Running the Numbers: A federal judge inWashington declined to block the House Oversight and Reform Committee from getting records from President Trump’s accounting firm. US District Judge Amit Mehta stayed the order for Mazars USA to turn over the records for seven days to give the President’s lawyers time to respond.

  Trump and his business entities claim that the House is not entitled to investigate his past personal finances.  This initial ruling is a defeat for Trump in a brewing battle over separation of powers between the President and Congress. 

  Judge Mehta’s decision said Congress has the power to investigate for legislative reasons and isn’t required to produce a law as a result.

  He also said, “It is simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a President for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct—past or present—even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry.”

  Speaking to reporters in the White House driveway, Trump said, “This never happened to any other president” even though Judge Mehta began his decision citing a similar case involving President James Buchanan.

Breathing Room:President Trump’s EPA is making plans to change the calculations for estimating deaths caused by air pollution, thereby hiding the effects of  the administration’s lowered air quality standards, The NY Timesreports. It’s another example of the Trump administration lowering estimates of the effects of looser pollution standards.

The Taxi Squad:President Trump’s imprisoned former lawyer Michael Cohen told a House panel in private hearings earlier this year that he had been instructed by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow to falsely tell Congress in  2017 that negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016. Cohen later admitted that talks about the Moscow tower continued into June of the presidential election year, after it was nearly certain Trump would be the Republican nominee. 

  Cohen has said he lied because hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake in the Russian project while Trump was running for President.

Twister:A tornado watch is in effect for five states today as a rash of dangerous storms continues to churn up the plains. The National Weather Service warns of high winds and hail up to two inches in diameter in an area hit by 19 tornados Monday. As many as four million people are in danger from Texas to Missouri.

The News Roundup: A fifth migrant child has died while in federal custody. A 16-year-old boy from Guatemala was held for six days, twice as long as federal law generally permits, then transferred him to another facility after he was diagnosed with the flu. — President Donald Trump ordered former White House Counsel Don McGahn to defy a congressional subpoena, saying McGahn has immunity because of his close work with Trump. — As it slims down in preparation to produce electric and self-driving vehicles, Ford Motor announced that it is letting go 7,000 white-collar workers around the world, about 10% of the company’s salaried workforce. — A man who spent six hours climbing the Eiffel Tower yesterday was arrested near the top. So close.

The Obit Page:Georgie Anne Geyer, an adventurous  foreign correspondent and syndicated columnist who broke into the ranks of a trade plied mostly by men, died in Washington at age 84. She bounced between the world’s trouble spots,  travelled with leftist guerrillas in Guatemala, and interviewed Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein. — Niki Lauda, the Austrian racecar driver who won three Formula One world championships and was regarded as one of the great race drivers of all time, has died at age 70. Lauda was horribly burned in a crash in 1976, but returned to racing only six weeks later. He said, “People race — to feel the speed, the car and the control. If in my time you pushed too far, you would have killed yourself. You had to balance on that thin line to stay alive.”

Hoop Dreams:Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors demolished the Portland Trail Blazers and his brother Seth Curry in four straight games to enter the NBA finals for the fifth year in a row. They are the first team to do that since the Boson Celtics in 1966.