Ukrainian leaders are losing their conflict with Russia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia, told US radio show host Alex Jones.
"Ukraine is losing this war," the Republican congresswoman said in an interview on madmaxworld.tv on Sunday. She added that she was "probably the only member of Congress that will say that out loud."
Also, Taylor Greene criticized Washington’s sanctions policy which she said was prompting BRICS to strengthen their commercial ties which may make the grouping "tank our dollar," as BRICS member countries will switch to national currencies in their trade.
Following the results of the 15th BRICS summit held in Johannesburg on August 22-24, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will officially join the bloc on January 1, 2024.
Ukraine Loses Nearly 600 Troops in Combat Over Past Day - MoD
The Russian armed forces have eliminated about 600 Ukrainian troops during the special military operation in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
"Up to 250 Ukrainian troops were eliminated in combat in the Donetsk direction, in addition to two armored vehicles, three cars, a US-made M777 howitzer, a Polish-made Krab self-propelled howitzer, and a Msta-B and a D-20 howitzers," the ministry said.
Another 130 Ukrainian troops were eliminated in the Zaporizhzhia direction, over 125 in the South Donetsk direction, 50 near Krasnyi Lyman and 40 near Kupyansk, according to the ministry's estimate.
Ukraine also lost a MiG-29 fighter jet to the Russian air force near Bekarivka town in the Zaporizhzhia region, among other military hardware lost in combat over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Russian air defenses shot down 34 Ukrainian drones, five HIMARS missiles and a JDAM guided munition over the past day, the ministry also said.
The drought that gripped Minnesota in the summer of 2021 was one of the worst on record. Day after day a blazing sun shriveled leaves, dried up waterfalls and turned ponds to puddles.
In a state known for its 10,000 lakes, many people could do little except hope for rain.
But big farmers had another option. They cranked up their powerful irrigation wells, drenching their fields with so much water that they collectively pumped at least 6.1 billion gallons more groundwater than allowed under state permits. Nearly a third of the overuse happened on land affiliated with one company, R.D. Offutt Farms.
The water helped R.D. Offutt to achieve its objective of creating long, smooth potatoes that effortlessly sail through the slicers at frozen food processors so Americans could have one of their favorite foods: McDonald’s French fries.
It takes a lot of water to make a perfect fry.
By turning on the taps in the depths of drought, R.D. Offutt and other farmers in the state — where thousands of wells irrigate potatoes and other water-intensive crops like corn, soybeans and sugar beets — blew through limits designed to protect aquifers that supply drinking water to millions of people.
For some Minnesotans, it significantly worsened the drought’s effects. And it exposed how dependent much of the state has become on aquifers that are fragile and often poorly understood.
A bar chart showing Minnesota’s groundwater use for irrigation over time. The x-axis extends from 1988 to 2021. The bars show a general upward trend, peaking in the drought year of 2021 at above 150 billion gallons.
The increasing overuse of groundwater is a nationwide problem, a New York Times data investigation found, with big cities and industrial farms alike draining aquifers at alarming rates. The practice threatens not only drinking water supplies for millions of Americans but also the nation’s status as a leading exporter of food.
In Minnesota, watersheds started to dry as the heavy irrigation in 2021 lowered aquifer levels. Trout streams warmed when huge wells siphoned away the cooler underground water that normally fed the streams, scientists said, threatening fish populations. And in parts of Minnesota, people reported backyard wells drying up, sometimes leaving kitchen faucets to cough and sputter as though they were gasping.
Officials in Warren, Minn., partly surrounded by sugar beet fields, had to physically lower the pump at the town’s well by 63 feet in order to keep providing drinking water to more than 1,500 residents, including those in a hospital and nursing home. One older woman outside Warren said the only way she could get water after her own well went dry was to drive her riding mower to a neighbor’s house to fill water bottles. State officials wound up suspending four irrigation permits in the area.
