Despite the biggest supply shock in history, the oil market turned out to be significantly more flexible than most experts anticipated.
A Liberian oil tanker made its way out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday despite threats to shipping from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and using a new route close to Oman’s shore that has been promoted by a UN maritime agency.
President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to hold a popular piece of legislation hostage to force Republicans to pass his sweeping election reform legislation baffled one MS NOW analyst on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed Congress with support from a supermajority of lawmakers. He did so in an attempt to pressure lawmakers to pass the SAVE Act, a bill that would fundamentally reshape how American elections are conducted. Simone Sanders Townsend, co-host of "The Weeknight," was baffled by the idea. "It is actually insane," she said during Wednesday's broadcast. "He's literally trying to hold us hostage, and he is telling us very clearly what he cares about."Townsend mentioned that Trump has tried to fundamentally redefine what it means to be an American through legislation like the SAVE Act, which would restrict the right to vote for people who don't meet certain documentary requirements. That is happening at a time when voters say affordability is their top concern in the 2026 midterm elections. "He is trying to attack citizenship from every single way here, and he is willing to literally throw the American people to the side," Townsend said. "Affordability is the number one thing folks care about. This is crazy!"
President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly cancel a bill-signing ceremony on Wednesday for a widely popular piece of legislation raised red flags for one political analyst. Trump announced on Truth Social that he was canceling the signing event for a bipartisan housing affordability bill, and said it won't be signed until the SAVE America Act is passed, a bill that would fundamentally transform how American elections are conducted. John Heilemann, a journalist and MS NOW political analyst, warned during a segment on "Deadline: White House" that Trump used a phrase to remember in his Truth Social post announcing the cancellation, one that will become more important as the 2026 midterm elections draw near. "Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT," Trump wrote in a pithy post.Heilmann warned that the post revealed Trump's strategy for interfering in the 2026 midterm election. "Donald Trump is starting to broadcast his strategy for interfering with, intervening in, and trying to steal the 2026 election," Heilmann said. "'National emergency' is a phrase that you should remember because I think we're going to start to see it more and more in Donald Trump's communications, both on social media and his language when he talks about these things on the stump. That is how you get to a justification for starting to seize control of the election apparatus and mechanisms ... by which we hold elections. 'National emergency.' He said it right there. I think we are going to hear it again."
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday that the United States is in a position to maintain normal flows of oil through the Strait of Hormuz even if the U.S. is unable to strike a broader peace deal with Iran. His comments add to recent assertions from Trump administration officials that the U.S. can control the […]
WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Wednesday, readers! Coming up this Friday is the grand opening of the National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, D.C. The new museum will feature exhibitions celebrating National Geographic explorers, visual storytelling, and photographs showcasing the United States’ history and culture. 📸🐂🐒🏞️🌊 We can’t wait to check it […]
The U.S. lifted its naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz last week, but the returning commercial trade has not been a return to normal—and Americans are still feeling it at the gas pump.In a Truth Social post addressing the discrepancy, Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that he had directed the Department of Justice to investigate oil companies, accusing them of “gouging” customers based on the persisting inflated prices.“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump posted, just after midnight. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!” he added.While crude oil and gas prices have both fallen since Iran and the U.S. signed a tentative peace deal last week, the drop in gas prices has been relatively minimal. Crude was down over 5 percent between June 18 and June 24, but gas was down by half of that—2.5 percent—in the same period, according to data from the AAA gasoline price tracker.Trump had promised throughout the war that gas prices would plummet “like a rock” once the violence concluded, but that has clearly not been the case, much to the chagrin of his vulnerable Republican allies in Congress, who will have to rationalize the dampened economy to voters come November. Trump and his team have also promised that Americans could expect lower gas prices than the average from even before the war began—around $2.98 per gallon. At the time of publication, the cost of gas is $3.92 per gallon across the country, though some areas in California, such as San Luis Obispo, are still seeing prices around $5.78 per gallon, according to the AAA tracker.Over the last month, crude oil prices have dropped by 27 percent while gas prices were down by just 13 percent, reported Yahoo Finance.
