Reclamation's two official August 24-Month Studies disagree about the 1,010 ft trigger. The 6.0 maf run bottoms at 1,005.63 ft, the 7.0 maf run at 1,013.92 ft
Reclamation published the August 2026 24-Month Study as two simultaneous official reports. The 6.0 maf Lake Powell run puts Lake Mead at 1,005.63 ft in July 2027, below the 1,010 ft consultation trigger written into the new 2027-2028 guidelines; the 7.0 maf run bottoms at 1,013.92 ft and stays clear.
Twenty comments on OPM's reduction-in-force rule are posted, numbered and unreachable. The rule takes effect on 2 September
OPM says it received 721 comments on the rule that puts performance ahead of seniority in federal layoffs. Regulations.gov numbered 721 and lists 701. The other twenty load at their own addresses — including the Wounded Warrior Project's — and appear in no list and no search.
The trade court is having its second-heaviest year since 1999, not its heaviest. And our own July count of the 2020 wave was 220 cases short
The Court of International Trade has docketed 4,611 cases this fiscal year. That is second to fiscal 1999, when the Harbor Maintenance Tax ruling brought 6,433 — a year The Fold left out when it called this a pace seen once before.
The federal fire scoreboard passed 7 million acres in a single overnight step. Ninety-seven per cent of it was one column catching up
The daily federal situation report’s year-to-date total jumped 653,852 acres between its 14 and 15 August editions — the largest one-day step of 2026. The Bureau of Land Management’s column supplied 636,749 of it, on a morning its own Northwest fires reported almost no growth.
Reclamation’s projection for Lake Mead on 1 January 2027 fell 19 feet in a single edition. The rulebook that would have turned that into a water cut expires first
Twelve consecutive 24-Month Studies show the Bureau of Reclamation’s forecast for the date that sets Lower Basin shortage tiers. It dropped 19.33 feet between the April and May editions — and the 2007 guidelines that gave the number its force run out on 31 December.
USAspending shows two Pentagon accounts obligating more money than they have. One of them to six decimal places of exactly double
The federal spending site’s own account pages report the Payment to DoD Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Fund obligating $37.108bn against $18.554bn of budgetary resources. Forty-four Defense accounts show the same integer-multiple pattern, and none did a year ago.
Correction: nine Reserve Banks are in the remittance hole, not eleven — and three of them are digging
A Fold brief on 10 August said eleven of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks were working off deferred assets. The release it cited showed nine, as every weekly statement since 15 April has. Three of the nine are deeper than they were in January.
New Orleans publishes a nightly feed of records requests "that have been published". Seventy-six rows in it never were
The city’s open-data feed of public records requests carries 10,340 rows. Seventy-six have no publication date, no closure reason and a last-update stamp that has not moved since the week they were filed — four of them still labelled "Due soon" more than 1,340 days on.
Capital One over-funded Discover’s last card bonds by $1.43bn. It has already taken $1.15bn back
The indenture clause authorising the deal was written into the documents the morning it closed. It says collateral must be "at least sufficient", and lets anything above that plus 2% return to the issuer.
The federal fire scoreboard says 6.35m acres. NIFC’s own forecasters put the season past 7m on 31 July
The daily situation report and the agency’s August outlook describe two different fire seasons. NIFC wrote the discrepancy down itself, ten days ago, and the two totals have still not met.
The Pueblo of Acoma waited 251 days for a disaster declaration, the longest in FEMA’s record
FEMA publishes the date a request arrives and the date it is answered. Put them end to end and DR-4918 is the slowest of 2,870 major disasters going back to 1953.
Eleven Reserve Banks are working off their remittance hole. Chicago just printed its worst figure yet
The Fed’s weekly balance sheet shows the Chicago Bank’s deferred asset at $22.988bn, the largest on that line since it was created in 2011, while the System’s total fell to a 59-week low.
Exceptional drought is back in Oregon after 174 straight maps without it
The Drought Monitor released on 6 August puts 2.15% of the state in its worst category, all of it in Grant and Baker counties. The last time was March 2023.
Washington has drawn nine federal fire declarations this year, a record — four of them in Spokane County
FEMA’s record goes back to 1970 and no year had more than eight by this date. Spokane County had never had more than two; it took four in 46 days, three of them in one night.
