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A message shared by one of the top admirals in the U.S. Navy after visiting the stranded crew on the USS Abraham Lincoln sparked fireworks on Sunday. Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads United States Central Command, said on Sunday that his time aboard the ship was "awe-inspiring," although he admitted that being deployed at sea for long periods "isn't for everyone." Cooper also noted that the mental health challenges reported by sailors on the ship are lower than those of other carriers that are not deployed near Iran. Cooper's visit came just days after Trump seemed to bash the sailors on the ship, some of whom have reportedly thrown themselves overboard to escape the conditions. Reports also indicate the ship is running low on essential supplies like food, medical items, and female hygiene products. Cooper's comments also sparked backlash from analysts, some of whom described his claims as "gaslighting.""The gaslighting of the Sailors onboard USS Lincoln and their families is disheartening. My Shipmates deserve better," Travis Akers, a retired Navy intelligence officer, posted on X. "Gaslighting on new levels," Rose Benson, a comedian, posted on X. "Old enough to remember when the Department of Defense used to embed journalists in deployed US forces when America was at war. I guess that's only for LEGAL, not ILLEGAL wars," Dan Garrett, a political scientist, posted on X.

A nanny who was recently released from custody shared horrific details of her time in captivity during a new interview Sunday. Iliana Lick, an Argentinian nanny who was working for two families in Philadelphia, was recently arrested by President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement troops after she was accused of overstaying her visa "without permission," she told CNN National Correspondent Rafael Romo. Although she has been released and is back home in Philadelphia, Lick recalled several disturbing details about her time in multiple ICE facilities. Romo recounted some of the details during a segment on CNN "Newsroom" with host Fredricka Whitfield. "Lick told me she's going through a roller coaster of emotions and that trying to go back to normal has been weird because she's thinking of all the time about the other people in detention she met while in custody of [ICE]," Romo said. Lick, who primarily shared her story in Spanish, told Romo that she was released on a $10,000 bond and forced to wear an ankle monitor after her release. She was also moved through multiple ICE facilities while she was detained. At each stop, "she and other detainees had to wear a black and white striped jail uniform while wearing full restraints that included ankle cuffs and shackles," like they did when they were held in Cambria County Prison in Pennsylvania. Romo noted that ICE had also tried to impugn Lick's character by describing her as an "illegal alien" in a news release after she was let out of custody. "She felt she was being treated as a common criminal and insisted that she shouldn't have been detained in the first place because she has always complied with immigration law," Romo recounted. "She said, 'I paid all the fees. I went to all the hearings. My case was pending. I was never out of status.'"Lick will be in front of an immigration judge again in about a week and a half, Romo said.

President, 80, vows to keep far-right from power as Flávio Bolsonaro tells supporters he will ‘fight this system’Brazil’s leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has launched his campaign for a historic fourth term and vowed that as long as he lived he would not allow the “shameless” right to return to power.Addressing a sea of supporters in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial city where his political career began nearly half a century ago, the 80-year-old politician reminded voters of the chaos and violence that unfolded during the 2018-22 presidency of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, whose son Flávio Bolsonaro will face Lula in October’s presidential election. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's administration has quietly "weaponized" a power cloaked in secrecy to punish his critics and prop up corrupt power brokers, according to a new report. Trump's government has been revoking the visas of foreign leaders, judges and journalists while quietly reinstating those of like-minded allies, the New York Times reported Sunday.“No recent American administration ever did this kind of open attack on freedom of expression” said John Feeley, a career diplomat. “A congressman or a prosecutor without a U.S. visa...is somebody who is flying with a broken wing.”Past State departments have also revoked visas but mostly to keep security threats out of the country or fight corruption, the Times reported.It is difficult to quantify the tactic as visa records are confidential, but the State Department said in a statement to the Times that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials have “broad discretionary authority” to cancel visas “whenever and wherever."Johana Obando, a Costa Rican lawmaker whose personal and diplomatic visas were canceled, said she felt like the Trump administration was sending her a message. “It is a way of intimidating decision makers to benefit the United States,” she said. The Trump administration also rewards others whom critics say it should not.“Corruption, human rights violations or judicial interference no longer matter,” Ana María Méndez Dardón, of the rights group Washington Office on Latin America, told the Times. At least three senior Salvadoran officials whom former President Joe Biden considered too corrupt or anti-democratic to earn visas have benefited, according to the report."Visa revocations have also been used to suppress criticism of the Trump administration, or even of U.S.-aligned foreign leaders," the report stated. "In Panama, for example, after two politicians criticized a sweeping security pact between their country and the United States, they were notified that their U.S. visas had been revoked."

