Dominoes:The first man to fall in the Jeffrey Epstein teenage sex scandal is Labor Secretary Alex Acosta who as the US Attorney in Southern Florida arranged a sweetheart plea and jail deal for the serial molester of teenage girls. Acosta resigned yesterday only two days after calling a news conference in which he defended himself.

President Trump tweeted, “He felt the constant drumbeat of press about a prosecution which took place under his watch more than 12 years ago was bad for the Administration, which he so strongly believes in, and he graciously tendered his resignation.”

Trump had given Acosta only tepid support on Thursday, an indication that resignation might be welcome.

The NY Times reports that Acosta had handled his job at Labor in a way that would please congressional Democrats because his ultimate goal was to get a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The paper reports that Acosta didn’t have many big supporters in the White House.

Epstein remains in jail facing new charges and the Times reports that he recently wired $350,000 to witnesses against him.

Times columnist  Michele Goldberg writes that, “Even with Acosta gone, however, Epstein remains a living reminder of the depraved milieu from which the president sprang, and of the corruption and misogyny that continue to swirl around him. Yet Trump has been only intermittently interested in distancing himself from that milieu. More often he has sought, whether through strategy or instinct, to normalize it.”

Unfriended:The Federal Trade Commission has decided to fine Facebook $5 billion for mishandling the personal information of the website’s users. The fine still has to be approved by the Justice Department, but the Trump administration is no friend of the social media companies.

Washington bureaucrats are becoming increasingly stern about how the tech giants deal with private information.

Kids in Cages:The Trump administration has agreed to let a Stanford University pediatrician conduct an independent investigation of conditions for migrant children at US Customs and Border Protection facilities.

The pediatrician, Dr. Paul Wise, toured facilities last summer and said migrant children were kept in a “kind of cage-like” processing center. “From there, they get moved to a different processing center, which is kind of cage-like, and labeled the ‘perrera,’ the dog pound,” he said nearly a year ago.

The House Oversight Committee yesterday heardtestimony from the Department of Homeland Security’s acting inspector general, Jennifer Costello, whose inspectors found “serious overcrowding and prolonged detention in Border Patrol facilities requiring immediate attention.”

The Washington Post reports that, “When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.”

Post reporter Josh Dawsey tweeted, “The men said they were hungry and wanted to brush teeth. Most didn’t speak English but gestured at us. CBP said three meals are brought in a day & they can brush daily. Stench was horrendous. CPB said it is cleaned 3x a day. Heat was sweltering. CBP said it was air conditioned.”

Nevertheless, after visiting the first facility, Pence said, “Every family I spoke to said they were being well cared for, and that’s different than some of the harsh rhetoric we hear from Capitol Hill.”

The News Roundup:Tropical storm Barry is approaching New Orleans this morning, threatening to dump from 10 to 20 inches of rain through the weekend. — Among the new charges placed against singer R. Kelly is that he paid off the victim and her family in a 2008 underage sex case in which he was ultimately acquitted. An indictment opened yesterday says that one of his victims was 12 or 13 when he met her. — In an act of street justice, a crowd in Philadelphia Thursday night beat to death a 54-year-old man who stole a car with three children in it while their parents were in a store. The parents and crowd caught up with the carjacker when he got stuck in traffic. — The testimony of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller before Congress has been delayed until July 24^th under an agreement that will give lawmakers more time to ask questions.

Ancient History:Archaeologists in Sweden found two rare boat burials from the Viking-age, offering what they say is a glimpse into changing customs during the era of raids, religious conversion, and trade.

The burials believed to date from the 10^thcentury were found in Gamla Uppsala, underneath a plot of modern houses near a parish. One boat was found intact with the remains of a man in the stern. A horse and a dog were buried in the bow, with a sword, spear, and a shield.

Boat burials were rare — they used to burn them. Archaeologists believe that the decision not to cremate is an indicator of the arrival of Christianity in Scandinavia.

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