STORMY WEATHER: Testifying in Trump’s criminal trial, Daniels said she met Trump for dinner in his hotel room. She said that after two hours she asked to use the bathroom and came out to find Trump on the bed in his t-shirt and boxer shorts.  She said Trump blocked her path to the door but ultimately did not force her. That led to the act for which Daniels was paid to be silent in the closing days before the 2016 election.

  Trump denies the sexual fling and was visibly aggravated during the testimony. His lawyers demanded the declaration of a mistrial because testimony had gone too far into detail. Judge Juan Merchan denied the motion and said, “I will also note that I was surprised that there were not more objections” from the defense. 

  Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said Trump was “arrogant.” Judge Merchan became a little irritated when she and the prosecutor got into lurid details, including that the germophobic Trump did not use a condom. Daniels described the event in detail, including the décor of Trump’s suite right down to the color of the tiles.

  In one damaging moment for Trump, Daniels said she asked him if he was married and he said yes, but it was okay because he in his wife slept in separate bedrooms. Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Barron at the time.

  Daniels said she remained in contact with Trump after that night because she wanted to be cast in “The Apprentice.” On cross examination she said she “hates” Trump and “I want him to be held accountable.”

  Earlier, the prosecution had a book editor read out loud passages from Trump’s books in which he described himself as a micromanager who vetted every penny that left his accounts, backing up the prosecution position that Trump would have known about the $130,000 payment to Daniels. The books were ghost written, but one passage published in his name said, “Every dollar counts in business, and for that matter, every dime.” 

CONDEMNATION: President Biden speaking yesterday at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance condemned a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. 

“This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust,” he said. “It didn’t end with the Holocaust, either.”

  With pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, Biden did not come down in the middle.  He has pressured Israel to stop killing civilians in Gaza but said, “I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world,” but, “there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”

THE WAR ROOM: In a growing rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his conduct of the Gaza war, President Biden withheld a shipment of bombs to prevent Israel from using them in its long-threatened assault on the city of Rafah

  Biden held back 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge. The unguided “dumb bombs,” particularly the 2,000 pounders are indiscriminately destructive despite Israeli claims that they are careful about civilian casualties.  

A VIEW TO A KILL: Ukraine’s security services say they arrested two colonels they accuse of being part of a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. 

  The domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, said in a statement the plot involved a network of agents run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB. Ukrainian intelligence claimed that the agents working for Russia were supposed to identify people close to Zelensky’s security detail who could capture and kill him.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: A former Miss Ecuador contestant was shot and killed in a restaurant Sunday by two masked gunmen in what investigators suspect was a hit arranged by the widow of the late drug dealer with whom Landy Párraga Goyburo, 23, had an affair.

  Párraga had more than a million followers on her social media accounts. The cops believe she may have been tracked by the picture she posted of her lunch that included a placemat with the restaurant’s logo. She was known to have had a romance with drug trafficker Leandro Norero, who was killed in prison.

THE WORM TURNS: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has revealed previously undisclosed health problems, including that he once had a parasitic worm that ate part of his brain. He also had a period of time when he suffered memory loss and mental fogginess, eventually attributed to mercury poisoning from eating tainted fish.

  Kennedy at 70 now presents himself as hale and athletic. Asked by the NY Times whether Kennedy’s health is an issue, a spokesperson said, “That is a hilarious suggestion, given the competition.”

THE SPIN RACK:  Protesters were cleared this morning from an encampment at George Washington University. — The federal judge in Donald Trump’s classified documents case postponed the May 20^thopening of the trial without setting a new date. Judge Eileen Cannon was appointed under the Trump administration. The delay makes it possible that the trial will not open before November. — A newreport from the trustees of Social Security says the trust fund will be exhausted by November of 2033, requiring 21 percent cut in benefits unless Congress does something to fix it. Nearly 60 million retirees and family members get money from Social Security. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  As the organization emerges from a sexual abuse scandal, the payment of millions in damage awards, and bankruptcy, the Boy Scouts of America is changing the name it’s had for 114 years to “Scouting America.” Evidently the people running it were no Boy Scouts.

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