Reflecting on the tragic loss of their 19-year-old son Finlay, who was struck by a car during the Volta a Portugal cycling race earlier this week, Michael and Dawn Tarling expressed their emotions in a heartfelt Instagram tribute on Sunday.

In their post, they acknowledged the profound difficulty of the past few days, stating, “This has been the hardest couple days of our lives and it’s taken us a bit of time to be able to post this.” They found solace in the overwhelming support they received, adding, “The wave of posts, messages, emails, articles and calls from across our family, friends, team, local and sporting communities has been a huge help to us, as we hear how lovingly and fondly Fin was thought of.”

Expressing gratitude, they wrote, “We simply can’t thank you all enough for the support we’ve had. I don’t know how we’ll carry on from here, but we’ll figure out with the support of all our family, friends and community.”

Though their loss is immeasurable, they fondly remembered their son, describing him as not just a son and brother but their best mate. “Gentle, loving with the driest sense of humour, we will miss him terribly,” they shared, emphasizing the void left by his absence.

Finlay, despite his young age of 19, lived a life filled with remarkable experiences and achievements. His parents concluded their tribute with pride, stating, “His short life was packed full of wonderful experiences and achievements and we couldn’t be prouder of him.”

“If you’re heading out on your bike in the next few days, give him a thought as you clip in.

“We will of course share funeral details as soon as we know.”

Tarling was riding for the NSN Development Team when a light goods vehicle collided with him during the eighth stage of the race, between the municipality of Melgaco and Fafe in the north of Portugal. Police told local media that an investigation is underway.

The race was neutralized, with the podium ceremony canceled.

“At this time of deep sorrow, the organisers of the Volta a Portugal and the Portuguese Cycling Federation extend their deepest condolences to Finlay Tarling’s family, his teammates, the NSN Development Team, and all his friends and loved ones,” a statement from race organizers read.

A number of figures in the cycling world left comments on the Tarling family’s post, and the cyclists’ union released a statement saying they were “speechless and filled with anger,” over the manner of his death.

“It is not right that a young athlete’s life should end this way, and we are furious that even today it is still not possible to prevent such serious accidents,” their statement read. “We share in the grief of his family, friends, team and everyone who knew Finlay. Rest in peace, young rider; we pray for you, and we will carry you in our hearts.”

In a tense confrontation, riot police thwarted an attempted mass entry by migrants into Ceuta, a Spanish territory, marking the second such organized attempt.

A large throng of men advanced toward the border crossing located at the northern fringe of Africa, seeking entry.

This incident follows closely on the heels of a significant breach two weeks ago, when 72,000 individuals navigated the waters from Morocco to the Spanish enclave’s shores, tragically resulting in 145 fatalities.

According to reports from Morocco’s Le360 news outlet, authorities detained over 300 individuals, with 46 identified as Moroccan nationals and the remainder hailing from sub-Saharan Africa.

To control the situation, police deployed tear gas against clusters of migrants positioned on hills roughly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the border, as stated by Spanish news agency EFE.

Reporters later saw hundreds of officers, some in riot gear, returning from the hills outside Fnideq.

Huge groups of the men were seen pouring down the hills and mountains near Ceuta during the attempted crossing yesterday.

In the weeks leading up to the crossing attempt, messages began to swirl around social media calling for a new invasion of the Spanish enclave. 

Earlier this week, Rabat said it was monitoring ‘the circulation of social media posts and messages of unknown origin’ calling for a mass crossing on August 15, warning it would prosecute organizers and participants.

 A message posted to an online forum read: ‘The Ceuta border will be open on the 15th [of August], a public holiday in Spain.’

They are also being urged to cross the border into Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city on the northern coast of Africa.

Ceuta and Melilla form the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. 

Social media was previously blamed for the organisation of the first large-scale attempt on the border. 

In Ceuta, Spanish soldiers guarded supermarkets while police heavily patrolled the enclave’s main streets. The city was calmer than in the days after the deadly crossing attempt on July 30.

Madrid has since installed a maritime barrier and deployed more than 500 additional police from mainland Spain, raising the total in Ceuta to more than 1,600. The Interior Ministry said the reinforcements would remain for as long as needed.

‘We’ll continue to deploy whatever personnel are necessary to restore normality as soon as possible and prevent events like those of July 30 from happening again,’ Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Thursday.

About 5,000 migrants remained in Ceuta, the minister said.

