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UN experts call upon nations to tap ‘unconventional water resources’

As unprecedented drought conditions continue to ravage the planet, United Nations water experts are calling upon countries to tap the Earth’s abundant “unconventional water resources” — such as those found deep underground or in icebergs.

“Harnessing the potential of unconventional water sources could benefit billions of people,” Manzoor Qadir, deputy director of the U.N. University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said in a statement.

“These sources will be essential to building a future in arid areas,” he added.

Qadir is the lead editor of a book released by his institute on Thursday called Unconventional Water Resources, produced in collaboration with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.N. University’s Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and Of Resources. 

Qadir and his colleagues have determined that these potential unconventional water supplies could help many of the one in four people on Earth who suffer from shortages of water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture and economic development, according to a press release published alongside the book.

Some such unconventional water supplies include millions of cubic kilometers of water found deep in land-based and seabed aquifers, as well as in fog, icebergs and the ballast holds of thousands of ships, the authors found.

“The time has come for humanity to tap into the vastly under-used unconventional water sources,” Qadir said.

At the same time, Qadir acknowledged that implementing national action plans to tap these resources will first require assessments of the environmental trade-offs, as well as comprehensive cost analyses and innovative financing mechanisms.

Harvesting water from the air through processes called “cloud seeding” and fog collection could be particularly beneficial, as the atmosphere contains about 13,000 cubic kilometers (3,100 cubic miles) of water vapor, according to the authors.

One cubic kilometer of water is equivalent to the volume of about 400,000 Olympic swimming pools, while the annual global freshwater demand today is about 4,600 cubic kilometers — or about the size of Lake Michigan, the researchers explained.

The authors highlighted both desalination and wastewater reuse as other important options. Desalination already supports about 5 percent of the world’s population, and while the process is energy intensive today, emerging filtration technologies are already reducing energy inputs by 20-35 percent, according to the authors.

As far as wastewater reuse is concerned, about 70 percent of municipal wastewater in high-income countries is being treated today, but the same can only be said for about 8 percent in low-income countries, the researchers found.

Offshore, there are vast quantities of water — about 300,000-500,000 cubic kilometers — of water in aquifers at shallow depths in the world’s continental shelves, the authors noted. While marine electromagnetic imaging and horizontal drilling technologies exist, none of these resources have been accessed.

Brackish, salty water found deep in on-land aquifers could also provide the world with millions of cubic meters of water, the researchers said, noting that Israel and Spain are already desalinating such water to irrigate high-value crops.

The authors also identified ships as potential resources, as they discharge about 10 billion tons of ballast water every year.

Meanwhile, the more than 100,000 Arctic and Antarctic icebergs that melt into the ocean each year contain more freshwater than the world consumes, the authors noted.

“The increasing pressures on water resources requires a new era of water management,” Sasha Koo-Oshima, book co-editor and deputy director of the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement.

That era, according to Koo-Oshima, is “one that addresses barriers to efficient water management and ensures that water in all its forms is monitored and accounted for, including its value to food, ecosystems and health, and its role in supporting food security and basic needs of humanity and economic development.”

Source: TEST FEED1

40 percent of Americans say abortion is one of their most important issues: survey

About 40 percent of Americans list abortion as one of the most important issues in the country, according to a new Marquette Law School Poll. 

The new poll, published on Thursday, found that 39 percent of those surveyed said that the issue of abortion is somewhat important to them, while 21 percent of respondents said the issue isn’t important to them. 

Thirty-one percent of Republican respondents said that abortion is one of the country’s most important issues, while 44 percent of Republican respondents said the issue of abortion is somewhat important and 17 percent said the topic of abortion isn’t important at all.

Forty-eight percent of Democrat respondents said that abortion is one of the country’s most important issues, while 14 percent of respondents who are Democrats disagree, according to the poll.

Thirty-eight percent of independent respondents believe that abortion is one of the country’s most important issues, while 25 percent of those respondents believe that abortion isn’t an important topic. 

According to the survey results, those who said that abortion should be illegal in all cases are most likely to say it is one of the most important issues. Sixty-seven percent of those who said abortion should be illegal in all cases said it is one of the most important issues. Similarly, 60 percent of people who said that abortion should be legal in all cases said it is one of the most important issues.

The most recent polling comes after a draft opinion penned by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was published by Politico indicating that the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade would be overturned. The 1973 decision determined that a woman’s right to abortion was constitutional.

The latest Marquette Law School poll was conducted from May 9-19 with a total of 1,004 respondents. The poll margin of error was +/- 3.9 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump’s ‘get-even list’ got longer, after his candidates lost in Georgia

Like the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” Donald Trump also has “a little list of society’s offenders … who never would be missed.”

