COUNTERSTRIKE: Israel ended the suspense and struck back at Iran overnight in retaliation for Iran’s massive missile and drone attack last weekend.

  Prior to this attack, Iran has said any action by Israel would result in a massive reaction, which would put Iran and Israel in the brink of all-out war. So far, Israel’s retribution has been relatively small, and so has Iran’s reaction.

  This round of attack and counter attack started when an Israeli strike killed seven Iranian military officers inside a diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria. Iran then flooded the air with 300 missiles and drones last weekend, most of which were shot down.

  Israel easily punctured Iranian air defenses. Iran reported explosions at a military base outside the city of Isfahan. Officials said the attack was carried out by small drones, possibly even launched from inside Iran. They said that a separate group of small drones was shot down in the Tabriz region, roughly 500 miles north of Isfahan. 

ORDER IN THE COURT: A full 12-person jury and one alternate have been empaneled in the New York criminal trial of Donald Trump, presenting the possibility that five more alternates could be chosen today, allowing opening arguments on Monday.

  The court started yesterday with seven jurors and lost two to dismissals. One woman said she was worried that she would be public identified and a man was let go on suspicion that he had once been arrested for ripping down conservative political posters. Judge Juan Merchan said the woman who asked to be excused would have “been a very good juror.”

  The 12 primary jurors are Black, Asian, white, male, female, middle-aged and young. One woman is just out of college. They work in finance, education, health care, and law. They jurors are likely to be under continued scrutiny by the defense in hopes of knocking them out.

  It’s almost impossible for the jurors not to have a personal opinion. One said she like that he “speaks his mind” and another told the court, “I don’t like his persona.”

  Trump of accused of violating campaign finance laws to illegally pay porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an affair she had with the former president back in 2006 while his wife, Melania, was pregnant with their son Barron. 

  Merchan scheduled a hearing for Tuesday on a prosecution accusation that Trump has violated his gag order 11 times making accusations about the jury and witnesses. As a result, prosecutors refused to give the defense a list of the first witnesses.

  Among his many usual complaints to reporters yesterday, Trump said the courtroom was cold and “everybody was freezing in there.”

1968: More than 100 students were arrested yesterday after Columbia University called the police to clear the campus of pro-Palestinian demonstrators as the administration responds to pressure about anti-Semitism. Screaming and sign-waving students who refused to disperse were zip-tied and loaded into police wagons and buses. 

    “I took this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances,” the university’s president, Nemat Shafik, wrote in an email announcement.

  Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, announced that she was one of three students suspended from Barnard College because of their participation in the demonstration.

  Columbia is one of many universities torn by strife over the Israel-Hamas war and the plight of civilians in Gaza. There have been acts of outright anti-Semitism, but also at times support for Palestinians, or criticism of Israeli warfare, has been interpreted as anti-Semitism.

  The annual honors convocation at the University of Michigan was interrupted yesterday by protesters shouting, “Free Palestine!”

  Dr. Shafik at Columbia said that university officials “work hard to balance the rights of students to express political views with the need to protect other students from rhetoric that amounts to harassment and discrimination.”  

CAMELOT:  Fifteen members of the Kennedy political clan appeared in Philadelphia yesterday to endorse Joe Biden for president, snubbing their own relative Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is running as an independent. Kerry Kennedy has said that her brother’s candidacy is “dangerous” and that “In 2024, there are only two candidates with any chance of winning the presidency.” She said yesterday, “President Biden has been a champion for all the rights and freedoms that my father and uncles stood for.” 

  Interestingly, Kerry Kennedy has a touch of the same vocal paralysis that affects RFK Jr.

  Also among those present were RFK Jr. siblings Joe Kennedy II, Christopher Kennedy, Maxwell Kennedy, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. RFK Jr. posted on Twitter/X, “I am pleased they are politically active — it’s a family tradition.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Dickey Betts, a founder of The Allman Brothers Band who wrote some of their biggest hits, including “Ramblin’ Man” and whose lengthy guitar jams provided a soundtrack for the 1970s, died in Florida at age 80. He was one of the defining figures in Southern Rock.

  It was Betts who wrote and whose guitar led the seven-minute instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the title of which was taken from a headstone at a graveyard in the band’s hometown of Macon, Georgia. He wrote the song “Jessica” for his daughter.

  Duane Allman, who was killed in a motorcycle crash back in 1971, once said, “I’m the famous guitar player, but Dickey is the good one.”

THE SPIN RACK: The US yesterday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to recognize Palestine as a full member state of the United Nations. The US position is that Palestinian statehood must come through negotiations with Israel. — US mortgage rates jumped above 7 percent for the first time this year. They hit nearly 8 percent late last year. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Pop star Taylor Swift released her 11^th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which is partly an autobiographical riff on her love and breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn. We don’t use the word “dropped.”

  This is heresy in Swift World, but there are bigger things to think about. 

-30-