USGS earthquake alerts pick their historical comparisons from a spreadsheet that ends in 2007
Every significant earthquake gets a PAGER alert naming up to three previous nearby quakes. Across 730 alerts since 2018 the alerts printed 1,712 such comparisons, and not one is dated later than 20 December 2007.
The newest GPS satellite has been flagged unusable for 110 days. The four before it took 26 to 38
GPS III SV-10 launched on 21 April. The Master Control Station’s own status file still carries it as unusable until further notice, and it holds the only bad health word among 32 broadcasting satellites.
Black Hills Energy’s 8.8% southern Colorado rate rise lasts 24 months. Its filed tariff sets the increase at 14.7%
The customer notice filed with Colorado regulators puts a typical Pueblo-area residential bill at $142.48 against $124.18 today — up 14.7%. The 8.8% the company advertises is that figure net of a credit that expires.
Card payment rates just hit a 26-year high in American Express’s trust. The trusts stopped describing the card market years ago
AmEx’s securitisation trust reported a 52.29% monthly payment rate for June, 2.16 times its June 2009 level. The five largest card trusts have shrunk 71% since then while large banks’ card books grew 66%.
Cyclospora outbreak triples to 6,358 cases in 15 states after the CDC widened what counts as a case
The count had not moved for twelve days. Then the CDC expanded the outbreak from people who ate at Taco Bell to anyone who ate the recalled lettuce, and it tripled — largely with illnesses that began before the recall.
OPM gave 30 days of comment on the rules taking appeals off the MSPB, and 60 on the one that left it alone
Four civil-service rules landed in a single Federal Register issue on Monday. The two that replace the Merit Systems Protection Board as adjudicator were open for 30 and 31 days. Commenters called that unlawfully short, and OPM’s answer is printed in the rule.
America’s two largest wildfires have cost less between them than one Colorado fire a third their size
A single query against the federal incident feed puts Aspen Acres at $97m on 101,961 acres. Rowe Creek Complex and Big Grass, 699,000 acres between them, come to $82m. What a fire costs turns out to have very little to do with how much of it burns.
FEMA has started releasing disaster declarations in batches. All 35 this year came on seven days
FEMA approved five major disaster declarations at once on Monday. Every one of 2026's 35 has landed on one of seven days, and the median wait from a state's request is now 47 days.
Spokane fires: an arson arrest over Old Trails, and the engines are moving to Autumn Lane
Spokane County detectives booked a man for first-degree arson over the Old Trails fire. All three fires are still uncontained, and Autumn Lane took most of Monday's reinforcements.
Avista told investors about the Spokane fires in an 8-K. The 10-Q it filed the same day does not mention them
The Spokane utility filed three documents on Monday. One describes fires burning through its service territory; the quarterly report filed alongside it lists a different incident as its only subsequent event.
Spokane’s Old Trails fire destroyed a building for every 6.6 acres. No other fire in the country is close
Three fires that started within three and a half hours of each other on Saturday have taken 660 structures — 38% of everything the national fire report records as lost, on 0.31% of its acreage. All three were still at zero containment on Monday morning.
Cyclospora’s first two deaths, and Michigan alone reports six times the national outbreak count
Michigan attributes the deaths to its own 11,234-case outbreak, not to the nine-state outbreak the CDC has been counting at 1,947. One state is reporting 67% more cases than the CDC records for the whole country.
Altria’s cigarette profit rose $12m last quarter. Customs refunds contributed $27m of it
The number is in the 10-Q, not the press release. It is the second quarter running that Altria has quantified its duty-drawback benefit only in the filing — $51m in the first quarter, $27m in the second.
Tariff refunds have reached $119bn, and the trade court is taking cases at a pace it has seen once before
Treasury’s daily ledger shows $118.9bn paid out through the Customs and Border Protection account in the first ten months of this fiscal year, against $10.8bn in all of the last one. The money started moving in May.
The FDA’s drug shortage database holds 1,181 open records. They are 73 drugs
The agency writes one shortage record per package, per manufacturer, so the same drug can appear ninety times. Counted properly, half the list has been in shortage for more than four and a half years, and four entries date from early 2012.
The lettuce outbreak now accounts for under a third of confirmed cyclospora cases, down from about half
The CDC’s named outbreak has been frozen at 1,947 cases since 24 July, while its national surveillance page — updated on the 28th — moved from 4,173 laboratory-confirmed cases to 6,707 across 45 states.
