West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Friday he is ending the state of emergency over staffing in the state Department of Corrections.

The Republican governor called on the state National Guard to help stop worker attrition at the state’s jails and prisons almost two years ago now. Last summer, the vacancy rate was more than 30%.

“We’re just always proud to run to the fire,” Gen. William E. Crane, Adjutant General of the West Virginia National Guard said during a briefing with the press Friday.

WEST VIRGINIA GOV. JIM JUSTICE WINS SENATE GOP PRIMARY

Just over 730 members of the state National Guard worked in 17 of the state’s correctional facilities while the state of emergency was in place, Justice said.

Since January 2024, almost 240 people have graduated from the state’s corrections academy. A total of 38 National Guard members assigned to work in the jails and prisons decided to stay on permanently, Crane said.

Last summer, state lawmakers met in a special session to approve over $21 million for correctional officer pay increases, along with two one-time bonuses of $2,294 for other jail staff who are not correctional officers, like kitchen staff.

Justice previously declared a state of emergency for the state’s jails and prisons in 2017.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is embroiled in a second flag controversy in as many weeks, this time over a banner that in recent years has come to symbolize sympathies with the Christian nationalist movement and the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

An “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown last summer outside Alito’s beach vacation home in New Jersey, according to the New York Times, which obtained several images showing it on different dates in July and September 2023. The Times previously reported that an upside down American flag — a sign of distress — had flown outside Alito’s Alexandria, Va., home less than two weeks after the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Trump.

Some of the rioters carried the inverted American flag or the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which shows a green pine tree on a white field. The revelations have escalated concerns over Alito’s impartiality and his ability to objectively decide cases currently before the court that relate to the Jan. 6 attackers and Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Alito has not commented on the flag at his summer home.

Here is the history and symbolism of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag.

What are its origins?

Ted Kaye, secretary for the North American Vexillological Assn., which studies flags and their meaning, said the “Appeal to Heaven” banner dates to the Revolutionary War. Six schooners outfitted by George Washington to intercept British vessels at sea flew the flag in 1775 as they sailed under his command. It was the maritime flag of Massachusetts from 1776 to 1971, he said.

According to Americanflags.com, the pine tree on the flag symbolized strength and resilience in the New England colonies while the words “Appeal to Heaven” stemmed from the belief that God would deliver the colonists from tyranny.

How has its symbolism changed?

There are a few reasons people fly “Appeal to Heaven” flags today, said Jared Holt, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that tracks online hate, disinformation and extremism.

Some identify with a “patriot” movement that obsesses over the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution, he said. Others adhere to a Christian nationalist worldview that seeks to elevate Christianity in public life.

“It’s not abundantly clear which of those reasons would be accurate” in this situation, Holt said. But he called the display outside Alito’s home “alarming,” saying those who do fly the flag are often advocating for “more intolerant and restrictive forms of government aligned with a specific religious philosophy.”

The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was among several banners carried by Jan. 6 rioters, who also favored the Confederate flag and the yellow Gadsden flag, with its rattlesnake and “Don’t Tread on Me” message, said Bradley Onishi, author of “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.”

“That’s the family,” he said.

What about Mike Johnson?

House Speaker Mike Johnson displays the flag in the hallway outside his office next to the flag of his home state, Louisiana.

Johnson, a Republican, told the Associated Press he did not know the flag had come to represent the “Stop the Steal” movement.

“Never heard that before,” he said.

The speaker, who led one of Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election, defended the flag and its continued use despite the modern-day symbolism around it.

“I have always used that flag for as long as I can remember, because I was so enamored with the fact that Washington used it,” Johnson said. “The Appeal to Heaven flag is a critical, important part of American history. It’s something that I’ve always revered since I’ve been a young man.”

He added: “People misuse our symbols all the time. It doesn’t mean we don’t use the symbols anymore.”

Johnson said he had never flown the U.S. flag upside down in distress, as Alito did, and he declined to assess the justice’s situation and whether raising the flags at his home was appropriate.

But he called the criticism of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag “contrived.”

“It’s nonsense,” he said. “It’s part of our history. We don’t remove statues and we don’t cover up things that are so essential to who we are as a country.”

Should Alito recuse?

The House Democratic whip, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, said in a statement that the display of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at an Alito home was “not just another example of extremism that has overtaken conservatism. This is a threat to the rule of law and a serious breach of ethics, integrity and Justice Alito’s oath of office.”

She called for Alito to recuse himself from any cases related to Jan. 6 and the former president.

