ATTENTION WALMART SHOPPERS !: Executives at Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, told industry analysts that prices are going to rise because of President Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made goods.

  Although Trump at least temporarily lowered tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said, “even at the reduced levels the tariffs will result in higher prices.” 

  Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told The Associated Press that a $350 child’s car seat could cost another $100 and that the price will rise even on bananas grown in Costa Rica. 

  Walmart says there’s a limit to how much of the tariffs they can absorb themselves. This is contrary to the claim of  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said on CNN last weekend that, “What happens is the businesses and the countries primarily eat the tariff.”

   Economists say it’s ultimately the customers who eat the tariffs. JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, a voice the money people listen to, is still warning of recession, saying in an interview, “I wouldn’t take it off the table at this point.” 

THE SUPREMES: The Supreme Court yesterday wrestled with the issue of whether federal district court judges should have the power to block executive actions of the president.

  The hearing was about lower court injunctions blocking President Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship. Trump and previous presidents both Democrat and Republican have complained about such injunctions.

  What happens is that parties suing the president go shopping for an ideologically favorable judge. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said, “In the first Trump administration, it was all done in San Francisco, and then in the next administration, it was all done in Texas, and there is a big problem that is created by that mechanism.” 

  As for babies and citizenship, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Solicitor General D. John Sauer how the administration plans to carry out Trump’s  order. Sauer replied that “federal officials will have to figure that out.”  

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

— A federal magistrate judge this week dismissed charges against nearly 100 migrants detained for trespassing on the newly-declared “national defense” zone along New Mexico’s southern border that enables the military to make arrests. Judge Gregory Wormuth said migrants had no way of knowing they were trespassing in the purported security zone.

— The Department of Homeland Security requested more than 20,000 members of the National Guard to help with President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. It would be the first time National Guard troops are used for that purpose.

  The NY Times reports that as a result of greater difficulty getting into the country, human traffickers have bumped their head price from $7,000 to $20,000. 

— The Trump administration fired hundreds of employees for the Voice of America, about a third of the staff. The administration is trying to eliminate the international broadcast arm of the US government.

  Trump whisperer Kari Lake, who’s overseeing the dismantlement, said, “We will continue to scale back the bloat at USAGM and make an archaic dinosaur into something worthy of being funded by hardworking Americans.”

MIRACLE BABY: A 9 ½ month old baby with a genetic disorder that kills half the infants who have it, was restored to good health with a first-of-its-kind gene editing procedure. KJ Muldoon had faced severe mental and developmental delays and would eventually have needed a liver transplant.

  Doctors identified the one defective gene out of 20,000 or more and gave KJ an infusion that knocked it out. The treatment migrates to the liver where command cells produce enzymes that edit the gene.

  The treatment was the result of years of federally-funded research of the kind that is being cut back under the Trump administration.

BAD RAP: The chief witness against Sean “Diddy” Combs had to take a break yesterday as defense lawyers pressed her about sexually explicit texts she traded with the man who’s accused of using and abusing her. Defense lawyer Anna Estevao made Combs’s former girlfriend Cassie Ventura read messages out loud.

   The texts were pretty blunt and singer Ventura needed a breather when Estevao brought up a text she sent to Combs describing what she couldn’t “wait” for her then-boyfriend to do to her.

  But in another message she wrote, “I get nervous that i’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with and that’s it.” 

THE OBIT PAGE:  Charles Strouse the composer of hit Broadway musicals, Bye Bye Birdie, Annie, and Applause, has died at age 96. He was a chameleon of musical styles, writing songs in the style of early rock and roll, like “One Last Kiss” from Bye Bye Birdie, or Depression-Era New York, as in “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile” from Annie.

THE SPIN RACK: An outbreak of tornados spun off 11 twisters yesterday in four midwestern states. — A San Antonio mother has been charged with aiding in the commission of terrorism for giving her 13-year-old son ammunition and tactical gear as payment for babysitting his younger siblings. Authorities say the mother, Ashley Pardo, 33, was aware of her son’s obsession with violence and warnings from his school.— Medical examiners in Maryland misclassified 36 deaths in police custody as “natural” rather than “homicides,” according to a new state report. — Apartment owners at New York’s 432 Park Avenue skyscraper are suing the building’s developers claiming a “far-reaching fraud” in which they hid structural defects including “thousands” of severe cracks on the tower’s facade. The 1,396-foot-tall, 97 story building is what is known as a “pencil tower” because it’s so skinny. — 

BELOW THE FOLD: Former FBI director James Comey is being investigated by the Secret Service for sharing on social media a photo of seashells portraying the numbers “8647”, which he captioned: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

  “86” is code for “reject” or even “kill” and Donald Trump is the 47^th president. The Secret Service will leave no shell unturned.

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