THE PURGE: President Trump yesterday fired Air Force Gen. Charles Brown Jr., the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs, upending the tradition that chairman remains in place as administrations change.

  Trump did not give a reason for the firing but he has complained that military leaders have been too focused in recent years on diversity initiatives and that he’s going to appoint “warfighters” to replace them. He also demands personal loyalty from people in positions of power.

  Five other Pentagon officials also were fired, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force; and the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force.

  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview in November that any general involved with Diversity, Equity efforts should be fired. “Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it,” he said. “That’s the only litmus test we care about.”

  The Pentagon said Friday that it will fire about 5,400 civilian employees beginning next week in an “initial” purge of its workforce.

  Trump is replacing Brown with retired three-star Air Force General, Dan Caine, who met Trump in Iraq six years ago.

   New FBI director, Kash Patel, told bureau officials on Friday that he wants to clear out many agents in the Washington area and send as many as 1,000 of them to field offices across the country, with another 500 support staff members reassigned to the bureau’s sprawling campus in Alabama. 

  The FBI said in a statement: “Director Patel has made clear his promise to the American public that FBI agents will be in communities focused on combating violent crime.” 

THE WAR ROOM: Hamas militants today released five more hostages held in Gaza, once again in a bizarre public ceremony in which the captive was given a certificate and a goody bag.

  Hamas had previously misidentified a body they turned over as that of Shiri Bibas, who died with her two young sons. It turned out to be a different woman. Hamas has since released a body now identified as that of Shiri Bibas. 

  Israel says she and her sone were murdered by Hamas.

CELEBRITY NEWS: Crowds of supporters gathered outside a Manhattan courtroom yesterday for an appearance by Luigi Mangione, the young man accused of assassinating healthcare executive Brian Thompson on a New York sidewalk.

  People carried signs reading “Free Luigi” and “Healthcare is a Human Right.” Posters of the leaders of other major health care corporations appeared nearby, with the word “WANTED” emblazoned above each epicture. Some chanted “Health care is a human right”

  Mangione was escorted in under heavy security wearing a ballistic vest with hands and ankles shackled.

  Inside, Mangione’s lawyer said she planned to challenge the legitimacy of the search that produced evidence when he was arrested in Pennsylvania.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was arrested this week for … of all things … loudly protesting at a meeting of the Huntington Beach, California  city council which was voting to create a plaque commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the town’s central library.

  The proposed wording included the words “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing” and “Adventurous” — the first letters of which spell “MAGA,” short for Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”

  The proposed plaque also included the line, “Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!”

  Kluwe stood up and said, “Everyone is in favor of a plaque to celebrate the library, but the vast, vast majority are against including a MAGA acrostic.” He went on, “MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement. You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”

  Some of the crowd applauded, Kluwe was escorted out, and the City Council approved the plaque just as they proposed.

SPORTING NEWS: The New York Yankees shocked the baseball world and the team’s fans announcing that they are lifting their ban on beards for players and coaches. Until now, if a player with a beard was traded to the Yankees, he had to shave.

  Managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said that the team’s no-beard policy was outdated and that Yankees players, coaches and other uniformed personnel will be permitted to have “well-groomed beards.” 

THE SPIN RACK:. Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was arrested by Capitol Police yesterday following an incident with a woman who showed up to protest a news conference he called outside the Capitol. The 43-year-old Tarrio, 43, who was pardoned by Donald Trump for his conviction in the Capitol insurrection, was charged with simple assault on a complaint that he struck a woman who had put her telephone in his face. — Delta airlines offered $30,000 each to the passengers on the plane that crashed and rolled over in Toronto. All 76 passengers and four crew survived. —  A backcountry snowboarder was killed in an avalanche on Thursday in southwestern Colorado, becoming the fourth person to die in a snow slide this week in the West  while seeking deep powder following several winter storms. — A court in Germany ruled that Birkenstock cork-soled sandals are not “a work of art” worthy of copyright protection.  

BELOW THE FOLD:  The NY Times reports that among the things emergency room doctors see more of in winter are “Croc injuries.” People slip on their pair of rubber shoes and step outside to bring out the garbage or take in the mail. 

  Dr. Abdullah Pratt in Chicago said he sees “Croc-specific injuries” once a week. The shoes “don’t provide traction, and they don’t provide any ankle support,” he told the Times.  “People go flying, and so do their Crocs.”

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