Evelyn Reynolds

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    US House pushes ahead with $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

    The US House pushed ahead on Friday with a $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support after Democrats came to the rescue of Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker.A coalition of lawmakers helped the legislation clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend, as Friday morning’s vote followed a rare move late on Thursday for a House committee that normally votes along party lines.The dramatic action took place on Capitol Hill on Thursday night in order to save the Ukraine aid legislation from rightwing rebels.On Friday morning Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, warned that if US aid was further delayed for Ukraine “there is a real risk it will arrive too late” to help the grinding resistance to Russia’s invasion.Then the House voted on the procedure agreed the night before, again producing a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan chamber, with Democrats helping Johnson’s plan advance by 316 votes to 94.Johnson now looks set to push forward this weekend on the package for Kyiv, Israel, Taiwan and other allies, which had stalled in the House after passing the Senate. This despite a firestorm of protest from hardline Republicans that could lead to an attempt to oust him.The House is expected to vote on Saturday on the aid legislation that provides $61bn for the conflict in Ukraine, including $23bn to replenish US weapons, $26bn for Israel, including $9.1bn for humanitarian needs, and $8.12bn for the Indo-Pacific. If passed, it would then go back to the Senate.The aid legislation is the latest in a series of must-pass bipartisan measures that Johnson has helped shepherd through Congress, including two huge spending bills and a controversial reauthorization of federal surveillance programs.Republicans hold a narrow House majority, 218-213 , a margin so scant that Mike Gallagher is postponing his mid-session retirement, originally set for Friday, so the Republican representative can be present to vote for the bill.On Thursday night, the four Democrats on the House rules committee voted with five Republicans to advance the aid package that Johnson has devised, agreeing procedures.The rules committee would normally be a safely partisan affair for the Republican majority, but Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas, all on the far right, are voting against advancing the bill, prompting Democrats to step in to save it.Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker, put them on the committee to placate the far-right contingent of his caucus in the House.Johnson has won praise from Republican centrists and even Democrats by taking the line that he is doing “the right thing” on the aid legislation even if it brings challenges to his position from his own party, which has the power very easily to force a vote to oust him.Johnson got a boost from Donald Trump last week when they held an event together at the former president’s residence in Florida and, again, on Thursday when Trump made a post on social media that did not actively oppose aid for Ukraine.Trump appeared to warm to the idea after having dinner with Andrzej Duda, Poland’s far-right president, in New York on Tuesday, with Poland very wary about the power of an emboldened neighbor Russia to threaten eastern Europe.Friday’s vote was a victory for the strategy Johnson set in motion this week after he agonized for two months over the aid legislation. He had to spend the past 24 hours making the rounds on conservative media working to salvage support.The current package is similar to a measure that passed the Democratic-majority Senate in February and which Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and Hakeem Jeffries had been pushing for a House vote since then.In addition to the aid for allies, the package includes a provision to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and sanctions targeting Hamas and Iran – and to force China’s ByteDance to sell social media platform TikTok or face a ban in the US.Schumer on Friday told senators to be prepared to return this weekend if the package passes the House and goes back to the Senate. If passed by the upper chamber, it must go to the US president’s desk before becoming law.Some conservative lawmakers oppose more aid to Ukraine, while some progressive Democrats are reluctant on more Israel aid, given the slaughter and famine in Gaza.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    What I would have told Congress if i were in Nemat Shafik’s shoes | Francine Prose

