Rivers

There are, of course, many reasons to be saddened by reports of the apparent breakup of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, which hit the Internet over the weekend. We here at Pop & Hiss were most bummed to consider that Nicki Minaj may never get the chance to again rhyme "wiener" with "Selena," as she does in her guest verse on Bieber's current single,  " Beauty and a Beat . " Gone too soon, people -- gone too soon. Yet while we were crying into our Belie-beers, the teen idol himself was busy sending cryptic messages about the breakup from the stage of Boston's TD Garden.

CAIRO - Overwhelmed by cascading economic and political problems since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, this nation teeters from within even as it biggest threat may lie hundreds of miles away in the African highlands. Buried in the headlines is the future of the Nile River - and thus the fate of Egypt itself. Mubarak long neglected the security danger posed by other nations' claims to the timeless pulse that provides 95% of this desert country's water, without which its delta farmlands would wither and its economy die. As poor African capitals increasingly challenge Cairo, however, the struggle has become one of the most pressing foreign policy tests for Egypt's new president, Mohamed Morsi.

WASHINGTON - The heavy rains and strong winds have eased here, but officials remain concerned about flooding from the Potomac River and widespread power outages. After Monday's heavy rain in the District of Columbia broke a record set in 1885, officials said they were keeping a close eye on the Potomac.  "There are a lot of the smaller streams that flow into the Potomac, a lot of them that are flooded right now," Jason Elliott, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Los Angeles Times.

"You've gotta see them live. " That's a common response when talking to someone about a new musical discovery. And yet, live albums are viewed with a bit of disdain in the pop and rock realm, where they're often little more than a perfunctory, last-gasp release to fulfill the record company requirement. In the world of improvised music, however, live albums are where the rubber meets the road, where the music can venture from a sketch to a widescreen portrait. In the last few months there are have been a remarkable bounty of live albums in jazz, and each expresses artistry that existed for only one night, but now it's in your hand.

Researchers in Grand Canyon National Park have discovered a prehistoric-looking sucker fish once thought to be extinct from the area. The fish, known as the razorback sucker, is the first of its species to be caught in the Grand Canyon in more than 20 years. The fish is characterized by a long, high sharp-edged hump behind its head. The creature was snagged by Arizona fish and wildlife officials in the Colorado River last week, in the lower part of the canyon system. So is this find one of those river monsters featured on cable television?

Maybe San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers was still in shock. But after a historic collapse against Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos on "Monday Night Football," Rivers basically characterized what had just happened on the football field as just another loss. “Every loss hurts,” he said after the 35-24 loss to the Broncos. “Regardless of what negative or bad plays or how you lose a game, when you lose a game, it's rough. Especially a game when you had such a big lead.

They offer a lot of great things at the State Fair of Texas game at the Cotton Bowl, and I've eaten all of them. My favorite is the giant turkey leg, followed by corny dogs, funnel cakes and whatever else they can throw in a deep fryer. In one of the morning shockers, Oklahoma is taking Texas to the Dunk Tank. The score was 36-2 when the first half ended and it wasn't that close. Oklahoma had 17 first downs to Texas' four. If you counted the score from the start of last year's game, a 55-17 Oklahoma win, Texas had been outscored 91-19 in six quarters.

Re "An alpine creek that reeks," Sept. 30 My parents were born in the San Gabriel Valley, my father in 1928 and my mother in 1932. My grandfather helped to build the road through the San Gabriel Canyon during the Depression; his family lived in camps along the road as it was built. Needless to say, this was my father's playground as a child; as an adult, he introduced us to the beauty and wonders of the San Gabriel Mountains. We spent many wonderful weekends camping at Crystal Lake, cooking Sunday breakfast over a campfire.

SUTTER ISLAND, Calif. - As a child, Brett Baker learned farming fundamentals from his grandfather, who taught him to drive a tractor and gave him some advice about water. "There may come a time," his grandfather said, "when you have to grab a shotgun and sit on the pump. " The vast delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers east of San Francisco, where Baker's family has lived and farmed since the 1850s, has long been the center of the state's chronic water conflicts. It is the switchyard of California water, the place where the north's liquid riches are shipped to the irrigation ditches of the San Joaquin Valley and the sinks of Southland suburbs.

With a cockatiel perched on her shoulder and her brown hair flowing nearly to her waist, Patricia Morison looks elegant and at ease beneath a portrait of herself. The former Broadway star of "Kiss Me Kate" and "The King and I" stares out her ninth-floor window at the rest of Park La Brea. She is 97 now and, having lived in the same tower for more than 50 years, is one of the last representatives of the demographic that once dominated the apartment complex. "It was more homogenous, I have to say. Most of the population was actors, actresses, artistic folks and businesspeople on the top floor," says Morison, who negotiates her flat with the aid of a walker.