The national wildfire scoreboard says this year is 130% of normal. In the Northwest it is missing more acres than it counts
The federal situation report’s year-to-date table credits the Northwest with 776,014 acres burned. Its own active-incident table, on the same page, puts the fires currently assigned there at 1,835,823 — a gap of more than a million acres, and the report footnotes why.
UPS earnings: the US parcel business made one cent per package last quarter, down from 85 cents
UPS charged 9.3% more per US parcel in the second quarter and still cleared a single cent on each one, because its cost per piece rose 16.8%. The entire gap is one restructuring line — and on the company’s own adjusted numbers, profits went up.
Colorado’s Aspen Acres fire was due to be contained on Wednesday. That morning the federal report moved the date to 15 August
The estimated containment date for the fire southwest of Pueblo had read 29 July in every daily federal situation report since 30 June, when it was 2,476 acres. On the morning of the 29th it changed to 15 August — on a day when the fire itself did not move at all.
Federal agencies now get three days to patch. CISA’s own catalogue shows the deadline started tightening months before the rule that set it
A binding directive issued on 10 June replaced a patch clock that had been almost exactly 21 days for four years. Recomputing every entry in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue shows the collapse happened in two steps, and the first one came three months early.
COVID emergency-room visits hit their lowest level on record in June, and the summer rise is starting from there
CDC’s emergency-department surveillance recorded COVID at 0.09% of visits in mid-June, the lowest in the series’ 1,400-day history. Late July is running at 0.21% — a rise, but 71% below the same week last year.
West Virginia and Kentucky are waiting on three disaster declarations. FEMA’s own records show the median wait this year is 53 days
Two governors have three pending requests between them, one of them expedited. The federal register of declarations shows what usually happens next — and that emergency declarations arrive in a day while the ones that pay households take months.
Boeing has now booked about $2.7bn of losses on a $4bn contract to build two Air Force One jets
The company disclosed another $280m charge on the presidential aircraft in its second quarter. Boeing reports the increments one at a time and never adds them up; totalled, they come to roughly two-thirds of the contract.
Oregon wildfires: 37 large fires, 1.3 million acres and a 10th Conflagration Act invocation
Oregon wildfires span 37 large incidents and 1.32 million acres in Monday’s federal tally, with 68 structures destroyed and the Northwest holding two-thirds of the country’s fire acreage.
Pacific Power’s Oregon rate case: residential bills rise 10.8%, not the 8.6% in the coverage
Pacific Power wants $170.7 million more from Oregon customers. Its own filing puts the residential increase at 10.8% and $15.61 a month — figures the local coverage left out.
Boundary Waters reopens for day use after a closure that voided about 53,000 permit slots
The Boundary Waters reopened select Cook County entry points for day use on Monday after wildfires closed the wilderness on 14 July. Overnight camping stays barred until 29 July.
CDC figures show the lettuce recall accounts for under half of this year’s confirmed cyclospora cases
The Taco Bell-linked outbreak has grown to 1,947 cases across nine states. But the CDC has logged 4,173 laboratory-confirmed cyclosporiasis cases nationally since 1 May, plus more than 7,400 awaiting confirmation — which resolves the case-count gap this site reported last week.
Cyclospora: Michigan alone reports 7,171 cases as FDA retracts its only positive test
Michigan’s state count of 7,171 is more than four times the federal outbreak figure, and the FDA has withdrawn the one lettuce sample that tested positive.
Cyclospora outbreak tied to Taco Bell lettuce reaches 1,644 cases in five states
Cyclospora infections linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell have reached 1,644 reported cases across five states, with 94 hospitalisations. The FDA traced the lettuce to a single Mexican supplier.
Minnesota air quality hits worst levels on record as Boundary Waters fires burn
Minnesota recorded the most intense smoke pollution in its history this week, with readings in Ely and Duluth far above anything previously measured. The Twin Cities reached a "hazardous" air rating for the first time on record.
Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami as UK seeks extradition on 38 new charges
US Marshals arrested the Tate brothers in Miami on Saturday on a sealed warrant. British prosecutors have brought 38 further charges including rape and sex trafficking, taking the total to 59.
New York becomes the first state to hit pause on big new data centers
Governor Kathy Hochul ordered a pause of up to a year on state permits for large data centers — those drawing 50 megawatts or more — making New York the first US state to brake the AI-driven buildout over energy and cost concerns.
