How a Former Oil Guy Is Using Fracking Tech to Boost Geothermal Energy

Of all the technological progress of the past few decades, there is a good argument to be made that a series of fossil fuel industry innovations that helped spark the U.S. shale oil boom have had the single largest effect on the course of global geopolitics, and the world’s biosphere. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking shifted the U.S. from being a net fuel importer to exporter—a realignment of the world’s strategic chessboard currently being demonstrated in the fleets of American oil and natural gas tankers helping circumvent Russia’s energy blockade of Europe. At the same time, all that new, cheap fuel helped prolong the U.S.’s carbon addiction for years, with incipient renewables unable to compete against natural gas.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

But that drilling technology may yet have a climate upside. Last month, Houston-based startup Fervo announced the successful test of a first-of-its kind commercial-scale power plant, which uses the shale oil drilling innovations to produce zero-emission geothermal energy. While horizontal drilling allows oil producers to access new seams of fossil fuels, in Fervo’s case, the company is drilling sideways into hot, porous rocks heated by tectonic activity. The company then pumps water through those rocks in order to generate steam and produce electricity. Right now, its project in northern Nevada is capable of producing about 3.5 megawatts of energy, or enough electricity to power about 2,600 homes. Once the plant gets hooked up to the grid later this year, that electricity will be used to power Google data centers and other Alphabet operations.

Unlike solar and wind energy, which only generate energy when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, geothermal plants can provide a constant stream of power, which is crucial to balancing the grid. Currently, geothermal energy accounts for about 0.4% of U.S. electricity. But, like in the U.S. fracking boom, Fervo’s technology could make it feasible to develop geothermal power plants in many more areas where it wouldn’t have made financial sense before, a change that could help raise geothermal energy as a serious player in decarbonizing the U.S. grid.

Tim Latimer started his career in the oil and gas industry, before co-founding Fervo in 2017. He spoke with TIME about finding a way to use oil industry technology for the planet, and his vision for the future of geothermal energy. 

The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

TIME: Can you tell us about how Fervo’s technology works? Why is it important?

Tim Latimer: Geothermal power generation has been around for over 100 years. The first geothermal power plant was built in Italy around the turn of the last century. All geothermal [power] kind of works the same way: you drill to high temperature geology, and then you produce hot water or steam out of wells that you drill into, and then capture that at the surface to create electricity. There’s been plants built all over the world. It’s a huge part of the electricity mix in places like Iceland, New Zealand, and Kenya. But traditionally, the struggle has been that you [have to] tap really hot, shallow, productive, natural basins to be cost-effective. But those sites got tapped [decades] ago, and we had to drill deeper to less hot places and less productive wells, and technology really didn’t keep up. So the reason geothermal hadn’t expanded was that once you cherry pick these geologic hotspots and try to move on to other places, the tech didn’t exist to make it cost effective.

Traditionally, you would drill simple vertical wells, and you would flow [water] between injection wells and production wells. What’s novel about our site is we drilled down about 8,000 ft., and then we turned and drilled horizontally for 4,000 ft. And then we flowed [water] from one horizontal well to the other across several hundred feet in that high temperature rock 8,000 ft. beneath our feet. That solves some of these economic challenges and allows us to go to deeper places and still make the economics work. 

What was the biggest challenge of making that oil and gas technology work for geothermal power?

Our geology requirements are quite a bit different. In the U.S., there’s been well over 100,000 horizontal oil and gas wells drilled, but generally, those are in shallower places where the rock is softer, and it’s not as hot. So it has taken a lot of work to be able to adapt the equipment. Our wells are much higher temperature—the project that we did here was nearly 400℉. We’re also drilling through granite, and so that’s much harder rock. 

What sort of new technology did you need to drill through harder rock and higher heat?

Some of it is better tools, like drill bits with harder surfaces, and motors and electronics that are built to deal with higher temperatures. And some of it is just better techniques. One of the things that we drove forward was a way of pumping fluid down while we’re drilling that cools your drilling system more efficiently than in an oil and gas operation.

Where are these hot rocks that you need? How much more geothermal energy could your technology open up?

Our current projects are in states like Utah and Nevada that have good natural geology for geothermal, where we can still drill relatively shallow wells and get to high temperature [rock]. But we’re not limited to those geologies. We’re just starting there first because it’s the low-hanging fruit. Principally, there’s virtually an unlimited amount of geothermal energy. The world is really big, and the world is really hot. We’ve got billions of years of energy under our feet. It’s all a question about how much you can access economically. We think with existing technology, drilling down to about 4,000 meters [over 13,100 ft.] is probably cost effective.

