- Oil prices turned higher as investors weighed data showing a drop in U.S. crude supplies against the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision not to freeze production. The U.S. data demonstrated how more than a year of low prices and spending cutbacks by oil companies are leading to shrinking supplies, helping reduce the oversupply of crude oil without intervention from OPEC. U.S. crude oil for July delivery recently rose 0.5 percent to $49.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after being down for most of the session. Brent, the global benchmark, rose 0.9 percent to $50.17 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
- A contested Winona County, Wis., board seat will likely focus on the ongoing controversy over frac sand regulation and potentially reignite the debate over land-use policy and rights, according to the Winona Daily News. First-time candidate Vince Ready, a rural St. Charles, Wis., resident who has been an outspoken frac sand opponent for years, filed to run against Third District commissioner Steve Jacob, who is running for a second four-year term.
- Pattison Sand Co. has requested rezoning of 746 acres of land from agricultural to heavy industrial for eventual expansion of its underground mine from its current size of about 100 acres, according to the LaCrosse Tribune. The site, which includes surface mining on some of its 1,600 acres, lies along the Mississippi River directly across from Bagley, Wis. Many of its roughly 150 employees live in southwestern Wisconsin.