In Backus, Minn., Mike Tauber, whose forested land abuts potato fields affiliated with R.D. Offutt, was shocked to find dried-up, exposed banks along a pond so big he had nicknamed it “Super Pond.” And in the northwestern part of the state, members of the White Earth Nation worried that farmers’ irrigation wells were draining culturally significant bodies of water.
Trout fishermen worry that the Straight River is warming as irrigation wells pump out cooler groundwater that would normally feed the river
The Taubers’ forest abuts an irrigated potato field.
“I understand farmers have got to make a living, too, but at the same time they’ve got to take other human beings into consideration,” said Trevor Milbrett, of Eagle Bend, Minn., who sometimes drove his pregnant wife and toddler to his parent’s house for showers and supper that summer because nearby irrigation had left him with no water.
Potato farming is not the only big agricultural user of groundwater in Minnesota. The state is one of the nation’s top producers of corn, another heavily irrigated crop. But potato farming in particular shows how a host of seemingly unrelated factors — the demands of industrial French fry production, for example, or the fact that people will spend more money for fries with fewer unappetizing dark spots — can send water use soaring.
In a written statement, Warren Warmbold, vice president of R.D. Offutt Farms, said, “The story of 2021 was either going to be about water overages or food shortages.” Along with other farmers, he said, “we had to make difficult decisions around water use in order to save our crops and keep the food supply secure and affordable.”
Mr. Warmbold also said that, over the years, R.D. Offutt had used less water than its permits allocated 97 percent of the time. “We don’t take these decisions lightly,” he wrote.
The practice of irrigating mainly with groundwater, once concentrated in America’s arid West, is marching eastward across the country even as it declines in many Western states, where aquifers are drying up.
A map of the continental United States, showing where irrigated acres of land saw net increases or decreases between 1997 and 2017. Net decreases are concentrated in the west, and net increases in the Midwest and elsewhere.
Minnesota in the early 1960s had fewer than 50 permits for irrigation wells. By 2022, there were over 7,000 of them.
And, like many other states, Minnesota uses an honor system for reporting water use from wells like these. Farmers self-report their usage annually.
This year, Minnesota lawmakers moved to rein in irrigators by increasing fines for pumping too much water, but it’s unclear whether regulators will use the new tools. Officials said that in 2021, they were hesitant to fine farmers who were already struggling with crop loss.
What happened in Minnesota offers a warning to the rest of the country. Even in a state with a culture tied to watery abundance, groundwater overuse in some areas quickly had dire consequences. And it remains unclear whether the steps taken to prevent a repeat are strong enough.
“We have this really intensive groundwater use, expanding to aquifers we don’t yet understand very well, in places where domestic wells have never had to compete for groundwater,” said Ellen Considine, a hydrologist supervisor with the state’s Department of Natural Resources. As a result, she said, “we may not be leaving enough groundwater for future generations.”
Thirsty Farmland
To understand why big farms use so much water, consider potato aesthetics.
People don’t want French fries that just taste good, they want them to look good, too. And since the late 1960s, the United States Department of Agriculture has set voluntary grading standards for potatoes and French fries, essentially defining what gives them value.
One important variable is French fry coloring: Those with dark markings have little chance at being called “Grade A” fries.
For farmers, that means making sure potatoes don’t have lumps, which can cause uneven coloring. Growing potatoes in fluffy, sandy soil allows them to expand into smoother shapes.
The ideal: long, golden, uniform fries Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune, via Getty Images
R.D. Offutt employees in a potato field near Park Rapids, Minn.
In Minnesota, R.D. Offutt, which has its headquarters in North Dakota and is one of the largest potato growers in America, has planted crops on thousands of acres of land where a timber company once harvested wood from a lush pine forest. R.D. Offutt converted the land to farming to take advantage of the sandy, potato-friendly soil beneath the trees.