Actually, Trump’s list of offenders isn’t so little. It’s a “get-even” list of just about anyone who ever offended the former president. And during this campaign year, no one holds a more prominent place on the list, perhaps, than Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp who, because he wouldn’t help overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia for Trump, was singled out in a statement released by the former president as “the worst ‘election integrity’ Governor in the country.”

So, how should we characterize Kemp’s landslide victory on Tuesday — with almost 74 percent of the vote — over Trump’s hand-picked, loyal stand-in, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, to whom Trump gave his “complete and total” endorsement?

Kemp isn’t the only villain on Trump’s revenge list. In Georgia, he also tried to knock out Secretary of State Brad Raffenssperger and Attorney General Chris Carr for their refusal to undo Joe Biden’s victory in the state. They also won, easily. 

So it’s hard to see how Kemp’s overwhelming victory — and that of the two other state officials who wouldn’t help overturn the 2020 Georgia results — is anything but a humiliating defeat for Trump.  

We’ll see how it plays out, but at the moment it looks like Kemp’s victory might mean that a lot of Republicans — though almost certainly not Donald Trump — are ready to put the 2020 election in the rearview mirror.

Voters may still like Trump personally, and they may still support his combative style and confrontational rhetoric, but Perdue’s loss may demonstrate that his obsession with the supposed “stolen presidential election” has simply become tiresome. Donald Trump may be fixated on the 2020 election, but if Georgia’s latest election results are any indication, many other Republicans are not.

And that includes former Vice President Mike Pence, one of Kemp’s biggest supporters. One day before the election, Pence told a rally in Atlanta, “When you say yes to Gov. Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future.”  

Even though he didn’t mention Trump by name, his words clearly were a dig at the former president — and maybe even a sign that Pence could run for president in 2024, whether Trump runs or not.

I suspect that even some Republicans who agree with Trump’s contention that the election was rigged may be ready to move on. Trump may not be able to do that, but voters instinctively understand that elections are about the future, not the past.

And now Brian Kemp will run against Stacey Abrams, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and who, at times, sounds a lot like — wait for it — Donald Trump.

After she lost to Kemp in 2018, Abrams said: “Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. … I cannot concede.”  

After he lost the 2020 presidential election, Trump said: “We will never concede. … You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”

Last December, in an interview on CNN, Abrams said that Kemp “won under the rules of the game at the time, but the game was rigged against the voters of Georgia.”

After he lost in 2020, Trump tweeted, in an account now suspended: “He [Biden] only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”

“And Stacey Abrams, who still has not conceded, and that’s OK,” Trump said last September at a campaign rally in Georgia. “Stacey, would you like to take [Kemp’s] place? It’s OK with me.”

Before this is over, I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald Trump formally endorses Stacey Abrams for governor. And why wouldn’t he? She’s more in tune with his view of Georgia’s supposedly “rigged” politics than Brian Kemp ever was.

Whoever said “Politics makes for strange bedfellows” was definitely on to something.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.

Source: TEST FEED1

Watch live: Education secretary testifies before House panel

Education secretary Miguel Cardona is slated to testify before a House panel Thursday afternoon.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at noon ET.

Watch the live video above.

Source: TEST FEED1

British journalist confronts Ted Cruz over mass shootings: 'Why does this only happen in your country?’

Sky News journalist Mark Stone confronted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) about the number of mass shootings in the United States, asking the Republican senator why such incidents “only happen in your country?”

“Is this the moment to reform gun laws?” Stone asked Cruz, who is in Texas this week following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

“You know, it’s easy to go to politics,” Cruz responded.

“But it’s important, it’s at the heart of the issue,” Stone interjected.

“I get that that is where the media likes to go,” Cruz said, to which Stone replied that he and other journalists covering the shooting have talked to community members about reforming gun laws, saying it is where they would “like to go.”

“The proposals from Democrats and the media,” Cruz started again, “inevitably when some violent psychopath murders people—”

Stone interrupted Cruz, saying “a violent psychopath who’s able to get a weapon so easily. An 18-year-old with two AR-15s.”

The shooter in Tuesday’s attack legally purchased guns shortly after his 18th birthday, authorities have said.

“But why does this only happen in your country?” Stone asked Cruz. “I really think that’s what many people around the world cannot fathom, why only in America. Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?”

Cruz continued to push back on the reporter, saying, “I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is so awful. You know what, you’ve got your political agenda, God love you,” before walking away.

The shooting at Robb Elementary School has renewed calls from Democrats and activists for Congress to pass meaningful gun reform legislation, efforts that Republicans have consistently resisted.

