Years of drought and growing demand have taken their toll on the Colorado River, which supplies water and hydropower to 40 million people in seven Western states. Now, the river is “on the brink of disaster,” said The Wall Street Journal. An “unusually warm winter” deprived Colorado and Utah of the snowpack that feeds the river in the spring, and this will have literal downstream effects. The Lake Powell reservoir in Utah and Arizona will “receive the least amount of water this year” since its creation in 1963.

Western states have struggled for years to divvy up the dwindling supply, and old agreements are expiring. Now, the Trump administration is preparing a “drastic” plan to “cut water deliveries to farms, cities and tribes” by a third, said E&E News. 

‘Kicking this can down the road’
The “clock is running out on a deal” between Western states to “keep the Colorado River alive,” said Mike Gardner at The Raincross Gazette. The Interior Department’s proposal would likely face years of legal challenges, but the system of dams and reservoirs along the river could “cease to function due to lack of water” before the lawsuits play out. The states must find agreement before the federal government imposes one. 

States along the river have seen “enormous increases” in water consumption over the last half-century with “no thought for tomorrow,” said Steve Hanley at CleanTechnica. They have been “kicking this can down the road.” We are getting a “preview of the kind of wrangling” that will become common as Earth becomes “too hot in some places to sustain human life.”

Downsizing agriculture?
It’s time to build more water desalination plants on the Pacific Ocean, said Greg Walcher at The Daily Sentinel. If the Colorado River “cannot continue to supply all the people who once relied on it,” then plants seem a logical solution to the West’s “seemingly unsolvable water dilemma.” 

Indeed, Arizona, Nevada and Utah are trying to “buy excess water” from San Diego, said The New York Times. The city built a desalination plant to process Pacific Ocean water in the 1990s. But such solutions will take time, and cutbacks loom in the short term. 

Those who want to send weapons through snail mail may soon have an option, as the U.S. Postal Service is considering a proposal to allow people to ship handguns. Doing so has been illegal for nearly a century. And some firearm safety advocates are warning that the proposed change could bring unintended consequences.

‘Bypassing a longstanding law’
Efforts to undo the ban on mailing handguns came when the Postal Service introduced a rule change “bypassing a longstanding law prohibiting the practice,” said The Trace. It has been illegal to mail concealable firearms like handguns since 1927, though the mailing of long-barreled weapons like rifles and shotguns is allowed if they are properly secured. The new rule would “expand the scope of mailable firearms” by “allowing lawful handguns to be mailed under the same terms and conditions as lawful rifles and shotguns,” according to the text of the rule in the Federal Register.

The proposal was introduced two months after a Justice Department opinion declared that a ban on handgun mailing was “unconstitutional as applied to constitutionally protected firearms” because it “serves an illegitimate purpose and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.” Gun rights activists lauded the rule, representing “another key victory for America’s law-abiding gun owners,” said John Commerford, the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, to the Los Angeles Times.

‘Gun-trafficking pipeline’
Some are concerned that allowing handguns to be sent through the mail will increase the chances of gun-related crimes. Passing the rule would turn the Postal Service into a “gun-trafficking pipeline” by giving “felons, abusers and straw purchasers a direct line to illegal firearms while stripping law enforcement of the tools they need to prevent and investigate gun crime,” said John Feinblatt, the president of the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, to USA Today.

A group of 22 attorneys general from largely Democratic states has sent a letter to the Postal Service urging it not to pass the rule. This “irresponsible loophole blatantly disregards public safety,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement, and will “create a direct strain on state resources.”

A resident waters his garden under a plume of smoke from a wildfire in the nearby hills of Simi Valley, California. Evacuation orders have been issued to more than 28,000 people in the area since the blaze began on Monday.
Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty Images

The magic of the movies is how many people first discovered the martial arts, a loosely related set of hand-to-hand combat practices, most closely associated with China, that have diffused across most of the world. This rich tradition has been showcased in the plots and action sequences of countless films, including these exceptional, beloved classics.

‘Enter the Dragon’ (1973)
This movie will always be linked with the untimely death of its young star, Bruce Lee, before the film’s wide release. Unquestionably the “most influential martial arts movie ever made,” its profits, likely in excess of $100 million on a budget of less than $1 million, were “astronomical,” and the film has “more than stood the test of time,” said Tom Gray at BBC. (HBO Max)

‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (2000)
Directed by the legendary Ang Lee, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (pictured above) was a global sensation, characterized by mesmerizing fight sequences enhanced with magical realism. Buoyed by the “undeniable elegance of Ang Lee’s direction,” it’s also noteworthy for its “explicitly feminist take on the genre,” said Matthew Thrift at the British Film Institute. (Tubi)

‘The Raid: Redemption’ (2011)
Featuring and popularizing pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art, this film revolves around the efforts of a 20-person police SWAT team to storm a squalid apartment complex. The result is a “skull-splinteringly violent, uncompromisingly intense and simply brilliant martial arts action movie in a nightmarish and claustrophobic setting,” said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian. (Pluto TV)