Chip stocks tumble as DeepSeek in-house silicon and Samsung results spark AI-valuation jitters
Semiconductor shares sank on July 7 after reports China's DeepSeek is building its own AI chip and weak Samsung results reignited doubts about AI spending. A gauge of chipmakers fell over 4.5%; Micron dropped 4.7% and the SMH ETF slid nearly 4%.
Heat Dome's Record Tally Comes Into Focus as Relief Nears for the East
As the Fourth of July heat dome that put more than 185 million Americans under alerts begins to break down, the record tally is coming into focus — from Newark's 105°F to Atlantic City's 105°F — with cooler air set to reach the East by midweek.
Sail250 Fills New York Harbor With Tall Ships for America's 250th Fourth of July
The Sail250 parade sent 45 tall ships and more than 40 warships up the Hudson on the Fourth of July — organizers' pick for the largest maritime gathering in U.S. history, and the biggest tall-ship fleet New York has seen since the 1976 Bicentennial.
AI Screen Turns Up New Weapons Against Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea
A machine-learning search through millions of molecules has identified two experimental antibiotics that kill drug-resistant gonorrhea in new ways — including one that disables a bacterial enzyme no existing drug targets, a lab at Harvard, MIT and the Broad reports.
Heat dome peaks for July Fourth with 185 million under alerts and 300-plus records in reach
The heat dome The Fold tracked building in late June crested over the holiday weekend, with more than 185 million Americans under heat alerts and over 300 daily records expected to fall from the Plains to the East Coast by Saturday.
Hiring cooled to 57,000 in June even as the Dow closed at a record
June payrolls rose just 57,000, about half of what economists expected, and prior months were revised down by 74,000 — yet the Dow finished July 2 at a record 52,900 as investors bet a softening labor market keeps the Fed on hold.
A study of 720,000 patients finds most referred for a kidney transplant never reach the waitlist
Analyzing records from 720,348 adults referred for kidney transplantation, researchers found nearly half never began the evaluation and only about 19 percent made the waitlist — a bottleneck the authors say the usual referral count conceals.
US declines to renew USMCA, pushing North American trade pact into a decade of annual reviews
The Trump administration refused to renew the USMCA at its July 1 deadline, triggering yearly reviews of a pact covering $1.6 trillion in trade. Without a deal, it expires in 2036.
Earlier coverage
- 'No Kings' rallies sweep the US on Trump's 80th birthday as he hosts a UFC card at the White House
- Skydiving plane crash near Butler, Missouri kills all 12 aboard
- Knicks win first NBA title since 1973; 63 arrested as MSG celebration turns destructive
- Knicks erase 29-point deficit, largest comeback in NBA Finals history, to lead Spurs 3-1
- Alabama appeals ruling that nitrogen gas executions are unconstitutionally cruel
- Platner wins Maine Senate primary despite eleventh-hour campaign turmoil
- Lombardo and Ford win Nevada governor primaries, setting up marquee fall contest
- Federal judge strikes down Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas
- Houston enters final stretch of World Cup prep as first match nears
- Atlanta readies Mercedes-Benz Stadium for eight World Cup matches
- Bass and Raman head to November runoff for Los Angeles mayor
- Supreme Court enters final month with Trump cases on birthright, firings unresolved
- California pre-positions crews as fire weather and heat build across the south
- Flash flood threat soaks Houston as storms stall over the region
- Senate passes $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill
- House passes Iran war powers resolution in rare rebuke of Trump
- USDA confirms New World screwworm in South Texas calf, triggering quarantine
- South Florida ramps up security with World Cup days away
- Hilton and Becerra lead California governor primary as Steyer trails
- Karen Bass advances to November runoff in Los Angeles mayor's race
- Arizona reports first death from Sin Nombre hantavirus
- Supreme Court lets Alabama use Republican-favored map for midterms
- New Jersey police take over Delaney Hall as ICE protest curfew holds
- Wembanyama's Spurs oust Thunder in Game 7 to set 1999 Finals rematch with Knicks
- Amarillo approves $14.3m Lawrence Lake flood-protection project
- NASA confirms meteor fireball caused loud boom felt across New England
