BY MATTHEW LEE, AAMER MADHANI and SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering a massive overhaul of the National Security Council that will shrink its size and return many career appointees back to their home agencies, according to two U.S. officials and one person familiar with the reorganization.

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The move is expected to significantly reduce the number of staff at the NSC, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as national security adviser since early this month following the ouster of Mike Waltz, who was nominated to serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

The NSC has been in a continual state of tumult for much of the early going of Trump’s second go-around in the White House.

Waltz was ousted weeks after Trump said that he’d fired several NSC officials, just a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer raised concerns directly to him about staff loyalty.

The White House days into the administration sidelined about 160 NSC aides, sending them home while the administration reviewed staffing and tried to align it with Trump’s agenda. The aides were career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees.

This latest shakeup amounts to a “liquidation” of NSC staffing with both career government detailees on assignment to the NSC being sent back to their home agencies and several political appointees being fired from their positions, according to the person familiar with the decision.

A White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the overhaul, first reported by Axios, was underway but declined further comment.

By TARA COPP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military air traffic controllers lost contact with an Army helicopter for about 20 seconds as it neared the Pentagon on the flight that caused two commercial jets to abort their landings this month at a Washington airport, the Army told The Associated Press on Friday.

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The aborted landings on May 1 added to general unease about continued close calls between government helicopters and commercial airplanes near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport following a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.

In March, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that helicopters would be permanently restricted from flying on the same route where the collision occurred. After the May 1 incident, the Army paused all flights into and out of the Pentagon as it works with the FAA to address safety issues.

Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the head of Army aviation, told the AP in an exclusive interview that the controllers lost contact with the Black Hawk because a temporary control tower antenna was not set up in a location where it would be able to maintain contact with the helicopter as it flew low and rounded the Pentagon to land. He said the antenna was set up during construction of a new control tower and has now been moved to the roof of the Pentagon.

Braman said federal air traffic controllers inside the Washington airport also didn’t have a good fix on the location of the helicopter. The Black Hawk was transmitting data that should have given controllers its precise location, but Braman said FAA officials told him in meetings last week that the data the controllers were getting from multiple feeds and sensors was inconclusive, with some of it deviating by as much as three-quarters of a mile.

“It certainly led to confusion of air traffic control of where they were,” Braman said.

Former FAA and NTSB crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said he thinks the air traffic controller did the right thing by ordering the two planes to go around that day.

“The Army, to me, seems to be attempting to sidestep some of their responsibility here. And it just sounds like excuses to say ‘Hey, we had our ADS-B on and that should have been enough for them to see where we were.’ That sounds too simplistic to me,” Guzzetti said.

The FAA declined to comment on whether its controllers could not get a good fix on the Black Hawk’s location due to their own equipment issues, citing the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is pushing to have the agency modernize its air traffic control systems and equipment, which has failed controllers responsible for Newark Liberty Internal Airport’s airspace at critical moments in recent weeks.

In the initial reporting on the aborted landings, an FAA official suggested the Army helicopter was on a “scenic route.”

But the ADS-B-Out data, which the Army shared with the AP on Friday, shows the crew hewed closely to its approved flight path — directly up the I-395 highway corridor, which is called Route 5, then rounding the Pentagon.

FAA air traffic controllers at the airport aborted the landing of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 during the Black Hawk’s initial flight toward the Pentagon because they realized both aircraft would be nearing the Pentagon around the same time, Braman said.

Because of the 20-second loss of contact, the Pentagon’s tower did not clear the Black Hawk to land, so the helicopter circled the Pentagon a second time. That’s when air traffic controllers at the airport decided to abort the landing of a second jet, a Republic Airways Embraer E170, because they did not have a confident fix on the Black Hawk’s location, Braman said.

Josh Funk contributed from Omaha, Nebraska.

There is a special place in professional hockey, perhaps more than any other sport for the villain — players that fans love to hate and that players hate to play against.

Villains aren’t goons, they’re almost always talented players with a penchant for getting under an opponent’s skin. They’ll take penalties, but draw them, as well, while toeing a line between being smart and being reckless.

And all the best villains help their teams win, which is why they’re villains in opposing rinks.

Minnesota Frost forward Britta Curl-Salemme (77) scores on Ottawa Charge goalie Gwyneth Philips (33) during the third period of a PWHL hockey final game, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

With the puck set to drop Saturday in Game 3 of the PWHL finals at Xcel Energy Center, one can’t help but wonder if Minnesota’s Britta Curl-Salemme has become the nascent league’s first official villain. During the first two games in Ottawa, the forward was booed by the sellout crowd at TD Place nearly every time she touched the puck.

She was suspended a game for a high elbow on Toronto’s Renata Fast in the Frost’s 4-1, first-round series victory. On Thursday, she scored the tying and winning goals in Minnesota’s 2-1 overtime victory to send the series to St. Paul tied 1-1.

