Hormuz Still Shut as Gulf States Reroute Oil

The Strait of Hormuz remained closed to commercial tankers through the day, even after Washington and Tehran signed a declaration of intent to reopen it. With the world's busiest oil chokepoint still blocked, Gulf producers pressed ahead with workarounds, rerouting crude through the Red Sea and drawing up plans for new pipelines that would let them bypass the strait altogether. The detour carries its own risk: Houthi attacks in the Red Sea corridor have added fresh danger to the alternative route, leaving shippers caught between two unstable choke points. Elsewhere, a British court jailed Adina Mihai and Madalin Dumitru for a string of honeytrap robberies in which they slipped victims the sedative GBL to knock them unconscious before stealing from them; several of the drugged men died. The sentencing closed a case that drew attention for how far an opportunistic theft scheme escalated. Lighter news came from opposite corners of the day. Someone was fined for blasting a foghorn to wake a sleeping polar bear, a stunt that fell foul of wildlife protection rules in bear country. And former Olympic skier and Ski Sunday host Chemmy Alcott ended up with a collapsed lung after jumping into a lake on holiday in France, a reminder that ordinary summer fun can go wrong fast.