Trump’s second day on criminal trial: Bodega visit, judge warning and more bizarre jury excuses

Jury selection continued on the second day of Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial, with seven jurors picked.

Several more prospective jurors said they could not remain unbiased, underscoring the challenge of seating a panel in Manhattan, a profoundly Democratic borough.

Trump, 77, is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a alleged bid to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

He allegedly paid Daniels, 45, $130,000 in October 2016 in exchange for her silence over a 2006 affair Daniels says they had.

Mr Trump denies the affair and all of the charges brought against him by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.

Here are the key takeaways from day two of The People v Donald Trump.

Seven jurors – four men and three women – have now been selected to serve on the panel that will decide if the former president is innocent or guilty of falsifying his business records in 2016.

A man originally from Ireland who works in sales in New York City was appointed as the jury foreperson, who serves as its spokesman.

Five of the seven have a college degree or higher education. Two men on the panel are lawyers. None of them shared particularly strong views about Mr Trump or politics, according to reports.

They were selected from 18 prospective jurors questioned on Tuesday.

The voir dire process saw Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche question the potential jurors on what they thought of Trump before asking Judge Juan Merchan to remove five for cause, pointing to alleged anti-Trump social media posts made by those individuals in an effort to argue that they were unfairly biased against the former president.

One woman had posted a video on Facebook of people having a “dance party” on the Manhattan