However, even Chinese businesses aren't sold on the yuan right now.
Official data from the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, shows that foreign exchange deposits rose from $778.9 billion in September to $832.6 billion in March.
This means some Chinese businesses have been holding back from converting their foreign exchange earnings into their home currency.
This development appears to be primarily due to weakness in the yuan — which has hit five-month lows against the US dollar after losing nearly 2% to the greenback this year to date. The longer-term trend was even more negative, as the yuan has fallen 5% since the start of 2023 — discouraging manyChinese companies from converting their dollar earnings to the yuan.
Chinese exporters are also biding their time to convert their earnings because interest rates outside the country are high. They are parking their US dollars offshore in deposits that earn them 6%, compared to 1.5% on yuan deposits at home, Reuters reportedon Thursday.
Becky Liu, the head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered, told Reuters that Chinese exporters likely need a "confirmation of the Fed rate cut including a clearer dollar softening trend" before they'll be willing to convert more of their offshore dollar earnings to the yuan.
While Chinese businesses are hanging onto their dollars due to yuan weakness, this trend also illustrates the challenges facing currencies like the Chinese yuan in a world dominated by the US dollar.
It also proves it's not so easy to displace the mighty US dollar as the world's top reserve and trading currency of choice. And that, in turn, is good news for the US: It means the US can maintain its economic clout, and borrow quickly and cheaply for its industrial policy and social programs.
More talk than action on de-dollarization last year
Recent data from the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, confirmed the dollar is still king. That's even amid discussions about de-dollarization that were fuelled by concerns over the greenback's power following sanctions against Russia that shut it out of the dollar-based global financial system.
The IMF data, published in late March, showed the US dollar accounted for nearly 60% of global foreign reserves. The greenback's share of global foreign reserves also edged up 0.2 percentage points in 2023 over a year ago — in contrast to the yuan's share, which fell over the same period for the second straight year, according to an ING bank analysis.
This is in part because Russia used to hold about one-third of global yuan reserves before 2022, when it invaded Ukraine. Moscow had to use some of that money to plug its budget deficit last year, contributing to a fall in the yuan's share in the world's global reserves.
However, this doesn't mean "yuanisation" is off the agenda, Dmitry Dolgin, the chief economist for Russia and CIS countries at ING, wrote in a note published on April 10.
After all, China is still promoting the yuan's usage globally, including through the broadening of bilateral swap lines and the growth of China's yuan-based CIPS messaging system as an alternative to SWIFT.
"It appears that China's expanding trade ties and financial infrastructure suggest that the potential for further yuanisation has not been exhausted," Dolgin wrote.
Xian Jie Lee runs an Airbnb business in rural Japan.
Xian Jie Lee
After studying in Japan, Xian Jie Lee moved to a village called Ryujinmura in the mountains.
He rented a farmhouse and renovated it to live in then purchased the house next door to list on Airbnb.
The guesthouse now rents for $190 a night and he offers tours to his visitors for $40 to $270.
Singaporean Xian Jie Lee, 33, moved to Japan in 2012 to study political science. He loved the country so much that he decided to stay, and he started a desk job at an IT company.
Within a few months, Lee realized he was unfulfilled and quit to start a tour guide company with a friend called Craft Tabby. While running that in Kyoto, Lee met 72-year-old tea master Shu at a tea festival.
Shu served Lee some wild tea he'd picked in the Wakayama mountains and Lee was amazed by how good it tasted. "It was so full of energy," Lee told Business Insider.
Shu suggested Lee visit Wayakama. When he visited, Lee was blown away by the forests of cedar trees, waterfalls, and steep hillsides that were draped with mist. When the pandemic struck, Lee knew exactly where he wanted to go.
Lee picking tea leaves.
Xian Jie Lee
Shu told Lee that he could rent a farmhouse in a village called Ryujinmura. He would need to renovate it himself to live in it, but Lee knew the cost of the rent and renovation would be similar to what he paid to rent his apartment in Kyoto.
In December 2020, Lee moved and became one of the youngest residents in the village.
Renovating the rental
Lee loved the farmhouse with its thatched roof and sliding wooden doors, but he soon learned the renovation would be more challenging than he first thought. "I removed the tatami (traditional straw floor covering) in the inner room and fell through the floor," Lee said.
