The Brief

The Colorado River is in crisis — one of the worst in recorded history. We take more water out of the river than flows in, and climate change is making things worse. So for the past several months, the seven states that use Colorado River water have been trying to come up with a plan to keep the river from collapsing. Thirty tribal nations and Mexico also tap the Colorado River, but they are not formally represented in these negotiations.

The states have until the end of 2025 to make a deal. And recently, the states have been deadlocked over who should use less water, and how much. The states in the “Upper Basin” (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico) vehemently disagree with the states in the “Lower Basin” (California, Arizona, and Nevada).

If they can’t make a deal in time, and the river continues to dry up without an agreement about how to handle that, no one knows what will happen.

At the very worst, big reservoirs could get so low, no water would pass through the dams. That means 30% of Southern California’s drinking water would be cut off, likely resulting in strict rationing and higher prices for water.

California is the single largest user of Colorado River water, which means that any effort to save the river involves the state making some serious cuts.

JB Hamby is California's lead negotiator on Colorado River issues and the subject of a new season of Imperfect Paradise called The Gen Z Water Dealmaker. 

J.B. Hamby listens as employees at drop 4 go over details of the hydraulic generator.

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Zaydee Sanchez

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LAist

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Name: John Brooks Hamby, aka J.B.

Age: 28

Hometown: Brawley, California

Day job: Board member of Imperial Irrigation District, a public utility that imports Colorado River water to California’s Imperial Valley and provides electricity. Elected in November 2020.

Side hustle: Lead negotiator for California on Colorado River issues. Elected in January 2023.

Number of phones: Two

Number of cars: One, a silver 2013 Toyota Prius with 210,000 miles.

Number of books he's read about the Colorado River: A lot. Not exactly sure. I’m on the market for some bookshelves.

This aerial view shows the All-American Canal along the U.S.-Mexico in Imperial Valley.

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Sandy Huffaker

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AFP via Getty Images

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Favorite animal: The desert pupfish. They’re an endangered fish native to the lower Colorado River and Arizona. They’re half the size of your pinky, tolerate heat and salinity, and the males turn bright blue when mating. I have a pupfish hat and sticker on my water bottle!

Favorite article of clothing: My silver belt buckle. It’s made by a Navajo jeweler, and I bought it in Prescott, Arizona.

Favorite smells: Lemon blossoms, fresh-cut alfalfa or the desert after it rains.

A typical day: At home, it is waking up and immediately checking emails, reading from a short stack of documents over breakfast, making calls throughout the morning, and then meetings in the afternoon for Colorado River or energy-related issues. In the evening, I go on a walk and read Robert Caro’s The Power Broker before bed. I travel a lot to Denver, Phoenix, and Las Vegas to meet with the other Colorado River basin states, or to Washington, D.C., to talk to our congressional delegates.

Worries: The seven states that use the Colorado River could fail to come up with a solution we can all live with.

A map shows the Lower Basin and Upper Basin states involved in Colorado River negotiations.

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The Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University

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Nightmare scenario: Two things: the big reservoirs on the river dropping so low, no water can pass through the dams – which means no water for California. It's called deadpool. Or going to the Supreme Court over these ongoing negotiations.

What gives me hope: The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada have already come so far to overcome divisions and historical disagreements. We’ve done the same in California between cities, farms and tribes. There is little limit to what we can accomplish if we are working constructively toward a common goal, not vilifying others or absolving ourselves of any responsibility.

Want to learn more? Listen to the new series of Imperfect Paradise: The Gen Z Water Dealmaker.

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Negotiators from seven states, tribal governments and major players in the water world convened at the annual Colorado River conference to discuss what’s going to happen to their water.

The Gen Z Water Dealmaker: Part 1

Negotiators from seven states, tribal governments and major players in the water world convened at the annual Colorado River conference to discuss what’s going to happen to their water.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is failing to provide adequate healthcare at a new detention center in California City, according to a report from an independent monitor at the facility, where detainees complained of missing medications and months-long delays to cancer treatment.

