An increase in ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz could help ease pressure on oil prices, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Monday, signaling potential relief as markets fret over rising costs.

“Any supply is helpful, and we want to get back to normal,” Bessent told “Fox & Friends,” referencing the uptick.

“The market is in deficit [by] about 10 to 12 million barrels a day, and we’re making up for that deficit.”

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As more countries strike deals with Iran to keep oil moving, Bessent said the increase in shipments is helping ease supply concerns.

On top of movement through the strait, the Trump administration has facilitated a 172-million barrel release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as part of a 400-million-barrel coordinated international effort to address energy supply chokeholds.

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That effort, combined with unsanctioning Russian and Iranian crude already on the water, is said to help mitigate the cost as well.

“[There is] no extra money for either one of those regimes,” Bessent clarified, referencing the eased sanctions.

“So the market is well-supplied, and we are seeing more and more ships go through on a daily basis as individual countries cut deals with the Iranian regime, for the time being.”

He added that further relief could be on the horizon as the U.S. moves to secure the key global oil route.

“Over time, the U.S. is going to retake control of the straits, and there will be freedom of navigation, whether it is through U.S. escorts or a multinational escort.”

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport air traffic controllers warned for years about safety risks, long before the Jan. 29, 2025, midair disaster over the Potomac River, when 67 were killed after a military training helicopter collided with a commercial passenger jet.

“The warning signs were all there,” Emily Hanoka, a former Reagan National controller, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Controllers formed local safety councils and every time that a controller made these safety reports, another controller was compiling data to back up the recommendation. And many recommendations were made, and they never went too far.”

Hanoka described pressure to keep traffic moving at an airport handling roughly 800 daily flights, including the use of tightly timed operations on a constrained runway system.

“Some hours are overloaded, to the point where it’s over the capacity that the airport can handle,” Hanoka, who clocked out just before the fatal crash that night, added.

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“There was definitely a pressure. If you do not move planes, you will gridlock the airport.”

Notably, it was not the air traffic of the commercial airlines, but a military training aircraft flying at the incorrect altitude through “helicopter alley” that crashed into the unsuspecting airliner.

A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the side of an American Eagle regional jet approaching Reagan National just before landing, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft. Federal investigators later issued urgent safety recommendations focused on separating helicopter and fixed-wing traffic near the airport.

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Since the disaster, regulators have moved to tighten procedures.

There were multiple near-misses just a day before the disaster, according to CBS, and 85 near-collisions reported between 2021 and 2024 during the Biden administration.

“There were obvious cracks in the system, there were obvious holes,” Hanoka said. “You had frontline controllers ringing that bell for years and years, saying this is not safe. This cannot continue. Please change this. And that didn’t happen.”

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The airport’s 25 million airline passengers a year is reportedly 10 million more than its intended capacity.

To handle the load, Hanoka described “squeeze play” maneuvers unique to that crammed airspace and three runways where two aircraft are on one runway within seconds of each other.

“A squeeze play is when everything is dependent on an aircraft rolling, an aircraft slowing, and you know it’s gonna be a very close operation,” she said. “And that is a really common operation.”

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Air traffic controllers coming from other locales give the airport’s stress work a hard pass, she said.

“So you’ll get new controllers come in, so they’ve transferred from other facilities and they’ll look at the operation and say, ‘Absolutely not,'” she continued. “And they’ll withdraw from training. And that, when I was there, was about 50%.

“About half of the people that walked in the building to train would say, ‘Absolutely not.'”

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“It was surprising walking into that work environment, how close aircraft were,” Hanoka said.

Reporting last week said the FAA suspended the use of visual separation between helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in that airspace and shifted controllers toward radar-based separation, while restrictions were also imposed on certain helicopter operations near Reagan National.

The safety concerns Hanoka described align with broader findings from investigators. The National Transportation Safety Board blamed systemic FAA failures and found the crash was preventable, with concerns including overreliance on visual separation and longstanding risks in the airspace around Reagan National.

FIRST ON FOX—Defending Education has uncovered ties between a Maryland school district and a local LGBTQ+ advocacy group looking to reward schools for meeting certain requirements regarding curriculum and affinity groups.

