The Threatdown: We were going to begin with bug bites or auto emissions. A shark attack would have been good. But once again President Trump knows how to dominate the top of the news.

Question Mark and the Mysterions: The special counsel raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena to President Trump in a meeting with his lawyers, several news outlets report.

The Washington Post says that Trump’s lawyer at the time, John Dowd, retorted, “This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

A  Post editorial today says, “Under oath or not, Mr. Trump owes the country answers.”

Special Counsel (that’s the correct spelling) Robert Mueller is still negotiating an interview with Trump, and the President is angry that the questions were released, possibly by his own people. He tweeted, “So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!”

Actually, the list does include questions about collusion without using that word.

He also doesn’t seem to know how the law works. Trump tweeted, “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened! Witch Hunt!”

Well, yes, if you obstruct prosecutors even in finding your innocence, it’s obstruction of justice.

Bugbitten: Infections from mosquito, tick, and flea bites has more than tripled in the United States in recent years, the Centers for Disease Control says. The diseases include Lyme, Zika and Rocky mountain Spotted fever.

The CDC scientist in charge of the study attributes the surge to warmer weather — a longer bug bite season — but he was careful to skirt the politically fraught subject of climate warming.

Environmental Damage: California along with 17 other states and the District of Columbia have sued the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent it from weakening auto emission standards and make it enforce the Clean Air Act.

“States representing 140 million Americans are getting together to sue Outlaw Pruitt — not Administrator Pruitt, but Outlaw Pruitt,” California’s Gov. Jerry Brown of California said about the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt. “This is about health, it’s about life and death. I’m going to fight it with everything I can.”

The Obama administration set new vehicle standards to be met by 2025. After meeting with leaders of the car companies, Pruitt drew up new rules to weaken the Obama standards by 2020.

Also in EPA News, the agency’s chief of security and the head of the Superfund program, an old friend of Pruitt’s, abruptly quit. The security chief says he will continue to cooperate with an investigation into Pruitt’s high spending on security and a sound proof phone booth.

Doctored Report: President Trump’s longtime personal doctor in New York, Harold Bornstein, says Trump personally dictated the 2015 letter giving the presidential hopeful a clean bill of  health. The letter said that if Trump was elected president, he “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” language that everyone knew at the time was prime Trump.

“He dictated that whole letter,” Bornstein said. “I didn’t write that letter.”

Bornstein said that he was also the subject of “a raid” by Trump’s personal security director and a lawyer who took Trump’s medical records in early 2017. The White House says it was a routine recovery of presidential health records.

High Crimes: Australian Cardinal George Pell, a close adviser to the Pope, has gone to trial, becoming the highest-ranking Catholic leader to face criminal judgement. Charges probably years ago.

Brazil: A massive fire consumed an abandoned high rise building in Sao Paolo occupied by squatters early yesterday morning. Almost all of them appear to have escaped before the building came crashing down in a fireball. One person was heard screaming for help just before the collapse.

The Big Buyback: Apple announced that it will bring back $100 billion in profits held overseas by buying back its own stock. It’s great for investors, but it’s another example of how under the new tax law companies are using the money they’ve shielded overseas to pump up their stock value rather than sink it into research or higher pay for employees.

The Social Media: Facebook says it’s setting up an online dating application aimed at long term relationships rather than hookups. In Facebook time, that’s 10 minutes.

Instagram says it has developed a filter to weed out online bullies from its 800 million users.

Instagram is such a wimp.

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