标签： North America

In an unprecedented fact-checking and monitoring effort, BBC Verify has leveraged cutting-edge commercial satellite imagery to follow the movements of the USS Lincoln, a United States Navy aircraft carrier currently embarked on one of the longest extended maritime deployments in recent U.S. military history.

The multi-month mission has sparked growing public and policy-focused concern over a range of critical issues, from the operational wear and tear on the warship itself to the physical and mental well-being of the thousands of service members deployed aboard. Unlike routine deployments that typically last between six and seven months, the USS Lincoln’s current assignment has stretched well beyond standard timelines, leaving observers questioning the strategic rationale and the toll of the extended tour.

BBC Verify’s satellite tracking initiative offers unprecedented public visibility into the carrier’s movements across global waters, filling information gaps left by limited official U.S. Defense Department updates. As the deployment continues, questions surrounding the sustainability of the mission and the working conditions for crew members have intensified, prompting calls for greater transparency from military leadership about the carrier’s operational objectives and timeline for return to home port.

In a sharp escalation of the second Trump administration’s campaign to undermine and dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC), U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced new sanctions against the court’s newly installed president and a senior trial lawyer. The punitive measures, authorized under an executive order Trump issued last year targeting ICC officials, target Japan’s Tomoko Akane, who began her three-year term as ICC president earlier in 2024, and Senegalese senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye.

Rubio accused the two ICC leaders of directly participating in the court’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain and prosecute officials of countries that have not accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction. In an official statement, he characterized the ICC, a 125-member supranational body tasked with prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as a corrupt and irredeemably politicized institution that has abused its authority and overstepped its mandate. He emphasized that the U.S. would not accept what he called the court’s attack on national sovereignty. As of the announcement, neither President Trump nor the White House had issued additional public comment, and the ICC has not yet released a response to the sanctions.

This latest action marks the continuation of a years-long U.S. campaign against the court. The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on at least 11 other ICC officials, including nine sitting judges and the court’s chief prosecutor. These measures include full asset freezes, travel bans to the U.S. and prohibitions on U.S. companies providing goods and services to the sanctioned individuals. The sanctions were initially imposed in retaliation for two major ICC actions: the opening of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, and the court’s issuance of arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Neither the U.S. nor Israel are member states of the ICC; Netanyahu has denied all war crime allegations and has claimed the court’s actions are driven by antisemitism.

Trump’s opposition to the ICC stretches back to his first presidential term, when he labeled the court a threat to U.S. sovereignty and told the United Nations General Assembly that the institution held no jurisdiction, legitimacy or authority over the United States. Last month, Rubio doubled down on the administration’s stance, calling on all 125 ICC member states to withdraw from the institution as part of the U.S.’s stated goal of dismantling the court “brick by brick.” A senior U.S. official noted that Washington would closely monitor which countries heed the call and which reject it.

Established in 2002, the ICC holds international jurisdiction to prosecute the world’s most serious crimes in situations that occur within a member state’s territory or when a case is referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council. But the Trump administration’s campaign has drawn fierce pushback from human rights organizations, legal groups and current ICC officials, who argue the U.S. is violating international law and enabling global impunity for war crimes and atrocities.

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, described the administration’s actions last week as an attempt to secure an unconditional “get-out-of-jail-free card” for any actors the U.S. chooses to protect. Four leading U.S. human rights groups—Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Institute, the American Friends Service Committee and the Center for Constitutional Rights—have already filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in New York challenging the dismantling campaign, arguing the sanctions regime is unconstitutional. The groups argue that the sanctions block their ability to collaborate with the ICC to pursue accountability for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity across the globe.

This legal challenge is not the only one facing the administration: In June, three ICC judges targeted by earlier sanctions also filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court arguing that the punitive measures against them are unlawful. The judges—Kimberly Prost of Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin—contend that the sanctions are designed to apply extrajudicial pressure to punish and coerce ICC judges into changing their conduct. The White House has defended its actions, arguing that Trump lawfully exercised his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the sanctions.

The practical impact of the sanctions extends far beyond formal restrictions, as any global bank with ties to the U.S. or that processes transactions in U.S. dollars is required to comply with the measures. This severely limits sanctioned ICC officials’ ability to carry out even basic, routine financial transactions, significantly hampering their work. Since Trump’s return to the White House following the 2024 presidential election, his administration led by Rubio has adopted an increasingly aggressive stance toward the ICC. In a July video statement launching the formal dismantling campaign, Rubio claimed the ICC is “waging a war against our country” through its use of international legal frameworks, and warned that if the court continues to challenge U.S. sovereignty, the U.S. would demonstrate the full weight of its response.

