Free Republic

OZARK COUNTY, Mo. -- In a Facebook post Thursday, Ozark County Sheriff Darrin Reed asked community members to check on their elderly neighbors and family members from a distance. The Ozark County Sheriff's Office tells KY3 that four elderly residents were found deceased over the past ten days. Ozark County Deputy Cpl. Curtis Dobbs says none of the deaths were suspicious nor related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Deputies say all four residents died from natural causes. It's unclear when the residents died, but Reed says they were deceased for awhile.

(Reuters) - Collapsing crude prices are confronting scores of smaller U.S. oil producers with the grim choice of either shutting older high-cost wells or burning through cash in the hope of riding out the downturn. As oil prices fell by more than half over the last six months from more than $100 per barrel, the U.S. oil industry responded by slowing its blistering growth and dialing back expansion plans. Now, with U.S. crude around $46 a barrel, operators are already closing some small old wells, known as strippers, and tens of thousands of similar wells are on the verge of...