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As thousands of homes started to burn across Los Angeles on Jan. 7, fire hydrants stopped working. The rapid spread of flames in winds up to 100 miles per hour was happening too quickly for water pumps to keep up. It shocked the system and those fleeing the flames.

“This area is known for having fire issues, so you would think that they would be prepared for this,” said Joan Zoloth, 70, who said she first moved to the area when she was 6 years old.

Zoloth’s childhood home burned down in the Palisades Fire. Her own home around the corner and her son’s home nearby were also lost. 

“My mother was a teacher,” Zoloth said. “What people don’t realize is how much Malibu is filled with those types of people — not just movie stars.”

The remains of Joan Zoloth’s childhood home in Malibu, California, shown on Jan. 21, 2025, after it burned down in the Palisades Fire.

Andrew Evers

CNBC went to the wreckage of the Palisades Fire to ask officials what happened to the water system in LA, and what other cities can do to be better prepared. As many as 1 in 6 Americans now live in areas with significant wildfire risk. 

“A firefight at this size, such an urban conflagration, any system is going to have its challenges in maintaining water pressure,” said State Fire Marshall Daniel Berlant, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

Water pressure was the primary problem, rather than a lack of supply, fire officials and water experts told CNBC. 

Much of the water in the Palisades is provided by three 1 million gallon tanks that sit up in the hills, using gravity to maintain water pressure in the hydrants and homes they supply below.

Pumps forcibly move water from main lines and surrounding reservoirs to those tanks. The tanks were full when the fires started, but the pumps couldn’t replenish water in the tanks as quickly as firefighters were using it below. As the tanks depleted, so did the water pressure, until some 20% of hydrants ran dry.

“The hydrants would have run dry anywhere in the world with a fire event like this in the topography where this occurred,” said Greg Pierce, director of the UCLA Human Right to Water Lab.

Joan Zoloth lost three family homes in Malibu during the Palisades fire. She’s shown here at a family friend’s house where she’s staying in Venice, California, on January 21, 2025.

Andrew Evers

The closure of a 117 million gallon reservoir nearby complicated matters. Earlier this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA city council members called for investigations into why the Santa Ynez Reservoir hadn’t yet reopened after being drained almost a year ago to repair a tear in its cover.

“That would have made a difference,” Pierce said. “But even, by all accounts, if that reservoir was full, it wouldn’t have stopped the fire.”

Typically, fires are also fought by aircraft dropping water and fire retardant from above, but high winds kept them grounded for several hours on the first night of the fire.

Firefighters adapted with three tactics. They shuttled water through multiple engines connected to functional hydrants, drove it to locations in large water tenders, and pumped water directly from backyard swimming pools.

The LA Department of Water and Power said it quadrupled the water flow to the area and summoned 15 water tankers to directly refill fire trucks. It wasn’t enough.

The blame game

As immediate danger calmed, misinformation ran wild. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, reactivated its rumor response site, and the LA Fire Department directly responded to inaccurate social media posts.

President Donald Trump, for instance, claimed that water ran out in LA because of policies meant to protect a small endangered fish called the Delta smelt.

“It’s just simply false. It’s nonsense,” said Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a global water think tank. Gleick has been researching water issues for four decades.

On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order titled “Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.” After visiting with Newsom in LA, Trump signed another executive order directing federal officials to find ways to override “disastrous” California water policies. 

“There’s lots of conversations about California water policy and how we allocate water to protect fish or ecosystems versus deliver water to different kinds of users, but that had no role whatsoever to play in water availability for firefighting,” Gleick said.

Southern California reservoirs are at above-average levels for this time of year because of two plentiful rainy seasons, he added.

“Misinformation about how if we just had more water from Northern California in Southern California, that would have made the difference, that’s not true,” UCLA’s Pierce said. “Even if you have water stored fairly close by in the region, you can’t just move it quickly up to an area like the Palisades.”

That’s why billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick are also not to blame for the Palisades Fire, the water experts who spoke with CNBC said. 

The Resnicks own the Wonderful Company, which includes brands such as Pom and Fiji Water, and have sprawling farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley that grow pistachios, oranges and pomegranates. They’ve been the subject of attacks on social media, some of which are antisemitic, that blame them for the water pressure problems in LA because of their investment in a public-private water bank that’s 100 miles north of LA and that has no ability to impact water pressure in the Palisades.

“There’s absolutely no connection between the two. This is a localized problem,” said Felicia Marcus, former chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board.

The fires also resurfaced criticism around state and local water decisions, from taking down dams to not building enough reservoirs.

The real culprit is extremely dry conditions, experts told CNBC. Before the fires, LA saw close to zero rain since May, and 2024 was the hottest year on record for the planet, Gleick said.