Read more: How Amazon Became the Largest Buyer of Renewable Energy in the World

As part of the [U.S.] Energy Secretary’s enhanced geothermal Earthshot that she announced last year, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory did a study looking in detail at the Western United States, and determining how much high temperature rock can you find at 4,000 meters [over 13,100 ft.] or shallower, and found over 200 gigawatts of [potential power] that was just in that shallow depth. That would represent as much as 20% of U.S. electricity supply, if we can develop that amount. But what we think is, as we expand this technology, we won’t have to be just limited to the western United States. We can get so cost effective that we can come to the Eastern United States where we would have to drill deeper, but still make it cost effective. And so there’s really no practical limit to how much geothermal [energy] there can be. It’s just a question of how quickly we can get more efficient at drilling and repeat the results that we did in our pilot, and just continue to bring costs down every time we build a new power plant.

Was there a particular day where you got out of bed, and said, “I’m done with oil and gas, and I’m going to use this drilling technology for renewables instead?” 

I’ve always been really passionate about the environment. I love the outdoors. And so even when I started my career in oil and gas, it was something I was thinking about a lot. I’m from Houston. The oil and gas industry has been a big part of my life and my community. But the more I got passionate about climate change, the more I really wanted to start looking at new solutions.

There’s two things that happened for me that were important. I realized that a lot of my friends, a lot of my family, and a huge part of our city all had our employment prospects tied up in the oil and gas industry. And I started realizing this energy transition is real, and if we’re going to take serious action on climate, we need to make sure that there’s something that Houston is doing. And not just Houston, but other major oil and gas places around the world. People in places where oil and gas is the primary economic driver need to find a way to transition. And so I wanted to figure out how somebody from the oil and gas industry could apply their skills to climate change. When I discovered geothermal, I felt really excited. This is a field that needs drilling engineers, but to produce a carbon-free energy source.

And then another thing for me was I lived in Houston during this series of floods we got in the 2010s. Year after year, we got these one-in-1,000 year events. Everybody knows about Hurricane Harvey in 2017. But for me, in 2015, there was a flood and they canceled my work. And I walked outside my apartment, and the road outside had 20 ft. of water on it. Everything was underwater. It was this moment where [climate change] went from being this thing that I was intellectually curious and about to being like, “This is not normal. This is a pretty urgent crisis.”

I ended up quitting my job just a couple of months after that to go to graduate school, and ended up pursuing this new geothermal path. I wrote in my application essay to Stanford Business School that my goal was to learn the entrepreneurial skills to launch a geothermal company that can take technology from the oil and gas industry to disrupt the geothermal sector. So it was a pretty calculated move.

I imagine that a lot of people you’re working with also come from an oil and gas background, and maybe decided to leave because that industry is not really going to be viable anymore for us as a species. Does that play into recruiting folks?

Totally. 60% of the employees at Fervo come from a background in the oil and gas industry. Growing up here [in Houston], oil and gas is just a massive employer. I really get frustrated when people demonize the people that work in oil and gas. They are some of the best people. It’s an incredibly diverse group with people from all over, and a lot of them are also passionate about climate change. We’re able to tap into that growing part of that workforce that is thinking deeply about climate change. If we want to deploy geothermal energy as quickly as we need to to actually have an impact on global carbon emissions, we need to recruit tens of thousands of people to come work with us. And so recruiting from the oil and gas industry is a major part of our strategy.

What does the future look like for Fervo? 

We’re going into full deployment mode. Technologies like this only make a difference if we deploy them at large-scale in a way that can reduce carbon emissions and increase the reliability of the grid. Our next project that we’re breaking ground on is going to be nearly 100 times bigger than our pilot. We’re targeting a 400 megawatt project [in Utah] that we’re going to be constructing over the next four years. And then beyond that, it’s our ambition to unlock that full multi-hundred gigawatt resource that the National Renewable Energy Lab has identified. The goal here is to be 20% of U.S. electricity supply by 2050, and then to repeat that around the world.

source https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geothermal-energy/

Attacks on Hospitals Mean Health Care is One of the U.S.’s Most Violent Fields

Word spread through an Oregon hospital last month that a visitor was causing trouble in the maternity ward, and nurses were warned the man might try to abduct his partner’s newborn.

Hours later, the visitor opened fire, killing a security guard and sending patients, nurses and doctors scrambling for cover.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Portland was part of a wave of gun violence sweeping through U.S. hospitals and medical centers, which have struggled to adapt to the growing threats.