Mr Grande-Marlaska said migrants who entered irregularly would not be allowed to stay in the enclave, travel to mainland Spain or obtain legal status, except in rare cases involving extreme vulnerability. Those without a right to remain would be returned to Morocco, he said.

Witnesses saw reinforced security near the border, including police vans with wire shields and road checkpoints. Local media reported similar measures near Melilla.

Authorities prevented several groups from boarding trains and buses to northern Morocco in cities such as Casablanca, Fez and Kenitra. However, witnesses told Reuters that some migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were bypassing security checkpoints by taking mountain routes towards Fnideq.

One witness said the schools in Fnideq had been turned into accommodation for security forces deployed near the border.

Many of the young people who entered Ceuta on July 30 were fishing, swimming or washing at Tarajal beach on Friday.

Driss Sadik, a 22-year-old from Fez who said he swam for five hours to reach Ceuta, urged others not to follow his example.

‘The important thing I would advise people trying to cross: Don’t cross now, my brothers. You’re only going to suffer,’ he told Reuters.

The warning was echoed by Adil Jamil, 17.

‘Those who enter aren’t going to benefit from anything. There will just be more and more of us, and they won’t find a solution for all,’ he said.

Adil said that the mass border crossings were ‘planned by the people’ who pick a date, gather in Fnideq and cross together to find strength in numbers.

According to El Pais, one message posted to online forums in which migrants discuss mobilising read: ‘The Ceuta border will be open on the 15th [of August], a public holiday in Spain.’

Rachid el-Jalfi, a spokesman for Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior, said on Wednesday that ‘all necessary measures’ had been taken to prevent illegal crossings.

He urged those planning to travel to Ceuta or Melilla to ignore online messages that appeared ‘suspicious and deceptive’, warning that attempts to cross posed ‘serious risks to people’s safety’.

Early last month, Spain’s top judicial body ruled that a procedure used to return illegal migrants only applied when they breached a physical border, rather than when they arrived by sea.

Under the ruling, migrants who cross an unmarked maritime border can still be returned, but only through a separate formal procedure.

The crisis began on July 30, when more than 72,000 migrants surged into Ceuta. The following day, the Spanish government announced plans for a maritime containment barrier, which it began installing off the coast on August 1.

The influx also triggered a diplomatic row within the European Union after Italy temporarily suspended its Schengen arrangements with Spain and introduced checks on travellers arriving from the country by air and sea.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the ‘uncontrolled immigration’ from Morocco into Ceuta as a national security threat.

Spain summoned the Italian ambassador in response, with Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares saying Madrid expected ‘European solidarity and not partisan demagoguery’. Spain then suspended its own Schengen arrangements with Italy.

Spanish authorities are meanwhile processing migrants who remain in Ceuta ahead of possible returns to Morocco.

Officials are using warehouses in Tarajal and elsewhere in the enclave to temporarily house migrants while they are identified and processed, with authorities hoping to return those without a right to remain within 72 hours of locating them.

The aftermath of the crossing has also been marred by allegations that several young migrant girls were raped after arriving in Ceuta.

The alleged victims, all under the age of 14, sought treatment at the University Hospital of Ceuta (HUCE) this past week, health services told the El Pueblo de Ceuta newspaper.

Judicial sources said many of the alleged rapes were prevented by the direct intervention of residents of Ceuta.

Some residents of the autonomous city were also among the accused, however.

Barely a fortnight after Lake Mead, known as the largest reservoir by capacity in the United States, reached an all-time low, Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, has now met the same unfortunate milestone.

On Saturday, the water level of Lake Powell dipped to 3,519.91 feet, marginally undercutting its prior record of 3,519.92 feet set in April 2023.

Federal water authorities have warned that the daily readings are “provisional and subject to revision,” suggesting that the new record might be adjusted since the difference is so minimal. However, even if this particular figure changes, the ongoing downward trend indicates that an actual record low could be imminent.

“If you consider the combined capacity of these two reservoirs, the last time they were so severely depleted was in 1957, before Lake Powell even existed. This situation is indeed unprecedented,” remarked Jack Schmidt, a seasoned research scientist and director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University, in an interview with ABC News. “We are navigating entirely new territory.”