Cruz is one of several prominent Republicans who plan to attend the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting this weekend in Houston.

Source: TEST FEED1

With a reframed message, Democrats can start winning the abortion fight

The news of the Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade has set off a political firestorm across the United States, triggering the most serious and sustained national debate over abortion rights in more than 50 years.

Most public opinion research on the issue has found that the American public’s views are in-line — broadly speaking — with the ‘pro-choice’ position commonly associated with the political left.

Why, then, are Democrats consistently the underdogs in this fight? In other words, why haven’t Democrats been able to effectively weaponize this issue against Republicans, who have been engaged in a concerted effort to undermine abortion rights in states across the country?

The answer is that Democrats lack a compelling messaging frame on abortion rights that is positive, inclusive, centered on the potent themes of women’s health and safety, and responsive to the fact that the electorate’s attitudes toward abortion are far more nuanced than assuming a simple pro-choice or pro-life stance, per the findings of new national polling conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research.

Importantly, though two-thirds of likely midterm election voters support a legal right to an abortion (66 percent), a majority of voters (55 percent) — including 55 percent of Independent voters and 58 percent of ideologically moderate voters — support abortion rights with some restrictions, according to our survey.

While Democrats have struggled to develop a narrative to reach this sizable ‘middle’ portion of the electorate, Republicans have found success in their strategy of not attacking abortion rights per se, but rather, making what is permissible increasingly narrow and characterizing Democrats’ positions as extreme, which many voters increasingly find them to be.

Indeed, there is little public support for an unencumbered right to abortion — as only 11 percent of voters believe abortion should be legal at all times during pregnancy — thus, much of the current messaging from the Democratic side is polarizing and out of step with the national sentiment.

Our poll also found that the electorate’s views on abortion permissibility are actually more restrictive than what is currently allowed under Roe v. Wade. One-half of voters (49 percent) say abortion should be legal in the first fifteen weeks or fewer — so, more limiting than what is currently permissible under Roe — whereas just 6 percent say it should be legal up to the first 23 weeks, which is the timetable established under Roe.

That being said, majorities of voters also oppose overturning the landmark Supreme Court ruling (51 percent) — including 53 percent of Independent voters and 52 percent of ideologically moderate voters — and say they favor a law being passed in their state codifying a legal right to abortion under similar parameters as Roe (56 percent). 

This discrepancy underscores another major problem for Democrats: There is a clear lack of public awareness as to what is currently permissible vis-à-vis abortion access, as well as critical misperceptions about the process.

In the absence of a succinct messaging strategy from Democrats that also educates voters on the issue, the right’s mischaracterizations of the abortion process — which unquestionably play a role in driving voters’ hesitancy toward abortion — have come to dominate the public sphere.

In that sense, a plurality of voters (38 percent) falsely believes that most abortions are surgical procedures, while just 25 percent know that the majority of abortions are performed via oral medication — and when voters are told that oral medications account for a majority of abortions in the United States, 36 percent become more supportive of abortion based on that fact alone.

Our results ultimately underscore the urgency of Democrats developing a simple and reassuring narrative on abortion — in the way that Republicans have “protect life” — that allows the party to access the substantial ‘middle’ of the electorate that supports a legal right to an abortion, but supports some restrictions around it. 

Encouragingly, our findings indicate that Democrats can win this messaging war — and increase their chances of successfully advancing policies protecting a woman’s legal right to abortion — by repositioning the abortion rights fight as a fight to protect women’s access to safe and quality healthcare, rather than a fight over choice versus life. 

Majorities of voters are compelled to support abortion as a legal right based on messaging that emphasizes access to safe and legal procedures as being essential in order to ensure quality health care for women (65 percent) and abortion as a safe medical procedure that is only done after careful consultation between a woman and her doctor (63 percent).

Importantly, these top-testing messaging frames are also compelling to approximately three-quarters of voters who are somewhat conservative on abortion legality — meaning, those who support a legal right to an abortion at most up to three months. 

When testing two common pro-choice articulations side-by-side, we found that voters more strongly support abortion being “safe, legal, and accessible” (46 percent), rather than “safe, legal, and rare” (29 percent). That being said, voters are clearly receptive to the concept of abortion being ‘rare’ in the sense that they want it to be a procedure that is only be undertaken after careful and thoughtful consultation between a woman and her doctor.

Ultimately, by recasting the right to have an abortion as a matter of women’s health and safety, Democrats can shift the national conversation away from the contentious areas of religion and politics in a way that enables the party to rebuild a coalition based on a majority that supports a legal right to choose in a post-Roe v. Wade world. 

Candidly, this is one of the most important fights of our lifetimes. The stakes for the Democratic Party — and more importantly, for women’s rights, both nationally and globally — could not be higher.