President Donald Trump said he would declare the Strait of Hormuz as a United States territory during a speech on Friday.Trump was speaking at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City, New York, where he was touting his crackdown on crime and campaigning at a rally with Republican gubernatorial candidate and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.He claimed Iran was "being badly defeated." "Pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States," Trump said. Trump says that after Iran is defeated he’s going to declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States pic.twitter.com/zmZsqtY3VS— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 14, 2026

As concerns mounted Friday over poor conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, families of military service members on another Navy ship were pleading for help.A new report from independent journalist Aaron Parnas detailed the troubling conditions and declining morale shared by sailors' families, including how service members on the USS George H.W. Bush were facing "virtually no food, water, or soap," The Daily Beast reported.A loved one of two U.S. sailors told Parnas via text how the situation was worsening for sailors on the warship in the Arabian Sea as the Iran war now drags on for more than five months."They've been out at sea for 146 days with no end in sight," the unnamed family member said. They learned about the conditions when her sister-in-law left the ship for a family emergency. "Morale is low, and everyone is miserable. It's heartbreaking."The USS Bush left Norfolk, Virginia, in March, The Beast reported.The reports onboard follow growing frustration about the USS Abraham Lincoln's roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines, who are nine months into a deployment that was supposed to end in May, with no return date announced.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed back on the accounts, telling reporters Thursday that the conditions had been "completely misrepresented," though he did not specify his concerns with the reporting. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who pressed Hegseth for answers, rejected that characterization as disrespectful to the sailors enduring the hardships.The Navy has acknowledged the war disrupted supply routes but said the Lincoln now has access to clean water and healthy meals. The carrier USS George Washington is being sent to relieve the ship, which has been at sea more than 240 days with only two port calls.

People were outraged on Friday after President Donald Trump downplayed the reportedly poor conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where service members have described a dire situation.Trump was boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland heading to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York when the press corps started asking him questions about the naval vessel and sailors on board."Family members of service members are concerned about conditions on the USS Lincoln," one reporter said."That ship is moving. No, they’re not," Trump responded, saying that the ship would be replaced with another ship."Has the deployment gone on too long?" The reporter asked."No, no, no. Not nearly long enough," Trump said, not acknowledging military family members' worries.Political commentators and media experts reacted to the president's remarks.Internet personality and Chronicles associate editor Pedro L. Gonzalez reacted to Trump's response."Trump doesn't care about American troops at all," Gonzalez wrote on X. "He thinks people who serve in the military are suckers. He thinks people who fight and die for this country are fools. I don't know how you can hear Trump explicitly state that he's unconcerned about these service members and their families, that he thinks they haven't been deployed *long enough* in his idiotic war, and still conclude that he's deeply concerned about American lives."Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), an Iraq war veteran, had a sharp reaction to Trump's comments."Cadet Bone Spurs thinks he understands what happens on deployments," Gallego wrote on X. Progressive activist Alex Cole mocked Trump. "Trump: We love our military. Military: We have concerns. Trump: No you don’t," Cole wrote on X.U.S. Army veteran and activist Skyleigh Uhrich had a direct message for families of military service members."Attention Military & Military Families: Trump said 200 days of deployment at sea with no port of call is not along [sic] enough! All of you need to vote accordingly in November, all of your family members are being used as pawns in his sick game! He wouldn’t last 24 hrs pathetic mf!" Uhrich wrote on X.Liberal commentator Lucas Sanders responded to the president."Translation: I don’t care about their conditions," Sanders wrote on X.Trump doesn't care about American troops at all. He thinks people who serve in the military are suckers. He thinks people who fight and die for this country are fools. I don't know how you can hear Trump explicitly state that he's unconcerned about these service members and their… https://t.co/oEvuDGiZ9j— Pedro L. Gonzalez (@emeriticus) August 14, 2026

Iran experts expressed extreme alarm Friday as more information emerged about President Donald Trump's frantic escape from a missile threat in a catering container, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Friday.The ploy to switch planes from Air Force One to another jet amid a threat from Iran has ignited a media firestorm and raised more questions about the current war. As Trump boarded another plane, which was accompanied by jet fighters, it left the press unknowingly vulnerable on Air Force One with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent."A U.S. official defended the response, noting the daily dangers Trump faces and said the threat revealed by the intelligence was serious enough for the Secret Service to greenlight the decoy plan and send the warplanes," according to The Journal."There are also growing fears about what the maneuver reveals: an administration genuinely concerned that Iran-linked assassins could, even in a friendly nation, endanger Trump," The Journal reported. Holly Dagres, an Iran expert at the think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described why this Trump administration move was so significant."It’s quite extraordinary that the president had to be smuggled onto a different plane after a NATO summit in a NATO country," Dagres said. "While the Trump administration touts the weakness of the Islamic Republic, its reach remains extensive enough to allegedly try and kill the most heavily protected leader in the world."