Lake Powell and Lake Mead hold the majority of the Colorado River water, vital for the urban and agricultural needs of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico, along with several federally recognized tribes. These reservoirs also play a crucial role in generating hydroelectric power and maintaining a consistent water supply downstream, particularly during droughts and times when the Rocky Mountains’ snowpack is limited.

Sharon Megdal, the director of the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) at the University of Arizona, called the situation a “natural disaster” and compared it to a savings account. She said the demand for water acts like a withdrawal, and the drought and reduced snowpack limit the deposits you can pull from the savings when times are tough.

“What’s really happened in this last year acutely is that the flows are so low and given how we’ve been operating the system, we’re getting to these record lows that honestly were not anticipated as recently as a year ago, and so it’s kind of a critical situation on the river,” said Megdal. “It’s appropriate to use the words critical, crisis because we haven’t been there before since these two reservoirs had been filled.”

While this year’s El Nino may bring much-needed rain to the West, it won’t be enough to replenish the lakes’ water supplies, according to Megdal and Schmidt.

“It will take multiple years of good winters in terms of precipitation and snowmelt. We had a very good year in 2023. It would take multiple years, like 2023, to start filling the reservoir system, so one year won’t do it,” explained Megdal.

And Schmidt said there is a weak correlation between an El Nino and a significant snowpack in the Rockies. Add the impacts of climate change, which have resulted in warmer springs and drier soils that reduce runoff into the reservoirs, and average or above-average rainfall no longer guarantees equivalent runoff. The area is also losing snowpack due to sublimation, in which ice turns directly into vapor, and evaporation.

“Now there’s lots of uncertainty, but (the Bureau of Reclamation’s) most probable forecast right now is 75 percent of average (for water inflows into Lake Powell). If that’s what really happens, our crisis only deepens, only gets more significant, only gets even worse than it is. If we were to get an exceptional year, such as what we got in 2023, we remain in crisis,” said Schmidt.

But that doesn’t mean the water will stop flowing to people who need it. Megdal says that cutbacks so far have fallen on agriculture rather than municipal customers, and that even if cities are hit, most have other water supplies.

The cities in the West have also done a good job at reducing consumption even as they’ve grown, according to Schmidt. Both experts agree that if significant cuts in water use are necessary, it’s the agriculture industry that will have to shoulder the burden.

“Fifty-five percent of all the water used in the Colorado River Basin is used to produce livestock feed, growing alfalfa and grass hay. If you take all the agricultural activities in the basin, about 70% of all the water used of the Colorado River is used for some agricultural activities,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt said growing vegetables such as broccoli, tomatoes, onions and carrots that help feed the country during winter, makes a lot of sense and should continue, even if it requires supplemental water.

“But it is inevitable that summertime production of grass, hay, and alfalfa in extreme climates where there’s lots of water loss due to evapotranspiration and exceptionally hot conditions, those uses might have to be cut back,” said Schmidt.

“The savings in the cities are so great that, despite their population growth, they use less water today than they used to. We’re going to need to have agriculture be much more efficient in its use of water, much more targeted in its decisions about what crops to grow, where and when,” he added.

Megdal said that grass and hay production could impact grocery prices. “There’s multiple ways people will feel impact. It may not be the reliability of water to your home, right? But it could be what you’re paying in the supermarket and what our communities look like in terms of green spaces and open spaces,” she said.

Schmidt said cutting back agricultural water use is not going to be easy. The industry holds the oldest water rights and unless the laws are changed, it would have to be compensated for any water it gives up.

“The West lives by a doctrine of first in time, first in right. The American West was settled first by agriculturalists, and only late in the game did the big cities come along,” explained Schmidt.

Recently, the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency overseeing water management, announced its plan for managing the Colorado River when the current operating guidelines expire at the end of the year, but it didn’t specify the size of the cuts. That decision is expected to come soon. The move came after Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming failed to reach an agreement on future water allocations after more than three years.

One thing that everyone agrees on is that when it comes to water in the West, business can’t continue as usual.

“What we should be doing that we’re not already doing is really looking at what curtailments or what cutbacks on the (water) demand side we can do, how quickly we can do them and what are the opportunities to substitute other water supplies,” said Megdal.

For Schmidt, who has been studying these issues for decades, he says the region is in for “tough times” and that tough choices will have to be made. But he still believes there are solutions to be had.

“I guess I’m optimistic, but it’s going to be a very painful process,” added Schmidt.

Dan Peck and Dan Manzo contributed to this report.