The findings appear in a report by Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar, a court- appointed monitor of the California City Immigration Processing Center, which is about 75 miles east of Bakersfield and run by the private prison company CoreCivic. The federal government purchased the facility earlier this month, but CoreCivic continues to operate it.

A judge appointed the monitor in March as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by seven detainees who allege the conditions in the California City facility are a violation of their due process rights.

“The facility lacks a reliable system to consistently provide adequate health care, placing individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm,” Anandkumar wrote. “This pattern indicates broader problems in the facility's healthcare delivery system rather than occasional lapses in care.”

The fault, Anandkumar wrote, was not with the individual healthcare workers, but rather an issue of staffing, management and oversight. At times, staff was pulled out of training to cover a shift because of staffing shortages.

“As a result, staff who had not been fully trained were themselves training new staff,” Anandkumar wrote. “Given the number of patients and the seriousness of their medical and mental health needs, these substantial gaps contribute to an unsafe environment.”

Anandkumar found 13 areas of deficiency in CoreCivic’s healthcare program in California City. Among them were inadequate emergency care, dental care and chronic disease management. The monitor also found that the facility did not provide timely access to prescribed medications.

ICE opened the immigration detention center at the site of a closed state prison and began admitting detainees in August. In September, a state disability rights group conducted a two-day inspection of the facility and found that its operators failed to distribute medication for life-threatening conditions and did not schedule timely surgeries for people that needed them.

The findings of that two-day inspection by Disability Rights California mirror many of the conclusions found 10 months later by Anandkumar, including delays in response to acute sick call requests and a failure to distribute prescription medication for conditions requiring consistent management like diabetes, high blood pressure and seizures.

A CoreCivic spokesperson said the facility provides daily access to physical and mental care services, and said emergency medical services are available 24 hours a day, every day.

“When specialty or advanced care is required beyond the services available onsite, facility healthcare staff coordinate with community physicians, hospitals, and specialty providers to facilitate access to medically necessary treatment,” said CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. “While we work diligently to arrange and support those appointments, the scheduling, availability, and capacity of outside providers are not controlled by the facility.”

Gustin said compliance with detention standards in immigration detention facilities is monitored by an ICE compliance officer.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court in the Northern District of California by people held in California City claims detainees do not have appropriate clothing for the chilly desert nights, nor appropriate medical attention for life-threatening conditions. The lawsuit alleges detainees with mobility issues don’t have access to wheelchairs, and in some cases are unable to bathe or dress themselves.

Sokhean Keo, a California City detainee and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against ICE said in a statement distributed by the ACLU that he never received the medication he was prescribed for an infection.

“If there is no change to this system,” Keo said, “sick people are going to die.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Glen Hansard, the Irish singer who won an Oscar for the musical movie Once and led the bands The Frames and The Swell Season, died on Wednesday. He was 56 years old. Hansard's management shared a statement with NPR, and confirmed that he died following a motorcycle crash in Dublin.

"With broken hearts we announce the passing of Glen Hansard in the early hours of this morning," the statement reads. "We are still dealing with the shock of it all, so we kindly ask that the privacy of Glen's family, colleagues and friends is respected at this difficult time."

Hansard dropped out of school at 13 to focus on music, performing frequently as a busker in Ireland. Not long after forming his band The Frames in 1990, he landed a part in the movie The Commitments — about a tempestuous Irish band that couldn't overcome conflicts among its members.

Hansard's own career proved more stable and long-lasting: The Frames, named for Hansard's affinity for bicycles, became a hit in Ireland, though it struggled for years to find the same level of fame in the U.S. The band married alt-rock bombast — stormy guitars, weeping strings — with the intimacy of a seasoned busker. Hansard's own showmanship, honed through years of street performances, made him a natural frontman.

After short stints on several major U.S. labels, The Frames nurtured a grassroots following in America, as 2001's independently released For the Birds attracted some of Hansard's best early reviews.

Hansard's biggest career move came when he was cast as the unnamed male lead in the 2007 film Once. Hansard and the Czech-born singer Markéta Irglová starred as a pair of struggling musicians in Dublin, and the pair won the 2008 Academy Award for best original song for their romantic duet, "Falling Slowly." The song quickly became a standard and the film's soundtrack sold hundreds of thousands of copies; later, after Once spawned a hit Broadway musical of the same name, Hansard won a Grammy Award for best musical theater album.

