JUST PEACHY: The judge in the Georgia election interference case ruled that District Attorney Fani Willis can stay but her former boyfriend who’s been running the case must go.

  Defense lawyers, including those for Donald Trump, had argued that the romance between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest that prevented their clients from getting a fair trial. That was probably not so, but it was a good way to delay the trial or kill the case entirely.

  Wade resigned later yesterday.

  The judge castigated Willis for her “tremendous lapse in judgment” in having a personal relationship with the man she hired to run the criminal case. He said, “Georgia law does not permit the finding of an actual conflict for simply making bad choices – even repeatedly.” And he called Willis’s combative testimony about the matter “unprofessional.” 

  Immediately after the decision Trump sent out a fundraising text saying, “Fani Willis can CONTINUE the witch hunt against me. RIGGED SYSTEM AGAINST US!” 

  The defendants can still appeal this ruling, adding further delay to bringing the case to trial. Trump lawyer Steve Sadow said in a statement, “We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.” 

DIS-PENCED: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who pulled out of the presidential race, announced that he will not endorse or support Donald Trump for a second term in office.

  Telling Fox News that he “cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump,” Pence said, “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.”

  The good Christian Pence did not appear to object to Trump being under four criminal indictments, or that he was found to have committed sexual assault. Rather, Pence said: “I’ve seen him walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt. I’ve seen him starting to shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life. And this last week, his reversal on getting tough on China and supporting our administration’s efforts to force a sale of ByteDance’s TikTok.”  

A FEE UPON BOTH HOUSES: The cost of selling a home is likely to drop after the National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit for $418 million and agreed to relax its rules on 6 percent commissions. The ruling is a shock to the real estate industry.

  In the US, most agents get five or six percent of the sale, paid by the seller. Brokers split the fee between the buying and selling agents. Americans pay roughly $100 billion a year in real estate commissions.

  The lawsuits argued that the NAR and members violated antitrust laws by requiring the seller’s agent to set the standard six percent fee. Without that, real estate agents are likely to have to compete for listings with lower fees.

ORANGE ALERT: A New York judge delayed Donald Trump’s criminal trial in the Stormy Daniels porn star payoff until at least mid-April, postponing the only one of the former president’s criminal cases that might have been about to begin. The delay is caused by the recent disclosure of more than 100,000 pages of records that may have some bearing on the case. You have to wonder how there could be 100,000 pages of records regarding a payoff to a woman for not disclosing that she had sex with Trump.

STATE OF CHAOS: With Criminal gangs ruling the streets and battling the police, the situation in Haiti is growing worse. The main roads into the capital Port-au-Prince are blocked and residents rarely leave their homes. Hospitals have been sacked by looters and there’s no functioning government.

  Rich foreigners and diplomats with connections are reported to be flying out on charter flights that cost $10,000 a seat.

THE OBIT PAGE: Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the commercially-available sing-along karaoke machine, has died in Japan at age 100.

  Negishi was in his 40s when he created the “Sparko Box,” what he hoped would become a mass-produced, coin-operated karaoke machine. It depended upon eight-track music tracks and song booklets. The Sparko never really took off and his company went out of business, but Negishi was a pioneer in bringing off-key singing to living rooms and bars all over the world. 

THE SPIN RACK: In continuing woes for the Boeing corporation, an exterior panel fell off a United Airlines jet that flew from San Francisco to Medford, Oregon. — Former Trump presidential aid Peter Navarro, 74, has asked the Supreme Court to delay the Tuesday start of his four-month prison sentence for refusing to testify before Congress about his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. — A 58-year-old skier died at Colorado’s Keystone resort when he crashed into a tree. It’s the third skier death on Colorado mountains in the last two weeks. — The Lyft and Uber ride services say they are leaving Minneapolis after the city council passed an ordinance requiring them to pay drivers the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour. They say that will make the services unaffordable for customers. — The $7 million Los Angeles mansion of actor Cara Delevingne burned to the ground yesterday morning while she was doing the show “Cabaret” in London. The cause appears to have been a downed power line. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Listen here for an interview with Brian Rooney, editor of The Rooney Report: