As Memorial Day approaches, you can honor someone in your life who has selflessly defended our freedoms on the USO Military Heroes Honor Wall.
This is a digital tribute space where you can share stories and memories of service members who have made a difference in your life. Whether you want to celebrate a loved one who served, memorialize someone who made the ultimate sacrifice or simply pay tribute to those who inspire you, this space is for you.
RJ, spring migration brings a flurry of new birds to our neighborhoods—and what they find when they get there makes all the difference.
Over the past century, urbanization has taken, fragmented, and transformed ecologically productive land with sterile lawns and exotic ornamental plants. We’ve introduced walls of glass, toxic pesticides, and domestic predators. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems or provides healthy places for birds.
But through habitat restoration, native plant education, and community engagement, we can help transform our communities into places where birds can thrive and people can prosper.
In the midst of a global biodiversity crisis, with 3 billion birds lost in the last 50 years, your involvement in bird conservation—including right in your own backyard—has never been more critical.
Together, we’re pushing for the large-scale change needed to ease habitat loss and help reverse the climate crisis through our proven combination of research, advocacy, and hands-on conservation action:
With 120 years of expertise under our wing, we’re giving species a better chance at survival by:
Restoring and improving the resilience of important landscapes
Successfully advocating for climate legislation at the state and federal level
Transforming communities into places where birds flourish
Fighting for the bold action birds need now
… and more.
But our best work on behalf of birds depends on the continued generosity of people like you.
Catholic “AI for good.” Instant answers and guidance to any question or problem. Try free for 7 days.
A Night Prayer
Jesus Christ, my God, I adore You and thank You for all the graces You have given me this day. I offer You my sleep and all the moments of this night. I place myself and all my loved ones, wherever they may be, in Your sacred side and under the mantle of Our Blessed Mother. Let Your holy angels stand watch and keep us in peace. Amen.
Quote of the Day
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” -Romans 12:21
Today’s Meditation
“There are many who lament that the world fares ill today Has there ever been a time when you think it fared well? Doubtless, sometimes it has fared better, sometimes worse; and you are at liberty to think that this is one of the “worse” moments. But what is the use of lamenting? It does no good. Rather let us say: if the world fares ill, then so much the more work for us to do if we want it to fare well.” —Raoul Plus, S.J.
What if your AI didn’t spy on you — and actually aligned with your faith?
With over 250,000 downloads, Truthly is the Catholic AI app built to help you navigate the internet faithfully. Ask anything. Get answers you can trust — grounded in truth, not trends.
The daily examination of conscience is an ancient Catholic practice. It’s very simple, and it’s designed to help us identify our sins and weaknesses so that we can improve and grow stronger in the spiritual life, while providing an excellent ongoing preparation for regular Confession. It consists of taking a few minutes at the end of the day to prayerfully review our actions in the light of God’s commandments, followed by the Act of Contrition.
Reflect on the victories and losses
Actively reflecting on the high and low points of the day can help you live more intentionally and bring a renewed sense of resolve into the following day.
Review your actions, words, and thoughts today. Did you actively guard yourself against temptation? Where did sin creep in?
In what moments did you practice virtue and moral courage?
Were you attuned to the Holy Spirit’s promptings today? Where did you feel His inspiration?
Ask Him for the graces necessary to follow His Will more purposefully tomorrow.
Act of Contrition
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.
Practice gratitude
It is God’s love that has brought you into existence and to this exact moment. Practice looking for His hand in your day.
Where did you feel His loving gaze upon you today?
What people or moments helped you see God in your life?
Thank God for all these moments!
Ask Him to help you recognize His blessings and providence tomorrow.
Renew your commitment to Christ
Remember: our Faith is founded upon a Person—Christ! Renew your personal love and devotion to Him.
Thank God for the gift of His Son Jesus and our call to be His disciples.
Tell the Lord of your desire to know Christ more personally.