As Shu grew up in the area, he knew of a carpenter who'd once worked with his father. The carpenter was delighted that Lee wanted to return the farmhouse to its former glory, so while he said he'd charge for his son's labor, he worked for free.
The carpenters helped demolish and remove the old wood and redo the entire floor. Lee lived in the kitchen for three months while the wooden floors were installed. Then he switched rooms and they renovated the kitchen and bathroom.
It was Lee's home, but it became a community project
Shu introduced Lee to the local charcoal maker, who provided charcoal for his fire, and the paper maker, who made all the traditional washi from mulberry trees for the shoji screens.
Once the house was finished, Lee started to clear the overgrown land. He replanted the rice fields, cleared the tea bushes of weeds, and started to grow corn and tomatoes.
While the neighbors shared tips on how to grow the crops, Lee still had a few learning curves. Holes in his fence allowed wild deer to help themselves to the heirloom rice plants, and when he tried to fix the pipes that fed the rice fields with mountain water, an error meant he had to hike up the steep hillside to fix them a second time.
Lee was a fast learner, and some of his neighbors asked if he could also manage their rice fields. Lee's friends from Singapore would often visit to help. He also started posting on YouTube, and some people who watched the videos volunteered to help him, too.
Lee with Lance Yeo, a volunteer.
Xian Jie Lee
Creating a new life and business in the mountains
Lee thought he'd split his time between the mountains and Kyoto. "I started liking this place more and more and these days, I seldom return to Kyoto," Lee said.
He knew that if he were going to stay, he'd need to expand the tour business. "I thought that if I had a guesthouse, I could run tours from here," Lee said.
The owner of the empty 120-year-old farmhouse next door to Lee's rental agreed to sell it to Lee and two of his friends. The second house also needed repair, and its purchase and renovations cost $25,000 in total.
The guesthouse at the beginning of renovations.
Xian Jie Lee
Lee paid for a craftsman to reinstall a sunken hearth in the floor at the center of the house, while another craftsman created handmade shoji screens. Since they intended to use it as a guesthouse for up to five people, they decided to install a wooden floor rather than tatami mats.
Lee and his guests both enjoy unique experiences
The exterior of the guest house.
Xian Jie Lee
While renovating the guesthouse, Lee turned his own home into a café three days a week to earn extra income. He served dishes to hikers who had been enjoying the trails. "It was quite tough because I was dealing with the renovations and planting rice while running the café," Lee said.
When Lee listed the farmhouse on Airbnb in August 2023, he closed the café, but he now serves food to his guests.
Guests renting the two-bedroom guesthouse for $190 a night can meet the resident goats and Ryujin chickens, borrow a paddleboard, or swim down the Hidakagawa River in front of the farmhouse.
The interior.
Xian Jie Lee
Lee also offers tours to his guests priced from $40 to $270 where you can hike to six secluded waterfalls, take a traditional washi paper-making class, or participate in a tea-making workshop.
One of the beds.
Xian Jie Lee
Lee has also been able to participate in unique experiences himself. He and some of the volunteers were recently invited to take part in the lion dance at the local harvest festival. "We didn't know what we were doing, but the neighbors helped show us what to do," Lee said.
The villagers were thrilled they'd taken part. "The most surprising thing for me was how open everyone was to have us involved," Lee said. "Then also when they told us how happy it made them."
President Joe Biden speaks to members of the United Steel Workers Union at the United Steel Workers Headquarters on April 17, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Joe Biden on Wednesday painted a dire picture of China's economy to US steelworkers.
Calling China "xenophobic," Biden unleashed some of his harshest comments ever about Beijing.
Bashing China fits well into Biden's new election cadence of hyping up the US economy as a lasting, dominant force.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday pitched his version of US-China relations to steelworkers in Pennsylvania — that Beijing isn't only failing to catch up, but struggling on its own.
"They've got a population that is more people in retirement than working," Biden said of China. "They're not importing anything. They're xenophobic. Nobody else coming in. They've got real problems."
Those were some of the harshest comments Biden has ever made about China, though it's unclear how the president calculated his retirement figures. China fields a labor force of about 780 million, or more than half its 1.4 billion population, with urban unemployment reportedly at around 5%. But the country is indeed aging rapidly and bound for an imbalanced population, with around 300 million people expected to retire in the next 10 years and fewer births than deaths.