A landmark legal proceeding against Meta Platforms is unfolding in U.S. courts, carrying the potential to reshape how social media platforms operate for youth users across the country. The trial traces its origins back to 2023, when a coalition of 29 state governments launched a joint lawsuit against the tech giant. In their legal filing, the states allege that Meta has systematically engaged in a pattern of violating both federal and state-level privacy statutes specifically designed to protect children and adolescents online.

This multi-state action marks one of the most significant regulatory challenges to major social media companies in recent years, centered on the core issue of youth data privacy. The allegations in the suit touch on longstanding public concerns about how platforms collect, use, and share underage users’ personal information, as well as whether companies have taken adequate steps to prevent unauthorized access to children’s data. Legal analysts note that the outcome of this trial could set a powerful precedent for future regulation of social media platforms, influencing industry-wide practices for youth user protection and establishing clearer legal boundaries for privacy compliance when it comes to child users.

As the legal process moves forward, stakeholders across the tech industry, child advocacy groups, and policymakers are closely monitoring the proceedings. A ruling favoring the states could open the door to more aggressive regulatory action against other major social media platforms, while also pushing companies to implement more robust privacy safeguards for young people by default. Even beyond the immediate legal outcome, the trial has already drawn renewed national attention to the urgent need for stronger protections for youth in the digital social media space.

A high-stakes legal battle over press freedom and government overreach has erupted in the United States, after media conglomerate Disney and its eight ABC owned-and-operated stations filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its chairman Brendan Carr, challenging an unprecedented order to launch early broadcast license renewal proceedings. The media company alleges the move is a deliberate retaliatory campaign orchestrated by the Trump administration to punish ABC for its critical editorial coverage of the president and his administration.

In the court filing submitted Tuesday, Disney calls the FCC’s order a historically unprecedented break from decades of regulatory practice. The company notes that the commission has not forced any broadcast network to complete early license renewals in more than 50 years, and this marks the first time the agency has demanded rushed renewal applications for an entire batch of commonly owned stations from a single major network. Ordinarily, preparing license renewal applications takes months of work, but the FCC gave Disney just 30 days to submit the completed paperwork – a timeline Disney describes as unnecessarily burdensome and intentionally punitive.

The lawsuit lays out a clear paper trail to back up its retaliation claims, pointing directly to public statements and social media posts from President Donald Trump himself. Trump has repeatedly complained that ABC’s coverage of his administration is almost 100% negative, and in one public social media post he openly questioned whether the network’s broadcast licenses should be terminated, answering his own question with a clear “Yes!”. The timing of the FCC’s order has also fueled suspicion: the early renewal notice was issued just one day after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel delivered a on-air joke about first lady Melania Trump. Prior to that, Disney had already faced scrutiny from the administration over its internal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, as well as content on ABC’s popular daytime talk show *The View*.

The FCC and its chairman have pushed back against the allegations, framing the early renewal process as a measure focused on upholding the public interest, not political retaliation. “If broadcasters don’t like that, that’s okay,” Carr told CNBC in an earlier July interview. “They can become a cable channel, they can become a podcast, they can stream online. But if you want to uniquely be on the public’s airwaves, you have to comply with those obligations.” The BBC has reached out to the FCC for additional comment on the ongoing lawsuit, but has not yet received an official response.

This confrontation is the latest escalation of a long-running tense standoff between the Trump administration and ABC that stretches back months. Carr, who President Trump once publicly praised as a “warrior for free speech”, has long positioned himself at the center of the administration’s combative approach to critical media outlets, and has made clear since before taking the chairman role that he intends to interpret the FCC’s regulatory authority broadly. As early as September 2025, Carr openly threatened regulatory action against Disney after Kimmel made public remarks about the murder of conservative activist and prominent Trump ally Charlie Kirk. Speaking to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, Carr issued a blunt ultimatum: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find a way to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or you know there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Under immediate pressure from Carr, Disney temporarily pulled Kimmel off the air, but the decision sparked massive public backlash over accusations of violating free speech principles – even from prominent Republican Senator Ted Cruz – leading Disney to reverse course and restore Kimmel to his hosting role just a short time later. This is not the first legal clash between Trump and ABC: earlier this year, Trump successfully sued ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos for defamation after Stephanopoulos incorrectly stated that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case, when the jury had actually found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. ABC ultimately settled the suit, agreeing to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation and museum, plus an additional $1 million to cover his legal fees.

In their current lawsuit, Disney and ABC are asking the court for a speedy hearing on the dispute, as well as a temporary restraining order to block the FCC’s early renewal requirement. At its core, the suit argues that the administration’s pressure campaign through the FCC amounts to unconstitutional government censorship, writing in its filing, “Government censorship is deeply un-American. This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that.”