ORDER IN THE COURT: The former executive of the National Enquirer tabloid testified yesterday in Donald Trump’s criminal trial that the paper paid people for their stories, setting the stage for how Donald Trump paid the porn actress Stormy Daniels for silence about her one-night stand with the former president. “We used checkbook journalism, and we paid for stories,” David Pecker said.

  Pecker’s testimony ended at mid-day, but he is expected to be questioned about his practice of “catch and kill,” paying money for stories then not publishing them in order to protect favored celebrities, Donald Trump among them. Pecker paid for the story of former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal’s fling with Trump and buried it.

  Trump’s payment to Stormy Daniels happened after she started shopping her story for money.

  In opening statements, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, drew a picture of Trump as a man at the center of a plot to cover up three sex scandals that threatened his 2016 election. “It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo told the jury. 

  Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said simply that “President Trump is innocent” and made sure to point out that he is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Blanche said. “It is called democracy,”

  Blanche took his first shot at destroying the credibility of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, a prime witness who has been convicted of perjury. “Unbeknownst to President Trump, in all the years that Mr. Cohen worked for him, Cohen was also a criminal,” Blanche said. “He cheated on his taxes, he lied to banks, he lied about side businesses.”

  When court broke for the day Trump appeared to violate his gag order yet again, calling Cohen a liar. Judge Juan Merchan is holding a hearing about the gag order this morning before the jury comes in.

  In his morning rant to the press yesterday Trump claimed his trial is going to destroy New York City. “Businesses are going to be fleeing because people are treated so badly,” he said. “It’s gotta be the most unfriendly place to do business and that’s why businesses are leaving and people are leaving as migrants come in and take over our parks and our schools and everything else.”

CAMPUS ENCAMPMENTS:  Police yesterday arrested pro-Palestinian protesters at Yale and New York University.  The cops moved in last night at NYU after university leaders said the group had breached school barricades and behaved in a “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing” manner. Those arrested were handcuffed with zip ties and loaded into transport vans.

  Protest encampments established at Harvard, Tufts, Emerson, and Berkeley and other schools are likely to remain for the rest of the school year.

  Police in New Haven moved in early yesterday on the Yale protesters occupying part of the campus.  About 60 people were arrested, 47 of them students.

  This comes after arrests at Columbia last week, where protests continue and classes were held yesterday only online. Jewish students at Columbia say they feel threatened.

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE: The Supreme Court spent 2 ½ hours yesterday wrestling with the question of whether fining homeless people for camping in public spaces is a “cruel and unusual” punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment.

  The justices were attempting to balance criminalizing homelessness against a city’s ability to control common spaces. The homeless have taken over whole streets and parks in many cities. In Los Angeles they have begun to build shanties on public land.

  The case came out of Grants Pass, Oregon, which prohibited sleeping with bedding in a public space.

   Overall, the court seemed to lean on the side of the cities but, “Sleeping is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “You can say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s OK to criminalize breathing in public. And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.”

THE OBIT PAGE:  Former NFL quarterback Roman Gabriel, who played 16 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles, and was voted Most Valuable Player in 1969, died in Little River, South Carolina at age 83.

  At 6-foot-2 and 235 pounds Gabriel had the build of a linebacker. He played his first 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams and five with the Philadelphia Eagles.

THE SPIN RACK: Baltimore filed a lawsuit against the owner and manager of the ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month. Lawyers for Baltimore’s mayor and City Council accused both companies of staffing the giant container ship with an “incompetent crew.” — The shopping mall clothing retailer Express has filed for bankruptcy and announced that it is closing 100 stores. — Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department” released last Friday, immediately became the most-streamed album on its first day across Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music.

BELOW THE FOLD: Melania Trump is selling a Mother’s Day necklace for $248. Evidently she needs the money. 

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