By embracing this strategic messaging shift, Democrats can drive lasting, transformational change that empowers current and future generations of American women, while also achieving a much-needed win on one of the defining political issues of our era. 

Carly Cooperman is a pollster and partner with the public opinion company Schoen Cooperman Research based in New York. She is coauthor of the book, “America: Unite or Die.” Follow her on Twitter @carlycooperman. Zoe Young is vice president of Schoen Cooperman Research.

Source: TEST FEED1

Russian tactical failures in Ukraine extend to airborne forces, UK says

The United Kingdom’s defense ministry on Thursday said that Russia’s airborne forces have been involved in “several notable tactical failures” throughout Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 

In an intelligence update, the U.K. specifically said that the failures included “the attempted advance on Kyiv via Hostomel Airfield in March, the stalled progress on the Izium axis since April, and the recent failed and costly crossings of the Siverskyi Donets River.” 

It noted that the airborne forces, known as the VDV, were involved in some of the “most demanding operations,” adding that it “has sustained heavy casualties during the campaign.”

“The failure to anticipate Ukrainian resistance and the subsequent complacency of Russian commanders has led to significant losses across many of Russia’s more elite units,” the ministry said.

“Its mixed performance likely reflects a strategic mismanagement of this capability and Russia’s failure to secure air superiority,” intelligence officials added, referring to Russia’s airborne forces.

The update comes just more than three months into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for “total help” from other countries as Russian forces press on in the eastern region of Ukraine.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine, our intelligence and all those who defend the state are resisting the extremely fierce offensive of Russian troops in the east. In some areas, the enemy is substantially superior in terms of equipment, number of soldiers,” Zelensky said Wednesday. 

“The Russian authorities have made an illustrative decision — they have allowed to hire older people for contract service. That is, they no longer have enough young people, but the desire to fight still remains,” he added. 

In Thursday’s update, the U.K. also noted that the VDV, which includes professional contracted soldiers who receive additional pay, is typically sent on missions “better suited to heavier armoured infantry and has sustained heavy casualties during the campaign.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Dak Prescott says Texas school shooting makes him 'fearful to have children'

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dakota Prescott said in the wake of this week’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas that he’s “fearful to have children.”

“I don’t know how something like that doesn’t impact everyone, I don’t care if you’re an athlete or not,” the 28-year-old quarterback told reporters after practice Wednesday. 

“We’re talking about children. We’re talking about the future. I mean, I don’t have kids and can’t imagine having to send my kid to school with that anxiety. Honestly, it makes me fearful to have children, and that’s not right. That’s sad.”

Prescott, a two-time Pro Bowl selection at quarterback, also mentioned that he planned to hold a community outreach event through his Faith Fight Finish Foundation, noting that there’s still much work to be done on gun reform. 

“If yesterday and two weeks ago and all of what we’ve been through hasn’t been a call for each and every one of us for help, for our neighborhood and what’s going on with them individually and how we’re protecting, policing and serving one another throughout our community, something has to be done and a change has to happen now,” Prescott said.

Prescott’s remarks come after 19 schoolchildren and two teachers were killed and 17 other people were injured on Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas when a gunman opened fire inside of a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School. 

Prescott’s teammate, defensive end Demarcus Lawrence, also urged Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to increase security at schools in wake of the shooting. 

“It’s very hard. It’s nerve wracking,” Lawrence said. “Every time I have chance to go in the locker room, I hit up my wife. ‘How are the kids? Are they home yet?’ It’s something you wouldn’t expect. But this is what we are dealing with.”

“This is all of us. All of us are going to have to step in,” Lawrence added. “Make sure we are builder a safer work space, safer environment for us to grow in.”

The massacre in Texas happened a week after the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., which resulted in the deaths of ten people. 

Recently, the Buffalo Bills and the NFL announced that they will contribute up to $400,000 to the city’s East Side neighborhood and community organizations in response to the shooting. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden, K-pop superstars BTS teaming up to raise awareness of anti-Asian hate crimes

K-pop superstars BTS are bringing the “Dynamite” to Washington, joining President Biden next week to raise awareness about anti-Asian hate crimes.

The South Korean “Butter” singers will appear at the White House on Tuesday to “discuss Asian inclusion and representation” as well as address discrimination.

Crimes against Asian Americans rose by more than 300 percent last year, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

BTS will also touch on “the importance of diversity and inclusion,” the White House said in a Thursday announcement.

Last week, Biden and Vice President Harris condemned attacks and hateful rhetoric against minority communities at a White House celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

“Hate can have no safe harbor in America. And every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect,” Biden said at the time.

Source: TEST FEED1