Every morning in the Ohio Capital Journal’s free newsletter, The Eye-Opener, we round up the news and commentary from across Ohio and around the country and world that is catching our attention. We call this feature Catching Our Eye, republished here.

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Catching Our Eye

• Oil prices. The Economist reports, “Deal or no deal, oil prices will stay high for months.”

Most analysts expect overall Gulf production to reach 30-50% of February levels by mid-July, 60-70% by mid-September and 80-90% by the end of the year. In this scenario Brent would edge towards $75 a barrel. Prices in the Gulf and outside it, which diverged when the strait was first shut, are converging again.

Still, the pre-war world of abundant oil is a long way off. For one thing, even if outbound vessels start crossing Hormuz soon, inbound ones may not return in full for four or five months, predicts BRS, a ship broker. The 50 or so of the biggest crude carriers waiting outside the Gulf or off the Indian coast can load only about two weeks’ worth of pre-war Middle Eastern exports. Many ships that migrated to safe and lucrative Atlantic routes when the war started must complete their current voyages and will wait for Gulf freight rates to rise before heading back. Insurers will lower premiums only when freedom of navigation is guaranteed and large operators have been crossing the strait for weeks, says Ellis Morley of Howden, an insurance broker.

• Taxpayer-funded ballroom. The Washington Post reports, “Trump said no taxpayer money would be spent on the ballroom. A contractor’s invoices show otherwise.”

Five months after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, President Donald Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive ballroom and a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million and that private donors would pay for all of it.

“This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on March 31, describing the project as including bomb shelters and major medical facilities.

But a detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than three weeks before Trump’s comments estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy of the contractor estimate obtained by The Washington Post.

• Peter Thiel’s secret society. WIRED reports, “Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society.”

More than 200 of the world’s elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking.

A trove of internal records from a secret society for powerful figures in US politics, finance, and tech was left exposed online, WIRED has confirmed, naming participants in its events and revealing sensitive personal details they were assured would stay private.

The group, called Dialog, is a private, invitation-only organization cofounded in 2006 by the billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. It convenes US officials, foreign government figures, and Silicon Valley executives at off-the-record annual retreats. Dialog has spent two decades declining to disclose its members.