News of the World

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FLIGHT FIASCO: FAA outage leads travelers to vent frustrations, safety concerns

Americans traveling through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport expressed their frustrations and safety concerns after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all domestic flights Wednesday morning.

"I travel a great deal," said Sharon, whose flight to Puerto Rico was canceled. "The only other time that I've seen it sort of like this was 9/11 when everything shut down."
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The FAA grounded all domestic flights for hours Wednesday morning after the agency's computer system that issues safety alerts experienced an outage. The White House announced that President Biden was briefed on the issue and said there’s no evidence it was caused by a cyberattack.

Some travelers had concerns about the safety of flights resuming.

Alberto, who works in IT, told Fox News: "Many of these systems are still running on technologies that are decades old and they need to be updated."

House Oversight chair vows to investigate
Biden think tank's potential ties to China: 'This is unprecedented'

REP. JAMES COMER: This is unprecedented to have anonymous donations in the million dollar range, going directly to the immediate family of Joe Biden. It's almost as if there's a money trail from the Biden front door all the way to China and its anonymous sources. This is a problem. This is why Republicans are going to investigate the Biden family influence peddling. We're concerned that this White House is compromised because of the millions of dollars they've received from China.

Joe Biden said he was going to be the most transparent president in history when he was a candidate and I think we can make a strong argument that he is the least transparent president in history.

US, Japan to place anti-ship missiles on Okinawa amid rising China tensions

The U.S. and Japan agreed to boost the readiness of marine forces stationed on Okinawa, as well as provide them with anti-ship missiles and other advanced weaponry by 2025.

The Wednesday report is the latest development in Japan's recent bump in militarization. The country will boost its military spending by 40% and seeks to obtain missiles that could be used to "counterstrike" China or North Korea in the event of a missile attack.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has sought to strengthen the U.S.-Japan relationship in the face of increased aggression from North Korea and China's burgeoning threats to seize Taiwan.
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North Korea threatened to take "bold military steps" against Japan in December after Kishida detailed plans to ramp up military spending.

North Korea has long attacked Japan for the atrocities it committed throughout Asia prior to and during the world wars. The country now argues Japan seeks a return to its colonial ambitions through its alliance with the U.S.
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North Korea fired dozens of missiles in 2022, even going so far as to fire one over Japan itself.

Meanwhile, China continues to hold unprecedented military drills simulating an invasion of Taiwan. The drills first came in response to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the self-governed island in August, but the live-fire exercises have continued for months.

North Carolina school district used COVID-19 money to boost staff salaries

Chalkboard, a K-12 public education news outlet, reported that Wake County Public School System used more than 40% of $442 million in COVID-19 relief funding to supply "bonus pay" to its employees.

The outlet goes on to say that "77.69% of spending to salaries and benefits, with about 10% or less was spent "on other categories." The report explained further that the school district spent $238.2 million on salaries and benefits, approximately $30 million spent on supplies, $19 million for purchased services, $88,690 for capital outlay, and $9 million for "other" expenses.

"Wake County schools, according to state data through Nov. 30, has spent $120.4 million on bonus pay. Another $10 million went toward the teacher pay scale, $12 million for retirement costs, $15 million toward Social Security, $18 million for ‘Extended Contracts,’ and $26 million for ‘teacher,’" Chalkboard reported.
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The funding will span the 2021-2024 school years, according to a breakdown of "Pandemic Relief Funds" on their website.

A breakdown of the state data shows Wake County Public School System shows that 64.5% of COVID-19 funds were used to fund "salary." It also shows that 11.1% was used for "employee Benefits," 10.1% for "purchased Services," 11.2% for "supplies and "materials," and 3.0% for "other."
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The Chalkbeat report comes after national test scores showed sharp declines in math and reading. The test score results raise implications of the COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on the learning of kids across the U.S.

 What a wonderful way to improve the kids' and teenagers' grades by wasting money like crazy. How exactly did they spend those $9 millions? Who said the money should be used to pay the teachers for not teaching the kids while the schools were closed? Even if they claim they had virtual classes, how do they justify the severe drop in their grades?

NYC nurses on strike for third day decry abysmal emergency rooms:
'No more patients in hallways'

The New York State Nurses Association, a union representing some 40,000 members across the state, said Wednesday that nurses at Montefiore Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan "will be back on the picket lines from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and every day until agreements can be reached."

More than 7,000 walked off the job Monday and Tuesday at the two major hospitals. Nurses took also decried the state of their emergency departments on social media, saying hallways are crowded with beds and staffers, causing what they describe as a fire hazard and threat to patient safety.

The union condemned unsafe patient-to-staffing ratios – providing the example of one nurse in the Montefiore Emergency Department who often cares for up to 20 patients and another neonatal intensive care unit nurse at Mt. Sinai who is often responsible for three to four very ill babies at once. Mount Sinai Main has about 3,000 nurses on staff and 500 vacancies.
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New York Attorney General Letitia James joined the Mount Sinai picketing line Monday and reasserted the nurses’ stance that the strike was not about money, but safety.

Meanwhile, Mount Sinai Hospital ripped NYSNA for its "reckless behavior" in rejecting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal for binding arbitration, forcing nurses to leave their patients’ bedsides. Temporary nurses were hired to help mitigate the walk-out. In a statement Monday, Mount Sinai Main said nursing union leadership had refused to accept the exact same 19.1% increased wage offer agreed to by eight other hospitals, including two other Mount Sinai campuses.
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The union contends that hospital executives paid themselves millions in salaries and bonuses during the pandemic at the same time they hiked hospital prices. Top executives at NYC hospitals increased their compensation by 10% between 2019 and 2020, according to institutional cost reports from the state Department of Health.

Top executives' total compensation reportedly on average is $1.1 million.

Talks resumed late Tuesday at Mount Sinai Hospital, but no deal was reached.

Deer smashes through doors of Minnesota butcher shop

The invasive creature, an out-of-sorts doe, escaped the shop as quickly as it had entered.

"A deer decided to come in and warm up but realized it is a butcher shop and high-tailed it right back out. She caused quite a bit of damage on her way in and out," She Said Butcher Shop shared on Facebook.

Security camera captured the deer crashing through the front door of the local shop in Moorhead, Minnesota on Saturday afternoon before it clumsily attempted to leave the local establishment. The deer left a shattered trail behind her and slipped around the red cement floor as if it were a sheet of ice.
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"This was truly an ordeal, and I am really not sure who was more scared at the time me or the deer, but it was a pretty terrifying experience overall," owner and butcher Melissa Evans wrote on the business' Facebook page.

 I guess even wild animals can become real terrorists after all.