Free Republic

Insurance giant Chubb will be the lead underwriter for a U.S. government-led program to provide insurance to ships making the risky transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Chubb will work with the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., or DFC, as part of a $20 billion plan to help get oil tankers and other commercial traffic moving again amid risks from the Iran war, the agency said. Oil prices have spiked since the war began at the end of February. Brent crude traded above $91 a barrel midmorning Wednesday. Oil prices have stayed relatively high despite an announcement Wednesday that the...

Three cargo ships have been hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz. The Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree was struck and set on fire 11 nautical miles north of Oman, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. Oman’s navy rescued 20 crew members who evacuated the ship in a lifeboat on Wednesday morning, while three remain missing. A second ship, the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Star Gwyneth, was hit by a projectile 50 miles north-west of Dubai. The vessel suffered hull damage but all crew members are safe. A third vessel, a Japan-flagged container ship, sustained minor damage near...

The Trump administration has turned Venezuela into a significant U.S. oil supplier, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday, arguing the shift will help offset Middle East disruptions and ease pressure from the global shipping crisis. "[Venezuela] was a sanctioned adversary, and now they're a strategic ally with the largest reserves with no threat of the chokehold like we have in the Strait of Hormuz," Burgum told "The Sunday Briefing." "Venezuelan oil can flow to America freely and is starting to flow, will continue to flow, and these are the kinds of things that are going to bring gas prices down...

A commercial oil tanker was set ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz after it was struck by an Iranian suicide drone, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Saturday, with a US Navy mission to safeguard ships through the region possibly still weeks away. The IRGC claimed the tanker — the Prima, sailing under a Maltese flag — had ignored repeated warnings not to enter the strait, according to Tasnim News Agency, Iran’s state media. The flow of oil through the strait — one of the world’s most vital energy arteries connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman...

Donald Trump has promised cheap insurance for ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz in a challenge to Lloyd’s of London. The US president said he had ordered America’s international investment body to insure ships travelling through the Persian Gulf at a “very reasonable price” after the outbreak of fighting in the Middle East led insurers to cancel polices and dramatically raise rates. Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Effective IMMEDIATELY, I have ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide, at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime...

Conclusion The story of FedEx’s decline and Collierville’s transformation is a microcosm of a quiet crisis that has been unfolding across the United States for decades, though it has accelerated greatly in the past five years. What began with a change in leadership from founder Fred Smith to CEO Raj Subramaniam has culminated in a vote of no confidence from its pilots, an exodus of loyal customers, and a community in the heart of Tennessee that is now unrecognizable to its lifelong residents.

U.S. autonomous drone delivery and logistics startup Zipline said Wednesday it will set up operations in Houston and Phoenix early this year, as part of an expansion that will be propelled by $600 million in fresh investment. The round, which values the company at $7.6 billion, will be used to expand to at least four U.S. states in 2026, the company said. Several existing and new investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, and Tiger Global participated in the funding round. Founded in 2014, Zipline developed its own drone delivery ecosystem, including the logistics software,...

The Supreme Court of Panama has annulled a contract for a Hong Kong company to operate two ports at either end of the Panama Canal, handing President Trump a victory for his security ambitions in the Western Hemisphere and denting China’s influence in the region. The high court said the terms under which CK Hutchison runs the ports of Balboa on the Pacific Coast and Cristobal on the Atlantic side were unconstitutional… (subscription required)

Putin's army would stretch out from Kalingrad like a sword swallowing Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia one by one. But this dream is being shattered by a hammer blow stretching from Riga to Vilnius. While the iron piece was being melted down in Riga's back rooms last month, now this iron is being forged into a hammer in Vilnius, shattering Putin's 50-year Baltic dream. Moreover, this time Belarus will not escape either. In the early days of December 2025, history is being rewritten in Europe's eastern flank, not with ink, but with shattered metal. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. These three tiny...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

Two oil tankers, the M/T KAIROS and M/T VIRAT, alleged to be part of the “Russian Shadow Fleet” exploded and caught fire earlier today in the Southern Black Sea, shortly after crossing north through the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. The tankers, which were enroute to the Russian Port of Novorossiysk from Egypt, are suspected to have been targeted by several uncrewed surface vessels and/or naval mines set by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The crews aboard both vessels were able to be successfully evacuated, with it expected that the tankers will soon sink in the Black Sea, according to Turkish...