    Surely I’m not the only person who has wondered what I would say if I were one of the college presidents who has been summoned to testify before the House committee on education and the workforce. How would I answer their unmistakably hostile questions about how the war in Gaza has been affecting campus life – and about how the university administration is dealing with the divisive and threatening atmosphere that the conflict has created among students and faculty?After two presidents – Harvard’s Claudine Gay and the University of Pennsylvania’s M Elizabeth Magill – lost their jobs this winter, at least partly because of their responses to the committee’s interrogation, I imagined that I might have tried to sound more thoughtful, more human, less lawyered up, more cognizant of the difficulties and complexities inherent in these issues. But both women seemed to be repeating what they’d been instructed to say. They claimed that their response to an openly antisemitic statement would depend on context, a word that – they must have known – was wide open to the misinterpretation, dissatisfaction and mockery it almost instantly engendered. I even imagined appealing to the lawmakers’ decency and intelligence, to their sense that we were all working to find a way to end this brutal war. But, as time has shown, that would have been an absurd idea.Now that the Columbia University president, Minouche Shafik, has been called before the committee to testify about her administration’s handling of campus unrest – disciplining protesters, prohibiting demonstrations, considering whether or not to fire professors who have been accused of being overly zealous in their support of Israel or Palestine – the circumstances surrounding the subject have changed.The war has been going on for months. More than 30,000 people have died as we sign letters and petitions, block roadways, give speeches and post on social media even as we feel (and prove to be) increasingly powerless to end the carnage. So I have come to imagine a somewhat different response to the committee’s questions:“With all due respect, esteemed committee members, let me get one thing straight. The war that you are approving and partly funding is understandably causing division and anguish and a sense of crisis on my campus – and you are blaming me? Are we surprised that the massive bloodletting which the average American citizen feels powerless to staunch might be causing tensions to run high in a community – an academic community – whose members have strong political and religious loyalties and which, as an institution, values free speech?“Is it so hard to imagine that a war that we taxpayers are partly supporting might wind down if our government took a stronger position against it? Again, with all due respect, don’t you think there’s something shameful about using the deaths of more than 30,000 human beings as an excuse to go after our universities and try to exert control over those bastions of the ‘liberal elite’. And aren’t such places – for all their flaws, their expansion plans that have razed low-income neighborhoods, their reprehensible investment policies, their ties to morally sketchy corporate and private donors – nonetheless dedicated to the principles of education, which (at least some of us think) is a good thing.“Excuse me if I can’t remember when precisely the government was authorized to oversee the policies of private universities and determine the punishment of those who offend certain standards determined by politicians.“And while we’re on the subject of professors being censured and possibly fired for making (allegedly) extremist statements” – Shafik has apparently agreed to terminate the contract of a tenured professor accused of being pro-Hamas – “shouldn’t the same standards and penalties be applied to members of this very committee who, in their virulence, have outdone the most outspoken faculty members?“Though he later attempted to amend and explain his statement, the Michigan Republican representative Tim Walberg suggested that the proper response to the war in Gaza might be to simply nuke the territory. ‘It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.’ Nor was Walberg alone in his suggestion about how to deal with Gaza. Senator Lindsey Graham proposed that we should ‘level the place’.”Meanwhile, the killing goes on, and we – that is, our government – continue to condone and support it. The war has caused every negative aspect of human behavior to bubble to the surface. The rhetoric of rancor and hatred has spiked. Antisemitic incidents have risen at a terrifying rate. Three Palestinian students were shot on the streets of Burlington, Vermont.My ultimate answer to the US representatives currently interrogating Shafik would be this: “Throughout history, wars have begun and ended. This one too will have to end. Leave our educational institutions alone. The conflict in the Middle East is not their fault. Were we to join together in working toward a peaceful resolution to the slaughter and famine in Gaza, I can almost promise you: the rancor, the unrest, the division in academia is not a permanent situation that anyone expects or desires to perpetuate. It’s not conducive to learning. Broker a viable solution to the conflict, and the rage and misery on our college campuses will disappear on its own – as soon, or very soon after, the war ends.”
    Francine Prose is a novelist. Her memoir, 1974: A Personal History, will be published in June More

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    Biden administration moves to restrict oil and gas leases on 13m acres in Alaska

