Crude awakening: The White House’s oil numbers don’t add up

You will be shocked to learn that a politician may have said something misleading. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright raised eyebrows in energy markets Wednesday when he said more oil exports left the Middle East on Monday—between the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes—than before the beginning of the Iran war. “Monday was our record ever through, since the conflict began. Over 17 million barrels of oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz on ships on Monday. It appears that Wright is adding up transfers over multiple days into a single day, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, jokingly calling it “mathemagics.” In reality, on Monday, Aug. 31, only an estimated 9.14 million barrels of oil exited the Arabian Sea—including volumes through Hormuz and other routes, Madani told Fortune’s Jordan Blum . (And that explains why oil has stayed above $95 per barrel.) Can We Trust OpenAI to Protect Our Power Grid? | Fortune Daily One of MacKenzie Scott’s latest donations takes her HBCU giving to well over $1 billion - Sydney Lake China demands answers after a man dies hours after entering ICE (immigration enforcement agency) custody—the fifth Chinese national to die in U.S. immigration custody since 2025 - The AP Big tech is investing millions in data centers and saving a quick tax buck while doing it—leaving some states collecting revenue loss - Joshua Hong ‘Critical employees will begin to retire’: Trump’s new pay plan will deny most federal roles a raise, and it has workers warning of a retention crunch - Sasha Rogelberg Toilet paper becomes a kitchen table issue for Trump again as Canada’s retaliatory tariffs could spell another shortage - Catherina Gioino Moody’s head of sustainable finance: Asia is embracing a ‘pragmatic transition’ on energy - Angelica Ang Tim Cook stepped down as Apple CEO, but the ‘Trump whisperer’ isn’t going anywhere - Tatiana Sataua Vanguard’s 401(k) database—of the 2,500 companies that use its services for their 5 million workers—“shows near-zero employment growth in August,” according to Senior Economist Adam Schickling. Retirement plan take-up isn’t an exact proxy for new job creation, of course. But Schickling said in an email that it’s worrying because it occurs at the same time as a large number of workers have simply dropped out of the labor force. If they were still looking for work, the unemployment rate would be much higher than 4.1%, its current level. “The 25-54-year-old labor force participation rate has declined ~50bps [year to date], one of the largest non-recessionary drops in history. This has helped keep the unemployment rate relatively stable despite a cumulative 833,000 decline in household employment since January. Schickling predicts that the dropouts will reverse course in the coming months, “creating upward pressure on the unemployment rate as these workers re-enter the labor force faster than they find jobs.” —Dyson founder James Dyson, upon the launch of his $499 toothbrush that features a camera so you can see inside your mouth as you brush.