Such attacks have helped make health care one of the nation’s most violent fields. Data shows American health care workers now suffer more nonfatal injuries from workplace violence than workers in any other profession, including law enforcement.

“Health care workers don’t even think about that when they decide they want to be a nurse or a doctor. But as far as actual violence goes, statistically, health care is four or five times more dangerous than any other profession,” said Michael D’Angelo, a former police officer who focuses on health care and workplace violence as a security consultant in Florida.

Other industries outpace health care for overall danger, including deaths.

Similar shootings have played out in hospitals across the country.

Read More: The Tulsa Shooting Is a Reminder Health Care Workers Face Violence Every Day

Last year, a man killed two workers at a Dallas hospital while there to watch his child’s birth. In May, a man opened fire in a medical center waiting room in Atlanta, killing one woman and wounding four. Late last month, a man shot and wounded a doctor at a health center in Dallas. In June 2022, a gunman killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical office because he blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after an operation.

Almost three-fourths of all nonfatal workplace injuries

It’s not just deadly shootings: Health care workers racked up 73% of all nonfatal workplace violence injuries in 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One day before the July 22 shooting in Portland, employees throughout the hospital were warned during meetings to be prepared for a possible “code amber” announcement in case the visitor attempted to kidnap the child, according to a nurse with direct knowledge of the briefing who spoke to The Associated Press. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared retaliation at work.

Fifteen minutes before the shooting, someone at the hospital called 911 to report the visitor was threatening staffers, according to a timeline provided by Portland police.

Read More: Column: The Coming Collapse of the U.S. Health Care System

“He kind of fell through the cracks,” the nurse said. “I don’t know how many chances he received. It kind of got to the point where staff did not know what to do, or what they could or couldn’t do with him.”

Police arrived at the maternity ward within minutes, but it was too late. Bobby Smallwood, a security guard who had been called in from another Legacy hospital to cover shifts for Good Samaritan’s understaffed security team, had been fatally shot. Another hospital employee was wounded by shrapnel. The suspect fled and was later killed by police in a nearby community.

The hospital declined to respond to the nurse’s comments because the case is still under investigation.

“Events like these are unpredictable, but our team exhibited professionalism and a great deal of courage in the face of extraordinarily challenging circumstances that day,” Legacy Health said in a statement to the AP.

Legacy Health in Portland plans to install additional metal detectors, require bag searches at every hospital and send patients and visitors to controlled entrances. More security officers will be provided with stun guns, the hospital said, and bullet-slowing film is being applied to some interior glass and at main entrances.

Around 40 states have passed laws creating or increasing penalties for violence against health care workers, according to the American Nurses Association. Hospitals have armed security officers with batons, stun guns or handguns, while some states, including Indiana, Ohio and Georgia, allow hospitals to create their own police forces.

The problems with hospital police forces

Critics say private hospital police can exacerbate the health care and policing inequities already experienced by Black people. They also say private police forces often don’t have to disclose information such as how often they use force or whether they disproportionately detain members of minority groups.

Security teams cannot address all of the factors leading to violence because many of them are caused by a dysfunctional health care system, said Deborah Burger, a registered nurse and the president of National Nurses United.

Patients and families are often bounced between emergency rooms and home, and are frustrated over high costs, limited treatment options or long wait times, Burger said.

“Hospitals don’t really have a complaints department, so the only real target they have is the nurse or staff that are standing right in front of them,” she said.

Understaffing forces nurses to care for more patients and affords them less time to assess each one for behavior problems. Efforts to de-escalate aggression aren’t as effective if nurses haven’t had time to bond with patients, Burger said.

Understaffing is an “absolutely catastrophic formula for workplace violence increasing,” D’Angelo said. “Now you don’t even have the good old buddy system of two co-workers keeping an eye out for each other.”

Some hospital administrators encourage staff to placate aggressive visitors and patients because they are worried about getting bad reviews, Burger said. That’s because the Affordable Care Act tied a portion of federal reimbursement rates to consumer satisfaction surveys and low satisfaction means a hit to the financial bottom line.

“The results of those surveys should never take priority over staff safety,” D’Angelo said.

Eric Sean Clay, the president-elect of the International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety and vice president of security at Memorial Hermann Health in Houston, said the workplace violence rates attributed to health care facilities are “grossly underreported.”

“I think that a lot of it comes down to caregivers are just very tolerant, and they come to look at it as just part of the job,” he said. “If they’re not injured, sometimes they don’t want to report it, and sometimes they don’t think there will be any change.”