Instead of posturing himself a Mr. Fix-It, or a lone warrior fighting the good fight against a strong Beijing, Biden on Wednesday told blue-collar workers that the competition, as it stands, already favors America by a landslide.
His message in Pittsburgh was clear — China is in trouble. He told the steelworkers that he often asked world leaders if they would "trade places" with China and its problems.
"Trump simply doesn't get it," he said. "For years I've heard many of my Republican, even Democratic friends say that China is on the rise and America has been falling behind."
"I've always believed we got it all wrong," Biden added. "America is rising, we have the best economy in the world."
Boasting that the US economy is robust has been a key pillar of Biden's reelection campaign, as his Republican opponents claimed throughout his term that the US economy struggled under him.
There's another rhetorical implication to Biden jeering at China's problems. By playing up America's position and downplaying China's, Biden shied away from a common narrative that a rising China will clash, or even go to war with the US as the former catches up.
"I want fair competition with China, not conflict, and we're in a stronger position to win the economic competition of the 21st century against China or anyone else," Biden said.
Meanwhile, he announced the tripling of a 7.5% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum. China, powered by state funds, has been producing large quantities of steel and selling it on the US market for cheap, which Biden called "cheating."
China's Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
The president also pledged to block the $14.9 billion sale of US Steel to the Japanese Nippon Steel, once again hammering home the upsides of investing in an already powerful American economy.
"American-owned, American-operated by American union steelworkers, the best in the world," Biden said.
The metals industry provides more than 120,000 jobs in Pennsylvania and some $33 billion in economic output, per an April 2023 report published by the Pennsylvania Steel Alliance.
Tesla shares have tumbled 62% from their peak as investors gear up for a growth slowdown.
The stock drop has fueled an estimated $166 billion decline in Elon Musk's net worth.
The Tesla CEO is now worth about $174 billion, down from $340 billion in November 2021.
Tesla's mounting troubles have dealt a heavy blow to Elon Musk's net worth.
In November 2021, the Tesla CEO held the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and seemed untouchable with an estimated fortune of $340 billion. He was more than three times richer than Warren Buffett at that point.
However, Musk's net worth has plunged by about $166 billion since then to $174 billion at Wednesday's close. The key driver has been Tesla stock, which has tumbled from a split-adjusted peak of $415 in 2021 to $155 — a 62% decline.
The share-price slump has slashed Tesla's market capitalization from north of $1.2 trillion to below $490 billion. Musk's net worth has taken a big hit from the decline because his 13% stake in the automaker makes up a big chunk of his wealth.
Musk's start to this year has also been dismal relative to his peers in the 12-digit club. He topped the Bloomberg rich list with a $229 billion fortune in January, but his net worth has crashed by $55 billion, or 24%, since then.
Moreover, Musk is the only one of the world's 13 richest people whose net worth has declined this year. He's lost more money on paper than anyone on the list has gained, including Zuckerberg who's up almost $50 billion.
Tesla's stock has tumbled in recent months due to mounting concerns about the company. Musk told employees over the weekend that more than 10% of the company's global workforce would be laid off, signaling demand for EVs is faltering.
Musk's fortune isn't completely tied to Tesla. He also owns an estimated 42% stake in SpaceX, the space exploration company valued at $180 billion in December, and a roughly 79% stake in X after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it last year.
Tuesday's protests in California and New York led to 28 terminations and nine arrests.
Justice Speaks
Nine Google employees were arrested after protesting the company's contract with Israel.
The company fired 28 employees in California and New York.
Another employee was fired last month for protesting the same contract in New York.
A small group of Alphabet employees' long-simmering protests against the Google parent company's work with Israel ended with more than two dozen terminations on Wednesday.
Google fired 28 employees who participated in office protests in New York and California on Tuesday, the company said on Wednesday.
The employees occupied Google offices in Sunnyvale, California, and New York City. They were protesting Project Nimbus, Google's $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon that provides services to Israel's government.
"Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action," a Google spokesperson said. "These employees were put on administrative leave, and their access to our systems was cut."
Nine workers were arrested after they refused to leave the offices. Five of the arrests were in Sunnyvale and four were in New York. Police in both locations confirmed the figures to BI.
A representative for the New York Police Department said the four people in New York were charged with criminal trespassing. A representative for the Sunnyvale police department said the arrested individuals received citations for trespassing. Charges have not yet been filed, the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County said on Wednesday.
