A judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has warned the former president about “intimidating” potential jurors in the case.

Justice Juan Merchan warned he would not tolerate Trump speaking while potential jurors were questioned in court on Tuesday.

He said the former president was audibly uttering something while his lawyers were questioning prospective jury members, and warned: “I will not have any jurors intimidated in the courtroom.”

The first six jurors were selected to serve on Tuesday afternoon on the panel of 12 jurors and six alternates in the historic trial.

They include a waiter, an oncology nurse, an attorney, an IT consultant, a teacher and a software engineer.

Several others had been excused on Tuesday morning after saying they could not be impartial or because they had other commitments.

Others demurred when asked about their opinions of Trump, including one who said is personal views on the former president “has absolutely no bearing on the case that you’re presenting or defending. That is a separate thing”.

Dozens of potential jurors have yet to be questioned.

The judge also ruled on Tuesday that lawyers are allowed to ask prospective jurors about their social media posts.

That ruling came after Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge he had found several social media posts he said come from possible jurors that are “very much contrary to the answers they gave”.

Potential jurors have also been asked about where they consume their news, their opinions on Trump and whether they follow politics.

The hush money case is the first of Trump‘s four criminal cases to go to trial and may be the only one that could reach a verdict before the presidential vote in November.

If convicted, Trump – the presumptive Republican presidential nominee – would become the first former US president convicted of a crime.

He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious and, he says, bogus stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.

Trump has claimed the trial is the result of a politically motivated justice system working to deprive him of another term as president.

Before entering the courtroom this morning, he stopped briefly to address a TV camera in the hallway, repeating his claim that the judge is biased against him.

“This is a trial that should have never been brought,” Trump said.

Among the potential jurors dismissed on Tuesday was a woman who had previously notified the judge she had a trip planned around Memorial Day.

A man was excused after saying he could not be impartial.

Read more:
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Another man, who works at an accounting firm, was dismissed after saying he feared his ability to be impartial could be compromised by “unconscious bias” from growing up in Texas and working in finance with people who “intellectually tend to slant Republican”.

Jury selection could take several more days – or even weeks – in New York, which is a heavily Democratic city.

Around a third of the 96 people in the first panel of potential jurors in court on Monday remained after the judge excused some members.

More than half were excused after saying they could not be fair and impartial, and several others were dismissed for other reasons that were not disclosed.

The trial centres on $130,000 (£104,400) in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen.

He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actress Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.

The former president has denied the sexual encounter ever happened.

Read more: Who is Stormy Daniels?

Prosecutors say the payments – which they claim were falsely logged as legal fees – were part of a scheme to bury damaging stories Trump feared could help his opponent in the 2016 race, particularly as his reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.

Trump said the payments, which he acknowledged reimbursing Mr Cohen for, were designed to stop Ms Daniels from going public about the alleged encounter.

The former president previously said it had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign.

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If convicted of falsifying business records, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee he will get time behind bars.

His three other legal cases, involving allegations of election interference and hoarding classified documents, could lead to lengthy prison sentences.

But those cases are tied up with appeals or other issues that make it increasingly unlikely they will be decided before the election.

If Trump wins in November, he could order a new attorney general to dismiss his federal cases.

Caitlin Clark has left an enduring legacy throughout American society and culture – both on and off the basketball court – all by the age of 22. 

Clark, from West Des Moines, Iowa, made her college debut for the Iowa Hawkeyes in 2020 and has also represented the USA at international youth level.

Since then, she has been immortalised as the greatest scorer in college basketball history, racking up 3,951 points across four seasons.

In March, she passed five-time NBA All-Star and college basketball legend Pete Maravich for the all-time National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) points record, held for more than half a century.

Her impact on NCAA attendances helped set or break records in all but two of the Hawkeyes games in 2023-24.

The “Caitlin Clark Effect”, as it has been known, has transformed women’s basketball forever. Here’s how she has achieved it.

The ratings game

College basketball is highly anticipated in the early part of the year, culminating with “March Madness” – a knockout tournament to determine the NCAA champion.

More than 12 million people watched 2 April’s Elite Eight (quarter-final) matchup against LSU, where Clark scored 41 points.

This year’s Iowa-South Carolina national championship game averaged 18.7 million viewers, up 89% on the year before – making it the highest-rated basketball game in five years, men’s or women’s, at any level. South Carolina won the game 87-75.

At its peak, the match was being viewed by 24 million people across America.

Clark’s presence in WNBA will be game-changing

To put that into perspective, the 2023 WNBA Finals averaged 728,000 viewers over four games – with 889,000 tuning in to witness the Las Vegas Aces’ championship win.

Of the 12 WNBA teams, the Indiana Fever had the second-lowest attendance in 2023.

This is their second draft in a row with the No 1 pick and they chose Clark.

Name, Image, Likeness

The 22-year-old has signed lucrative endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade, State Farm and Panini – all before turning pro.

Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) restrictions were lifted in June 2021, following a Supreme Court decision. This landmark moment allowed student-athletes to earn from commercials and endorsements, where previously they were not allowed to until they turned professional.

According to NIL database On3, Clark has made $3.1m (£2.4m) from sponsorship deals, ranking as the highest amongst women’s basketball players and fourth highest amongst student-athletes.

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Caitlin Clark vs Stephen Curry

In 2023-24, Clark had the greatest three-point NCAA shooting season of all time for any gender, making 201.

She surpassed the previous joint-record holder and four-time NBA champion, Stephen Curry with 162 in 2007-08.

Clark holds the record for the most three-pointers made in NCAA history, scoring 548 of them in her four years at the University of Iowa.

The future

While Clark may have fallen short of the ultimate title of a national championship, her lasting impact on women’s basketball cannot be underestimated.

The Iowa legend has increased viewing ratings, attendance, and merchandise sales to unprecedented heights.

Off the court, her star power has opened burgeoning financial opportunities for student-athletes.

With Clark’s selection as the No 1 overall pick, this is only the beginning. 

The owners of a US funeral home have been accused of spending nearly $900,000 (£723,000) in pandemic relief funds on things such as holidays, cosmetic surgery, jewellery and cryptocurrency.

Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of Return To Nature Funeral Home in Colorado, already face more than 200 criminal charges connected to last year’s discovery of 190 decaying bodies in a bug-infested storage building.

Those charges include corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery, including allegations they gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes, collected money for burials and cremations they never provided, and buried the wrong body on two occasions.

Now they face 15 further charges alleging they spent $882,300 (£708,000) in pandemic relief funds on items including two vehicles – a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000, trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting, and luxury goods from retailers such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co.

The couple appeared in a federal court on Monday, where the prosecution argued they were a flight risk, having fled to Oklahoma last October after the decaying bodies were found and again before their arrest on state charges in November.

The judge did not decide whether they should be released pending trial, instead scheduling another hearing for Thursday.

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The discovery of the 190 bodies, some of which had been there since 2019, shocked the state of Colorado, which has some of the US’s weakest funeral home regulations.

Concerns were raised as far back as 2020 about the business’s improper storage of bodies but regulators did not act, allowing the number of bodies to grow to nearly 200.

It was only after neighbours complained about the smell that authorities looked more closely at the modest 2,500-square foot building in Penrose, about 30 miles south of Colorado Springs.

Since the bodies were discovered, dozens of families have been told the ashes they were given could not have been the remains of loved ones.