The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS^7
Washington, D.C.
Fighting the FBI:
Former Russia probe
investigator Peter
Strzok sued the FBI
this week, claim-
ing “unrelenting
pressure from President Trump” led to
his firing last August. The 22-year FBI
veteran says his constitutional rights
were violated in late 2017, when the
bureau released nearly 400 of his text
messages with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in
which Strzok called Trump an “idiot”
and referred to the Russia probe as
an “insurance policy” should Trump
be elected. The incendiary texts fueled
the claim that the “Deep State” had a
strong anti-Trump bias, yet he insists
his views didn’t affect his work, adding
that the FBI initially decided against fir-
ing Strzok. His lawsuit contends that his
texts were private and thus protected
by the First Amendment. In contrast, he
cites Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior
aide who has repeatedly violated restric-
tions on partisan advocacy from federal
employees. Trump has ignored several
recommendations to discipline her.Chicago
Deadly weekend: Chicago suffered its
most violent weekend of 2019, with seven
people dead and 52 injured in 32 separate
shootings last week. After 17 people were
shot in a two-hour stretch, a hospital
stopped accepting patients because it was
filled to capacity. Most of the violence
stemmed from gang- and drug-related dis-
putes, police said, causing a gun battle at
a park and a flurry of drive-by shootings.
While shootings have fallen since 2018,
at least 1,600 Chicagoans have been shot
this year. On Twitter, Ivanka Trump said
Chicago’s weekend spike caused “little
national outrage or media coverage,”
adding, “we mustn’t become numb to the
violence faced by inner city communi-
ties every day.” Critics said Trump was
exploiting the violence to muddy the gun
debate. “I’m not going to be distracted
by nonsense tweets from people who
don’t know what they’re talking about,”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.Santa Fe, N.M.
Nightmare ranch: Jeffrey Epstein, the
indicted financier accused of sexually
trafficking girls as young as 14, fanta-
sized about
spreading
his DNA by
impregnat-
ing dozens
of women,
The New
York Times
reported last
week. He
spoke of inseminating 20 women at a
time, friends recall, and having them live
at his 33,000-square-foot ranch outside
Santa Fe. One former confidant thinks
Epstein used his extravagant dinner
parties to screen accomplished women
who might bear his children. Epstein’s
multimillions endeared him to some of
the world’s top scientists, with whom
he shared fringe theories about
improving humanity and extend-
ing life spans; Epstein reportedly
wanted his head and penis to
be cryogenically frozen upon
his death. His July indict-
ment reignited fury over his
lenient prosecution in 2008
after being accused of molest-
ing dozens of girls. Goaded by
the flood of revelations, Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis this week
ordered a probe into Palm Beach’s
handling of the case.Hyannis Port, Mass.
Kennedy curse: Saoirse Kennedy Hill, the
22-year-old granddaughter of Robert F.
Kennedy, died
last week at
her family’s
New England
compound.
She was found
in cardiac
arrest, report-
edly from a
drug over-
dose. The daughter of Courtney Kennedy
Hill, the fifth of Robert and Ethel’s 11
children, Saoirse was a rising senior
at Boston College who was active in
Democratic politics and volunteer work.
She also spoke openly of her struggles
with depression. The night before her
death, Kennedy Hill ate dinner with her
grandmother and then went out, return-
ing before dawn to swim in the Atlantic
Ocean as the sun rose. Her death
follows a history of family trag-
edies, from John and Robert
Kennedy’s assassinations to
the plane crashes that killed
John F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen
Kennedy. After Kennedy Hill’s
death, Ethel, 91, said, “The world is a
little less beautiful today.”Galveston, Texas
Echoes of Jim Crow: Galveston’s police
chief apologized this
week after a photo
emerged of two white
officers on horse-
back leading a black
suspect in handcuffs
down the street with
a rope tied to him.
The image went viral
on social media, with
many saying it evoked
images of slavery.
Donald Neely, 43,
had been arrested for criminal trespass in
a commercial district and was escorted
about four blocks with what police
insisted was a “line,” not a rope, clipped
to his handcuffs. Neely has lived on the
streets for about seven years, his family
said, his condition made worse since he
stopped taking medication for bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. Police knew
all this, they maintained. “He was treated
like an animal paraded through the
streets,” sister-in-law Christin Neely said.New York City
Bomber sentenced: Cesar Sayoc, a
Florida man who mailed pipe bombs to
the president’s rivals last fall, was sen-
tenced to 20 years in prison this week.
Prosecutors sought a life sentence for
Sayoc, 57, whose 16 targets included
President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and
CNN’s New York offices, and Sayoc
looked up at the courtroom ceiling,
sobbed, and mouthed “thank you” upon
hearing the sentence. The former pizza
delivery man, described as a “Trump
superfan” by his lawyers, was “fully
capable” of building functional bombs,
Judge Jed Rakoff said, but appeared
to decide not to. Still, he filled padded
envelopes with pipes packed with fire-
work powder, fertilizer, a pool chemi-
cal, and glass fragments. Each package
included a photograph of the intended
victim crossed out with a red “X.” Sayoc
“hated his victims,” the judge said. “But
he was not so lost as to wish them dead,
Re at least not by his own hand.”
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