WINGS: Boeing corporation whistle blowers testified before Congress yesterday that the company is making unsafe passenger jets and hiding it.

 Former Boeing executive Ed Pierson said the company committed “a criminal cover-up” after the incident in which a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737. 

  Pierson, now executive director of The Foundation for Aviation Safety, said, “Records do exist documenting in detail the hectic work done on the Alaska Airlines airplane and Boeing’s corporate leaders know it too, because they fought to withhold these same damning records after the two Max crashes.” 

  Boeing has yet to provide documentation on which employees worked on the door plug that blew off the Alaska Air flight. The bolts to hold the plug in place were never installed.

  In a concurrent hearing before a separate Senate committee, Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour, who said he’s been threatened for bringing safety concerns to his managers and that he believes “they are putting out defective airplanes.”

  Salehpour said, “I was ignored. I was told not to create delays. I was told, frankly, to shut up.”

MR. SPEAKER: At risk to his position, Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s going to put military aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan up for a vote this weekend, stirring further unrest in the far right of his party.

  Johnson is pushing for a vote by Saturday. If they all pass, the pieces would be presented as a unified package to the Senate

  In a move to appease the most anti-migrant members of the House, Johnson said he would hold a separate vote on a border security bill “that includes the core components” of Republican demands to crack down on unlawful immigration and revive strict Trump-era border restrictions. 

  The House members most vocal about immigration have been blocking aid to Ukraine until they get what they want on border issues. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has been threatening to vacate the speakership — call for a vote to have Johnson removed. 

ORDER IN THE COURT: Court was not in session yesterday in Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels payoff case, but the former president still held court on his Truth Social website.

  Trump complained about the system of jury “strikes,” the ability of lawyers from both sides to reject prospective jurors. “I thought STRIKES were supposed to be ‘unlimited’ when we were picking our jury?” Trump wrote. He’s not a lawyer and doesn’t know the law or he wouldn’t be in so much trouble with it.  “I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the 2nd Worst Venue in the Country,” Trump wrote in his post. “Don’t worry, we have the First Worst also, as the Witch Hunt continues! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

THEIR CHOICE: Republicans in the Arizona House shot down another attempt to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, even over the objection of prominent Republicans, including Donald Trump. Republican Speaker Ben Toma said, “The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and reaffirmed by the Legislature several times.” 

  The law recently upheld by the state’s supreme court allows abortion only to save the life of the mother and has no exceptions for rape or incest. The decision enraged pro-choice advocates, and even moved Republican Senate candidate Kari lake to call for preserving a 15-week ban. 

CASE DISMISSED: Senate Democrats made relatively quick work of dismissing the impeachment charges against Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security. The vote was 51 to 48, with one senator voting “present.” 

  The whole thing took about three hours.

  Mayorkas was accused in two charges of failing to enforce immigration laws and breaching the public trust. The majority ruled that the first charge was unconstitutional because it failed to meet the constitutional bar of a high crime or misdemeanor. 

  Republicans were angry that they were unable to bring Mayorkas to trial, but right from the impeachment vote in the House, everyone knew it was headed for a dead end.

THE LION’S DEN: Columbia University President Nemat Shafik withstood a congressional grilling yesterday and agreed to get tougher on campus antisemitism.

 New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who’s taken on the role of chief prosecutor of academics, fired questions at Shafik about three faculty members who defended Hamas or made hostile comments to Israeli students.

  Dr. Shafik said that Columbia had initiated disciplinary proceedings against five professors. She promised that one would never teach at the school again and that she would remove another as the chairman of an academic review committee.

BAD BET: The hoop dream dies. Toronto Raptors guard Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA after he was found to have disclosed inside information to sports bettors and gambled on one of his own games, even betting on the Raptors to lose.

  Porter had made $5 million over his five-year career and won just $22,000 placing his own bets. He bet his career and lost it.

THE SPIN RACK: Uri Berliner, the National Public Radio editor who publicly accused the organization of a liberal bias both in its coverage and personnel practices, has resigned. Berliner’s online essay fed right wing criticism as well as disparagement from colleagues.  He said in a social media post that he was resigning because of criticism from the network’s chief executive, Katherine Maher. “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new C.E.O. whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay,” Berliner wrote. — More than a dozen members of the Kennedy clan plan to endorse Joe Biden for president today, snubbing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his bid for the office.

BELOW THE FOLD: Britain’s Prince Harry has listed his official residence as the United States, although he doesn’t really live in America, he lives in Montecito, California.

-30-