Chris Rackow, Google's head of security, wrote in an internal memo onWednesday that the protests were "extremely disruptive" and that they "made coworkers feel threatened."
The company had 182,502 employees as of December 31.
Protests against Project Nimbus
Small groups of Google employees have voiced dissent against Project Nimbus, a joint contract with Amazon that provides artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to Israel's government and military.
Last month, a Google employee protesting the contract was fired for disrupting a talk in New Yorkby the company's head of Israel.
More than 100 people, including Google workers, protested the project outside the company's New York office in 2022. The protest came after the resignation of a Google employee who had spoken out against Project Nimbus.
The tech group No Tech for Apartheid said it organized Tuesday's protest as part of its campaign asking Amazon and Google to scrap Project Nimbus. No Tech for Apartheid says the tech companies' contract enables the Israeli government to surveil and displace Palestinians. The contract— the details of which became public in 2021 —drew additional scrutiny after Hamas launched a series of terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200. Israel responded to the attacks with a months-long offensive that has killed over 30,000 Palestinians.
A Google representative told BI the company supports governments in countries it operates in with cloud computing services.
"We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy," a Google spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military projects relevant to weapons or intelligence services.
Protestors complied with arrests
Sunnyvale Police Department Captain Dzanh Le told BI there were between 80 to 90 protesters outside the building in Sunnyvale on Tuesday, with a few occupying a room in Google's complex. Bloomberg reported that some protesters congregated near the office of Google's cloud CEO.
Protestors outside Google's office in Sunnyvale, California.
Justice Speaks
Le said the police department received a call from Google around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday saying the protesters refused to leave. The protesters refused again when the police came and were then arrested on suspicion of criminal trespassing. Le said the protesters complied with the arrest.
One of the employees arrested in Google's New York City headquarters, 23-year-old Hasan Ibraheem, told BI the protest started around noon Tuesday when a group of employees sat in the office with a banner and started giving speeches and reciting chants.
Ibraheem said the group was asked to leave multiple times throughout the day but continued the chants and speeches every 15 to 20 minutes, until about 6 p.m. By 6:45 p.m., he said the remaining group was informed that they no longer had access to the building and couldn't work.
The police arrived around 9:30 p.m. and arrested the remaining four Googlers, Ibraheem said. The workers were released from the station at 2 a.m., he said.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Are you a Googler? We want to hear from you. Email the reporter using a non-work device at aaltchek@insider.com
Bill Nelson, now administrator of NASA, speaks during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on April 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images
NASA chief Bill Nelson accused China on Wednesday of secretly working on military projects in space.
Nelson told lawmakers that NASA believes Beijing is masking these projects as civilian efforts.
Nelson often warns of dire consequences if China reaches the moon first. The US aims to do so by 2026.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration head Bill Nelson warned on Wednesday that China is passing off military endeavors in space as civilian projects, reiterating that the US is in a "race" with Beijing to reach the moon in the 21st century.
"China has made extraordinary strides, especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very secretive," Nelson told members of the House Appropriations Committee at a 2024 budget hearing.
"We believe that a lot of their, so-called civilian space programs is a military program," Nelson continued. "And I think, in effect, we are in a race."
For years, he and other NASA officials have highlighted concerns that China may seek to bully out other countries in space — particularly on the moon — if it establishes dominance there.
"My concern would be if China got there first and suddenly said: 'Okay, this is our territory, you stay out,'" Nelson said.
The NASA chief alluded to the Spratly Islands, an archipelago in the South China Sea claimed by several nations. China has attempted to exert sovereignty over the islands, claiming all territory within a "nine-dash line" that spans most of the sea.
The US aims to land astronauts on the moon by September 2026 under its Artemis missions, pushing the deadline back from 2025 due to delays. Most of its allies with ambitions in space have signed an international agreement, the Artemis Accords, that outlines principles for space exploration, such as publicly sharing collected information.
China and Russia have not signed the accords, but are signatories to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bars installing weapons and military bases in space.
The combination of the Shenzhou-18 crewed spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket is transferred to the launching area at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on April 17, 2024 in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China.
But speaking to lawmakers on Wednesday, Nelson said that China might accelerate its plans to close the four-year gap between its moon landing and NASA's.
"Their latest date that they have said that they're going to land is 2030, but that keeps moving up," Nelson said. "And so I think it's incumbent on us to get there first and to utilize our research efforts for peaceful purposes."