Putin is amassing nuclear weapons and attack submarines in the Arctic Circle as his country prepares for war with NATO, Norway has said. Norway's Defence Minister Tore Sandvik claimed his country had found Russia had been increasing its military presence in the Arctic, particularly in the Kola peninsula. The politician also said Vladimir Putin had been attempting to take over the Arctic region where its fleet is based to block shipping routes to Nato allies if war broke out. 'Russia is building up on the Kola peninsula... where one of the largest arsenals of nuclear warheads in the world is...

More than 60 containers toppled off a cargo ship Tuesday morning in the Port of Long Beach, tumbling overboard and floating in the water. The shipping containers fell off a vessel named the Mississippi shortly before 9 a.m., and no injuries have been reported, according to Port of Long Beach spokesperson Art Marroquin. About 67 containers were in the water, the US Coast Guard said on the social platform X. Long Beach, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Los Angeles, is one of the busiest seaports in the country, with 40% of all shipping containers in the United States...

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald Was Just Scanned by An AI — And It Revealed Something No One Expected Beneath the icy depths of Lake Superior lies the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a ship that vanished without warning nearly fifty years ago. No distress call. No survivors. Just silence. Now, for the first time, advanced AI has scanned the wreck with breathtaking precision. What it revealed was not just decay or twisted steel, but details that no one expected to see. How could one of the most respected ships on the Great Lakes disappear so suddenly? The answers hidden in this scan...

Several postal services around the world have paused package deliveries to the United States this week, and it's not because they're overwhelmed with shipping demand. The suspensions, which affect shipments of goods valued under $800, follow a recent executive order that President Trump signed that effectively ends the de minimis exemption on August 29. The fallout has been swift and global. We're talking about major disruptions from Europe to Asia that might impact many American small businesses, limit where you can shop, and make it more complicated and expensive to receive the items you order. What countries have limited deliveries,...

The crackdown on small-dollar imports has left businesses and consumers scrambling. Postal services in Japan and Switzerland are the latest to pause shipments to the United States this week, days before an exemption for certain import taxes is about to expire. The loophole, known as “de minimis,” has allowed goods worth less than $800 to enter the United States duty-free since 2016. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month to abolish the practice. It is set to end Friday. The change has rocked small businesses and consumers, leaving many concerned about shipping backlogs and higher costs. Some business...

The loophole China exploited is Trump’s next tariff target.President Donald Trump’s executive order of July 31st, effective August 7th, has upended global trade dynamics in a single stroke. Slapping a 40% tariff on all “transshipped goods”—products rerouted through third countries to dodge US duties—this is merely the natural development of his evolving protectionist agenda.Just a week after the order, the move is a clear shot at China’s sprawling manufacturing empire, which has long exploited methods like transshipment and “nearshoring” to skirt American tariffs in general, and Trump’s tariff policies in particular.While applied globally, China stands to take the biggest hit...

On Monday night, a major explosion and fire occurred aboard a bulker in the Port of Baltimore's inner harbor, three miles from the site of the former Francis Scott Key Bridge. At 1830 hours local time, the vessel W Sapphire (IMO 9605645) was departing the CSX Curtis Bay coal pier in laden condition. Just off the dock, the vessel sustained a massive explosion in the forward hold, followed by a fire. A web cam operated by StreamTime captured video of the event, with some of the elements of the Key Bridge visible in the background. Multiple firefighting vessels responded immediately...

India will keep purchasing oil from Russia despite U.S. President Donald Trump's threats of penalties, two Indian government sources told Reuters on Saturday, not wishing to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. On top of a new 25% tariff on India's exports to the U.S., Trump indicated in a Truth Social post last month that India would face additional penalties for purchases of Russian arms and oil. On Friday, Trump told reporters he had heard that India would no longer be buying oil from Russia. But the sources said there would be no immediate changes. "These are...

"This trade generated as much as $70 billion for Iran, propping up the regime and its nuclear weapons program." China is reportedly using a “dark fleet” to conduct secret ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil in an effort to evade U.S. sanctions on Tehran’s tankers. CBS News sent a crew to scout an area roughly 80 nautical miles from Singapore and found four ship-to-ship transfers occurring; all the “dark fleet” tankers had their transponders switched off, and “clearly do not want to be identified,” the outlet reported. “Both ships have a net or something, a tarp, deployed over the stern, covering...