Friday Afternoon Federal Newscast

The federal deficit surged higher into record territory in August, hitting $1.38 trillion — with a month left in the budget year. The Treasury Department ...

The federal deficit surged higher into record territory in August, hitting $1.38 trillion — with a month left in the budget year. The Treasury Department says last month’s deficit was more than one hundred eleven billion dollars, which is below what economists expected. Still, the imbalance added to a flood of red ink already accumulated through a severe recession and massive spending needed to stabilize the banking system.

The Office of Management and Budget and NASA likely will announce the cloud computing storefront Tuesday at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra had hoped to launch the storefront yesterday at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, though he made no such announcement. The Ames Center has been leading NASA’s efforts in this area, continuing their development of a cloud initiative called “nebula.”

More than 81 million Americans — or 42% of the U.S. Internet audience — visited a government Web site in July, according to new figures from Reston-based comScore. ComScore reports that the most visited were sites from the Department of Commerce (7.1 million visitors), including Weather.gov and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NOAA.gov. The Department of Education (7 million), National Institute of Health (6.9 million) and the Internal Revenue Service (4.2 million) also ranked high on the list. Traffic to WhiteHouse.gov also grew 88%, compared with the prior year.

Other News Links

Con artists exploit the Recovery Act (GovExec)

Energy improves Recovery Act reporting, IG says (GovExec)

SEC Outlines Madoff Lessons (Washington Post)

EPA Vows to Be Chesapeake Watchdog (Washington Post)

Researchers pursue new anthrax vaccine (Global Security Newswire/GovExec)

Aides defend presidential powers in cybersecurity bill (FCW)

Federal agencies prepare to make the leap from XP to Windows 7 (GCN)

And Finally . . .

Congress Camp this weekend!

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