The 10-Point: Oil Prices, Europe’s Migrant Crisis, Natural Foods and More

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Oil on Troubled Water

It has been a wild ride for crude oil. Prices fell this morning as weak Chinese manufacturing data and profit-taking pared some of crude’s recent gains. The data add to concerns that a hike in U.S. interest rates later this year will stir up more volatility in global markets. Rates at rock-bottom levels have provided support for financial markets until recently. U.S. oil prices surged in the past three days, the largest such rally since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Problems at two Canadian oil-sands producers’ mainstay operations boosted synthetic crude prices, and experts say a prolonged dip in production could alter the volume of crude exports to the U.S.  (Pictured above: An oil pumping unit at a drilling site operated by Tatneft near Almetyevsk, Russia. Soft Chinese data prompted oil prices to pull back in Asian trade after their recent surge.) 

Border Disorder

Austrian and Hungarian efforts to stem a growing tide of migrants has been sowing turmoil along their frontier. In Austria, police toughened controls on the border, triggering miles of traffic jams. Such temporary checks remain in accord with the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to travel freely across the borders of 26 European countries. But in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned that Europe’s open-border policy was in danger unless EU governments agreed to more equally bear the burden of the bloc’s escalating crisis. Hungarian authorities today cleared hundreds of migrants from the country’s main international railway station where they were waiting to board trains to Austria and Germany.

Breakfast of Champions

With their big brands and big bureaucracies, companies such as Kellogg are trying to keep up in an era where many shoppers are turning to simpler, less-processed fare. We take a deep look at Kellogg’s efforts to cash in on the health food craze. Today, executives at Kellogg are focused on turning around natural brand Kashi. With a pantry that includes Special K cereal, Pringles chips and Pop-Tarts, Kellogg achieved less than 5% of its $14.6 billion in sales last year from Kashi. But the 109-year-old company says fixing the brand is essential to making new inroads in the fast-growing natural and organic categories.

Due Tomorrow

Time management tips will go only so far. Procrastinators need to understand the emotions behind their behavior to overcome the tendency to delay. Our health columnist Shirley Wang explores research examining ways people might be able to reduce such behavior. Studies show that chronic procrastination isn’t actually linked to perfectionism, but rather to impulsiveness, which is a tendency to act immediately on urges. Experts say the consequences of chronic or extreme procrastination can be serious. For example, habitual procrastinators have higher rates of depression and anxiety and poorer well-being. For ways on how to deal with it, check out Shirley’s column—today rather than tomorrow.

TOP STORIES

U.S.

Largest Batch to Date of Hillary Clinton Emails Released by State Department

Children Don’t Have Constitutional Right to Switch Schools, Appeals Court Rules

WORLD

White House Readying Sanctions Plan Against Chinese Firms for Cybertheft

Deadly Explosions Highlight China Workplace Dangers

BUSINESS

On the Farm: Startups Put Data in Farmers’ Hands

Blue Bell Ice Cream Returns to Store Shelves in Select Cities

MARKETS

BNY Catches Up With Pricing Backlog

Calpers, Calstrs Want Bank of America to Separate Roles of Chairman, CEO

NUMBER OF THE DAY

$1.3 billion

The amount that a patent law change pushed by the pharmaceutical industry could cost federal health-care programs over a decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

‘McKinley served our country with distinction during the Civil War as a member of the Army.…And he led this nation to prosperity and victory in the Spanish-American War as the 25th president of the United States. I’m deeply disappointed in this decision.’

—House Speaker and Ohio Republican John Boehner on President Barack Obama’s announcement that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell had used her authority to rename North America’s tallest mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali, which in the Athabaskan language means “the great one,” the name that was used for centuries by Alaska natives.

TODAY’S QUESTION

Returning to our story above, what are your thoughts on how to reduce procrastination? Send your comments, which we may edit before publication, to 10point@wsj.com. Please include your name and location.

—Compiled by Khadeeja Safdar

READER RESPONSE

On yesterday’s question about the future of the car industry, Russ Porterof Connecticut wrote: “I believe that the future of cars will move to a model of self-driving, on-demand fleets, bringing an end to the era of owning individual cars which sit unused in parking lots for the vast majority of the day. The equivalent of Uber for self-driving cars is an opportunity too large to ignore.” M.B. Nachman of California commented: “The future of the car industry is not in electric battery cars, which have a very limited range and must be continually ‘refueled,’ but in electric hydrogen cell cars with better ranges, refueled in the time it takes a gas-fueled car, and take advantage of the power of the electric motor.”Tim Hicks wrote from Michigan: “Future generations of adults will not know how to drive if self-driving technology progresses as companies promise. Why would they learn if the car does all the work? What will happen if the technology fails – even for a moment? We should be giving drivers more reason to pay attention to the road, not less.” Aaron Billerof New York quipped: “My concern with an Apple-made car is, if something goes wrong, does that mean I have to find a genius to fix it?” And from South Carolina, Larry Wexler (aka “Cranky Curmudgeon”) had this to say: “Who asked for driverless cars? Americans love, love, love to drive. We’re a nation of drivers, not passengers. What’s next from Google and Apple: Chew-less desserts?”

This daily briefing is named "The 10-Point" after the nickname conferred by the editors of The Wall Street Journal on the lead column of the legendary "What's News" digest of top stories. Technically, "10-point" referred to the size of the typeface. The type is smaller now but the name lives on.

Photo: Bloomberg News