Plus one: Louisiana gained one rig this week, bringing its total tally of active oil and gas rigs to 72. Oilfield services company Baker Hughes notes the state, on average, had 70 rigs in July. Around this time one year ago, Louisiana had 46 rigs. As for the U.S. rig count, that increased by eight this week, bringing the nation’s total weekly tally to 958. One year ago there 463 rigs. Among major oil and gas producing states, New Mexico gained four rigs, Oklahoma increased by three and Ohio, West Virginia and Wyoming each gained one. Texas lost one rig. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981. It bottomed out in May of 2016 at 404.
Biscuits and gravy: Is there a such thing as too much Cracker Barrel? If there is, Ray and Wilma Yoder probably wouldn’t think so. Buzzfeed reports the 80-year-old couple from Goshen, Indiana, has visited 644 out of 645 Cracker Barrel locations in the U.S over the course of 40 years. That means the couple has traveled more than 5 million miles, even visiting the chain’s newest location in Lavonia, Georgia, on July 7. “It’s the same good service and great people wherever you go,” Ray Yoder says. The only location left for them to visit is in the Portland suburb of Tualatin, Oregon. Read the full story.
Squeezing in: U.S. aviation authorities have been ordered to review what a federal appeals judge called “The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat.” Reuters reports the Federal Aviation Administration was told to take another look at an advocacy group’s assertion that shrinking airline seats imperil passenger safety. The judge rejected the FAA’s argument that seat size was unimportant to getting off the plane in an emergency. Airline seats have steadily decreased in size over the last several decades. Economy-class seat pitch has decreased from about 35 inches in the 1970s to 31 inches—and in some airplanes to 28 inches. Average seat width has narrowed from about 18 inches to 16.5 inches. Read the full story.