That’s a couple of big boxes ticked.

Asked Friday if she has become the PWHL’s first villain in its second season, Curl-Saleme said, “I’m sure some people think that. I try not to get too involved with outside noise or perspectives. I just don’t think that’s helpful for me or our team or what I’m trying to do on the ice.”

On the other hand, the rookie wing who won a national title at Wisconsin said if that’s the case, so be it.

“If that’s the way it shakes out and I’m doing my job, and I’m doing what I’m proud of and the things that I’m supposed to be doing, then that may be it,” she said. “But, I’m not too worried about it.”

Even in Minnesota, Curl-Salemme can be polarizing. When the Frost used their second-round pick to draft her last June, there was some immediate criticism of her social media history, some of it since deleted but including an extant tweet that appears to endorse a group focused on keeping transgender women out of women’s sports.

Shortly after the draft, Curl-Salemme released a two-part video on her x.com account responding to the backlash, saying in part, “I specifically recognize some of my social media activity has resulted in hurt being felt across communities, including LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals, and I just want to apologize and take ownership of that.”

Curl-Salemme was asked Friday if she thought the animus she receives is because of the way she plays or might be in some cases left over from the social media posts.

Ottawa Charge goaltender Gwyneth Philips (33) is scored on by Minnesota Frost’s Britta Curl-Salemme, not shown, during overtime of a PWHL playoff hockey game in Ottawa, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

“I can’t really speak to the reasons behind it or anything,” she said. “I’m sure it’s annoying as hell being an opponent, or being an opposing fan, the style that I play. I kinda try to embrace that, obviously to a certain point. I want to be a nuisance, and I want to make it hard to play against me. So, yeah, I’m sure that’s part of it. But that’s not why I do it, either.”

Curl-Salemme saved the Frost from a 2-0 series deficit Thursday when, with goaltender Maddie Rooney on the bench and a six-on-four advantage, she scored off a net-front rebound with 15 seconds remaining.

In overtime, she beat Gwyneth Phillips — the playoffs’ best goaltender so far — with less than 4 minutes left in the overtime period to send the series back to St. Paul tied 1-1.

“It’s a huge credit to her that she can focus on it; it’s not easy to play in the hostile environments we play in,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “It’s a big credit to her that she can remain calm and still finish in that moment, because she got cross-checked, I think, about 10 times in that shift, and one time a stick got broken on her back. Yet she’s still right there and laying it on the line for her team.”

As for her style occasionally crossing the line, she said it’s been a learning experience after playing NCAA and international hockey, where checking isn’t allowed. She has been suspended for one game three times as a rookie.

In the PWHL, players are allowed to use their bodies to check, but there are myriad ways to do it wrong, as well.

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“I’ll be honest, it’s been tough at times,” Curl-Salemme said. “I think I was excited to able to just play in a league that allows more physicality because I think it suits me, but it’s also (difficult) kinda letting go while also kinda holding back a little bit. So, you’ve got to be able to find that line of how do I stay in control and do it in a way that’s not going to hurt my team or an opponent.

“Because things happen in a physical game, and I’m never going out on the ice trying to hurt somebody or do something stupid. That’s obviously never the intention, but it’s going to take a little bit of maturity in my game and just figuring out how to play that way, and I think I’m improving at it and it’s something that I’m trying to focus on, too.”

By REBECCA BOONE

Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

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The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday says the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal privacy laws when it ordered states and vendors to turn over five years of data about food assistance program applicants and enrollees, including their names, birth dates, personal addresses and social security numbers.

The lawsuit “seeks to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections,” National Student Legal Defense Network attorney Daniel Zibel wrote in the complaint. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Mazon Inc.: A Jewish Response to Hunger joined the four food assistance recipients in bringing the lawsuit.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a social safety net that serves more than 42 million people nationwide. Under the program formerly known as food stamps, the federal government pays for 100% of the food benefits but the states help cover the administrative costs. States also are responsible for determining whether people are eligible for the benefits, and for issuing the benefits to enrollees.

As a result, states have lots of highly personal financial, medical, housing, tax and other information about SNAP applicants and their dependents, according to the lawsuit.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 20 directing agencies to ensure “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs” as part of the administration’s effort to stop “waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos.”

That order prompted Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the USDA to ask states and electronic benefit vendors to turn over the info earlier this month. Failing to do so may “trigger noncompliance procedures,” the USDA warned in a letter to states.

Some states have already turned over the data, including Alaska, which shared the personal info of more than 70,000 residents, according to the lawsuit. Other states like Iowa plan to turn over the information, the plaintiffs say.

They want a judge to declare the data collection unlawful, to order the USDA to destroy any personal information it already has, and to bar the agency from punishing states that fail to turn over the data.