A Separate Peace: After more than a week of open warfare between Israel and Gaza, President Biden spoke on the phone yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, according to the White House, “expressed his support for a cease-fire and discussed US engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end.”

  It was far from a firm condemnation of Israel for pulverizing Gaza with bombs and artillery. The White House also said Biden “reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks.”

  So far, at least 220 Palestinians have been killed and 10 Israelis.

  Biden is cautiously abandoning the Trump-era policy of favoring Israel in its perpetual conflict with the Palestinians. He recently decided to resume economic and humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and renewed his call for the Palestinians to be allowed to have their own state.

  In the meantime, Netanyahu has given no indication of letting up. “The directive is to continue striking at the terrorist targets,” he said after meeting with security officials. “We will continue to take whatever action necessary in order to restore quiet and security for all the residents of Israel.”

Rights in Conflict: The Supreme Court has agreed to consider the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, long before a fetus could live outside the womb.

  If the court upholds the law it will not void the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal, but it would weaken what has become settled law.

  The court has a 6 member conservative majority, all of whom have been critical to some degree of  abortion rights. Anti-abortion activists see the case as a major opportunity.

  “Alarm bells are ringing loudly about the threat to reproductive rights,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in statement. “The Supreme Court just agreed to review an abortion ban that unquestionably violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and is a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

  The court  would hear arguments in the case during its next term, which starts in October.

Dance of the Reptiles: Joel Greenberg, the former Florida tax collector who’s a crony of congressman Matt Gaetz and a character who could have been invented by the satirical novelist Carl Hiasson, pleaded guilty yesterday to six counts of a 33-count indictment and agreed to become a witness in a continuing investigation.

  The pleas include sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, and wire fraud. The indictment mentions “other adult men” who had sex with an underage girl and the question is whether Gaetz was one of them. Gaetz says he’s done nothing wrong, but his life is under a federal microscope.

  Greenberg’s plea documents reveal that he used cellphone apps to make contacts, paid thousands of dollars for sex with younger women, had drug-laced, multi-person encounters at hotels, and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his office. 

 Count One of his indictment says, “Greenberg was involved in what are sometimes referred to as “sugar daddy” relationships where he paid women for sex, but attempted to disguise the payments as ‘school related’ expenses or other related expenses.” That means they were school girls.

Horse Sense: New York horse racing officials have barred the trainer Bob Baffert not only from entering his Kentucky Derby winner in the Belmont Stakes, but all of his horses from running at Belmont or Saratoga this summer.

  Baffert’s horse, Medina Spirit, tested positive for a banned drug after winning the Derby. He placed third in the Preakness this past Saturday.

  The ban announcement from David O’Rourke, chief executive of the New York Racing Association, cited the investigation into Medina Spirit’s positive drug test and Baffert’s “failed drug tests in the recent past.” 

Megamedia: In yet another big media deal, communications giant AT&T is getting out of entertainment, spinning off all of WarnerMedia, including HBO and CNN, to a merger with Discovery. The money people say WarnerMedia and Discovery will be joined to create a streaming and cable TV powerhouse up there in the ranks with Disney and Netflix, the leader in streaming.

  The deal combines HBO, Warner Bros. studios, CNN, and several other cable networks with reality-based Discovery channels, including Oprah Winfrey’s OWN, HGTV, the Food Network and Animal Planet.

  Whether television viewers will notice any difference is hard to say. It’s certain that despite its ownership, everything on CNN will still be “Breaking news !!!”

Immediate Action: The world needs to quickly phase out gasoline-powered vehicles and stop approving new coal-fired power plants and oil and gas fields to avert catastrophic effects of climate change, the world’s leading energy agency said Tuesday.

  For the first time in a new report, the International Energy Agency detailed what it would take for the world’s nations to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The goal is to prevent the average global temperature from increasing 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the point at which scientists say the Earth faces irreversible damage.

The Spin Rack: Actor Robert DeNiro, who’s 77, ripped a quadriceps muscle while in Oklahoma shooting Martin Scorsese’s new movie “Killers of the Flower Moon.” He described the pain as “excruciating,” but said it won’t stop him from filming. — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is expected to be paid a total of $5.1 million for his book about leading the state during the pandemic. His salary is $225,000 and investigators are asking whether he got state employee help writing the book. — President Biden and his wife Jill released their 2020 tax returns on which they reported a joint income of $607,336 for which they paid $157,414 in federal taxes and $29,000 to Delaware. Unlike President Trump, it seems they are not being audited.

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