ORANGE ALERT !: The last US citizen held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza was released yesterday but President Trump overshadowed the story with his deal to accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747 from Qatar to replace the current Air Force One. He also created a distraction with his acceptance of white South Africans as refugees.

  The sirens of ethics are screaming over the Qatar deal. It strains credulity to think that Qatar is not getting anything in return for giving their luxury plane to the US for Trump’s use.

  Trump ordered up a new luxurious Air Force One during his first term and it still has not been delivered. “I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane,’ ” the President told reporters yesterday defending the gift. “I thought it was a great gesture.” There is no such thing as a “gesture” that large.

  Trump said it’s a gift to the Pentagon, not to him, in recognition of the role the United States plays in security for the region. “I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much,” Trump said. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

  Trump never makes a one way deal. The question is what Qatar gets from him in return. He claims that once he leaves the White House the Pentagon will give the jet to Trump’s presidential library, like Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One, which had become obsolete. Since when does the Pentagon give a perfectly good and updated $400 million jet to a presidential library?

  And before we get to the hostage release, Trump agreed to accept dozens of white South Africans as refugees from their home country while denying that status to refugees of other colors and national origin.

  “Farmers are being killed,” Trump told reporters before departing for the Middle East. “They happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. White farmers are being brutally killed, and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

  Trump claims the white farmers are victims of genocide, and while dozens have been killed in recent years, he does not have similar sympathy for brown and black refugees from all over the world seeking haven in the US from war, gang violence, and starvation.

FREEDOM: On the matter of that hostage release, Hamas militants released 21-year-old Israeli/American soldier Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage they held in Gaza. The release was negotiated directly by the Trump administration.

   Alexander grew up in New Jersey and went to Israel to join the military. He was on duty the morning of the October 7^th, 2023, massacre and was one of about 250 hostages taken by Hamas. Alexander looked pale but in acceptable health. Israeli news reports said he had been held in a cage in an underground tunnel with his hands and feet bound and minimal food.

  Hamas still holds about 20 living hostages and 40 or more bodies of dead ones.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

— The President is in Saudi Arabia today courting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for investment in the US. The prince has mentioned $600 billion and Trump says he wants it to be an even trillion.

  Trump is touring the Middle East on this trip. Concurrently, his two sons who head the Trump Organization have been crisscrossing the Middle East, working on deals that would benefit the family company and, in some instances, enrich the President himself. 

— President Trump said in regard to his executive order to lower drug prices that, “What we’re doing is equalizing, which is a word that I came up with.”

A BAD RAP: Testimony opened in the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of rap musical mogul Sean with vivid accounts of sex and violence.

  One of the  government’s first witnesses said he was paid as much as $6,000 to have sex with Combs’s girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, while the music mogul known as “Diddy” watched. He also said he overheard Combs hitting Ventura in an adjoining room.

  It was Ventura whose beating by Combs in a hotel hallway was recorded on security video. Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson told the jury of eight men and four women that the case would center on the testimony of Ventura and two other women. Johnson said the jury would also be shown video of parties where Combs directed sexual encounters.

  Defense lawyer  Teny Geragos said in her opening statement that, “The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual, But it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker, or somebody transporting for prostitution.”

  Geragos is the daughter of celebrity defense lawyer Mark Geragos, who is currently trying to get the parent-murdering Menendez brothers out of their life sentences.

THE SPIN RACK: French actor Gérard Depardieu, 76, was convicted of sexually assaulting two women working on the set of a film in in 2021. He received a suspended sentence of 18 months, and will be listed on the French national sex offender registry. — Three climbers fell to their deaths this past weekend in the North Cascade mountains in Washington State. A fourth was seriously injured. — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Mother’s Day took his grandchildren swimming in Washington’s notoriously polluted Rock Creek.

BELOW THE FOLD: The “naked dress” has been making appearances on red carpets all over the world in recent years as acting and music stars compete to for complete transparency. Kanye West’s wife Bianca Censori wore a dress at the Grammys so sheer you had to look carefully to see that she was wearing it. 

  Now the Cannes Film Festival has banned nudity on its red carpet and in other venues of the festival. At Cannes, nudity will be for the big screen only.

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