By Ewa Manthey, Commodities Strategist

Fiscal risks give gold fresh momentum

Gold has climbed from around $4,000/oz in mid-July to around $4,600/oz, returning to levels last seen in May.

The latest move followed the US

Some CenturyLink customers reported ongoing internet and phone connectivity problems in recent days, though independent outage-tracking services have largely characterized the telecommunications provider’s network as operating normally, illustrating the kind of mixed signals that often accompany scattered or regional service disruptions.

CenturyLink, which offers internet, television, phone and home security services across 37 states, provides its television offering either through satellite partner DirecTV or through its own internet-based Prism TV platform. The company has grown substantially through a series of major acquisitions over the years, absorbing Embarq in 2009, Qwest in 2010, Savvis in 2012 and Level 3 Communications in 2017, expanding its network footprint into one of the larger telecommunications infrastructure providers in the United States. The company now operates under the corporate name Lumen Technologies, though it continues offering residential and business services under the CenturyLink brand in many markets.

According to reporting from Sunday Guardian Live, CenturyLink customers across the U.S. have continued reporting internet and connectivity problems in recent days, with users flagging outages, slow connections and general difficulty getting online. The outlet noted that current outage-monitoring services have shown a mixed picture of the situation: StatusGator listed CenturyLink as operational overall, even while recording dozens of individual user-submitted outage reports over a 24-hour period. As of that reporting, there was no confirmed evidence of a broad, nationwide CenturyLink outage, even as scattered individual complaints continued to surface.

Other independent monitoring tools have offered similarly reassuring assessments of CenturyLink’s overall network status. According to Outage.report, CenturyLink appeared to be functioning normally as of its most recent check, with reported complaint volume falling within the typical range expected for that time of day. The service noted that its most recently recorded incident affecting CenturyLink had occurred more than a year earlier, with no additional incidents logged over the trailing 12-month period based on available monitoring data. Similarly, IsDown reported receiving zero user-submitted issue reports for CenturyLink over a recent 24-hour monitoring window, while ISPDown.com’s tracking likewise showed zero reported outages during a separate 24-hour check earlier this month.

Entireweb’s status tracker offered a slightly more granular picture, noting that CenturyLink had received three user reports over a 24-hour period during a recent check, though none of those reports had come in during the final hour before the assessment was conducted, suggesting any reported issues at that time were relatively limited in scope and had not escalated further.

Despite that broadly reassuring pattern across most monitoring services, individual customer complaints posted to public forums paint a more frustrated picture of periodic, localized service problems. According to comments compiled by UpDownRadar, customers in various states have described extended outages, difficulty reaching customer support, and recurring connectivity issues requiring frequent equipment resets. One user described enduring what they characterized as more downtime than uptime, while another reported an outage that persisted for multiple days without a clear explanation from the company regarding its cause. Such individual, longer-running complaints are common on outage-tracking forums and often reflect localized infrastructure issues affecting specific neighborhoods or service areas rather than problems with CenturyLink’s broader network.

StatusGator’s more detailed incident history for CenturyLink shows a pattern of periodic, relatively short-duration outages scattered throughout the year. According to the service’s records, CenturyLink experienced an internet service outage lasting approximately six hours and 27 minutes in early July, a separate 58-minute service outage in June, a 13-minute internet connectivity disruption later that same month, and a roughly one-hour outage in May. None of those incidents, according to StatusGator, were ever officially acknowledged by CenturyLink through a public statement, a pattern consistent with how many internet service providers handle smaller, regional outages that do not rise to the level of a company-wide announcement.

CenturyLink’s network carries particular significance beyond individual residential and business customers, given the company’s role in supporting critical telecommunications infrastructure across multiple states. According to TechCrunch, CenturyLink experienced a major outage in the past that disrupted 911 emergency call services across several states after a significant disruption at one of the company’s data centers. That outage began shortly after noon Eastern time on a Thursday and caused significant disruption to 911 call centers that extended into the following day, with the company confirming that all consumer services affected by the incident, including both voice and 911 services, had been fully restored by that Friday evening, more than a day after the disruption first began. CenturyLink at the time did not disclose the specific underlying cause of the outage beyond describing it broadly as an issue involving a “network element.” TechCrunch noted that CenturyLink serves as one of the largest telecommunications providers in the country, supplying internet and phone backbone infrastructure to major cellular carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, underscoring how disruptions to CenturyLink’s core network can potentially ripple outward to affect customers of other carriers relying on its underlying infrastructure.

Regulatory records have also documented individual customer complaints regarding CenturyLink service disruptions over time. According to a complaint report filed with Utah’s Division of Public Utilities, one customer reported an extended phone service outage in December 2025 that the company initially attributed to a wet line issue before the service went out again shortly afterward, reportedly due to a fire; the customer’s complaint was not formally resolved until January 2026, illustrating how individual service disruptions can sometimes take considerable time to fully resolve even after being reported to regulatory authorities.