    The Biden administration said on Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13m acres (5.3m hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.The decision – part of an ongoing, years-long fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state – finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the controversial Willow oil project.The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated Biden’s pledge to combat the climate crisis. Friday’s decision also cements an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.The rules announced on Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values and call for the Bureau of Land Management to evaluate regularly whether to designate new special areas or bolster protections in those areas. The agency cited as a rationale the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to the climate crisis, including melting permafrost and changes in plant life and wildlife corridors.Environmentalists were pleased. “This huge, wild place will be able to remain wild,” Ellen Montgomery of Environment America Research & Policy Center said.Jeremy Lieb, an attorney with Earthjustice, said the administration had taken an important step to protect the climate with the latest decision. Earthjustice is involved in litigation currently before a federal appeals court that seeks to overturn the Willow project’s approval. A decision in that case is pending.Earlier this week the Biden administration also finalized a new rule for public land management that is meant to put conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling, grazing and other extractive industries on vast government-owned properties.A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska’s junior senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, commented ahead of Friday’s announcements about drilling limitations in the national petroleum reserve in Alaska even before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood, and predicted lawsuits.“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska, because when you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it – this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about,” Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, said.The decision by the Department of the Interior does not change the terms of existing leases in the reserve or affect currently authorized operations, including the Willow project.The Biden administration also on Friday recommended the rejection of a state corporation’s application related to a proposed 210-mile (338km) road in the north-west part of the state to allow mining of critical mineral deposits, including copper, cobalt, zinc, silver and gold. There are no mining proposals or current mines in the area, however, and the proposed funding model for the Ambler Road project is speculative, the interior department said in a statement.Alaska’s political leaders have long accused the Biden administration of harming the state with decisions limiting the development of oil and gas, minerals and timber.“Joe Biden is fine with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world’s critical minerals while shutting down our own in America, as long as the far-left radicals he feels are key to his re-election are satisfied,” Sullivan said on Thursday at a Capitol news conference with 10 other Republican senators.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden defended his decision regarding the petroleum reserve.Alaska’s “majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world”, are critical to Alaska Native communities and “demand our protection”, he said in a statement.Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group whose members include leaders from across much of Alaska’s North Slope region, has been critical of the administration’s approach. The group’s board of directors previously passed a resolution opposing the administration’s plans for the reserve.The petroleum reserve – about 100 miles (161km) west of the Arctic national wildlife refuge – is home to caribou and polar bears and provides habitat for millions of migrating birds. It was set aside about a century ago as an emergency oil source for the US navy, but since the 1970s has been overseen by the interior department. There has been ongoing, longstanding debate over where development should occur.Most existing leases in the petroleum reserve are clustered in an area that is considered to have high development potential, according to the Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the interior department. The development potential in other parts of the reserve is lower, the agency said.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    Ilhan Omar’s daughter among over 100 arrested at Columbia University protest

    Isra Hirsi, the daughter of the Minnesota Democratic representative Ilhan Omar was among more than 100 protesters arrested on Thursday on Columbia University’s campus in New York City, as police were called in to break up those who pitched tents to stage a pro-Palestinian protest.Further demonstrations protesting the arrests and the university’s decision to call in outside law enforcement continued into the night at the private Ivy League school.Tensions boiled over on Thursday as the New York police department arrived at the center of the campus in uptown Manhattan to began dismantling student protests over Israel’s war on Gaza at the direction of the school’s president.Hundreds of students had pitched tents and camped out, starting early morning on Wednesday, demanding a ceasefire and for the university to financially divest from Israel.Nemat Minouche Shafik, the university’s president who a day earlier came under fire from Republicans at a House of Representatives committee hearing on antisemitism on campus, said she had authorized police to clear an encampment of dozens of tents set up by protesters on Wednesday morning.“Out of an abundance of concern for the safety of Columbia’s campus, I authorized the New York police department to begin clearing the encampment,” Shafik said in a statement.Shafik said the protesters had violated the school’s rules and policies against holding unauthorized demonstrations, and were unwilling to engage with administrators.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, said police made more than 108 arrests without violence or injuries. Police said the arrests were related to trespassing.Columbia said it had started to suspend students who had participated in the tent encampment, considered an unauthorized protest.“We are continuing to identify them and will be sending out formal notifications,” a university spokesperson said by email.At least three students – including Hirsi, Maryam Iqbal and Soph Dinu – have received suspension notices from Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia, for participating in the encampment, the pro-Palestinian advocacy group Institute for Middle East Understanding said.“Those of us in Gaza solidarity encampment will not be intimidated,” Hirsi said on social media after being suspended.The clash was the latest in a series of demonstrations disrupting university campuses, bridges and airports since the latest escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on 7 October, when Hamas, which controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza that abuts Israel, launched a murderous attack and hostage-grab on southern Israel.Israel’s military counteroffensive on Gaza is ongoing and has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians and prompted famine in parts of the besieged territory.Alongside protests on US campuses and streets, human rights advocates have also pointed to a rise in bias and hate against Jews, Arabs and Muslims.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    ‘This is a violent attack against women’: Florida Senate candidate seeks to channel abortion outrage