"Their science is good, their engineering is good, and the proof's in the pudding, they now have a space station up there," Nelson added.
Meanwhile, China has repeatedly denied that it intends to establish any military presence in outer space. "Space war can not be won and must never be fought," its ambassador to the UN said in 2021.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon (left) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping (right).
Win McNamee via Getty Images; Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon is once again advocating for the US and China to make nice.
"It's the thread from Ukraine, oil and gas, food, migration, all our relationships," Dimon said.
He added that he thinks the US needs "great American leadership" to stabilize its relationship with China.
How the US handles its shaky relationship with China will affect the future of the world, says JPMorgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon.
"It's the thread from Ukraine, oil and gas, food, migration, all our relationships, the most important one being China," Dimon told Bloomberg's Emily Chang in an interview that aired Wednesday. "That is the most important for the future of the world."
"And obviously Ukraine is affecting it. In fact, it's very hard to see really positive outcomes with China until the Ukraine war is resolved," Dimon said, referencing the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Dimon offered his assessment of China in a wide-ranging interview with Chang, where he talked about his career and the impact of AI on jobs.
In May, Dimon also advocated for more engagement between the US and China. Speaking at the JPMorgan Global China Summit in Shanghai, he said he found it heartening that US leaders were talking about derisking.
"You're not going to fix these things if you are just sitting across the Pacific yelling at each other. So I'm hoping we have real engagement," Dimon said, per Reuters.
"While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat," Burns wrote in a Foreign Affairs op-ed on January 30.
China is also set to become a focal point for US foreign policy, no matter who wins the presidential elections this year. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have talked about how they would confront and handle China if elected in 2024.
"They've got a population that is more people in retirement than working. They're not importing anything," Biden said. "They're xenophobic. Nobody else coming in. They've got real problems."
But while Dimon did single out China as a significant risk to the world, he told Chang that he is optimistic that the US could manage them.
"It'll be okay, but we need really good American leadership to do that," Dimon said.
"And don't worry, they're not a 10 foot giant, they have a lot of issues. America's got a lot of strains. I like the fact the American government's talking to them constantly now," he added.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of feed Acipenser produces each month. It is about 60 metric tons per month, not kilograms. Business Insider also misstated that Acipenser released male Sturgeon into Lake Mantasoa. This has been removed.
Donald Trump was not laughing during jury selection in his Manhattan hush money trial.
Pool/Getty Images
Five potential jurors were challenged on Tuesday for what the defense called 'anti-Trump' posts.
Trump listened as the posts were described, including an AI video titled "I Am Dumb As Fuck Trump."
None of the 5 made the jury, especially one who had posted "Lock him up" on Facebook in 2017.
One was a beheading meme. One was an AI clip titled "Dumb As Fuck Trump." Another was a 2016 get-out-the-vote video featuring Mark Ruffalo promising "to do a nude scene" in his next movie.
So far, five potential hush-money jurors have been shown the door at Donald Trump's hush-money trial after his lawyers complained about these and other "anti-Trump" social media posts.
Many of the posts were quite comical when described in open court. There was even humor in what was not described.
"I don't think that is necessary," New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan deadpanned when defense lawyer Todd Blanche offered to hit play on the "Dumb As Fuck Trump" video.
In fact, he was scolded by the judge for being audibly angry after he was forced to watch a prospective juror's video of New Yorkers dancing in the street when he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Seven jurors — four men and three women — have been chosen. Jury selection continues Thursday.
Here, in chronological order, is what happened in court Tuesday as the defense challenged the social media histories of 5 prospective jurors.
1. "To spread the honking cheer"
"So I hear what sounds like a cowbell," noted Merchan, the judge, as he listened to a video four years ago by a high school teacher and mother of two.
She was the first of the prospective jurors who were challenged by Trump's defense team on Tuesday over their "anti-Trump" social media.
Her Facebook video showed Manhattanites laughing, cheering, and dancing in the streets after Joe Biden's 2020 presidential victory.
Trump had to sit at the defense table and watch as the video was played in court, cowbells and all.
The prospective juror, identified only as "B-133," had clearly "attended an "anti-Trump rally," defense lawyer Susan Necheles protested.
"This is not a rally," countered prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.
"It seemed like a celebratory moment in New York City," the high school teacher stammered when she was called into court to explain the video.