R.D. Offutt executives said they had put into place more efficient irrigation methods in recent years. And the company said it has partnered with scientists to develop new varieties of potatoes that aren’t as water-intensive.
In the summer of 2021, faced with the worst drought in decades, fields linked to R.D. Offutt were doused with water from more than 500 wells. R.D. Offutt supplies potatoes to companies that make fries for fast-food restaurants, including McDonald’s. It owns fields but also leases land to and from other farmers as part of its practice of rotating potatoes with other crops every few years.
In the drought year, about one-third of R.D. Offutt’s fields were planted with potatoes, executives said. But growing any crops in the sandy, porous soil requires significantly more water.
A potato plant on an R.D. Offutt farm near Park Rapids.
A lake where White Earth members harvest wild rice.
It’s not just industrial farms that gulp groundwater. Cities, power plants, factories and golf courses do, too. (In 2021 in Minnesota, a company digging an oil pipeline also breached an aquifer, sending groundwater gushing.) But irrigation is consistently one of the biggest users, and the agricultural industry’s political might, along with farming’s revered place in the American self-image, means that unsustainable irrigation practices have expanded despite the risk to agriculture itself.
The phenomenon can be seen from the window of any airplane flying over America’s flatlands. Those circles of green on the land below are the work of immense “center pivot” irrigation sprinklers that often use groundwater, tapping wells that are sometimes hundreds of feet deep.
Minnesota tries to put the brakes on excessive groundwater use with permits that consider how wells affect the area around them. But the system isn’t perfect.
“Think of our water supply as a giant milkshake glass and each well is a straw in the glass,” said Robert Glennon, author of the book “Water Follies,” who has studied agriculture’s effect on groundwater. “What most states permit is a limitless number of straws in the glass.”
500 Gallons a Minute
Many of the wells linked to R.D. Offutt and those of other farmers tap the Pineland Sands Aquifer, which is huge but also delicate, partly because it is shallow in places. Extracting water from the shallow spots can sometimes affect surface water in the region, lowering the levels of rivers or other bodies of water.
“If you just take a little bit, it’s very sensitive,” said John Nieber, an agricultural engineering and hydrology professor at the University of Minnesota. Pumping out even relatively small amounts from aquifers can lower surface water if snowmelt and rain aren’t replenishing them quickly enough.
Early indications suggest the Pineland Sands Aquifer may have recovered from the setbacks in 2021, and R.D. Offutt says its studies show “imperceptible” changes in water levels in past years. Still, state officials said that straining an aquifer year after year can have wide-reaching effects, drying out wetlands and streams.
The fact that so many Minnesotans statewide were forced to scramble for groundwater after just one summer of intense drought highlights the fragility of aquifers even in parts of the country not usually thought of as water-stressed. This year parts of Minnesota are again experiencing a drought, prompting new complaints that irrigation is drying out residents’ wells.
Many of the state’s irrigation wells are concentrated in areas of sandy soil.
Dr. Nieber is partnering with the White Earth Nation to study irrigation’s effects on the Pineland Sands Aquifer. The southeast corner of the reservation sits atop the aquifer and is adjacent to dozens of wells operated by R.D. Offutt as well as other farmers, according to the tribe.
For years, White Earth members have complained about fertilizers and pesticides used by farmers. Among their concerns is that both the chemicals and the pumping for irrigation threaten tribal lakes and streams where White Earth members fish and harvest wild rice, which is culturally significant and an important revenue source.
Frustrated by what members see as an inadequate response by the state to address the effects of irrigated farming, this year the White Earth passed a measure that requires tribal officials to sign off on any new irrigation wells that farmers want to install within five miles of the reservation, a swath of territory where the White Earth says it has hunting and fishing rights.
The measure may invite legal challenges, leaders acknowledged, but is intended to send a message that more irrigation is not welcome. “We are pushing back,” said Jamie Konopacky, a White Earth attorney.
White Earth community members prayed for bountiful fish and rice.