    A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.“In Colombia, which tends to be a very conservative country, she was glad supportive medical professionals were there for her daughter in the decision, and grateful she had access to good-quality healthcare for it,” said Mucarsel-Powell.“It was traumatic and painful, but at least they could rely on that healthcare. I’m just seeing outrage, from men and women, that here, families are faced with having to live in a state where you will not be able to get that care, because most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks.”She was referring to the ruling by Florida’s supreme court earlier this month that will allow a six-week abortion ban, with few exceptions for rape or incest, to take effect on 1 May. It will end the state’s position as a bulwark of access to the procedure in the south-eastern US.Yet it has also acted as rocket fuel to the campaign of Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuador-born former congresswoman and mother of two daughters. She seized on the issue to launch a statewide Freedom Tour championing the protection of abortion rights and exposing the “unapologetic and proud” support for the ban on the part of her opponent in November, the incumbent Republican senator Rick Scott.View image in fullscreenThe Hispanic Caucus event in Coral Gables was only the third of the tour, but Mucarsel-Powell said it was already clear that abortion is a “top-of-mind” issue galvanizing voters, as it is in other Republican-controlled states that have curtailed reproductive rights since the US supreme court ended almost 50 years of federal protections with its 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade.On Monday, her campaign announced it had raised over $3.5m in the first quarter of the year, with more than 5,300 new donors since the supreme court ruling. And Democrats across Florida are also sensing wind in their sails as opposition to the ban, as well as support for a court-approved ballot initiative that could enshrine access to the procedure in the state’s constitution, hardens.“This is a violent attack against women, because it is fundamental for us to make that decision on our own, with our healthcare provider, with our families, with our faith,” Mucarsel-Powell told the Guardian in an interview following the round table.“This is about protecting privacy, protecting healthcare for women, making sure that there’s no government interference, especially from extreme politicians like Rick Scott. I can tell you what people are thinking about this, and that it’s affecting women living in the state of Florida that were sent home when they thought they were having a miscarriage, and they weren’t able to get that healthcare.“And then they got very ill, and almost died because they didn’t receive that healthcare. So this is a top-of-mind issue, like so many other issues, but we’ll see in November how voters decide what are going to be their priorities. I think they’re going to make things very clear.”View image in fullscreenAlso clear is Mucarsel-Powell’s disdain for Scott, who she believes is vulnerable in November as he defends the seat he narrowly won from the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in 2018 by only 10,000 votes from 8.2m cast.“If he goes back to the Senate, he will push for a national abortion ban,” she said. “His true agenda includes signing away women’s reproductive rights and trying to control their bodies.“And he knows he will have to answer for his support of Florida’s ban in November. The choice is going to be very clear for voters, they know who I am, they know what I stand for, and who and what Rick Scott isn’t.An Emerson College poll this week showed that 42% of Florida voters planned to vote for the constitutional amendment that would overturn the Florida ban, far short of the 60% it would need to pass.Yet Mucarsel-Powell sees hope in the 32% who say they are still unsure. “A lot of people don’t know that this amendment is on the ballot, so the movement that has been created and has built this infrastructure on the ground is ready to make sure that everyone knows this is an issue,” she said.“The work is happening, it will continue to happen, and I think in November, the majority of Floridians will know that they have a choice. I believe they’re going to come out and vote for freedom.” More

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    The death of the Republican party is not a tragedy to be celebrated | Robert Reich