Hansard and Irglová became romantically involved during Once's run of success, and continued to collaborate over the years. In the wake of Once's success, they formed a band together called The Swell Season, which contained several members of The Frames. The group released a post-Once album, 2009's Strict Joy, before Hansard and Irglová embarked on solo careers; the pair reunited 16 years later to put out another album, Forward, in 2025.

Hansard also released a string of solo albums which often showcased a more subdued and reflective side of the artist; 2015's Didn't He Ramble was nominated for a Grammy for best folk album. Though the music often veered from the bombastic passion of Hansard's work with The Frames and The Swell Season, it also found him growing more musically expansive, as he worked with large bands that often included supporting players he'd worked with for years.

Earlier this year, Hansard released a pair of albums called Don't Settle. The albums, recorded over two nights in 2025, features live performances of songs that span Hansard's career.

Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

An overwhelming majority of East Los Angeles residents who participated in a series of community forums support creating a local community council, according to an interim report released this week that details the community’s priorities.  

The report, produced by the Los Angeles Economic Equity Accelerator and Fellowship (LEEAF), summarizes six community meetings held between February and June as Los Angeles County explores new forms of local governance for the unincorporated community of nearly 120,000 people.

Among the findings, 93% of participants supported establishing a community council, either a town council or Municipal Advisory Council (MAC), to give residents a stronger voice in county government. Another 95% said council members should be elected rather than appointed. 

Across more than 300 participants and 200 written comments, transparency and trust were the most frequently raised concerns. Issues around public safety, including homelessness and police reform, ranked as the second most common concern from the thousands of conversations prompted by the report’s research. Uplifting East L.A’.s residents’ political voice and influence was also among the top concerns. 

The report also details several governance models, including a county-recognized MAC or an independently organized town council. LEEAF estimates a startup cost of a community council to be around $13,500 with an annual, running cost of about $33,000 a year.  

“Founding a community council that genuinely serves the people of East L.A. would be a major step toward advancing political voice and equitable power in East L.A. – and putting East L.A. in the lead of a movement to open opportunity and amplify voice throughout the county and beyond,” the report reads.

Visions for a community council

Community members also suggested alternative models, The Republic of East Los Angeles and Neighborhood Councils for East L.A.

The Republic of East Los Angeles calls for an elected town council with authority over local infrastructure, services, and development and was framed as a first step toward full incorporation as an independent city.

The proposal also called for community control of the Sheriff’s office serving East L.A. and an annual itemized budget detailing tax sources, county contracts or associated salaries with a council of its type.

Neighborhood Councils for East L.A. proposes a system of multiple advisory councils, each with 15 to 21 members, modeled on the existing Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils system. Participants consistently emphasized the need for neighborhood-based representation to address each community’s unique needs.

Representing the community 

Residents also emphasized accountability. More than half of participants said any future council should have regular and responsive public oversight.

More than half also said “an effective council should bring real resources to East L.A., with programs like youth activities and public health support mentioned roughly twice as often as funding alone.”

About 61% of community members suggested that members of a council should be residents, while another 22% noted a “long term connection to the community” should be a characteristic of any council member. 

One community member quoted in the report said they want to see the next generation of leaders in East L.A. include a wide demographic of residents.

“I want to make sure groups that know about the area…are included in conversations. There is so much talent and so many people who want to be involved.”

What’s next?

LEEAF will hold two public feedback meetings next month before submitting a final report to L.A. County. The meetings will be held on:

• Aug. 8 at 2 p.m. at Garfield High School, 5101 E. 6th St., East Los Angeles.
• Aug.15 at 10:30 a.m. at Salazar Park, 3864 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles.

The meetings will sharpen the results from the report while offering a chance for community members to refine and guide its priorities, according to an email from a LEEAF representative. 

A virtual question and answer session about the interim report will be held July 29 at 4:30 p.m. RSVP here.