After 21 hours of talks, US and Iran did not reach a deal to end the war, as Vice President JD Vance said talks stalled after the US made a final offer pushing for stronger guarantees that Iran won't develop nuclear weapons.
Federal Judge Michael Liburdi's decision to back the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission came after a week of arguments regarding the legality of prediction markets. A lawyer for the CFTC stated that a state criminal case would be a flawed approach to resolving contentious issues surrounding these markets.
Genetic sequencing has revealed that the state's nutria populations are most genetically similar to populations in Oregon, suggesting that California's current nutria invasion was the result of intentional reintroduction.
Indigenous communities have seen dramatic changes, from rescinding land-management policies that were more inclusive of Indigenous knowledge to reducing $1.5 billion in climate funding for tribal initiatives.
"San Jose was an agricultural wonderland. They called it the Valley of Heart's Delight, and most of it has been paved over and turned into high tech now. But this is a connection to our past."
If the lake level drops below 3,490 feet - termed the minimum power pool - the turbines that generate electricity have to be shut down. When the water level reaches critically low thresholds, air is sucked down like a whirlpool into the penstocks, forming explosive bubbles which can cause massive failure inside the dam.
One real benchmark would be that there would be less interest in the insurance commissioners position. Because it's always been kind of under-the-radar. It's become so high-profile because of all the problems that we have.
When California became a state in 1850, officials signed 18 treaties setting aside millions of acres for tribal reservations. Congress killed the deals in secret after pressure from state leaders. Many tribes had already moved, trusting the promises. Now California wants to make good.
Remote work not only increases worker efficiency but also helps state workers who are struggling to pay bills. It costs state workers roughly $6,000 a year to come into office four times a week.
The Colorado River is an interconnected system, sustained by Rocky Mountain snowpack, rainfall and groundwater. It is fragile, and under increasing stress. Two and a half decades into this century, the river that built the modern West has 20% less water flowing through it than it did on average in the last century. As heat and drought intensify, so do the stakes: Failure to recognize the severity of changing conditions, managing the river in parts without considering needs of the whole and inadequate planning for long-term shortages put the future of all the basin at risk.
In 2009, Wall Street had just imploded, and the Mojave Desert town of Victorville, California-sunblasted, shoddily constructed, and abruptly abandoned-was one of the housing bubble's most spectacular wipeouts. But amid the boarded-up McMansions and tumbleweed-traversed deserted culs-de-sac, the journalist Yasha Levine stumbled upon an entirely different story. Seeking water, a drought-stricken Victorville bulk-purchased enough to supply as many as 30,000 families for a year. The arrangement gave Levine pause: Since when did a public resource like water come with a deed? That question unspooled into the reporting behind his new documentary, Pistachio Wars.
The largest share, $235 million, will be used to rehabilitate the Delta-Mendota Canal, which carries water to farmlands. An additional $200 million will help continue repairs on the Friant-Kern Canal, another key conduit for water in the valley. Sinking ground, an effect of heavy groundwater pumping, has damaged segments of the Friant-Kern Canal and reduced its capacity.
Western water law is based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which gives the first entity to make "beneficial use" of water the right to keep on using that amount, even if that means that upstream "junior" users' spigots will get shut off. By the early 1900s, a rapidly growing California was enthusiastically diverting the Colorado River, with huge irrigation districts gobbling up the senior water rights.
The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health of rivers that feed California's largest estuary is generating heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento, as state officials try to gain support for a plan that has been years in the making. "I am passionate that this is the pathway to recover fish," said state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. "This is the paradigm we need: collaborative, adaptive management versus conflict and litigation."
Developers seeking to build dams, mines, data centers or pipelines must navigate a permitting process to do so. One requirement in the process is obtaining certification from a tribe or state confirming that the project meets federal water quality standards. Currently, tribes and states conduct holistic reviews of projects, known as " activity as a whole ", evaluating all potential impacts on water quality, including spill risks, threats to cultural resources, and impacts on wildlife. This approach was established under the Biden administration in 2023.