    Last Sunday, on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s Republican governor, about his recent switch from supporting Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting former president Donald Trump.“Your words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,” Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. “You said that President Trump’s rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.”Sununu responded: “For me, it’s not about him as much as it is having a Republican administration.”Near the end of the interview, Stephanopoulos said: “Just to sum up, you would support him for president even if he is convicted in classified documents. You would support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You would support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You would support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?”Sununu replied: “Yeah, me and 51% of America.”Stephanopoulos: “I’m asking you about right and wrong. You’re comfortable with the idea of supporting someone who’s convicted of a federal crime as president?”Sununu: “No, I don’t think any American is comfortable with any of this. They don’t like any of this, of course, but I mean, when it comes to actually looking at each of these trials as they kind of take place whether it’s this year or next year or as they kind of line up. Right now this is about an election. This is about politics.”Hello? Politics is not about right and wrong?I haven’t seen or heard a clearer indictment of the Trump Republican party.Friends, the Republican party is over.That’s tragic, because America needs two parties capable of governing. It needs two parties with a sense of the common good, even if their interpretations of it differ. It needs principled people in government. Even if politics is sometimes dirty and often frustrating, a functioning democracy depends on it.It’s tragic to me personally, too. I got my first job in government in the Ford administration (for those of you too young to remember, Gerald Ford was a Republican). I argued supreme court cases in Ford’s Department of Justice. Years later, as secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, I worked closely with several Republicans in the House and Senate to enact the Family and Medical Leave Act, raise the minimum wage and protect workers’ pensions.My father was a Republican who voted for Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952 and 1956. His father, my grandfather, was a Republican who voted for Alf Landon for president in 1936 and Wendell Willkie in 1940.The Republican party once stood for limited government, active opposition to Soviet aggression and a balanced budget.Now it stands only for Trump and his authoritarian neofascism. It demands total loyalty to Trump. It has turned his big lie about the 2020 election being stolen into a litmus test of that loyalty. It has no principled core – no sense of right and wrong.Gerald Ford, the first president I served, is as far from the current Republican party as was or is any Democratic president.Sad to say, the Gerald R Ford Presidential Foundation recently declined to present the Gerald R Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service to former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney out of fear that a future President Trump would retaliate against the organization by taking away its tax-exempt status.In response, David Hume Kennerly, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, resigned from the foundation’s board. In his resignation letter, he reminded the board that “Gerald Ford became president, in part, because Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed. That’s exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there’s a second coming of Donald Trump.”Kennerly added:
    Did [Lt] Gerald Ford meet the enemy head-on [in the second world war] because he thought he wouldn’t get killed? No. He did it despite that possibility. This executive committee, on the other hand, bolted before any shots were fired. You aren’t alone. Many foundations, organizations, corporations and other entities are caught up in this tidal wave of timidity and fear that’s sweeping this country. I mistakenly thought we were better than that. This is the kind of acquiescent behavior that leads to authoritarianism. President Ford most likely would have come out even tougher and said that it leads directly to fascism.
    Gerald Ford’s biggest mistake as president was to pardon Richard Nixon. At the time, Ford believed that America had to be shielded from the pain and disruption of a president put on criminal trial and possibly imprisoned. Yet to many Americans, the fact that Nixon would not be held accountable felt like another assault on the common good.To make matters worse, Nixon continued to insist he had not participated in any crimes. In his 1977 television interviews with British journalist David Frost, he conceded he had “let the American people down” but refused to admit to any wrongdoing.He said: “If the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Those words continue to haunt America.In the end, Nixon pulled off an extraordinary political heist. He persuaded millions of working-class Americans that the Republican party was their home. Beginning in 1968, Republicans won five of the next six presidential elections. All used Nixon’s playbook, relying on a coalition of corporate America and the white working class, and using racial dog whistles like “law and order” and “welfare queens”.Nixon infected the modern Republican party with a sickness that would ultimately kill it. Donald Trump has finished the job.Sununu’s willingness to destroy American democracy so his party can stay in power is shared by most Republican office holders today. It is a rejection of American democracy – an abrogation of the self-government that generations of Americans have fought for and died for.The death of the Republican party is not to be celebrated. It is a tragedy. It is a testament to how fragile our democracy has become. It illustrates what happens when presidents are not held accountable. It is evidence of what occurs when decades of economic gains go mainly to the top.It shows that many Americans have lost sight of our history and ideals, or have become so cynical and hopeless that they are willing to chuck it all in favor of an atrocious human being who claims to be on their side.
    Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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    Republicans divided over abortion ahead of elections – podcast

    Last week the Arizona supreme court upheld a law first passed in 1864, which, if it goes into effect, will ban almost all abortions in the state. Democrats were quick to denounce the ruling, but some prominent Republicans were not happy with it either, including Donald Trump.
    Since the overturning of Roe v Wade nearly two years ago, individual states have had the ability to restrict abortion rights and several have jumped at the chance.
    This week, Jonathan Freedland and Moira Donegan of Guardian US discuss why Republicans are divided on restrictions they worked so hard to put in place. Why are once staunch supporters of abortion bans wavering? And as November fast approaches, will abortion be the issue that swings the election?