Given the discrepancy between scattered individual complaints and the largely operational readings recorded by most independent monitoring services, any recent reports of CenturyLink problems most likely reflect localized or intermittent issues rather than a broad, company-wide outage. Customers experiencing persistent difficulty with CenturyLink internet, phone or TV service are generally advised to first attempt basic troubleshooting steps, including power-cycling their modem or router, before assuming a wider service-area disruption is underway, and can additionally use CenturyLink’s own official outage troubleshooting tool to check whether a known issue has been identified affecting their specific location. As of this report, CenturyLink had not issued a public statement addressing any specific, ongoing service disruption beyond the routine, generally unacknowledged pattern of shorter regional outages that outage-tracking services have continued to document throughout the year.

This article was written by

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MCLEAN, VA. — Mars, Inc. in August plans to begin offering on Amazon items without FD&C colors under its Extra, M&M’s, Skittles and Starburst brands.

Skittles without FD&C colors will come in strawberry, orange, lemon, grape and lime flavors. Starburst fruit chews will be available in strawberry, cherry, orange and lemon flavors. The spearmint flavor of Extra gum also will be available.

M&M’s milk chocolate without FD&C colors will come in a blend of red, orange, green and yellow. Blue and brown M&M’s without FD&C colors will not be available.

“We are working diligently to explore non-FD&C alternatives across our portfolio that meet our safety and quality standards,” Mars said.

Conventional items under the Extra, M&M’s, Skittles and Starburst brands will still be available on Amazon. They contain FD&C colors such as Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and No. 6, and Blue No. 1 and No. 2.

KANSAS CITY –Whey, once a cheesemaking byproduct that was discarded into wastewater, has been on a historic three-year run, with prices soaring to unprecedented levels.

Much of the rally has been driven by consumers’ growing appetite for convenient protein.

“Whey protein is not something you just see at GNC or in the sports nutrition aisle now,” said Joshua White, vice president of dairy ingredients at T.C. Jacoby & Co. “It can be found in nearly every aisle of the grocery store.”

Amid the surge in demand, expanding cheese production has given processors a larger whey stream to work with, while investments in filtration and processing capacity have scaled the industry’s ability to extract more value from that stream. Whey can be processed into products, including whey protein concentrate (WPC) 34% or further concentrated into higher-protein WPC 80% and whey protein isolate (WPI). As values for those higher-protein products have risen, processors have at times prioritized their production, reducing WPC 34% output and contributing to tight supplies across the whey protein complex.

After climbing almost continuously since mid-2023, whey protein prices are beginning to test what buyers are willing to pay. White estimated spot WPC 80% surged from about $2.50 per lb in mid-2023 to $13.50 per lb today.

The underlying demand behind the numbers is expected to remain strong. Custom Market Insights, a market researcher, projected the global whey protein market will grow from $13.52 billion in 2025 to $26.04 billion by 2034, a compound annual growth rate of 7.56%. The report identified ready-to-drink beverages and functional foods as major growth areas.

GLP-1 weight-loss drugs also have accelerated the trend, but White cautioned against giving them all the credit. Health and wellness demand extends beyond GLP-1 users and across international markets. European whey protein prices have surpassed those in the United States, and export interest has increased.

However, at current levels, some WPC buyers have resisted adding coverage, with recent reports of customers staying on the sidelines in hopes of securing better values.

White characterized the hesitancy to commit as a possible sign the market is moving beyond its “parabolic” phase and into a more mature period. Supplies are still tight, but high prices are beginning to reshape who can justify whey.

WPC 80% once served several tiers of demand, from calf milk replacer to sports nutrition and functional foods. Rising prices have pushed lower value, such as its use in feed, out of the market, while health and wellness customers have been willing to pay a premium.

Now, some food manufacturers may be next to reconsider. Those seeking higher protein content may have more flexibility than customers that specifically need whey’s nutritional or functional characteristics, making milk protein concentrate, casein and caseinates increasingly attractive alternatives in some formulations.

Photo: USDA

But not all WPC alternatives are created equal.

“They don’t all perform the same and don’t share the same nutritional profile,” White said.

Still, substantially cheaper milk proteins could offer reformulation opportunities where whey is desirable rather than indispensable.

Buying strategy, White said, depends largely on how much flexibility a customer has. Those who are reliant on whey may be better served maintaining coverage rather than betting on a substantial price break while supplies are still tight. Buyers with more flexibility can afford to wait, adding spot loads opportunistically if better values emerge later in the year.

Heading into 2027, food manufacturers may have to reset their expectations for what whey will cost.

“If you budgeted $5 (per lb) or $6 (per lb) whey protein last year, you may have to budget $10 or $12 whey protein this year,” White said.

It remains to be seen how much of those higher ingredient costs manufacturers can absorb before passing along to consumers, and how that could shape demand in the year ahead.

White is watching a couple signals that may offer clues to end users as they build buying strategies for the remainder of this year and into next year. One is promotional activity and price reductions in online sports nutrition, where consumers are particularly price sensitive. The other is whether food manufacturers increase reformulation activity toward milk proteins.

He also recommended that buyers keep a close eye on the spot market. If contracted customers begin taking less than forecast, processors may find themselves with extra loads to sell. The residual loads often become the transactions that move dairy protein prices.

For now, the whey complex remains tight, and the broader demand story appears intact. The key will be how buyers and consumers respond as lofty prices work their way through the market, and whether that response is enough to bring demand closer in line with available supplies.