There’s a clear difference between the House speaker displaying the flag outside his office and a Supreme Court justice flying it and the upside down American flag outside his homes as the court is deciding cases involving issues those flags have come to symbolize, said Alicia Bannon, director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Alito’s actions don’t “just cross the line,” she said. “They take you out of the stadium and out of the parking lot.”

Alito and the court declined to respond to requests for comment on how the “Appeal to Heaven” flag came to be flying and what it was intended to express. Alito has said the upside down American flag was briefly flown by his wife during a dispute with neighbors and that he had no part in it.

Another blow to the court’s reputation?

The Supreme Court already was under fire as it considers unprecedented cases against Trump and some of those charged for the attack on the Capitol.

An issue is that the high court does not have to adhere to the same ethics codes that guide other federal judges. The Supreme Court had long gone without its own code of ethics, but it adopted one in November 2023 in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices, including Alito. The code lacks a means of enforcement, however.

The federal code of judicial ethics does not universally prohibit judges from involvement in nonpartisan or religious activity off the bench. But it does say that a judge “should not participate in extrajudicial activities that detract from the dignity of the judge’s office, interfere with the performance of the judge’s official duties” or “reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality.”

Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the UC Berkeley Law School, said the flag revelations lead to questions about whether Alito can be impartial in any case related to Jan. 6 or Trump.

“Displaying those particular flags creates the appearance at least that the justice is signifying agreement with those viewpoints at a time when there are cases before the court where those viewpoints are relevant,” he said.

A March AP/NORC poll found that only about one-quarter of Americans think the Supreme Court is doing a somewhat or very good job upholding democratic values. About 45% think it’s doing a somewhat or very bad job.

Fields, Mascaro and Amiri write for the Associated Press. AP writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

Hunter Biden arrived at a Delaware court just before noon Friday for a pre-trial hearing on federal gun charges, after multiple failed attempts by the first son to have charges brought against him dismissed. 

Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to federal gun charges in the U.S. District Court for Delaware, after Special Counsel David Weiss charged him with making a false statement in the purchase of a firearm; making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a licensed firearm dealer; and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. 

Judge Maryellen Noreika will preside over the trial, which is set to begin on June 3. 

HUNTER BIDEN PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO FEDERAL GUN CHARGES OUT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL DAVID WEISS’ PROBE

With all counts combined, the total maximum prison time for the charges could be up to 25 years. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. 

According to the indictment, Hunter Biden bought a Coldt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018, and “knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive that dealer with respect to a fact material to the lawfulness of the sale of the firearm… certifying he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.” 

HOUSE GOP CLAIMS HUNTER BIDEN LIED UNDER OATH MULTIPLE TIMES DURING CONGRESSIONAL DEPOSITION

The indictment also charges Hunter Biden for possessing that firearm — which was “shipped and transported in interstate commerce” — for nearly a week despite being addicted to narcotics.

Fox News first reported in 2021 that police had responded to an incident in 2018, when a gun owned by Hunter was thrown into a trash can outside a market in Delaware.

A source with knowledge of the Oct. 23, 2018, police report told Fox News that it indicated that Hallie Biden, who is the widow of President Biden’s late son, Beau, and who was in a relationship with Hunter at the time, threw a gun owned by Hunter in a dumpster behind a market near a school.

HUNTER BIDEN TAX TRIAL POSTPONED TO SEPTEMBER

Hallie Biden may be required to testify during Hunter Biden’s trial. 

A firearm transaction report reviewed by Fox News indicated that Hunter purchased a gun earlier that month.

On the firearm transaction report, Hunter answered in the negative when asked if he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.”

Hunter was discharged from the Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.

Meanwhile, Weiss also brought federal tax charges against Hunter Biden in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. 

IRS WHISTLEBLOWER SHAPLEY SAID HE ‘COULD NO LONGER PURSUE’ HUNTER BIDEN SUGAR BROTHER KEVIN MORRIS DUE TO CIA

Biden pleaded not guilty to those charges — specifically, three felonies and six misdemeanors concerning $1.4 million in owed taxes that have since been paid. Weiss alleged a “four-year scheme” when the president’s son did not pay his federal income taxes from January 2017 to October 2020 while also filing false tax reports. 

On Wednesday, Judge Mark Scarsi heard arguments during a pre-trial hearing in California. That criminal trial was scheduled for June 20, but Hunter Biden’s attorneys requested to delay the trial. 

Scarsi sided with Hunter Biden’s attorneys, and moved the tax trial from June 20 to September 5, when jury selection will begin.