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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    All 12 jurors seated for Trump’s historic criminal trial – as it happened

    Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
    12 jurors have been selected for Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial. One alternate juror has also been selected, with jury selection for five more alternates to resume tomorrow morning. The confirmations came after two jurors were removed from the jury earlier on Thursday.
    The first juror dismissed said she no longer believed she could be unbiased in the case. Since being selected on Tuesday, she had been targeted by Fox News host Jesse Watters, and said she had received a flurry of text messages from friends and family that led her to believe she had been identified.
    The second juror was excused after prosecutors expressed concerns that he may not have been truthful on his jury questionnaire. Prosecutors noted they found an article about a person with the same name who had been arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political posters.
    Prosecutors accused Trump of violating a gag order seven additional times. They have already filed a previous request to sanction him for breaking the order and a hearing on the issue is scheduled for next week.
    Judge Juan Merchan asked the media to stop reporting physical descriptions about potential jurors, concerned about their anonymity. Earlier this week he admonished Trump against intimidating jurors.
    That’s it as we wrap the blog up for today. Thank you for following along.Donald Trump was looking down at his hands on the table in front of him as judge Juan Merchan outlined next steps moving towards opening statements, which he hopes will be Monday. The confirmed jurors looked somber as they were sworn in, raising their right hands and swearing to hear the case in a “fair and impartial manner,” according to a trial pool report. Judge Juan Merchan said that jury selection for alternate jurors will continue on Friday and that he remains hopeful that the case will proceed to opening statements on Monday.All twelve juror confirmations came after a few setbacks, including the removal of two earlier jurors on Thursday.An alternate juror has been picked.According to a trial pool report, the details of the first chosen alternate juror are: B714, seat 18 (alternate 1).All 12 jurors have been seated. Here are the details for the last two jurors who were selected: B500, seat 16 (juror 11) and B440, seat 17 (juror 12).The jury selection has now moved on to choosing six alternate jurors.Three more jurors have been seated, bringing the total number of confirmed jurors to 10.According to a trial pool report, the juror details are: B639, seat 8 (juror 8), B423, seat 12 (juror 9) and B789, seat 14 (juror 10).Two jurors have been seated to backfill the empty spots that were left by two other jurors who were removed earlier.According to a trial pool report, the jurors are B565 (juror number 2) and B470 (juror number 4).Susan Necheles challenged the potential juror who stayed at her house overnight fifteen years ago, according to a trial pool report.Necheles also pointed to the potential juror’s husband who reviewed New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s book on Donald Trump’s crimes.Judge Juan Merchan asked the potential juror about her and her husband’s friendship with Necheles, to which the potential juror responded:
    “About 15 years ago, I met her through my husband, they were both lawyers at the time… We went and stayed at her house.”
    She went on to add that she has not spent time with Necheles since and would not have recalled the sleepover if her husband had not reminded her.The potential juror said that her husband was a general counsel at a company and also reviews books.Merchan also asked the potential juror if she discussed her husband’s opinion of Trump. In response, the potential juror said that they frequently talk about politics but did not discuss this particular case with him.The potential juror also said that she could be fair, adding, “I should say I work in publishing also, and I have published voices on both sides, so I do believe everyone deserves a voice.”After the potential juror left, Necheles renewed her objection, to which Merchan denied.“She doesn’t really know you,” Merchan said. In response, Necheles said that she did not remember her until her husband reminded her.“And she had to be reminded of that, yes?” Merchan said, adding, “Your challenge for cause is denied,” according to the trial pool report.Donald Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles is moving to strike a potential juror for cause because the woman stayed at her house overnight 15 years ago.Following a quick departure from his bench, judge Juan Merchan returned, saying:
    “We started the day with seven, and unfortunately we’re down to five,” according to a trial pool report.
    Attorneys are also set to make “for cause” challenges on several of the 18 potential jurors who were questioned earlier.Judge Juan Merchan has sworn in another group of potential jurors and instructed them to appear at the courthouse at 11:30am on Friday.According to trial pool reports, Merchan apologized to group for having to wait around all day with nothing happening.Donald Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles questioned a potential juror on her thoughts towards the former president, according to a trial pool report. “I don’t have strong opinions, but I don’t like his persona. How he presents himself in public,” the prospective juror said, adding, “I don’t like some of my coworkers but I don’t try to sabotage their work.” The jury box laughed in response.The potential juror went on to add, “He seems very selfish and self serving… I don’t really appreciate that from any public servant.”“It sounds a bit like what you’re saying is you don’t like him, based on what you’re saying,” Necheles said, to which the potential juror responded, “Yes.” More