day one hundred sixty-one

In an unprecedentedly long deployment starting in the Caribbean with the invasion of Argentina and then moving to the Middle Eastern theatre with no shore leave, care packages and beset with plumbing problems and contaminated water, more than one sailor has reportedly jumped overboard from the USS Abraham Lincoln, with the American Congress demanding to be allowed to inspect conditions. Barely deigning the counterclaims by the Trump administration, Tehran reasserts that it is in full control of the Strait of Hormuz and is not entertaining further negotiations. After twenty months and an extended maternity leave, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly resigns after being used as a decoy on the president‘s return flight from the NATO summit in Ankara—not only foregoing the gifted Air Force One out of an abundance of caution or nostalgia but also secreted onboard a third plane in a catering truck, with many members of the press corps and cabinet officials dispatched as diversion for a paranoid Trump fearing assassins.