Fri: Red States Have Too Many Dumb People to Begin With.

A Little Good News Out of Gaza

Mediator Qatar says 13 Israelis, including dual nationals, 10 Thais and one Filipino released in Gaza.

Group of 39 Palestinian women and children transported from two Israeli jails to Ofer prison ahead of expected release.

After seven weeks of war, Palestinians in bombarded Gaza welcome first pause in fighting with mixed feelings.

Israeli army says northern Gaza is out of bounds, blocks displaced Palestinians from returning home.

More than 14,800 people killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas’s attacks stands at about 1,200.

The Future of the Colorado River Hinges on One Young Negotiator

John Brooks Hamby was 9 years old the last time a group of Western states renegotiated how they share the dwindling Colorado River. When the high-stakes talks concluded two years later, in 2007, with a round of painful cuts, he hadn’t reached high school.

Yet this June an audience of water policy experts listened with rapt attention as Hamby, now 27, recited lessons from those deliberations.

Hamby, California’s boyish-looking representative on issues concerning the river, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the other states’ powerful water managers, many of whom have decades of experience, an almost uncomfortable sight given their latest brawl over the beleaguered Colorado River. The group had gathered in a mock courtroom at the University of Colorado Law School to discuss water law and to field questions about their negotiations over shortages that have prompted some cities to restrict growth and farmers to fallow fields.

The moderator asked whether states would allow Native American tribes in the basin, who have often been denied the water they were guaranteed by treaties and court rulings, to have an equal say in these decisions, referencing a question posed earlier by the governor of the Gila River Indian Community, a tribe in Arizona. Hamby jumped to offer a noncommittal answer about involving tribes in “effective conversations” before pivoting to a discussion of how, during the 2007 negotiations, smaller working groups had allowed the states and other water users to effectively iron out potential impasses.

The only other state delegate to respond endorsed Hamby’s answer, a sign of how quickly he has risen to the top of the river’s ranks. Hamby — who goes by J.B. — is the youngest of the Colorado River’s “water buffaloes,” as the water managers who set policy are known.

While his counterparts from the other basin states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — worked their way through water agencies or weathered the shifting politics of various governors, Hamby’s ascent was swift. In a three-year span, he rose from a recent Stanford University graduate, with a resume that touted little beyond a history degree and internships with Uber and a senator, to vice president of the Imperial Irrigation District board and chair of the Colorado River Board of California. The former post gave him sway over the single largest user of Colorado River water, and the latter made him California’s interstate negotiator for issues affecting the river basin.

Combined, these roles position Hamby as arguably the most powerful person involved in talks on the future of the Colorado River, a waterway that is relied upon by an estimated 35 million people and supports about $1.4 trillion worth of commerce.

They also place him at the center of the river’s most consequential moment since midcentury, when Arizona and California went to the Supreme Court to fight over the amount of water they were allocated. Now the river’s users must agree to dramatic cuts, as the river has been diminished by climate change and drought. It’s a task that demands Hamby both protect California’s long-standing water rights and lead all seven basin states to collaborate on a resolution, even though they’ll all have to give ground.

Berg on the Run

The world's largest iceberg is on the move for the first time in more than three decades, scientists said on Friday.

At almost 4,000 square km (1,500 square miles), the Antarctic iceberg called A23a is roughly three times the size of New York City.

Since calving off West Antarctica's Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986, the iceberg — which once hosted a Soviet research station — has largely been stranded after its base became stuck on the floor of the Weddell Sea.

Not anymore. Recent satellite images reveal that the berg, weighing nearly a trillion metric tonnes, is now drifting quickly past the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, aided by strong winds and currents.

It's rare to see an iceberg of this size on the move, said British Antarctic Survey glaciologist Oliver Marsh, so scientists will be watching its trajectory closely.

As it gains steam, the colossal berg will likely be launched into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This will funnel it toward the Southern Ocean on a path known as "iceberg alley" where others of its kind can be found bobbing in dark waters.

Why the berg is making a run for it now remains to be seen.



"Over time it's probably just thinned slightly and got that little bit of extra buoyancy that's allowed it to lift off the ocean floor and get pushed by ocean currents," said Marsh. A23a is also among the world's oldest icebergs.

It's possible A23a could again become grounded at South Georgia island. That would pose a problem for Antarctica's wildlife. Millions of seals, penguins, and seabirds breed on the island and forage in the surrounding waters. Behemoth A23a could cut off such access.

In 2020, another giant iceberg, A68, stirred fears that it would collide with South Georgia, crushing marine life on the sea floor and cutting off food access. Such a catastrophe was ultimately averted when the iceberg broke up into smaller chunks — a possible end game for A23a as well.

But "an iceberg of this scale has the potential to survive for quite a long time in the Southern Ocean, even though it's much warmer, and it could make its way farther north up toward South Africa where it can disrupt shipping," said Marsh.