Austin Tersteeg’s corn and soybean irrigation dried out neighbors’ wells.
During the summer drought in 2021, complaints about irrigation were filed with the Department of Natural Resources faster than inspectors could keep up with them. Many came from poorer families or older people with limited income, according to a review of the complaints and interviews with residents who filed them.
In Red Lake County, Allan Armstrong said he went without water for a month at his home. But Mr. Armstrong also faced another crisis: Nearby, his parents had also lost water in their well at a time when his father was receiving hospice care at home.
“He was panicking and flipping out and running out of water,” Mr. Armstrong said of his father.
His complaint to the state expressed the urgency. “We need water now!” Mr. Armstrong wrote.
About three miles from Mr. Armstrong’s home, a neighboring farm owned by the Tersteeg family had installed a new 500-gallon-a-minute well.
The Tersteegs were trying to keep their corn and soybeans from withering. Their water use was well within their annual permitted limit, but still enough to dry out Mr. Armstrong’s smaller well and also contribute to problems for three other families’ wells.
Anti-Eritrean government activists, left, clash with supporters of the Eritrean government, in Tel Aviv on Sept. 2, 2023. (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he wants Eritrean migrants involved in a violent clash in Tel Aviv to be deported immediately and has ordered a plan to remove all of the country’s African migrants.
The remarks came a day after bloody protests by rival groups of Eritreans in south Tel Aviv left dozens of people injured. Eritreans, supporters and opponents of Eritrea’s government, faced off with construction lumber, pieces of metal and rocks, smashing shop windows and police cars. Israeli police in riot gear shot tear gas, stun grenades and live rounds while officers on horseback tried to control the protesters.
The violence on Saturday returned to the fore the issue of migrants, which has long divided Israel. Its resurgence comes as Israel is torn over Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan, and supporters cite the migrant issue as a reason why the courts should be reined in, saying they have stood in the way of pushing the migrants out.
“We want harsh measures against the rioters, including the immediate deportation of those who took part,” Netanyahu said in a special ministerial meeting called to deal with the aftermath of the violence. He requested that the ministers present him with plans “for the removal of all the other illegal infiltrators,” and noted in his remarks that the Supreme Court struck down some measures meant to coerce the migrants to leave.
About 25,000 African migrants live in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, who say they fled conflict or repression. Israel recognizes very few as asylum seekers, seeing them overwhelmingly as economic migrants, and says it has no legal obligation to keep them.
The country has tried a variety of tactics to force them out, including sending some to a remote prison, holding part of their wages until after they agree to leave the country or offering cash payments to those who agree to move to another country, somewhere in Africa.
Critics accuse the government of trying to coerce the migrants into leaving. Under international law, Israel cannot forcibly send migrants back to a country where their life or liberty may be at risk.
Netanyahu said Sunday he didn’t think deporting supporters of the Eritrean government would be a problem.
Migrants’ supporters say Israel, a country founded upon the ashes of the Holocaust and built up by Jewish refugees, should welcome those seeking asylum. Opponents claim migrants have brought crime to the low-income southern Tel Aviv neighborhoods where they have settled.
The clashes came as Eritrean government supporters marked the 30th anniversary of the current ruler’s rise to power, an event held near the Eritrean embassy in south Tel Aviv. Eritrea has one of the world’s worst human rights records and migrants in Israel and elsewhere say they fear death if they were to return.
Critics see Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan as a power grab meant to weaken the courts and limit judicial oversight on government decisions and legislation. Supporters say it is meant to restore power to elected legislators and rein in what they say is an interventionist and liberal-leaning justice system.
There are about 20,000 Eritrean asylum seekers living in Israel. Many of them arrived in Israel illegally over Israel’s border with Egypt.
Netanyahu’s office issued a statement Saturday saying that the prime minister would convene a special ministerial team Sunday “to examine measures to be taken against illegal infiltrators who took part in the disturbances, including steps toward deportation.”