Community Allies of Rainbow Youth (CARY), a group based in Ellicott City, Md., has introduced the “Rainbow Ribbon Schools” (RRS) certification to the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS). In order to receive the certification, schools are required to meet seven universal criteria and two additional benchmarks of their choosing.

The schools are required to show that their curriculum and instruction “affirms LGBTQIA+ identities and contributions across grade levels and subjects, using respectful language.” 

Elementary and secondary schools seeking Rainbow Ribbon certification must submit documentation showing LGBTQ+-inclusive instruction, including six lesson plans across subjects, one of which must be a health lesson, under the first criterion. They must also submit samples of student work and proof that the curriculum was implemented without “omitting required content inclusive of LGBTQIA+.”

Other mandatory criteria include the designation of a “Rainbow Representative,” something that HCPSS already has, according to its website. The HCPSS website states that every school in the district “has at least one staff member who serves as a Rainbow Representative.”

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Schools are also required to have policies against LGBTQ+ bullying, “identifiable allies” and professional learning for at least 65% of school staff, such as “participation in an LGBTQIA+ book study.” The schools are also required to show that at least 5% of media purchases for the school year include LGBTQ+-themed sections.

They also need to hold focus groups with their LGBTQ+ affinity group, with the goal of getting student feedback on the school environment. Students are invited to anonymously participate in the focus group and the school’s administrators are asked to report on what actions they have taken to address any concerns that arise, according to CARY’s literature on the RRS program.

There are several optional benchmarks for schools to choose from, including a schoolwide anti-bullying campaign, visual affirmations celebrating LGBTQ+ identities, student awareness of interacting with LGBTQ+ peers, an all-gender restroom and a school-wide celebration of LGBTQ+ pride. The schools are required to choose two of the additional criteria in order to receive the certification.

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In response to a request for comment, CARY referred Fox News Digital to its website and said that it is a “community partner of the Howard County Public School System.”

“This ‘Rainbow Ribbon Certification’ is a prime example of why parents need to know what their rights are when it comes to their child’s education,” Paul Runko, senior director of strategic initiatives, K-12 programs for Defending Education, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital.

“Last year, the Supreme Court affirmed parents’ right to opt their child out of LBGTQ+ material in schools if it violates their sincerely held religious beliefs and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) gives parents the right to review and opt out of surveys that include ‘pronouns’ and other ‘sexual behavior’ related questions,” Runko added.

The program highlights growing tensions between school districts and parental rights advocacy groups over the introduction and use of LGBTQ+-related content in classrooms.

HCPSS Director of Communications and Engagement Brian Bassett told Fox News Digital that the district has a “formal partnership with CARY,” but “participation in their Rainbow Ribbon program is school-led.”

“One of our primary core values is for all students to feel the sense of belonging that we intend. Valuable community partnerships with organizations like CARY, and the programs they support, have gone a long way to help us achieve that value,” Bassett told Fox News Digital.

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HCPSS outlines its “Gender-Inclusive Guidelines” on its website, stating that “all HCPSS students should feel comfortable expressing their gender identity.” The district allows students to use restrooms in accordance with their “gender identity” and does not require parental consent to participate in “clubs with a gender inclusive focus.” Additionally, the district allows students to access restrooms “in accordance with the student’s gender identity.”

The district also states that, while “parent consent is preferred” it is “not required for schools to affirm student name and pronoun requests.”

Bassett told Fox News Digital that the district’s “goal is that parents/guardians are always part of the process when students want to be addressed by a different name or pronoun.” He also clarified that parents “have complete access to names and pronouns in our student data systems,” such as report cards. According to Bassett, “official student records are not adjusted without parental consent.”

HCPSS appears to have mixed policies on whether staff or students can be penalized for not using a student’s preferred name and/or pronouns. While staff are not required to address the student as they wish, the district’s anti-discrimination policy, which is quoted in its “Gender-Inclusive Guidelines for Supporting Students,” seems to indicate that there can be “disciplinary action or consequences” even if the behavior does not meet the federal or state legal standard for discrimination.

“When our students feel a sense of belonging at school, they are more available for instruction. The solution to belonging is not to ignore the challenges they are facing. The solution is to ensure that we understand our students’ needs and that support is in place that is responsive to their specific needs. We know from research that respecting pronouns significantly reduces suicide risk,” Bassett told Fox News Digital.