- Charter bus driver charged after I-95 crash in Virginia kills five
- Chicago approves $23m mixed-use development for Auburn Gresham
- Simi Valley's Sandy Fire reaches 61% containment as some evacuation warnings remain
- Seattle council weighs moratorium on new data centers
- Eight confirmed dead and three missing after chemical-tank implosion at Washington paper mill
- CBS fires two ’60 Minutes’ correspondents and its executive producer in Weiss-led overhaul
- Phoenix bars needle exchange and syringe-delivered naloxone in city parks in 6-3 vote
- Explosion and fire at Dallas apartment building kill at least three
- Ex-CIA official David Rush charged with stealing 303 gold bars worth more than $40 million
- New York and New Jersey subpoena FIFA over World Cup dynamic pricing and zone-switching complaints
- Longview pulp mill death toll reaches two with nine missing as governor warns of "deadliest industrial tragedy" in state
- Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara resigns after probe finds he interfered with internal investigation
- Mamdani launches Commission on Government Efficiency as Patrick Gaspard takes chair
- Mayor Brandon Johnson to meet Pope Leo XIV at Vatican as Chicago marks three years of his term
- Santa Fe council passes $521m budget with 8% spending rise
- Texas Senate runoff pits Paxton against Cornyn after Trump endorsement
- Knicks sweep Cavaliers 130-93 to reach first NBA Finals since 1999
- Mamdani names Bronx site for second public grocery store as city braces for holiday-weekend storms
- Garden Grove chemical tank stabilises but 50,000 remain displaced into Memorial Day
- Trump administration to force temporary visa holders to apply for green cards from abroad
- Trump indefinitely postpones AI executive order after tech-CEO lobbying
- Chicago council approves $16.5m in police misconduct settlements
- Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein ousts Thomas Massie in $32m Kentucky GOP primary
- Philadelphia hits 98°F, breaking 1991 all-time May high
- Three killed in shooting at San Diego mosque investigated as hate crime
- First American infected with Ebola as US tightens travel screening
- Three young people arrested over string of shootings across Austin
- Wind-driven Sandy Fire forces thousands to flee in Simi Valley
- Long Island Rail Road strike ends after three days as deal is reached
- Rare high-end tornado threat builds over central Plains after destructive weekend
- Lansing council to vote on $182m budget for the coming year
- Aaron Rai wins PGA Championship, first English champion in more than a century
- Panzarella leads Hellyar in early returns in Houston City Council runoff
- Cassidy ousted in Louisiana Senate primary as Letlow and Fleming head to runoff
- Severe storms sweep the central US as a multi-day outbreak threatens millions
- Providence council fails to override mayor’s veto of rent stabilization
- House deadlocks 212-212 on Iran war powers resolution
- LA Mayor Bass faces backlash over report she softened Palisades fire findings
- US passengers from hantavirus-hit cruise ship quarantine in Nebraska as toll reaches three
- Texas Panhandle wildfire burns homes and a rail bridge near Canyon
- Kevin Warsh set to take over Federal Reserve as Powell’s term ends
- New York lawmakers pass 12th budget extender as spending deal stalls
- Crews halt 30-acre Grand Fire in Chino Hills after vehicle crash
- FDA chief Marty Makary resigns after fight over flavoured-vape approvals
- April CPI hits 3.8%, highest since 2023 as Iran war pushes gasoline up 28.4%
- Dallas hotel rates jump 39% as World Cup approaches one-month countdown
- Trump tells CBS he intends to suspend federal gas tax "for a period of time"
- Newsom asks for 12-month FEMA extension for LA wildfire survivors
- Mamdani names Griffin penthouse in pitch for $500m pied-à-terre tax
- Houston ISD spins up backup site as Canvas outage hits Texas school finals
- Oklahoma braces for tornadoes as Mississippi tallies 500-home toll from Wednesday outbreak
- Bogue Chitto trailer-park residents pick through wreckage of all but one home flattened by tornado
- Thunder take 2-0 lead over Lakers as Holmgren posts 22 in second-quarter blowout
- California commits $70m to wildfire prevention as drought and heat raise risk
- Tennessee enacts new House map carving up state's lone Black-majority district
- Blue Cross Blue Shield begins paying out $2.67bn antitrust settlement
- Protesters fill Tennessee Capitol galleries as House map clears Senate
- Chicago launches e-scooter safety push ahead of summer riding season