"I mean, I think that was it, I think," she added.
Watching New Yorkers cheer in the streets over his defeat appears to have angered Trump.
"So, Mr. Blanche," the judge told Trump's lawyer, after the prospective juror left the courtroom.
"While the juror was at the podium, maybe 12 feet from your client, your client was audibly uttering something — I don't know exactly what he was uttering," the judge warned.
"I won't tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear."
2. "Get him out and lock him up"
Then there were the social media posts of the juror they called "B-38," a middle-aged man from Midtown who works as a creative director for Lands' End.
"Good news," he'd posted on Facebook in 2017, soon after Trump took office. "Trump lost his court battle and his unlawful travel ban."
In another post from around that time, he'd posted, "Get him out and lock him up" and "Watch out for stupid tweets by DJT."
"We cannot have a juror like that on the jury, your honor," Blanche told the judge, reasonably enough.
Called before the judge, the prospective juror admitted, "I had strong feelings at the time."
"This is a person who has expressed, at least at one time, it was several years ago, the desire that Donald Trump be locked up," the judge later explained of his decision to boot B-38 from the jury pool.
"Everyone knows that if Mr. Trump is found guilty in this case, he faces a potential jail sentence, which would be 'lock up.'"
3. "And to get Mark Ruffalo naked"
Eight years ago, celebrities, including Robert Downey Jr., Neil Patrick Harris, and Ruffalo, banded together for a video titled "The Avengers unite against Donald Trump… and to get Mark Ruffalo naked."
Ruffalo very reluctantly promises in the clip to "do a nude scene" in his next movie if people get out and vote.
"They should just vote 'cuz it matters, you know? Don't you think?" the star protests in the clip.
When it was released in 2016, the clip was shared on the Facebook account of the husband of prospective juror B-330.
Not the prospective juror's Facebook, mind you. It was shared on the Facebook account of the prospective juror's husband.
The husband also posted a meme in 2016 showing Trump and then-President Barack Obama side by side. It was captioned, "I don't think this is what they meant by 'orange is the new black.'"
And finally, the husband had posted, again in 2016, "just a meme of a character holding President Trump's head in their hands," Blanche complained. The head, he said, was severed.
"I guess it is a character from the Simpsons," the judge offered, querulously.
"Yes, your honor," Blanche answered.
"What is the name of this character?" the judge asked.
"I do not know," Blanche answered.
"I do not know either," the judge said.
Steinglass, the prosecutor, complained that the posts were from 2016, had not been posted by the prospective juror herself, a young woman who works for the city's Economic Development Corporation.
They were clearly "political humor," he added.
The judge was not impressed.
"Honestly," he told the defense, "if this is the worst thing that you were able to find about this juror — that her husband posted this humor, albeit not very good humor, from eight years ago — then it gives me confidence that this juror can be fair and impartial."
4. "I Am Dumb As Fuck Trump"
Just last month — but well before he could have imagined being a juror in the hush money case — a middle-aged employee at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore added some pro-Biden posts to his Facebook account.
They included some Biden-Harris campaign promotions, a news story, headlined, "Trump indicted in documents case," and what Blanche complainingly described as "a one minute and 30-second video, titled "I Am Dumb Fuck Trump."
"This is a parody video," Blanche huffed of the AI-generated clip, "that mocks President Trump the whole time."
When the lawyer offered, "We can play it for your honor," the judge declined.
"I honestly don't remember" the bookseller said, when Blanche asked if he'd watched the video. "I thought it would be funny. I don't recall watching it."
"Do you have a highly unfavorable overall impression of Donald Trump," Steinglass, the prosecutor, asked.
"I would have to say that politically, yes, I do," the prospective juror answered.
The judge let the defense boot the bookseller for cause.
5. "Boys request to return to cave"
The final prospective juror questioned on their social media posts was a retired grandmother from Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Back in 2018, the bespectacled grandmother of four and former transit employee had posted a meme about the soccer team that was rescued from a cave in Thailand.
"Trump invites Thai boys to White House," the meme read. "Boys request to return to cave."
"Republicans projected to pick up 70 seats in prison," read another meme, from the Borowitz Report, that the same woman also posted at around that time.
"This was from six years ago," the judge complained.
Called before the judge, the grandmother said that after 2018, she stopped posting "anything to do with politics."
