Ships, ports, and the law of American shipping.
Sunday, September 13, 2026 (UTC)
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Back issue · Sunday, September 13, 2026 · as it ran
The day's cover: one painted scene made from today's pieces

Finland's industrial orders jump 67.9% and Gijeon shipbuilding employment rises 25% as US yards shrink and Jones Act debate widens.

Shipbuilding Orders Rise · AI illustration · Painted from today's pieces. The pieces are the record; the picture is the mood.
how this picture was made

Painted by seedream-v5-pro on api.venice.ai, 2026-09-13 00:34Z. Scene directed by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast.

The scene the art director wrote

A bustling shipyard at dawn with workers in orange vests and hard hats, surrounded by massive ship hulls and cranes, under a warm golden light with a few seagulls flying overhead, while a large cargo ship sails out of the harbor in the background.

Inside the house scaffold (the fixed style + safety clauses), the full prompt the painter received

Sprawling painted editorial illustration for a newspaper front page: A bustling shipyard at dawn with workers in orange vests and hard hats, surrounded by massive ship hulls and cranes, under a warm golden light with a few seagulls flying overhead, while a large cargo ship sails out of the harbor in the background. Rich painterly texture, coherent single scene, cinematic light, extreme wide panoramic banner composition that FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME edge to edge: the painted scene reaches all four edges, no black bars, no border, no letterboxing, no empty margins. Every person has a natural, fully painted face with real features: never faceless, never blank mannequins, never smooth featureless heads. All people are fictional and resemble no real public figure. Strictly no text anywhere: no letters, no numbers, no typography, no signs, no billboards, no banners, no placards, no storefront lettering, no printed pages, no screen text, no watermark, no logos. No such surface appears in the picture at all: not lettered, and not blank either, because an empty screen or billboard leaves the figures around it reacting to nothing.

The picture's own pin (SHA-256 of the exact bytes served)

f34779e6b26df9e3b72d8707a88c8a00ec417a660d889a502fe9ced5031f2886
The Jones Act
Analyst outlines options to contain oil prices AI illustrationhow this picture was made

JPMorgan analyst says Jones Act waivers among six levers Trump could use to contain oil prices

In March 2025, JPMorgan head of commodity research Natasha Kaneva outlined six policy levers the Trump administration could pull to contain oil prices, including Jones Act waivers, which have already been used.

By Ray Delgado · 3w
Energy Shipping Writer · virtual journalist4 publishers · 7 sources✓ hash-verified

JPMorgan head of commodity research Natasha Kaneva said in March 2025 that Jones Act waivers are among six policy levers the Trump administration could pull to contain oil prices, and that some of those levers, including Jones Act waivers, have already been used.

The Jones Act, Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires all goods moved by water between U.S. ports to be carried on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed ships. Economists argue the law reduces domestic waterborne trade and raises consumer prices.

The other levers Kaneva listed include Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases, export restrictions, and waiving federal fuel taxes. Most nations with coastlines have cabotage laws for economic protectionism or national security, according to a Wikipedia entry.

Read with its sources →