Free Republic

NewsNation) — There’s some good news when it comes to the price of gas, but it may take a while for drivers to see it. Gasoline futures hit an all-time high on June 8 and have fallen steadily ever since — the price of crude oil has dropped 10 percent since last Monday. Yet while companies are now paying 28 cents per gallon less, the nationwide average has increased by a penny since actual prices began to fall.

Russian officials have said Ukraine launched missile strikes against three gas rigs in the Black Sea south of Odesa, in an apparent escalation of Kyiv’s attempts to weaken Russia’s maritime dominance. Seven people were missing and three injured after the strikes, according to the head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, who said a “rescue operation with the participation of patrol ships and aviation” was under way. The three offshore platforms, the Boyko towers, had previously been seized by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv believes they are used for military reconnaissance and to help assert control of a larger portion...

Hackers on Friday delayed the start of President Vladimir Putin's speech to Russia's flagship economic forum, shorn of strong Western participation as Russia adjusts to the "new reality" of life under Western sanctions. -snip- But the Western investors and investment bankers who had turned up in previous years were conspicuously absent. -snip- Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said a denial of service attack, which works by flooding servers with bogus traffic, had struck the forum's accreditation and admission systems. -snip- Internet connectivity and speeds suffered at the forum, and Putin's speech, in which he accused the West of trying to crush...