🌏 Axios PM: Behind Gaza's hunger crisis

🐪 Happy hump day. Today's newsletter, edited by Natalie Daher, is 673 words, a 2.5-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.

⚡ Situational awareness: Former VP Kamala Harris ruled out a run for California governor today.

• "For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office," Harris said in a statement.

Children are starving in Gaza today after the Israeli government's decision four months ago to suspend all aid into the enclave, Axios' Dave Lawler writes.

• While that decision has been partially reversed over the last two months, it's had devastating and ongoing implications for vulnerable Palestinian civilians in Gaza, aid groups report.

The big picture: At least 16 children under 5 have died of starvation-related illnesses since July 17, and half a million people are currently experiencing "an extreme lack of food," according to a UN-affiliated report out yesterday.

Between the lines: Gaza was already facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises prior to March, but the ceasefire that began on Jan. 17 significantly improved the situation.

• Israel's decision to suspend all aid and unilaterally end the ceasefire in March drove the situation to its current desperate state.

On the ground: "The sound of children crying from hunger never stops. Every day, people knock on our doors asking for food. Not money — just bread," said Rania Al Shrehi, an International Rescue Committee staffer in Gaza.

Go deeper: How Israel's blockade caused starvation in Gaza.

The White House outlined its push to embed crypto everywhere as quickly as possible in a 160-page report out today, Axios Crypto author Brady Dale writes.

• The report from the president's working group on cryptocurrency markets focused on key areas the White House wants addressed through regulation and new laws.

🖼️ The big picture: The push comes as the president's own family pushes deeper into the industry, profiting from an industry that's benefited from Trump's support.

Zoom in: The report includes recommendations for everything from securities and commodities regulation to banking, taxation, countering illicit finance, payments, insurance and cybersecurity.

• It calls for changes in how crypto is accounted for in bank capital requirements, where strict treatment can make it expensive and unattractive for banks to offer crypto-related services.

Go deeper ... Full report ... Get Axios Crypto.

1. 🌀 Parts of the U.S. West Coast, Alaska and Hawai'i were under tsunami advisories this morning after a devastating earthquake off the coast of Russia. Evacuation orders in Hawai'i were later downgraded. Go deeper.
2. 🏦 The Fed left its target interest rate unchanged today, brushing off pressure from President Trump to cut rates. Two members of its Board of Governors dissented, the biggest divide on the board in decades. Go deeper.
3. ⚖️ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Senate Democrats announced they'll use a rare rule to attempt to force the Justice Department to release more documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Go deeper.
4. Shannon Sharpe, NFL Hall of Famer and media analyst, is out at ESPN. The network cut ties two weeks after Sharpe settled a lawsuit with an ex-girlfriend who accused him of rape, The Athletic reports.

☕ Golden Diner, a New York Chinatown favorite, has given the people what they want: its pancake recipe! (Gift link)

• Chef Sam Yoo's spin on a classic diner dish went viral on TikTok — and now gets as many as 280 orders on Saturdays and Sundays, The New York Times' Genevieve Ko reports.
• Each order has two pancakes, so that's 1,120 over two days.

How it's done: "Mr. Yoo cooks a yeast-risen buttermilk batter in individual skillets to give them height like Japanese soufflé pancakes and a perfect roundness like those in the flapjack emoji," per the NYT.

• "As soon as he stacks them on a plate, he drenches them with buttery maple-honey syrup, then tops them with salted maple-honey butter, both inspired by Korean honey-butter chips and reminiscent of Werther's hard candies."
• 🍓"A berry compote completes the meal with its fresh tang."

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