Friday Morning News And Links -- WSJ Front Section With Big Story From Rugby, North Dakota --

Active rigs: 184 (steady, down)

RBN Energy: WTI/Brent discount/parity.

Reuters: Surge in CBR slows as WTI/Brent narrows.

Williston Basin 2012: projections of future employment and population (a PDF).

Good news, bad news: inflation continues to fall in the Eurozone. Why? Because employment continues to fall in the Eurozone.

The euro zone's malaise was visible in a 0.5 percent drop in employment first three months of the year from the previous quarter. The data from Eurostat reflected an unemployment rate that reached a record high in April, with 19.4 million people out of work.

The first quarter fall in employment was deeper than the 0.3 percent decline in the last three months of 2012, and meant the number of people in jobs was 1.0 percent lower than a year ago.

WSJ Links

Section M (Mansion):

Section D (Arena):

• The Nuns at the top of the charts: 

For the fifth week running, an order of monastic nuns in rural Missouri has the nation's top-selling album of traditional classical music. Most of these isolated singers don't know that they created a niche hit with their recordings of ancient chants and hymns, or that it's their second release to reach No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

• Publishing's first family: 

Phil Robertson likes to spend his days untethered, catching crawfish or shooting ducks in the woods surrounding West Monroe, La. He doesn't own a cellphone, a computer or a watch, and can't even be bothered to trim his beard, which he cuts once a decade.
So he was skeptical when a publisher approached him to write a memoir. "I said, 'Listen, I don't have time to write a book,' " Mr. Robertson said.
he publisher, Howard Books, persisted, offering to pair him up with a co-author. He agreed, and the resulting book, "Happy, Happy, Happy," became a No. 1 best seller this spring, with 680,000 copies in print.
No one is more astonished by the book's success than Mr. Robertson, who dictated his life story to sports journalist Mark Schlabach, and confesses he hasn't actually read it. "I talked to him for about 10 hours. He left. The next thing I knew, somebody said the book was No. 1 on the best-seller list," he said.

Section C (Money & Investing):

• America is feeling less industrious:

Welcome to America's "industrial renaissance."

If it isn't much to look at, that is because there isn't that much to it. Friday's report on industrial production for May might provide a positive data point after a weak April: Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires see growth of 0.1%, up from a drop of 0.5%. Even so, that would bring the year-over-year pace to just 1.8%, the slowest in more than three years.

Instead of a broad revival, American industry is seeing pockets of strength. The most striking is a result of the shale revolution in energy. Surging oil and natural-gas output are an industrial activity in their own right, but they also provide a boost to certain other sectors, particularly chemicals.

Section B (Marketplace):

• Behind corporate profits: a tax break. 

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows that the extension of a big tax credit quietly boosted the profits of dozens of companies. Under accounting rules, the companies reported a year's worth of benefits from the research-and-development tax credit in their first-quarter results, lifting profits for many of them by more than 10%.

• US coal exports plunge: 30%

Section A:

• Another reminder how fortunate the Bakken is with adequate water. The Supreme Court rejects drought-plagued Texas claim for Oklahoma water. 
• US corn belt expands to the north. By-line: Rugby, North Dakota. Stand-alone post here.
• Note to terrorists: NSA doesn't collect data on Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA because of foreign ownership.  
• Huge, deadly explosion in Williams plant in Louisiana.
• Nicaragua to let Hong Kong firm build another "Panama Canal." $40 billion; previously reported.