The Eritreans say they will face persecution if they are repatriated.
After heavy rainfall caused thick mud to inundate roadways, tens of thousands of Burning Man revelers were left stranded in a remote section of the Nevada desert.
Videos shared on social media on Saturday show ankle-deep mud throughout Black Rock City, a temporary city erected for the annual week-long event, where people could be seen sloshing around with garbage bags or Ziploc bags over their feet to avoid getting stuck in the pasty mud.
Access to and from Black Rock City was closed "for the remainder of the event" after rainfall pummeled the area Friday night and Saturday morning, turning the sandy desert into thick mud, organizers said in a statement that was posted on social media Saturday. The weather was so severe it triggered a "shelter in place" alert, where attendees were urged to conserve food and water.
Burning Man is held annually in a remote part of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada roughly 100 miles from Reno. The event, which dates to 1986, draws more than 60,000 attendees to Black Rock City to dance, make art and witness the burning of a massive wooden effigy known as the Man, according to the festival's website. The event, held this year from August 27 to September 4, has been postponed as attendees, also called "burners" are trapped by the inclement weather hitting the area.
Burning Man, according to the website, is not a festival but rather a "community and global cultural movement" that is based on 10 countercultural principles, such as radical self-expression and radical self-resilience.
The Burning Man website warns that attendees are responsible for their own survival and must be ready for harsh desert conditions.
The Burning Man Project, a non-profit group headquartered in San Francisco, California that organizes the event told Newsweek in an emailed on Saturday night that the people attending the event are prepared extreme weather.
Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, a spokesperson for the Burning Man Project, told Newsweek that attendees are urged to "wait it out."
"Burning Man is a community of people who are prepared to support one another," Debucquoy-Dodley said to Newsweek. "We have come here knowing this is a place where we bring everything we need to survive. It is because of this that we are all well-prepared for a weather event like this."
The Burning Man Project, according to the statement, has conducted "table-top drills for events like this" and is working to set up mobile-cell trailers and busses off site. Attendees are urged to follow Burning Man accounts on social media and check the website for more information and updates
"Get some rest and spend some quality time with your campmates," Debucquoy-Dodley said. "We will all get out of this, it will just take time."
The gate and airport into Black Rock City are closed and no driving is permitted into or out of the city except for emergency vehicles, the organizers said on X, formerly Twitter.
With more rain in the forecast, conditions are expected to get worse. All burns are postponed as of Saturday evening, including the famed igniting of the Man, according to the website.
Some burners decided to ditch their muddy campsites by hiking several miles to the nearest road, according to videos shared on social media.
In one clip, DJ Diplo told his 2.4 million X followers that he hiked five miles with his friend, comedian Chris Rock, before they were able to hitch a ride from a fan.
"Just walked 5 miles in the mud out of burning man with chris rock and a fan picked us up," Diplo posted.
just walked 5 miles in the mud out of burning man with chris rock and a fan picked us up pic.twitter.com/0uxSXLHgY6
Shortly after Diplo shared the video on X, the Washoe County Sheriff's Department posted about the closure of the entrance to Burning Man for the remainder of the event. Officials warned that anyone driving near the area will be "turned around."
Newsweek reached out via email to the Washoe Sheriff's Office for comment.
Philip Lewis, an editor for HuffPost, shared a roughly 40-second video on X that shows burners and their campsites covered in mud.
"Tens of thousands of people attending the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert are being told to conserve food, water and fuel as they shelter in place after a heavy rainstorm," Lewis posted.
Tens of thousands of people attending the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert are being told to conserve food, water and fuel as they shelter in place after a heavy rainstorm https://t.co/63N6id7vynpic.twitter.com/sc0VeClt9Y
A viral TikTok video, which garnered more than a million views in four hours on Saturday after it was posted by user ninja__natalie, appears to show a jeep stuck in deep mud.
