecified number of DOJ hires said, "In light of their actions, the acting attorney general does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the president's agenda."

It was estimated that more than a dozen DOJ lawyers who worked on the schemes by Smith, then a special counsel, to charge Trump over his comments and opinions about the 2020 election and his possession of certain government documents after he left office, were dismissed.

Incidentally, the DOJ under Joe Biden found similar evidence against Biden regarding his own possession of government documents, but gave him a pass.

Just the News reported the firings came after the Trump administration reassigned at least 15 from the DOJ to lesser roles.

"Today, Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of a number of DOJ officials who played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump," the department said in its official statement."

Smith quit his own assignment earlier in the month, before Trump took office and had a chance to fire him, as he had promised.

According to Fox News, McHenry sent each fired worker a letter notifying them of their termination.

A DOJ official told Fox the move is "consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government."

It was the classified records case that was dismissed in July 2024 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, based on her ruling Smith was appointed unlawfully.

The other case was dismissed after Trump was elected president.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden's health adviser who was at a salary just short of half a million dollars a year before retiring on a pension estimated at $350,000 per annum, had collected some $15 million in special security benefits since he left government.

But no more.

Reports confirm that in addition to his salary he made millions selling his behind-the-scenes stories, and was handed a free presidential pardon from Biden.

But now President Donald Trump has ended Secret Service protection for the retired American citizen.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Not even a week into his second presidential term, President Donald Trump is visiting the regions in North Carolina devastated by Hurricane Helene months ago, where roads still are closed, residential areas simply have vanished and life is anything but moving forward after Joe Biden promised benefits of a few hundred dollars to victims.

And Trump has announced he has plans to help Los Angeles recover from the wildfires that struck at the New Year.

Trump, on a tour Friday to North Carolina as well as California, announced "he is deploying the Army Corp of Engineers to rebuild their bridges, roads, riverbanks, etc.," reports said.

"I've asked Susie Wiles and all of my people to start calling up. Get the Corps ready," he announced.

The devastation wrought by the hurricane, which killed more than 200 people and left another two dozen people still missing, stalled over the state after coming ashore, dumping feet of rain and literally washing some communities away.

There long have been complaints that the federal government has responded, under the then administration of Joe Biden, inadequately.

Fox News explained Trump blasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its failures in North Carolina.

"I'll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA," Trump confirmed.

"I think, frankly, FEMA is not good."

He said he has assigned members of his administration to get help on the way.

"We're going to fix it, and we're going to fix it as fast as you can. It's a massive amount of damage. FEMA has really let us down. Let the country down. And I don't know if that's Biden's fault or whose fault it is, but we're going to take over. We're going to do a good job."

In fact, thousands of North Carolina families remain in motels as their homes, washed away, have not been replaced with even temporary housing.

"It's been a horrible thing the way that's been allowed to fester, and we're going to get it fixed up," Trump said. "It should have been done months ago from the hurricane that took place almost four months ago."

He also addressed the California wildfires, which have killed dozens and destroy as many as 12,000 or more homes and other buildings.

A report in the Washington Examiner explained Trump expects several responses from California, in return for federal relief.

"I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen," Trump said.

In fact, some of the areas burned by the wildfires did burn at least partly because there was no water in the fire hydrants, a result of apparent mismanagement of the area's reservoir system.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose Democrat political star was rising before his reputation took a massive blow because of the wildfires, rejected the president's ideas.

"Under current CA law you must be a CA resident and U.S. citizen (and attest to being one under penalty of perjury) AND provide a form of ID such as driver's license or passport that has been approved by the Secretary of State in order to register to vote," his office said on social media.

Trump had explained earlier, "Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it. All they have to do is turn the valve. They wouldn't do it because, politically, they didn't think it was good. I think it's great politically. I think they're dead politically. What they've done, they've destroyed the city."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Congress over the last year or so has revealed some startling information about the Biden family, including that members cashed in on tens of millions of dollars from a family influence-peddling business that has been run during Joe Biden's vice presidency and then presidency.

And a lot more.

Now it has been confirmed that the latest stunt, Joe Biden's decision to "pardon" five members of his family for everything that has happened over recent years, also will be reviewed by the House.

"It was shocking," explained House Speaker Mike Johnson. "What President Biden did on the way out … pardoning his family for more than a decade of whatever activity, any nonviolent offense. It was breathtaking to us. I don't think anything like that has ever been anticipated."

Biden's pardons for his family members, in fact, came only minutes before he gave up the power of the presidential pardon that goes with the occupant of the White House, except for his pardon of his son, Hunter, on gun and tax charges and anything else, which happened a few weeks ago.

Johnson continued, "By the way… four years ago when it was just implied President Trump might do something similar they were apoplectic. Joe Biden himself. Adam Schiff. Chuck Schumer. Roll the tape, they all said that would be crazy, unconscionable, and now they're cheering it along."

He said, "It's… to us it is disgusting. To us it probably proves the point, the suspicion, that they call it the Biden crime family. If they weren't the crime family why do they need pardons, right?"