If possible, set an intention for your day tomorrow. Ask Our Lord to guide you in this act.
Pray a Hail Mary, Our Father, or another beloved prayer.
Rest with God
By day the Lord commands His steadfast love; and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. — Psalm 42:8
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One Minute With GodGod Starts and Finishes your Day with Love Evening Bible ReadingISAIAH 49:1-12
Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment. Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings under foot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow. He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod. Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am He. The coastlands have seen and are afraid, the ends of the earth tremble…
Editor’s Note: I have a message for you from Addison Wiggin at Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. I thought you might find it interesting – check it out here or read more below.
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Editor’s Note:Oil markets can’t seem to catch a break as geopolitical tensions, supply concerns, and global uncertainty continue to build, welcoming serious volatility.
To explain how to navigate periods like this, I’ve invited my colleague Jonathan Rose to discuss the two specific market signals investors should watch out for — and why he believes they may already be pointing toward another major opportunity in oil and refinery stocks.
Jonathan has spent decades trading volatile markets, from the futures pits in Chicago to the options floor at the CBOE. Now, he’s teaming up with Wall Street veteran Marc Chaikin for a special event on May 28 at 8 p.m. Eastern to discuss their new “Convergence” system designed to track institutional money flow and volatility together.
In October 1973, the world learned just how fragile the global oil order really was.
A coalition of Arab states attacked Israel on Yom Kippur. The U.S. responded by sending aid. And within days, OPEC issued an oil embargo against the United States.
The result was immediate and brutal. Oil went from $2.90 a barrel to $11.65 in three months. At the pump, Americans watched prices jump 36% practically overnight. Drivers sat in gas lines for hours, and some stations ran dry before noon. Rationing kicked in.
Credit: JudiLen
Americans watched gas prices explode almost overnight while Washington imposed a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour and urged citizens to conserve fuel as a patriotic duty.
The shock eventually eased. But before the decade was out, the Iranian Revolution triggered a second supply disruption that sent prices even higher. By 1981, oil had hit $35 a barrel — nearly 12 times what it cost before the OPEC embargo.
What those two crises revealed wasn’t just how much the world ran on oil. They also revealed how fast the entire system could crack when the geopolitical order shifted underneath it.
Fifty years later, it’s shifting again.
And this time, the cracks are deeper.
In this piece, I want to give you something more useful than a prediction.
I want to show you exactly how I read an oil market under stress — the two specific signals I watch, how they work together, and how they already handed us one of our best trades of the year.
If you understand these signals, you’ll never look at an oil headline the same way again. And you’ll know what to do with your money – and make a profit – before Wall Street figures it out.
One company to replace Amazon… another to rival Tesla… and a third to upset Nvidia. These little-known stocks are poised to overtake the three reigning tech darlings in a move that could completely reorder the top dogs of the stock market. Eric Fry gives away names, tickers and full analysis in this first-ever free broadcast. Watch now…
This Could Be Bigger Than 1973
Earlier this year, the U.S. entered a conflict with Iran that put a lockdown on the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes every single day.
When it’s under pressure, we all feel it.
Oil responded immediately. West Texas Intermediate crude ran from $66 a barrel to over $100. Brent — the global benchmark — climbed from $71 to $119. In three months, crude prices nearly doubled.
But the bigger story wasn’t the price move. It was what happened inside OPEC.
After nearly 60 years, the United Arab Emirates announced it was leaving the cartel.
This is not a minor development.
The UAE is one of the world’s top five oil producers. Its exit isn’t a diplomatic footnote — it’s a fracture in the architecture that has governed global oil supply since 1960.
The timing made it worse. The announcement came right before a scheduled OPEC meeting, in the middle of an active regional conflict, with the Strait of Hormuz already under pressure.
In 1973, the crisis came from outside OPEC — Arab states using oil as a weapon against the West. What we’re watching now is that alliance coming apart. That instability may end up being deeper and harder to reverse than in 1973.
