China Syndrome:About a trillion dollars-worth of market value around the world evaporated yesterday as President Trump’s trade war with China deepened. Companies like Apple and Boeing that have a lot of business with China took serious hits.

  After China retaliated yesterday with tariffs on an additional $60 billion in US goods, Trump is now talking  about punitive tariffs on every Chinese sneaker, computer, shirt, dress, and purse imported into the US.

  While it is ultimately American companies and customers who pay the tariffs, Trump said yesterday, “I love the position we’re in, taking in billions of dollars in tariffs.”

  He said, “Our farmers will be very happy. Our manufacturers will be very happy and our government is very happy because we’re taking in tens of billions of dollars. I think it’s working out very well.”

  They are not so happy. Prices are going up and sooner or later business will slow down. Already farmers have silos full of last year’s soy beans because China refused to buy them. Some farmers are going bankrupt.

  China is in the weaker position levying tariffs because they import less American stuff than we import of Chinese stuff. But their next target could be American  companies making goods in China, and that could be very disruptive

Investigate the Investigators: With President Trump claiming that the two-year Special Counsel investigation was illegal and politically motivated, Attorney Gen. William Barr has appointed an investigator to dissect the origins of the Robert Mueller investigation of Russian election influencing.

 Barr appointed John Durham, the US attorney for the District of Connecticut.

  President Trump has declared, and Barr has suggested its true, that the US government actually spied on the Trump campaign. Durham has been charged with verifying that the  “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were “lawful and appropriate,” according to a source who spoke to The Washington Post.

  While claiming that he did no wrong, Trump has never acknowledged that the Russians tried to sway the 2016 election as Mueller and the intelligence agencies have determined. Whether Trump and his people coordinated with the Russians was always a corollary issue. Now Trump is going after the people who investigated it. 

Oil War: Saudi Arabia says drones attacked one of its oil pipelines as Yemeni rebels claim credit for a series of attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Two days ago four Saudi oil tankers were damaged by what appeared to be underwater mines.

Que Será, Será: Doris Day, the Hollywood picture of  wholesomeness, wit and musicality during the prime of her movie career in the 1950s and 60s, died in California at age 97.

 She was blonde, beautiful and had a voice that some said rivalled Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Day started out singing with the big bands of the 40s, but made it big in the movies.

 In the 1950s she starred and often sang in such hits  as “Teacher’s Pet,” “Calamity Jane,” “April in Paris,” “The Pajama Game” and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

  It was in that Hitchcock movie that she sang the song, “Que Será, Será,” which became the Doris Day song.

  Day almost accidentally became a leader in the AIDS crisis, maintaining her close friendship with the actor Rock Hudson who died of the disease when some people still believed you could catch it by shaking hands. 

  In several romantic comedies in the 60s, Day came close to the threshold of the sexual revolution, but never crossed it. Her character always kept her virtue.

  Day told the biographer AE Hotchner, “My public image is unshakably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness, an image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played. But I am Miss Chastity Belt, and that’s all there is to it.”

The Cheat Sheet:Actress Felicity Huffman tearfully pleaded guilty yesterday in a Boston federal court to paying for a proctor to improve the results of her daughter’s SAT college admissions test. She said her daughter knew nothing about it.

  Huffman’s husband, the equally prominent actor William H. Macy, appears to have skated. Evidence suggests that he knew about the scheme, but he was not charged.

Weed Killer:In a third major loss for the makers of Roundup weed killer, a California jury has awarded $2 billion to a couple who claim that their cancers were caused by Monsanto’s product. Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, California, both contracted non-Hodgkins lymphoma. 

The News Roundup: Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana joined the Democratic race for president, making the number of candidates 22. — Two small aircraft carrying cruise ship passengers in Alaska collided, killing four people and injuring 10. — Disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, now a registered sex offender, was released from a halfway house. He says he wants to live a life of service. — Former President Jimmy Carter fell and broke a hip. He’s recovering after surgery.

To the Moon, Alice:President Trump says America is returning to the moon. He tweeted, “Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASAto greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars.”

  The rockets will be powered with coal.

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