“Higher temperatures means more demand for water by soils and vegetation and people and agriculture,” he said. “Climate change is in many ways a water problem. It’s being manifested by drought and floods and wildfires.”

More resilient water systems

This is not the first time hydrants ran dry in a major firefight. They’re designed to handle one or two structure fires, not hundreds burning at the same time.

Similar water pressure problems plagued the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, which destroyed more than 3,000 homes, and two Ventura County fires that each burned more than 1,000 homes in 2017 and 2018

The problem extends beyond California. Texas saw the largest fire in its history last February. As population booms, more people are moving to areas at high risk of fires between dense developments and wildland. 

California is home to the top six cities at highest wildfire risk in the U.S., but Texas, Colorado and Oregon also have cities in the top 15.

A firefighting helicopter draws water from the first-ever installed Heli-Hydrant to quickly stop the Blue Ridge Fire in Yorba Linda, California, on October 28, 2020.

Yorba Linda Water District

There are three key components to making water systems more resilient, Pierce said: increasing water supply, improving local infrastructure, and bolstering power.

After a 2008 fire that destroyed 280 homes, Yorba Linda Water District in California addressed all three. It added backup generators at water pump stations that had failed during the fire, added a long-planned underground reservoir, and installed a first-of-its-kind water tank called a Heli-Hydrant.

That $70,000 tank can automatically refill itself and is reserved for helicopters to dip from, reducing the length of flight times between water pickups and drops. It was used to quickly stop the Blue Ridge Fire in 2020.

“Cal Fire was able to jump on it and use our Heli-Hydrant, trigger it and keep the fire to five acres,” said John DeCriscio, who was operations manager at the Yorba Linda Water District at the time. “That was a huge success.”

San Francisco implemented a comprehensive solution after the city was almost completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and resulting fire, which also caused most hydrants to run dry. 

In 1913, the city developed a unique fire-suppression water system separate from the rest of the city’s water. Seawater enters the system from 52 suction connections along the waterfront, and it’s pumped in from fireboats and two high-pressure pumping stations. There are more than 200 underground cisterns to store backup water. A high-elevation reservoir and two large-capacity tanks use gravity, not pumps, to feed special high-pressure emergency hydrants that can be seen around the city with black, red and blue tops.

There are other solutions that cities can implement.

A company called Rain is working on autonomous, unmanned aircraft for dropping water on fires. In Japan, an autonomous system of water cannons protects a cultural heritage site with 200-year-old thatched roof houses.

Cost is the main reason these solutions haven’t been implemented widely. 

“There’s always this delicate balance of being afraid to go to your customers and raise their rates, but if you don’t raise their rates, you can’t do these extra things,” said Marcus, the former state water board chair. “It’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night when you manage one of these agencies.”

How firefighting planes and helicopters are battling the LA Fires

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Google says Fox channels to go dark on YouTube TV if agreement isn’t reached

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Google says Fox channels to go dark on YouTube TV if agreement isn't reached

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Google-owned YouTube on Monday said it may remove channels including Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Sports from its TV streaming platform if it doesn’t reach an agreement with Fox Corporation.

YouTube TV’s renewal date with Fox is coming on Wednesday, and while the two companies have been in ongoing negotiations, they’ve been unable to reach a deal, the YouTube team wrote in a blog post. The company also emailed YouTube TV subscribers about the potential fall out with Fox.

“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube wrote in the blog. “Our priority is to reach a deal that reflects the value of their content and is fair for both sides without passing on additional costs to our subscribers.”

If YouTube is unable to reach a new agreement by 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the Fox channels will become unable on YouTube TV, the Google company said. YouTube pays broadcasters like Fox to carry their channels, and a blackout could have implications on advertisers and millions of viewers who cut their cords to stream Fox’s various channels on YouTube TV.

“While Fox remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,” the media company said in a statement.

The Fox standoff represents the latest contract dispute between content companies and delivery networks as viewers increasingly ditch cable. 

In February, Paramount Global notified YouTube TV subscribers that more than 20 channels including CBS, BET, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon could go dark on the service if the two didn’t reach a deal. Shortly after, YouTube TV and Paramount announced a multi-year distribution deal.

YouTube TV’s base plan costs $82.99 per month and includes over 100 live channels and unlimited cloud DVR. YouTube said a key part of its commitment to users is its partnership with content providers like Fox, “which allows us to carry a wide variety of channels.”

If Fox does go offline for an extended period of time, YouTube will give its members a $10 credit, the Google company wrote. Users will also be able to watch Fox content by signing up for Fox One, Fox’s streaming service, the blog said.

