LOOSE SCREWS: United Airlines found loose bolts on so called “door plugs” on their Boeing 737 Max 9 jets, similar to the panel that blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight last week, indicating a manufacturing oversight.

  The plug is a panel installed where an emergency exit door would be if a jet had more seats. Pressure warning lights had gone off on the Alaska jet during three previous flights before the failure at 16,000 feet. At a higher altitude the jet and all 177 people on board might have been lost. The door plug was found in someone’s back yard in the Portland, Oregon area.

  Federal investigators said late yesterday that it’s possible that the bolts in the Alaska jet were never even installed. 

  Alaska has grounded 65 of these jets and United, 79. The Alaska flight didn’t go down, but Boeing stock took a dive, down eight percent.  

REALLY, HE’S NOT JOKING: Protesters against the war in Gaza chanting “Ceasefire now!” interrupted President Biden yesterday as he spoke at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston courting Black voters. Biden handled it gracefully and the protesters were ushered out. The President told his audience he is “quietly” urging Israel to ease up on its brutal campaign.

  Earlier, Biden had taken on Donald Trump and his election lies, calling the former president a “loser.” He said, “Losers are taught to concede when they lose, and he’s a loser.”

  Biden himself has been losing enthusiasm among Black voters. Taking on South Carolina’s presidential candidate, Nikki Haley, Biden drew a line from slavery through the civil war to the years of racial segregation and the troubles of today. The church in which he spoke was the one in which a white supremacist in 2015 killed the pastor and eight parishioners.

FAMILY VALUES: The Florida Republican Party ousted its chairman because he is under criminal investigation for sexual assault. For several weeks, Christian Ziegler had resisted calls for his resignation even while that kept the story in the news. 

  Last month, Ziegler was censured, stripped of his authority, and $120,000 salary. 

  Ziegler was accused of rape by a women with whom he admitted that he and his wife, Bridget, had a threesome on an earlier occasion. The accuser said she didn’t want to have sex with Christian alone because she was really interested in Bridget. But wait, there’s more. Bridget Ziegler, 41, is one of the founders of Moms for Liberty and chair of the Sarasota School Board. She’s been one of the leaders in removing from school libraries books that mention … wait for it … sex. 

ORANGE ALERT: Lawyers for Donald Trump moved for dismissal of the criminal charges against him in Georgia, once again claiming presidential immunity. 

  His lawyers in their filing said, “From 1789 to 2023, no President ever faced criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.” They said, “That unbroken historic tradition of presidential immunity is rooted in the separation of powers and the text of the Constitution.”

  There is no tradition of presidential immunity and it is not written into the Constitution. It’s just that no president has ever been indicted. 

  Trump’s lawyers also argue that the Georgia criminal case should be tossed out on grounds that he was already tried and acquitted on similar charges in the US Senate following the January 6^th insurrection. On this, the Constitution imagines only that the officer holder would be convicted, saying that the person who is “convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”

BLUE MOON: A private spacecraft that was supposed to deposit human remains on the moon had a successful liftoff, but troubles in the propulsion system may prevent the lander from reaching the target. This was the project objected to by the Navajo Nation, which says the moon is sacred to their culture and dumping human remains up there is a desecration.

GRIDIRON: Michigan beat Washington 33-13 last night to win the college football championship. Both teams entered the game undefeated, but Washington didn’t play like it. It’s Michigan’s first championship since 1997.

SICK DAYS: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is still in the hospital with an undisclosed ailment amidst fallout that he failed for several days to tell subordinates or the President that he was out of action. He didn’t even tell his Deputy Secretary. 

  Austin is reported now to be in “good condition” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and doing his job. All they say is that he ended up in intensive care eight days ago after elective surgery.

ONE WORD, “PLASTICS”: A new study has found that bottled water from three companies contains hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic in every liter, a phenomenon that could have dangerous repercussions for human health.

  The paper released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found about 240,000 particles in the average liter of bottled water, most of them “nanoplastics,” less than one-seventieth the width of a human hair. One of the authors told The Washington Post, “Whatever microplastic is doing to human health, I will say nanoplastics are going to be more dangerous.” 

THE SPIN RACK: At least 21 people were injured in what appears to have been a gas explosion that seriously damaged an historic hotel in downtown Fort Worth. One person was in critical condition. — Pope Francis on Monday called surrogate motherhood a “despicable” practice that should be universally banned. — Tiger Woods has ended his 27-year Nike endorsement deal.

BELOW THE FOLD: Diamonds are forever, but not necessarily on your hand. E! News entertainment reporter Keltie Knight was on her hands and knees in a floor-length gown Sunday night at the Golden Globe awards searching for the 4-carat diamond that fell off her ring. She immediately sent out an Instagram bulletin declaring a “Golden Globe emergency!” There were plenty of stars around, but no diamond.

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