FCC Chair Carr criticizes CNN over Iran report

Two fully loaded Chinese oil tankers waited near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, with a third on its way, positioning them to be among the first such vessels to leave the Persian Gulf after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire was announced a day earlier, according to ship-tracking data.

The Cospearl Lake, linked to China state-owned Cosco Shipping Corp., and the He Rong Hai, owned by a smaller company, appeared to head east early Thursday at near-top speeds before nearly stopping. Another Cosco-linked very large crude carrier, the Yuan Hua Hu, began moving east a few hours later.

All three tankers signaled Chinese ownership on their tracking systems, a step typically taken for safety during Iran-approved transits.

They were among a growing number of ships near the strait’s entrance off the United Arab Emirates. A Saudi Arabian-flagged very large crude carrier, the Jaham, moved east toward a holding area off Dubai. Two fully loaded Indian-flagged supertankers, the Desh Vibhor off Ras Al Khaimah and the Desh Vaibhav near Dubai, had also remained in the area since late March.

Iran and the U.S. agreed to pause fighting in exchange for reopening Hormuz, but details remained unclear. Continued attacks, including Israeli strikes in Lebanon, raised questions about how effective the ceasefire was. Traffic through the strait changed little in the day after the truce and reopening were announced.

The movements of the Chinese and Saudi vessels suggested they planned to cross the strait after being delayed in the gulf for weeks, though it remained unclear whether they would proceed.

Shipowners said Thursday they were still waiting for details on how safe passage would work. Iran warned vessels in radio transmissions on Wednesday that transits still required permission from Tehran. Iranian media also reported that the country had designated routes through Hormuz, with inbound and outbound traffic avoiding Larak Island.

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. said it needed to see “sustainable stability” before sending ships through the strait.

“How it is implemented in the water, that is something we really need to understand,” President Jotaro Tamura told Bloomberg Television.

The Chinese ships carried Iraqi and Saudi crude.

President Donald Trump is sending Vice President JD Vance and other senior negotiators to Pakistan for mediated talks with Iran this weekend aimed at securing a permanent ceasefire, the White House said Wednesday.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the talks will begin Saturday morning local time in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. She announced U.S. participation during a press briefing held amid doubts about whether the two-week ceasefire announced Tuesday evening will hold.

Leavitt said Vance will be joined by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

She rejected Iranian media reports that Iran had again closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel’s increased bombing of targets in Lebanon, saying such a move would be “completely unacceptable.”

Trump, she said, “wants to see the strait reopened immediately without limitation and that’s something we’re going to hold them to.”

Leavitt also said Lebanon is not part of the temporary ceasefire agreement, which she said appears to be a point of contention with Iran.

Calling the nearly six-week operation one that has “achieved and exceeded its core military objectives,” Leavitt said ceasefires “are fragile by nature” and cautioned that a long-term truce would take time.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that U.S. forces would be “hanging around” in the Middle East during the ceasefire between the United States, Israel, and Iran, even as Washington moved toward ending its 38-day campaign.

His remarks came a day after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran and said he hoped it would lead to talks on a longer-term agreement.

At a Pentagon news conference, Hegseth said the United States had carried out more than 800 strikes in the hours before the pause in hostilities. He said that if Tehran had not agreed, attacks would have expanded to include “power plants, the bridges and oil and energy infrastructure.”

Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listed what they said were results of the campaign: 80% of Iran’s air defense systems destroyed, 800 one-way attack drone storage facilities hit, 450 ballistic missile storage facilities struck, and 150 ships sunk.

Iran continued attacks during the conflict. The Pentagon said Iran used a decentralized command structure and launched an average of 120 drone and missile attacks per day across the region. It also maintained control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route.

Since the war began on Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members had been killed and more than 365 had been wounded, according to the Pentagon.

Caine welcomed the ceasefire but said U.S. forces remained prepared to resume operations if ordered.

“We welcome the ongoing ceasefire,” he said. “Let us be clear: a ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready if ordered or called upon to resume combat operations with the same speed and precision as we’ve demonstrated over the last 38 days. And we hope that that is not the case.”

Asked about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Hegseth said he hoped Tehran would hand it over “voluntarily.”

“It’s buried, and we’re watching it, we know exactly what they have,” Hegseth said.

“They’ll give it to us voluntarily,” he continued. “Or if we have to do something else ourselves — like we did in Midnight Hammer or something like that — we reserve that opportunity.”