There’s nothing more vital than water, right? We need it. Our trees and crops need it. Even AI needs it. But now, many are worried that this summer, many Americans will fighting to share declining water resources.

Who’s going to cut back? Especially with two high-profile water crises—juiced up by climate change and industrial overuse—looking like they’re going to be very problematic. From a city in Texas staring down a drought emergency to a decades-long political crisis coming to a head for the states that rely on the Colorado River, water issues in the West will take center stage in the coming months—and experts tell WIRED that other places should take notes and start planning ahead for their own future.

How’d we get here? Well, there’s lots of data to parse, but put simply: Following a winter of record-breaking heat, snowpack in various mountain ranges across the American West reached record lows. March came in even hotter, smashing records in states across the region.

This record dry season is also colliding with a decades-long political crisis on the Colorado River. For years, the states drawing water from the river have sparred over how to equitably divide the supply from the river, as the growth of agriculture and a series of climate-charged droughts have begun threatening the long-term water supply. Alfalfa for cattle feed is the biggest consumer of water from the Colorado, using more water than all of the cities along the river combined. States have missed key deadlines, including one in February, to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which regulates how water in the region is distributed. Each state gets an annual allotment, and the total amount of water is supposed to be divided evenly between an upper basin and a lower basin.

And a new study projects a sharp rise in multiyear shortages that push demand beyond supply, placing both cities and rural communities at risk much sooner than expected.

The U.S. House ended the bulk of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history Thursday, approving a bipartisan bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security after weeks of delay and with little fanfare. It was a head-spinning turnaround: Earlier this week, House Republican leaders were insisting that the Senate-passed bill had a technical problem that made it impossible for them to support it.

But President Donald Trump had been pushing lawmakers to fund the agency before the end of the week, when an emergency fund used to pay employee salaries would run dry. Trump signed the bill late Thursday, resolving uncertainty over whether thousands of federal security workers would be paid next month.

Beloved sports writer Tim Layden says the Kentucky Derby is the most static and reliable piece of the American sports calendar. It has been contested almost annually without interruption since 10 years after the end of the Civil War, and on the first Saturday in May for almost a century. It will be attended by roughly 150,000 fans, kings and commoners, wearing hats and drinking mint juleps.

But the famed horse race is also one of most unpredictable sporting events of the year. Hunter S. Thompson famously called it “Decadent and Depraved,” for reasons very unrelated to horse racing. It could just as well be called “Chaotic and Capricious.” To earn a spot in the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby, a 3-year-old horse must compete in a series of designated races from September through mid-April. Points are awarded to the top five finishers in each race. The 20 horses with the most points, or the horses who win their international series, earn a spot in the starting gate. This year, Renegade, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., is being called the 4-1 favorite.

But with all the betting in sports these days, ESPN reports that Kalshi and Polymarket are apparently bowing out.