The question isn’t whether energy market volatility will stay elevated. It will.
The question is how to position yourself to profit from the volatility that is becoming a long-term feature of the energy markets.
That starts with understanding two signals.
The Two Signals I Watch When Oil Gets Volatile
I’ve been trading energy markets for nearly 30 years — from the futures pits in Chicago to the options floor at the CBOE. And in all that time, I’ve found that the most reliable way to profit from oil volatility isn’t to predict where prices are going. It’s to read what the market is already telling you.
Two signals do most of that work. These aren’t predictions. They’re instruments that help the pros profit.
The first is the crack spread. That’s basically the profit margin for oil refiners. Think of it like owning a bakery. Your input cost is flour — that’s crude oil. Your output is bread — that’s gasoline and diesel. The spread is the difference between what you paid for the ingredients and what you sold the finished product for. That difference is your profit margin.
When the crack spread expands — meaning refiners are making more money per barrel they process — refiner stocks tend to follow. When it compresses, they struggle.
Right now, the crack spread is expanding. Refiners bought crude weeks ago at lower prices. They’re selling gasoline and diesel today at prices implied by $106 crude. That gap — old crude, new prices — is pure margin. And it’s showing up directly in refiner earnings.
That’s Signal 1.
The second signal is backwardation in the futures. This one sounds technical. It isn’t. Here’s all you need to know.
When the oil futures curve is in backwardation, it means near-term contracts are trading above longer-dated ones. In plain English, buyers are paying a premium to get oil now rather than later. That tells you immediately that the market believes supply is too tight to absorb a shock.
That’s exactly what the WTI futures is showing us today. Front-month contracts have surged as refiners, hedgers, and institutions pay up for prompt delivery. Contracts further out into late 2026 flatten considerably.
In short, the market sees near-term supply strain but expects conditions to ease over time.
That distinction matters because it tells us where capital is flowing right now — into assets tied to near-term scarcity and pricing power. Refiners. Select producers. Names with direct exposure to U.S. domestic supply chains.
When the crack spread is expanding and the futures curve is in backwardation at the same time, the market is sending a clear two-part message: refiners are making serious money right now, and institutional energy traders are paying a premium to secure supply immediately.
That combination — margin expansion plus supply urgency — is historically when refiner stocks and energy names make their biggest moves to the upside.
It’s the setup for a bullish trade on oil and refiner stocks.
Here’s how that trade looked in practice earlier this year.
The Trade That Proves the Signals Work
Back in April, both signals fired at the same time.
The crack spread was expanding. The WTI futures curve was moving into backwardation. And one name kept showing up on my radar: CVR Energy Inc. (CVI). It’s a midsized independent refiner with direct exposure to exactly the kind of margin environment the signals were pointing to.
On April 20, I got my members into a bullish position on CVR at the beginning of the month. The setup was clean. The signals were clear. The risk was defined.
In just a single week, we locked in an 80% return on the lagging refiner.
That’s not luck. That’s what happens when you stop trying to predict where oil is going and start reading what the market is already telling you. The crack spread said refiners were making serious money. Backwardation said supply was too tight to absorb a shock. CVR was the most direct way to express that opinion with defined risk.
Catalyst. Signal. Trade. That’s the whole model.
And right now, both signals are firing again.
The crack spread is expanding faster than it has in months. The WTI futures curve is deep in backwardation. The UAE’s exit from OPEC has added a layer of structural uncertainty that isn’t going away quickly. And the Strait of Hormuz remains under pressure.
The setup that handed us CVR is back. The names that benefit most from this environment are the same ones I’ve been watching since the conflict began — refiners, select producers, and companies with direct exposure to U.S. domestic supply chains.
The question now isn’t whether the opportunity is there. It’s whether you have the tools to find it before Wall Street does.
What I’m Doing About It — and How You Can Too
Here’s something I tell my members all the time: Know what you’re good at… and know where you need help.