Read More: Column: American Health Care Faces a Staffing Crisis And It’s Affecting Care

Clay’s hospital uses armed and unarmed security officers, though he hopes to have them all armed eventually.

“We actually have our own firing range that we use,” Clay said. None of his security officers have drawn their weapons on the job in recent years, but he wants them to be ready because of the rise in gun violence.

Clay and Memorial Hermann Health declined to answer questions about whether an armed security force could negatively affect access to health care or existing inequities.

Traumatized nurses

The nurse at the Portland hospital said the shooting left her colleagues terrified and unusually solemn. She is worried Legacy Health’s promises of increased safety will be temporary because of the cost of finding, training and retaining security officers.

Some of her co-workers have resigned because they don’t want to face another “code silver,” the alert issued when someone at the hospital has a weapon.

“You know, we always say these patients and their families are so vulnerable, because they’re having the worst day of their life here,” the nurse said, and that makes many staffers reluctant to demand better behavior.

“We have to stop that narrative,” she said. “Being vulnerable is bleeding out from a bullet wound in your chest. Being vulnerable is having to barricade yourself and your patients in a room because of a code silver.”

source https://time.com/6302386/health-care-violence-medical-center-attacks/

William Friedkin, Oscar-Winning Director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, Dies at 87

William Friedkin, the Oscar winning director who became a top filmmaker in his 30s with the gripping “The French Connection” and the horrifying “The Exorcist” and struggled in the following decades to match his early success has died. He was 87.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Friedkin, who won the best director Oscar for “The French Connection,” died Monday in Los Angeles, his wife, producer and former studio head Sherry Lansing told The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie, based on a true story, deals with the efforts of maverick New York City police Detective James “Popeye” Doyle to track down Frenchman Fernando Rey, mastermind of a large drug pipeline funneling heroin into the United States. It contains one of the most thrilling chase scenes ever filmed.

The movie also won Academy Awards for best picture, screenplay and film editing and led critics to hail Friedkin, then just 32, as a leading member of a new generation of filmmakers.
He followed with an even bigger blockbuster, “The Exorcist,” based on William Peter Blatty’s best-selling novel about a 12-year-old girl possessed by the devil.

The harrowing scenes of the girl’s possession and a splendid cast, including Linda Blair as the girl, Ellen Burstyn as her mother and Max Von Sydow and Jason Miller as the priests who try to exorcise the devil from her, helped make the film a box-office sensation. It was so scary for its era that many viewers fled the theater before it was over and some reported being unable to sleep for days afterward.

It received 10 Oscar nominations, including one for Friedkin as director, and won two, for Blatty’s script and for sound.

With that second success, Friedkin would go on to direct movies and TV shows well into the 21st century. But he would never again come close to matching the success of those early works.
Other film credits included “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “Cruising,” “Rules of Engagement” and a TV remake of the classic play and Sidney Lumet movie “12 Angry Men.” Friedkin also directed episodes for such TV shows as “The Twilight Zone,” “Rebel Highway” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

The late Associated Press Correspondent Bob Thomas was the primary writer of this obituary.

source https://time.com/6302352/william-friedkin-dies-87/

Tens of Thousands of Scouts Came to South Korea. Now They’re Evacuating as a Storm Looms

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is preparing to evacuate tens of thousands of scouts from a coastal jamboree site as Tropical Storm Khanun looms, officials said Monday.

Starting Tuesday morning, South Korea will deploy about a thousand buses to pull out some 36,000 scouts from 156 countries from the World Scout Jamboree in the southwestern county of Buan, according to Kim Sung-ho, a vice minister at South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

He said most of the scouts will be accommodated at venues in the country’s capital, Seoul, and the nearby metropolitan area. Officials were trying to secure spaces at government training centers and education facilities. Kim said it would take six hours or more to evacuate the scouts from the campsite, which organizers said will no longer be used for any event after they leave.

Read More: The True Story Behind Hulu’s Boy Scouts Documentary ‘Leave No Trace’

The announcement came after The World Organization of the Scout Movement said it urgently called on South Korea to quickly move the scouts from the storm’s path and “provide all necessary resources and support for participants during their stay and until they return to their home countries.”

