Four waves of rainfall over two creek drainages triggered a violent flash flood through Bright Angel Canyon and Phantom Ranch on Saturday, destroying nearly every footbridge along Bright Angel Creek and forcing more than 60 evacuations. Two bodies have been recovered and roughly 15 people remain unaccounted for. The flood also severed the Transcanyon Waterline — the park's only water supply — pushing the Park Service to stage-four water restrictions as more storms move in.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Monday denied requests from the Trump administration and Republican-led states to lift her temporary block on key parts of a Postal Service rule implementing the president's election-security executive order. The 14-day restraining order stands, with an expedited hearing set for Thursday on a longer-lasting preliminary injunction. With 64 days until the midterms, the clock is very much part of the story.
West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 3.49% to $86.31 Monday as renewed US-Iran exchanges rattled energy markets, and major US indexes opened lower. Traders now price a better-than-60% chance of a Fed rate hike in September — up from 41.4% a week ago — after Chair Kevin Warsh warned borrowing costs may have to rise if inflation won't come down. The Fed's preferred gauge held at 3.7% in July, and gas is still above four dollars six months into the Iran conflict.
Prescription drug prices fell 0.8% in July and are down 3.1% year over year — the sharpest annual decline in more than six decades. The White House credits its "most favored nation" pricing agreements and the February launch of TrumpRx. The president made a healthcare affordability announcement Monday, leaning hard into the one inflation line that's moving his way.
US forces struck IRGC units on Larak Island Sunday after observing preparations to lay sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz — the first American strikes on Iran since late July. Iran retaliated against two US air bases in Jordan and vowed responses "dozens of times greater," while CENTCOM publicly rejected Tehran's claim that a supertanker had hit mines, calling it disinformation. Trump warned Monday the US will "hit Iran hard," and retaliation against Kharg Island, Iran's main oil-export terminal, is under consideration.
Trump announced what he called the "biggest oil deal in the world," securing US access to more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves through an agreement with the country's interim president and opening a path to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Meanwhile, ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro released the first photographs of himself from Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since his capture, flashing peace signs while awaiting trial on federal drug-trafficking charges. Beijing condemned the operation as a "blatant use of force against a sovereign state."
With sanctions squeezing its export economy and Hormuz traffic still running below normal, Tehran used a regional summit to appeal directly to China and India for economic relief. The pitch comes as Trump threatens expanded bombing and the World Bank projects global energy prices climbing 24% in 2026. Whether Iran's two biggest crude customers are willing to absorb the political cost is the question hanging over the next round.
Trump revealed that NASA has started development on the first-ever nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, targeted for the planned 2028 Mars mission. The disclosure came alongside an executive order establishing a US Space Academy — a West Point-style institution to train students for the Space Force and the commercial space sector — with the location still to be determined. All four Artemis II crew members were honored at the signing.
America's hunt for critical minerals is moving beneath the waves, with attention shifting to seabed deposits as Washington tries to break dependence on foreign supply chains. The push follows roughly $3 billion in critical mineral and battery project announcements this month. Offshore extraction is technically hard and environmentally contested — but the strategic math on rare earths keeps pointing the same direction.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says the agency holds imagery of objects it genuinely cannot explain, adding that no alien bodies or recovered craft exist in the files. Newly surfaced records include 2023 infrared footage of an F-16 downing a diamond-shaped object over Lake Huron, plus reports of unexplained aerial objects near military operations across the Middle East. Isaacman's favorite detail: some of the strangest data came from the lunar surface during Apollo 12 and 17 — which, as he puts it, you can't dismiss without also denying the moon landings.