I’m good at reading volatility. Finding the setup. Identifying the signal before the crowd sees it. What’s harder — for every floor trader I’ve ever known — and for me is direction. Not whether volatility is coming. But whether the next big move breaks up or breaks down.
That’s where Marc Chaikin comes in. Marc spent decades building the quantitative tools Wall Street’s biggest institutions use to forecast market direction. He designed his Money Flow system to answer a different question than mine. I focus on where volatility is building. Marc focuses on whether institutional money flow confirms the direction.
My expertise is finding where volatility creates opportunity.
Marc’s expertise is in knowing which way it breaks.
Together, we’ve built something that combines both. We’re calling it The Convergence, and on May 28 at 8 p.m. Eastern, we’re going live with it for the first time. (You can reserve a seat for that free event right now.)
The global oil order is cracking. The two signals I’ve shown you today are already firing simultaneously. And the window to position before Wall Street catches up is, as always, shorter than it looks.
This event is free. And it’s the first time we’re combining these two systems in front of an audience.
P.S. Jonathan makes an important point in today’s piece: Major market moves often begin long before the headlines fully explain them. That’s a big part of what he and Marc Chaikin plan to discuss during their free Convergence Summit event on May 28. They’ll explain how they combine volatility analysis with institutional money-flow signals to spot potential opportunities early. If you haven’t already reserved your seat, you can do that right here.
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In the lineup while pitching for the first time in nearly a month, Shohei Ohtani hit the second leadoff HR by a pitcher ever (joining himself) and lowered his ERA to 0.73 with five shutout innings.
Just two seasons removed from a 121-loss campaign, the White Sox have improved at a historic pace, and there are plenty of signs that they can keep it going.
Paul Thornton is temporarily paralyzed after surgery to remove a tumor from his spine, but he didn’t let that stop him from being at son Zach’s Major League debut for the Mets.
Here is one player from each farm system who has been better than expected in 2026, including some who have broken on to MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects list.
AL East division rivals square off in the Bronx on MLB Network Showcase as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays take on Aaron Judge and the Yankees at 7 p.m. ET (or Braves vs. Marlins at 6:30).
José Ramírez and the Guardians are in Detroit to battle Kevin McGonigle and the Tigers at 1 p.m. ET. Then, catch the Rockies and D-backs following the Blue Jays vs. Yankees Showcase game.
(16) Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” (17) But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (18) Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. (19) Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (20) For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. New King James VersionChange email Bible version
Adultery creates a second one-body/one-flesh bond in opposition to the marriage. This will inflict severe damage upon the marriage relationship. The apostle says such sexual sins hurt so much because they are “sins against [our] own body” (verse 18).
Paul comes to his primary point in verses 19-20: We are not our own! God bought us at an incredibly high cost, the blood of our Master, and thus He commands us to “glorify God in your body and in your spirit,” both of which are His! God owns us completely!
The import of this is staggering! When we commit sex sins—even in our minds—we have first become unfaithful to God! When we break the seventh commandment, we show infidelity to God! Yes, it shows infidelity to the wronged spouse, but it all begins with unfaithfulness to God.
The road to adultery starts when we become willing to break the vows we made to God at our baptism. We promised then that we would honor and obey Him exclusively and faithfully, accepting Him as our Savior, Master, and soon-coming King and Husband. When we are willing to walk away from the commands He gives us about sex and marriage, we begin to walk into the arms of adultery. Physical adultery starts with spiritual adultery!
If an adulterer desires to repent, he must first acknowledge that he has sinned against God. King David, in his moving prayer of repentance after the murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba, cries out, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). Did he not also sin against Uriah, Bathsheba, the nation, his wives, and his children? Of course! But ultimately, his sin was against God! When we are faithful to God and our covenant with Him, we will not commit sex sins.
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One Minute With GodGod Starts and Finishes your Day with Love
TEST YOUR BIBLE KNOWLEDGEWhat did God create on the first day?
