Exxon and Chevron post record quarters as the Hormuz closure prices everyone else out.
ExxonMobil's profits more than doubled to $14.5bn this quarter, its highest since 2022. Chevron posted its highest quarterly earnings on record, $12.1bn, nearly five times a year earlier. Both companies benefited from the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which pushed US crude as high as $1…
The 30-year US Treasury yield hit 5.24% Wednesday, its highest since 2007. The jump came after the Fed held rates at 3.5-3.75% for a fifth straight meeting, with three regional bank presidents dissenting in favor of a hike — the first three-way dissent in one direction in a decade. "There is no soft…
US petrol prices in Britain hit their highest level since the Iran war began, at 160p a litre. The RAC's data shows diesel remains below its April peak of 191.54p, but the broader pattern is now familiar: the war's costs are landing unevenly, hitting drivers and mortgage holders while flowing as rec…
The Senate's Russia sanctions bill advanced 86-12 this week, but its tariff provisions could hit US allies harder than Russia. Section 113 lets the president impose tariffs up to 100% on the five largest importers of Russian oil or gas — a list that includes China, India, Turkey, the EU, and Myanmar…
Most Americans now say the Iran war has not been worth fighting. Trump's approval rating on the war has slipped slightly since last month, according to new polling, even as the administration frames its outcome as a strategic success. The war entered its fourth month this week, with the US and Iran …
Palestinian sources have detailed the roadmap Israel and Hamas are negotiating for the ceasefire's second phase. The draft requires complete cessation of military operations and full implementation of the humanitarian protocol before either side moves to the next stage — the same disarmament-for-wit…
Chinese brands now hold 15% of the UK new-car market, the industry's trade body confirmed this week. Traditional automakers are responding with deep discounts to compete against lower-cost imports, according to the SMMT's chief executive, a pattern that mirrors the export strength Beijing is leaning…
Russia's strike on a Delaware-registered drone factory in Kyiv marks the war's first hit on an American-owned manufacturer. Terminal Autonomy made AI-guided AQ-400 Scythe and AQ-100 Bayonet deep-strike drones designed to resist Russian jamming. "The Russians don't care who owns the manufacturing fac…
US Latinos generated $4.4 trillion in GDP last year, a figure that would rank as the world's fourth-largest economy on its own. The number reflects the continued weight of Latino consumer spending and business formation inside an economy that grew just 1.5% overall last quarter. It is the kind of st…
On why Moscow keeps fighting despite battlefield losses that outpace its stated gains:
Global oil inventories have thinned enough that the next supply shock could hit harder than the last one. Strategic reserve releases and drawdowns have kept prices from spiking further during four months of intermittent US-Iran conflict, but that buffer is smaller than it was in April. Oil slipped F…
A widening web of regional conflicts is now straining shipping routes far beyond the Middle East. Maritime analysts describe conflicts from the Black Sea to the Red Sea as increasingly interconnected, each disruption compounding the next for an industry already absorbing the Hormuz closure and Houth…
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Japan's Kyushu island this week, killing at least three people and triggering tsunami warnings across the south. Emergency crews continued search operations through the weekend as authorities assessed structural damage across the affected region. The quake adds a fr…
Reuters is licensing its archive to AI developers rather than suing them, editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni said in a Sydney lecture this week. The wire's strategy treats training-data access as a negotiable commercial asset, a stance that puts it at odds with publishers still pursuing litigation o…
Fed funds futures now price a 57% chance of a September hike, up from roughly 30% before Wednesday's decision. The shift followed three regional Fed presidents' dissent in favor of raising rates now, the first three-way same-direction dissent in a decade. Bond markets have effectively sided with the…
Spain remains among the EU's largest buyers of Russian fossil fuels, alongside Hungary, France, Belgium and Slovakia. That exposure puts Madrid in the path of the Senate sanctions bill's tariff provisions, which could hit natural-gas importers with duties up to 100% unless they show "significant ste…
Canadian commentators are studying the shaky US-EU trade deal for lessons ahead of Canada's own negotiations. The agreement caps most US tariffs on EU goods at 15%, a ceiling Ottawa now treats as a benchmark for its own talks with Washington. Canada's three August byelections remain the country's ne…
Puerto Rico's news cycle stayed quiet again today, with no dated developments in the corpus beyond stories already covered in prior editions. The island's energy and fiscal storylines remain in the same holding pattern noted across recent weeks.
No qualifying surprise-bucket story appeared in today's corpus, so this slot is being held rather than filled with a substitute from the general feed.