Friendly Fire: The Ukrainian airliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran killing all on board was shot down by the Iranian military, the US and its allies have concluded. It happened the same night Iran attacked two American air bases in Iraq and was expecting potential retaliation by the US. 

  Iran denieds it. “What is obvious for us, and what we can say with certainty, is that no missile hit the plane,” Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s national aviation department, told reporters.

 The crash killed 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “We recognize that this may have been done accidentally.” Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa, “The evidence suggests very clearly a possible and probable cause for the crash.”

  A short video of the incident shows a missile rising and exploding in black sky. The passenger jet caught fire and turned around before crashing and exploding.

  The NY Times reports that American intelligence detected the firing of the Iranian interceptor missile and that agencies later picked up Iranian communications confirming that their own system shot down the plane.

  The Iranians initially denied they were responsible. Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei called it “a big lie” and “psychological warfare” against Tehran. He said in a statement, “The United States is making the pain of the families worse.”

Tied Hands: Following the violent mess with Iran and with the impeachment trial still waiting in the wings, a sharply divided House voted yesterday to force President Trump to ask permission from Congress before taking further military action. The vote was 224 to 194, pretty much on party lines.

  Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York said, “The President should not be able to commit the US recklessly and flagrantly to war.”

  With Democrats saying they want to stop this unpredictable President from careening into full-blown war, Republican loyalists echoed Trump’s line that questioning his authority to confront Iran militarily is dangerous and unpatriotic.

  It’s largely a symbolic vote. Even if the Senate agrees, Trump is likely to ignore it.

The Long Count: Still holding on to the articles of impeachment voted in December, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “I will send them over when I’m ready, and that will probably be soon.”

  Pelosi has been holding out for a promise from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he will allow witnesses and actually stage a fair trial. She wants the rules outlined before she sends over the articles. McConnell, who has said he is working closely with the Trump defense, told reporters, “No, we’re not going to do that.”

Megxit and Brexit: The British tabloid The Sun labelled the plan by Prince Harry and his American wife Meghan Markle to escape royal life as “Megxit.”

  It’s those very tabloids and the scrutiny of royal life that the couple is escaping.

  In an exercise of smallness, the famous Madame Tussauds wax museum in London has removed the Meghan and Harry figures from the display of the royal family. 

  In the same week, Britain’s Parliament has voted — finally — to exit the European Union at the end of the month. It won’t be a clean break. They will still have to negotiate a trade agreement with the rest of Europe.

  Harry and Meghan are also negotiating their future relationship with the family.

The Bulletin Board: A New York judge rejected President Trump’s effort to throw out the defamation lawsuit brought against him by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accuses him of hurting her career and reputation by denying her claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. — A pair of bushfires in southeastern Australia has merged into what’s being described as a “mega-fire” burning 2,300 square miles. 

The Obit Page: Screenwriter and comic actor Buck Henry, who created the television comedy spy series “Get Smart,” wrote the script for “The Graduate,” and appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” has died at age 89.

  Henry wrote the famous lines in The Graduate in which a family friend advises the just-graduated Benjamin Braddock on what to do with his life.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Plastics.”

  Another cultural loss is Edd Byrnes, who played the hair-combing character Kookie on the television detective series “77 Sunset Strip.” From 1958 to 1964 Byrnes was the parking lot attendant who made teenage girls swoon.

Hard Landing: Internal documents released by Boeing to Congress reveal the doubts its own employees had about the 737 Max, which was involved in two fatal crashes. 

  “Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” asked one employee. Another employee answered, “No.”

  One employee described the airplane as “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

  The two crashes killed 346 people. 

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