YouTube recently overtook Netflix, which has a market cap of $515 billion, as the top streaming platform in terms of audience engagement. Google does not provide official subscriber numbers for YouTube TV, but in its February 2024 letter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the service had more than 8 million subscribers. MoffettNathanson principal analyst Michael Nathanson has estimated that YouTube TV has approximately 9.4 million paying subscribers.

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Musk’s xAI sues Apple, OpenAI alleging anticompetitive scheme harmed X, Grok

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Musk’s xAI sues Apple, OpenAI alleging anticompetitive scheme harmed X, Grok

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2023.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Elon Musk‘s xAI sued Apple and OpenAI on Monday, accusing the pair of an “anticompetitive scheme” to thwart artificial intelligence rivals.

The lawsuit, filed by Musk’s AI startup xAI and its social network business X, alleges Apple and OpenAI have “colluded” to maintain monopolies in the smartphone and generative AI markets.

Musk’s xAI acquired X in March in an all-stock transaction.

It accuses Apple of deprioritizing so-called “super apps” and generative AI chatbot competitors, such as xAI’s Grok, in its App Store rankings, while favoring OpenAI by integrating its ChatGPT chatbot into Apple products.

“In a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the company that most benefits from inhibiting competition and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist in the market for generative AI chatbots,” according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement: “This latest filing is consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment.”

Representatives from Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Tesla CEO launched xAI in 2023 in a bid to compete with OpenAI and other leading chatbot makers.

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Musk earlier this month threatened to sue Apple for “an unequivocal antitrust violation,” saying in a post on X that the company “is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.”

After Musk threatened to sue Apple, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded: “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.”

An Apple spokesperson previously said its App Store was designed to be “fair and free of bias,” and that the company features “thousands of apps” using a variety of signals.

Apple last year partnered with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop and desktop products.

Several users replied to Musk’s post on X via its Community Notes feature saying that rival chatbot apps such as DeepSeek and Perplexity were ranked No. 1 on the App Store after Apple and OpenAI announced their partnership.

The lawsuit is the latest twist in an ongoing clash between Musk and Altman. Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman in 2015, before leaving the startup in 2018 due to disagreements over OpenAI’s direction.

Musk sued OpenAI and Altman last year, accusing them of breach of contract by putting commercial interests ahead of its original mission to develop AI “for the benefit of humanity broadly.”

In a counter claim, OpenAI has alleged that Musk and xAI engaged in “harassment” through litigation, attacks on social media and in the press, and through a “sham bid” to buy the ChatGPT-maker for $97.4 billion designed to harm the company’s business relationships.

OpenAI says Musk's filing is 'consistent with his ongoing pattern of harassment

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Nvidia’s new ‘robot brain’ goes on sale for $3,499 as company targets robotics for growth

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Nvidia's new 'robot brain' goes on sale for ,499 as company targets robotics for growth

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is seen on stage next to a small robot during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Nvidia announced Monday that its latest robotics chip module, the Jetson AGX Thor, is now on sale for $3,499 as a developer kit.

The company calls the chip a “robot brain.” The first kits ship next month, Nvidia said last week, and the chips will allow customers to create robots.

After a company uses the developer kit to prototype their robot, Nvidia will sell Thor T5000 modules that can be installed in production-ready robots. If a company needs more than 1,000 Thor chips, Nvidia will charge $2,999 per module.

CEO Jensen Huang has said robotics is the company’s largest growth opportunity outside of artificial intelligence, which has led to the Nvidia’s overall sales more than tripling in the past two years.

“We do not build robots, we do not build cars, but we enable the whole industry with our infrastructure computers and the associated software,” said Deepu Talla, Nvidia’s vice president of robotics and edge AI, on a call with reporters Friday.

The Jetson Thor chips are based on a Blackwell graphics processor, which is Nvidia’s current generation of technology used in its AI chips, as well as its chips for computer games.

Nvidia said that its Jetson Thor chips are 7.5 times faster than its previous generation. That allows them to run generative AI models, including large language models and visual models that can interpret the world around them, which is essential for humanoid robots, Nvidia said. The Jetson Thor chips are equipped with 128GB of memory, which is essential for big AI models.

Companies including Agility Robotics, Amazon, Meta and Boston Dynamics are using its Jetson chips, Nvidia said. Nvidia has also invested in robotics companies such as Field AI.

However, robotics remains a small business for Nvidia, accounting for about 1% of the company’s total revenue, despite the fact that it has launched several new robot chips since 2014. But it’s growing fast.

Nvidia recently combined its business units to group its automotive and robotics divisions into the same line item. That unit reported $567 million in quarterly sales in May, which represented a 72% increase on an annual basis.

The company said its Jetson Thor chips can be used for self-driving cars as well, especially from Chinese brands. Nvidia calls its car chips Drive AGX, and while they are similar to its robotics chips, they run an operating system called Drive OS that’s been tuned for automotive purposes.

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