RIG COUNT UP 2 IN COLORADO
The number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. rose by six this week to 933. A year ago, just 424 rigs were active.
Baker Hughes said Friday that 747 rigs sought oil and 186 explored for natural gas this week. North Dakota added three rigs while Alaska, Colorado and New Mexico gained two rigs each. California and Louisiana increased by one. Oklahoma declined by four rigs and Wyoming was down one.
Lawsuit: CenturyLink whistleblower was fired. A CenturyLink employee
claims she was fired for blowing the whistle on the telecommunications company’s high-pressure sales culture that left customers paying millions of dollars for accounts they didn’t request, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Arizona state superior court.
The company’s shares fell the most in six weeks on the news, while the shares of merger partner Level 3 Communications also dropped sharply.
The plaintiff, Heidi Heiser, claims she was fired days after notifying CEO Glen Post of the alleged scheme during a companywide question-and-answer session held on an internal message board.
Facebook acknowledges security hole. Facebook
has acknowledged that a security hole in its software may have exposed the identities of its online monitors to suspected terrorist groups and others whose pages were removed for inappropriate content. The Guardian reported more than 1,000 people, which Facebook calls moderators, were affected. Facebook says it fixed the error.
Third of U.S. households spend 30% on housing.
A diminished supply of available homes is swelling prices in large U.S. metro areas, squeezing out would-be buyers and pushing up rents as more people are forced to remain tenants. The trend is pressuring Americans’ budgets, with about one-third of households spending more than 30 percent of their gross income on housing as of 2015.
Housing starts drop.
Homebuilders slowed down the pace of construction for the third straight month in May, a possible sign that the shortage of houses for sale might worsen. The Commerce Department says housing starts fell 5.5 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units. This comes after a 2.7 percent monthly decline in April and a 7.7 percent drop in March.