HUNGER GAMES: President Trump yesterday openly disagreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on whether there is starvation in Gaza.  Trump said that he’d seen pictures of children on television and that they “look very hungry” and “we have to get the kids fed.”

  Trump said in Scotland that he will work with European allies to “set up food centers” in Gaza. Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have been dropping food by parachute, but that’s expensive and minimal.

  Photos and video shot at aid stations show Gazans desperate for food. The Israeli government blocked commercial food distribution and cut off almost all humanitarian aid to Gaza from March through May. Aid deliveries since then have not  kept up with growing hunger. 

 “We are not dogs to be made to run after aid,” one man told CNN. “We’d rather die of hunger with dignity than die in humiliation and filth.”

  The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, says that nearly one in three people in Gaza has gone “for multiple days in a row” without eating.

  More than 50 Palestinians have died this month from starvation, according to Gaza’s health ministry. And they said that an additional six Palestinians including two children died of malnutrition-related causes in recent days.

  The plight of Palestinians in Gaza is adding fuel to the movement for recognizing Palestine as a state, a troublesome prospect for Israel. Following France’s recognition of Palestine, more than 200 members of the British parliament signed a letter calling for the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that, “the suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,” and he called statehood “the inalienable right of the Palestinian people.” 

EPSTEIN AFFAIRS: President Trump while in Scotland said he had been invited to the private island of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but never went. Trump said, “In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”

  Always one to cast shade on his perceived enemies, Trump said, ““I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there, supposedly.” 

  In other Epstein news, his former girlfriend and procurer Ghislaine Maxwell is pressing the Supreme Court to hear the appeal to her criminal conviction that got her a 20 year sentence. Maxwell claims she was covered by a plea deal Epstein made in Florida and she should not have been indicted on federal charges in New York.

GOD AND MAN IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: The Trump administration released a policy memo to federal employees promoting religious expression at the office and even giving employees permission to attempt persuading co-workers that their religious beliefs are “correct.”

  Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor sent the memo that suggests keeping religion out of the workplace is a form of religious discrimination. He said personal religious expression in federal offices would be allowed “to the greatest extent possible unless such expression would impose an undue hardship on business operations.”

  Kupor said in a social media post, “we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined.”

  The memo says that among things that will be allowed in federal offices are displaying bibles, religious artwork, jewelry, posters with religious messages and other indicators of religion “such as crosses, crucifixes and mezuzah.”

  Federal workers can also “encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities,” the memo said.

FIGHT ON, HARVARD: Harvard University is contemplating paying as much as $500 million to settle the Trump administration’s complaint that the University has not done enough to quell antisemitism on its campus. It’s more than twice the $221 million that Columbia agreed to pay.

  The NY Times reports that Harvard might balk at having an outside monitor, as Columbia agreed to do … and, by the way, the new owners of CBS News.

  It should be noted that Trump opened his assault on Harvard with complaints about liberal ideology and now it’s about money. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Wallis Annenberg, the daughter of the late politically-connected billionaire Walter Annenberg who as a philanthropist with her family’s Annenberg Foundation shepherded more than $3 billion in grants and donations to the arts, wildlife, and older adults, died yesterday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 86.

  Her father had endowed the foundation with money from the $3 billion sale of his company, Triangle Publications, to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 1988.

  Ms. Annenberg’s philanthropy left her footprints all over Los Angeles. She backed construction of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, gave $ 3 million to establish a free clinic for children, and $56 million to the  Los Angeles County Museum of Art for endowment and purchase of artworks.

  Wildlife was one of her passions and she gave $26 million in matching money to build a wildlife crossing over the 10 lanes of the 101 Freeway through the Santa Monica mountains.

THE SPIN RACK:  A New York police officer and three other people were killed in Midtown Manhattan yesterday by a 27-year-old gunman from Las Vegas armed with an assault rifle. The shooter killed himself and was found to have carried a note blaming football for his chronic brain injuries. —  A gunman shot six people at the Grand Sierra Resort casino in Reno yesterday, killing three and putting two others in critical condition. The shooter himself was shot by police and listed in critical condition at a local hospital.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Coming after sexting, ghosting, trolling, and spamming, there’s a new thing in online communications … “pebbling” … flooding friends and family with texts, memes, and videos. 

  The term comes from the mating practices of Antarctic penguins who offer small rocks to the penguin of their dreams.

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