The Peace Plan: At least 58 Palestinian protesters were shot dead by Israeli forces and 2,700 reported injured as the US staged a ceremony yesterday opening its embassy located in the disputed city of Jerusalem. The protesters have been at it for weeks — more than a hundred have been killed — but they are particularly agitated about the US embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Palestinians threw rocks with slings and the Israelis responded with tear gas and live bullets. They said some of the protesters were flying flaming kites and attempting to plant explosives.

Forty miles away in Jerusalem, President Trump said in a video message played to the crowd of 800 that the United States “remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement.”

His son-in-law Jared Kushner, there representing the US with his wife Ivanka said, “When there is peace in this region, we will look back upon this day and will remember that the journey to peace started with a strong America recognizing the truth.”

The journey to peace yesterday began over dead bodies.

You Betcha: Caesar’s World has already announced that it will expand sports betting to new states after the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law banning commercial betting on sports events in most states. The decision will allow big gambling companies to get in on the estimated $150 billion in illegal sports bets placed every year.

The law was passed with the intention of protecting the integrity of sports, particularly college games. But the Court ruled it unconstitutional. “It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said, writing for the majority. “A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.”

Leaks and Leaking Leakers: Upset about staffers talking to the press yesterday, president Trump tweeted, “The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!” Somebody give the man a copy of the Constitution.

The Royals: Meghan Markle’s father will not walk her down the aisle Saturday when she marries Prince Harry. Thomas Markle, who is long divorced from the bride’s mother, recently embarrassed his daughter and Harry when he posed for staged photos of himself getting ready for the wedding. The pictures were sold to a British tabloid. The gossip organization TMZ said Thomas Markle told them he decided not to attend after the dustup over the pictures.

News Roundup: First Lady Melania Trump is in Walter reed military hospital following what is described as a successful procedure on a benign kidney condition. The White House didn’t specify what it was.  — Authorities in California say 10 children removed from their home were tortured, starved, and living in squalid conditions. Both parents were arrested, but the 29-year-old father is being held on $5 million bail. — Felony invasion of privacy charges against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens were dropped yesterday after the prosecuting lawyer was named as a defense witness. That may not be the end of it.

The Obit Page: Actress Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the 1978 movie “Superman” and three sequels, died Sunday at her home in Livingston, Mt. at age 69. No cause of death was given.

Kidder had a sexy, raspy voice that made a unique appeal. She appeared in at least 130 movies and television shows. She also starred in the bit hit “The Amityville Horror,” in which she and James Brolin played a couple living in a haunted house.

It wasn’t all flash and glamor for her. She had a breakdown in 1996 and admitted that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She dealt with it and kept working.

>Ernest Medina, the Army captain who was accused of overall responsibility for the infamous 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, has died at age 81. Unarmed South Vietnamese men, women, and children were gunned down by soldiers under his command. It was an event that branded US participation in the war as misguided and immoral.

The Pitch: A Wall Street Journal article says the effort by President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to sell his influence with the President came with a fast pitch. The paper says it went something like this: “Mr. Cohen’s pitch was blunt. He would tell prospective clients—large corporations worried about their lack of connections to President Donald Trump’s administration—that he didn’t know who was advising them, but that the companies ‘should fire them all,’ a person familiar with Mr. Cohen’s approach said. ‘I have the best relationship with the president on the outside, and you need to hire me,’ Mr. Cohen told them, according to this person.”

Cohen is out of the influence business and under federal investigation.

Newsies: ABC News has hired former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a contributor, shamefully ignoring his performance as governor. He’s a loudmouth, but certainly not a journalist. Notably, Christie’s aides closed down lanes on the George Washington Bridge several times to punish a mayor in the New Jersey side for not endorsing Christie for governor. He was lucky to avoid prosecution but his aides were convicted. Late in his tenure, Christie shut down state parks and beaches for the 4^th of July in a dispute with state employees, then took a state helicopter to the beach with his family.

Politicos going to work for news organizations is not unheard of. Former White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger served with ABC for years. Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos now anchors ABC’s Good Morning America, although he should have been fired when he gave $60,000 to the Clinton Foundation before the 2016 election.

The hiring of Christie is an egregious example of forgetting the nature of the man you once covered and rewarding him with a paying job.

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