"It got too vitriolic for people, people that I've known for years," she explained.
"So yeah, I may have posted this, but I learned a good lesson from it," she added, to laughter and smiles in the courtroom — but not from Trump.
A man walks past a mural depicting US President Joe Biden as a superhero defending Israel on a street in Tel Aviv after Iran's missile and drone attacks that began Saturday.
Leo Correa/AP Photo
The US-led operation was a decisive factor in helping Israel fend off Iran's unprecedented attack.
That's a boost for the regional air defense network the US wants.
It may compel Russia to provide more air defenses to Iran, which has supplied its Ukraine war.
The Biden administration's goal to establish a regional air defense network in the Middle East got a massive boost on Saturday night with the success of efforts by the US, Israel, Britain, France, and Jordan that intercepted nearly all of the Iranian drones and missiles targeting Israel.
"The most likely impact (of the operation) is that the Biden administration's Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) concept will convince skeptical Gulf partners — namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE — that an American concept for mutual defense in the region could benefit them as much as it did Israel," Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told Business Insider.
The US-led operation was a decisive factor in helping Israel fend off Iran's unprecedented April 13 drone and missile attack.
The enormous strike package launched by Iran on Saturday consisted of an estimated 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and over 120 ballistic missiles, the overwhelming majority of which were successfully interdicted; there are also reports that many missiles failed mid-flight from technical problems.
The United States shot down more of the incoming Iranian drones than Israel and played a central role in the "multinational air defense operation" consisting of British, French, and Jordanian air forces. Additionally, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reportedly provided intelligence about Iran's attack plans.
The Biden administration has been pushing for the MEAD concept since its early days in office. In an early combat test of MEAD, Israeli fighter jets shot down two incoming Iranian drones outside its territory in the Middle East on Mar. 15, 2021, in cooperation with unnamed Arab partners.
An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel on April 14, 2024.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The US oversaw a similar coordinated effort in the Iranian barrage that began April 13 on a vast scale, bringing together various states and their relevant surveillance and weapons systems.
"The individual weapons systems, while important, are less decisive for regional decision-making than the reassurance that the United States will be there to coordinate the use of the weapons systems," Heras said.
"Without the Americans managing the regional defense architecture, the weapons systems and reconnaissance equipment are far from a shield for Middle Eastern partners, including Israel."
While an estimated 99% of the Iranian munitions were shot down, and reports indicated others failed to launch or suffered technical failures, Tehran does not consider the operation a failure — far from it.
"Iran considers the operation a success beyond their expectations," Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst and senior fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told BI.
"More than anything, the main objective of the strike was to create a new paradigm that Iran can and will strike directly on Israeli soil when necessary," Nadimi said. "They also wanted to establish technological parity with Israel and diminish its QME (qualitative military edge), and restore their credibility and deterrence vs Israel."
The analyst believes time will tell if Iran succeeded in restoring its deterrent threat, noting that another important objective for Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary was to test its systems against Israeli and allied defenses.
"If we consider the strike as a mere message to Israel and a test of IRGC's offensive capabilities, therefore the statistics (aka how many drones and missiles were intercepted and shot down, or the extent of damage caused by those that made impacts or lack thereof) become of lesser importance, if any," Nadimi said.
A Russian Su-35 fighter jet takes off at Hemeimeem air base in Syria in September 2019.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
How the decisive and unified response to its attack influences Iran's strategy remains to be seen. Iran has deepened its military ties with Russia since 2022. Tehran expects to receive Russian fighter jets and other advanced systems that could improve its air defenses and make any strike on Iran by Israel more difficult and dangerous.
"Russia will seek to offset the US success in backing Israel by looking to buttress Iran's defense with advanced Russian systems such as the Su-35," Heras said.
According to intelligence officials, Moscow is reportedly "advancing" agreements for supplying Tehran with Su-35 Flanker jets, an air superiority fighter that's one of the most advanced in Russia's arsenal. Iran confirmed it had finalized a deal for Su-35s and Mi-28 attack helicopters in November. There were also reports last year indicating Iran also seeks the advanced Russian S-400 air defense missile system.
"Faster delivery of Russian weapons such as Su-35 or S-400 can definitely be a Russian answer to any significant US involvement in what comes next," Nadimi said.
"We have to, however, take into account that it will take months, if not years, to train and rate combat-ready Iranian crews for those complex systems."