President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to investigate major oil companies over gasoline prices, accusing Big Oil of failing to pass sharply lower crude costs on to American workers and families fast enough. The post Trump Orders DOJ Probe Into Big Oil, Says Americans Are Being Gouged After Middle East Peace Breakthrough appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Donald Trump dreamed of turning the Lincoln Reflecting Pool “American Flag Blue” in advance of celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. Instead, he got a pungent, bright green embarrassment. National Parks employees have yet to fully remove the algal bloom that sprang up after Trump’s ill-fated paint job, despite applying vacuums, hydrogen peroxide, and nanobubbles to the problem; the next step will be to drain the now-swampy basin for the second time this month and restore the blue sealant that has been floating to the surface in unsightly chunks. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Washington D.C.’s Department of Energy and the Environment was conducting an investigation into what killed the multiple ducks that have been found dead in the pool’s waters. It’s all a bit too on the nose. The tacky $16.4 million vanity project was carried out in part by giving a $1.7 million no-bid contract to a firm called (appropriately enough) Greenwater Services, which is owned by an already scandal-laden Trump loyalist, John J. Cafaro. On June 15, workers reported that one or two of the four algae-killing machines Greenwater used weren’t working at any given time. Trump has—without evidence—blamed the algae problem on “vandals,” alleging that anonymous hoodlums sabotaged the pool with knives and fertilizer; this does not seem to be true. Still, as of June 24, the Parks Police, National Guard, and U.S. Marshals have been patrolling the usually placid site. As of Tuesday, six arrests had been made. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt claimed—also without evidence—that those detained included “longtime donors to the Democrat Party, to Barack Obama, to ActBlue.” Newly installed fencing around the pool is apparently meant to deter what Interior Department spokeswoman Katie Martin has called an “increase in vandalism by leftist activists.” Trump pledged to drain the metaphorical swamp. Instead, he’s created one.Algae, however, are much more than either smelly sludge or a tidy narrative device. While algae play several critical roles in freshwater and saltwater ecosystems, algal blooms like the one now bedeviling the Reflecting Pool are “a growing problem,” said marine biologist Gregory Dick. He’s the director of the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, or CIGLR, a partnership between the University of Michigan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. “They’re becoming more frequent as water pollution becomes more of an issue, and they grow more in warming condition,” he explained. “The Reflecting Pool is not an exception.” The government’s newfound war on algae contrasts starkly with its repeated attempts to defund the experts who protect the public against harmful algal blooms not appearing on Washington, D.C., landmarks. The Trump administration’s cuts to research funding and federal agencies like NOAA have already undermined the federal government’s essential role in monitoring, responding to, and understanding harmful algal blooms. Deeper cuts outlined in next year’s federal budget would lower the public’s defenses against those blooms just as climate change helps them proliferate.Trump’s talk of vandals and knives notwithstanding, you don’t need conspiracy theories to explain how algal blooms happen. Experts suspect that the Reflecting Pool algal bloom began as a cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Those generally grow thanks to abundant nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, warm temperatures, and calm waters. “The Reflecting Pool has those three ingredients,” Dick said. There’s no official definition for what constitutes a harmful algal bloom, and the one in the Reflecting Pool hasn’t received that designation. But they tend to give off a foul smell and are known to kill birds. Cyanobacteria produce a toxin called microcystin that can fatally poison animals and cause nausea, vomiting, and skin rashes in humans. A 2014 microcystin outbreak in Lake Erie left nearly half a million people in the greater Toledo area without running water for three days.An enormous amount of local, state, and federal resources are needed to keep the country’s waterways safe. NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab—which houses CIGLR—monitors and responds to algal blooms throughout the Great Lakes watershed, including Lake Erie. Researchers there use a range of technologies to keep tabs on algae in real time. Remote sensors let them track the distribution of harmful algal blooms. Buoys and remotely operated vehicles measure nutrient levels in the water, and scientists analyze physical samples to understand which species of algae are present at any given time and what environmental conditions cause them to give off certain toxins. If the scientists spot a potential threat, NOAA alerts municipal water treatment plants so that they can proactively safeguard the water sources that some 40 million people use to hydrate, cook, and shower.