An adult humpback whale has been spotted in California's largest river. A fisherman saw the whale surfacing on Wednesday while he was fishing from a boat that was less than half the length of the giant animal. He shot a few videos of the whale as it broke the surface of the water in the area of the Rio Vista Bridge, far from its typical home of the Pacific Ocean. The whale has since attracted the attention of scientists who want to know what kind of condition it's in and how it wound up so far from the sea.

A major report has found that 12.5 trillion tons of ice from Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979. The massive glacier melt is mainly attributed to warmer waters eroding the ice sheets from below and the sides. The study was published Wednesday in Scientific Data and highlights the worsening impact of glacier ice melt on rising sea levels. An inch of sea level rise since 1979 has already increased flooding risks for millions of people. The study found the melting trend has accelerated over the decades, with a brief pause from 2020 to 2023 due to weather variations. Scientists warn that the trend is linked to climate change and will likely accelerate.

The Atlantic is quiet — record quiet — this hurricane season thanks to an enormous El Nino that crushes storms before they get going.

Saudi Arabia says it shut down a major pipeline a day after it was attacked by drones, and Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels captured a strategic island at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, two officials said, opening a new front in the Iran war. The Houthis made their biggest territorial gains in years along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s key shipping lanes. The gains could boost Iran’s strategy of driving up world oil and gas prices to pressure the United States. Saudi Arabia said it had shut down the East-West pipeline as a precaution after the attack.

Yemen's Houthi rebels have taken the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha, bringing them closer to controlling key shipping routes. That’s according to two officials. Meanwhile, an Israeli strike in northern Gaza has killed at least four people, including two children. The bodies were taken Thursday to Shifa Hospital, where officials identified those killed as a husband and wife along with their two daughters, aged 8 and 12. A neighbor said the family was sleeping when the strike hit their home. The Israeli military in a statement said the strike in Beit Lahiya killed a militant who had taken part in attacks against its forces. It did not give details.

California has long been farm country, and its oceans soon could be, too. State coastal officials have voted to let a plan to build the United States’ largest kelp farm 6 miles off the Southern California coast move forward. The plan comes as the Trump administration seeks to ramp up aquaculture in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean Rainforest plans to grow giant kelp to develop agricultural products that can be used in the strawberry- and avocado-rich region. Some environmental advocates worry whales could get tangled in the lines used to grow the kelp.