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Iran's Revolutionary Guards attacked a Singapore-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News, posing a challenge to President Trump's efforts to reopen the critical shipping corridor. The ship's bridge was damaged after it was struck on its starboard side by an "unknown projectile" off the coast of Dahit, Oman, according to an advisory from the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre. The advisory said no casualties or environmental impact were reported. After the strike, the United Nations' International Maritime Organization temporarily paused a days-old plan to evacuate many of the vessels stranded...

Iran’s New "Insurance" Rule: Controlling the Strait of Hormuz

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday that they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed its military attacks on Iran, adding to concerns about global shipping and energy flows.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, is already considered a significant vulnerability due to the presence of Yemen's Houthi terrorists.

Suspected Somali pirates hijacked a fuel tanker off the northeastern coast of Somalia, according to a local official and the British military. The vessel was seized on Wednesday in waters between the coastal towns of Hafun and Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland along the Indian Ocean. The tanker had departed from the port of Berbera and was heading to the Somali capital of Mogadishu when it was intercepted, a colonel with the Puntland Maritime Police Force told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a journalist.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday that the strait was open. He then put the onus on other countries to ensure the flow of traffic.“It’s time for the rest of the world to step up and ensure that [the strait] stays open after President Trump and the War Department brought Iran to the place where they’re voluntarily opening it right now, as was announced last night,” Hegseth said during a Wednesday Pentagon press briefing.Iran said Thursday there are now two routes – both controlled by Tehran – that ships could use due to the presence of mines in the...

Following the US-Iran Ceasefire, Iran announced a closing of the international traffic separation scheme by mining the area and re-routing ships through a new traffic pattern within the territorial waters of Iran and under jurisdiction and control.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian-backed Houthi rebels entered the month-old war in the Middle East on Saturday, claiming two missile launches at Israel. About 2,500 U.S. Marines arrived in the region. And Pakistan’s government said that regional powers plan to meet Sunday to discuss how to end the fighting.

Iran appears to be setting itself up as the gatekeeper for the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important artery for oil shipments. The move could cement Tehran’s de facto chokehold over the crucial waterway and formalize its ability to keep its own oil flowing to China. Iranian communications to the United Nations maritime authority and the experience of ships transiting the Strait suggest the creation of something akin to a “toll booth.” Ships must enter Iranian waters and be vetted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. At least two vessels have paid for passage. Traffic through the Strait has...

The U.S. government is revoking the legal status of several thousand immigrants from Somalia, raising the specter of deportation for a community often assailed by President Trump. A Department of Homeland Security official said the Trump administration had decided to terminate Somalia's Temporary Protected Status program, which allows beneficiaries to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. Nationals of Somalia enrolled in the TPS program are now set to lose their legal status and work permits on March 17. The DHS official said roughly 2,500 Somali immigrants with TPS are expected to be affected by the termination....

When challenged that killing citizens without due process is a war crime, the vice president responded that he "didn't give a sh*t." Sometimes in fits of anger, loud voices will say they don't care about niceties such as due process—they just want to kill bad guys. For a brief moment, all of us may share that anger and may even embrace revenge or retribution. But over 20,000 people are murdered in the U.S. each year, and yet somehow we find a way to a dispassionate dispensation of justice that includes legal representation for the accused and jury trial. Why? Because...

Trump administration sends memo to Congress declaring 'non-international armed conflict' with drug cartels The Trump administration sent a memo to Congress on Thursday saying that the United States is now "in a non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels, which administration officials have designated as "terrorist organizations." "The President directed these actions consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct foreign relations," the memo states. The notification to congressional lawmakers came...

When famed pirates overtook a Portuguese ship in 1721 once laden with treasure (now valued over $138 million), the battle went well for the pirates, who eventually sank the ship off the coast of Madagascar. A pair of American archaeologists now claim they’ve discovered the final site of the lost vessel. Known as the Nossa Senhora do Cabo—translated as Our Lady of the Cape—the ship left India with a Portuguese viceroy and the Archbishop of Goa, 200 slaves, and treasure aplenty. Pirates were ready and Olivier “The Buzzard” Levasseur led an ambush of the ship near Reunion Island in the...

On July 7, 1846, a contingent of Marines raised the American flag over Monterey, California, to mark a proclamation by U.S. consul Thomas Larkin that the territory was being annexed as a consequence of the war with Mexico. Much of the future state had already been taken from Mexico's nominal control by an uprising of American settlers under the Bear Flag. Victory in the Mexican War meant that the country gained Texas, California, and everything in between, comprising most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Next to the War of Independence and the Civil...

A fan at PNC Park fell over the outfield wall and onto the track on Wednesday night during the Pittsburgh Pirates’ matchup with the Chicago Cubs. In the seventh inning of the contest, a man in the right field section at PNC Park suddenly was seen falling headfirst over the outfield wall and crashing down onto the dirt during the middle of a play. The person appeared to jump up before flipping multiple times on his way down about 21 feet to the warning track.

Denmark will pay for an “integration plan” and a prosthetic leg for a Nigerian pirate after granting him residency, two years after he attacked the Danish Navy off the coast of Africa. Nigerian Lucky Frances will receive taxpayer-funded aid in attaining employment and education to help him “integrate” into Denmark after being brought to the country in 2021 when he lost his leg in a firefight with the Danish navy after his band of pirates attacked the Esbern Snare frigate off the coast of Africa... Not only did the African pirate avoid imprisonment for attacking the Danish sailors, despite being...

The head of the Yemeni Ansarallah terrorist organization, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, boasted in a national address on Thursday that his jihadists had turned American aircraft carriers into “obsolete weapons.” Houthi’s group, which controls the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and received significant backing from state sponsor of terror Iran, declared war on Israel in October in support of fellow jihadist terrorists Hamas. The Houthis’, as they are commonly known, main contribution to terrorism in the Middle East has been a campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea in which they use drones, missiles, and other often rudimentary weapons to attack random...

United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Tuesday that the Greek-owned coal carrier MV Tutor, struck by Houthi missiles and an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) on July 12, has sunk in the Red Sea. The Tutor became the second ship sunk by the Iran-backed Yemeni terrorists since they began their campaign of wanton attacks on commercial shipping in November. It also appears to have been the first ship to be severely damaged by a Houthi USV attack. The weapon was evidently a remote-controlled small boat packed with explosives.

On this date in 1891, Chinese authorities beheaded 15 at Kowloon, including the leaders of the then-notorious Namoa pirates. They were nicknamed for the steamer they had infamously commandeered six months before. The tale is related by an English maritime official’s orientalist (and now public-domain) memoir, The Mystic Flowery Land: The most daring and disastrously successful piracy of late years … was the “Namoa” piracy in 1890. The startling news of this outrage created a general feeling of unsafety and consternation among the foreign communities in China, mingled with grief and just resentment for the cold-blooded murder of Captain Pocock...

An Iranian warship has embarked on a mission in oceanic waters, Iran’s state media reported, in the wake of a warning by Houthi rebels that they could renew their attacks on vessels transiting the region. The aircraft carrier Shahid Mahdavi, operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has reached southern hemisphere waters, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, without specifying its exact location