South Korea’s weather agency reported that Khanun was expected to make landfall in South Korea on Thursday morning, potentially packing winds as strong as 118 to 154 kilometers (73 to 95 miles) per hour. Large swaths of the country’s south, including Buan, could be affected by the storm as early as Wednesday, the agency said.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office said he called for “contingency” plans, which could include relocating them to hotels and other facilities in the country’s capital, Seoul, and nearby metropolitan areas. Khanun has taken an unusual, meandering path around Japan’s southwestern islands for more than a week, dumping heavy rain, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting flights and train services. On Monday afternoon, it had sustained winds of 108 kilometers (67 miles) per hour, with higher gusts, and was forecast to maintain that strength as it brushed Japan’s main island of Kyushu this week, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The agency said the storm was at about 160 kilometers (99 miles) east of Amami city on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu and moving gradually toward the north as of Monday afternoon. It warned residents in affected regions to watch out for mudslides, high winds and rough seas.

The storm has caused one death and 70 injuries on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, according to the country’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Due to the forecast of harsh weather in the region, West Japan Railway Co. said there was a possibility of suspending “Shinkansen” bullet train services from Wednesday night to Thursday morning.

Hot temperatures have already forced thousands of British and American scouts to leave the site, which is made on land reclaimed from sea. Hundreds of participants had been treated for heat-related ailments since the jamboree started on Wednesday. Long before the event’s start, critics raised concerns about bringing such large numbers of young people to a vast, treeless area lacking protection from the summer heat.

Organizers earlier on Monday were scurrying to come up with plans to evacuate the scouts ahead of the storm’s arrival. Choi Chang-haeng, secretary-general of the jamboree’s organizing committee, said organizers have secured more than 340 evacuation venues, including community centers and gyms, in regions near Buan.

About 40,000 scouts — mostly teenagers — from 158 countries came to the jamboree, built on land reclaimed from the sea. About 4,500 were from the U.K., representing the largest national contingent, while about 1,000 were from the United States.

South Korea categorizes Khanun as a typhoon, defined as a tropical storm with winds stronger than 61 kilometers (38 miles) per hour. South Korea’s weather agency expects Khanun to weaken to a storm within the next five days.

—Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/6302195/scout-jamboree-south-korea-weather/

Taliban Prepare Suicide Bombers in Water Dispute With Iran

In mid-May, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a warning to the Taliban: honor Afghanistan’s water-supply agreement or face the consequences.

A well-known Taliban figure offered a mocking gift of a 20-liter water container in response and told him to stop making terrifying ultimatums. About a week later, a skirmish erupted on the border, leaving two Iranian guards and one Taliban member dead. The Taliban sent thousands of troops and hundreds of suicide bombers to the area, according to a person familiar with the matter, who says the group is prepared for war.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

After two decades fighting the US, Taliban leaders now find themselves sparring with neighbors as the realities of global warming hit home. The dispute with Iran over depleted water resources is further destabilizing an already volatile region.

“The water shortages in the Helmand River basin are a result of climate change as the country heats up and suffers huge excesses of rainfall followed by terrible dry spells,” said Graeme Smith, a senior consultant on Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group, a non-profit organization. “Temperatures in the country are up 1.8C since 1950.”

Iran signed an agreement in 1973 for Afghanistan to supply a stipulated amount of water a year in “normal” climate conditions from the Helmand, a more than 1,000 kilometer (620 mile) waterway that runs from the Afghan Hindu Kush mountains through the country and into Iran.

Read More: How the Taliban Suppressed Opium in Afghanistan—and Why There’s Little to Celebrate

The water from Afghanistan’s longest river is critical for agriculture and consumed by millions of people on both sides of the border. 

Iran argues the Taliban reduced the water supply since it returned to power and isn’t keeping Afghanistan’s side of the bargain. 

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a press conference last week that “preliminary agreements are in place” with the Taliban government over Iran’s rights to water from the Helmand, without providing further details. 

“Take my words seriously,” Raisi, Iran’s president since 2021, said during a visit to Sistan and Baluchestan, the country’s poorest province, which was hit hard by the water shortage. “I warn the officials and rulers of Afghanistan that they should honor the water rights of the people of Sistan.”

Taliban spokesmen Zabihullah Mujahid and Bilal Karimi didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment.

Mujahid said in May Raisi’s comments were inappropriate and could harm ties. Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi contends the issue only occurred because of drought, and Afghanistan respects the agreement. 

The pact itself leaves room for interpretation. The water supply must be “adjusted” in times of drought, it says, and both countries must engage in “diplomatic negotiations” to resolve any issues.

But despite the call for diplomacy, the Taliban prepared for war. As well as soldiers and suicide bombers, its rare military deployment also included hundreds of military vehicles and weapons left behind by the US, the person said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the situation.

“Both sides can make a case to justify their positions,” said Omar Samad, a senior fellow at Washington-based think-tank the Atlantic Council and former Afghan envoy to Canada and France. He pointed to Afghanistan’s “protracted state of crisis” and Iran’s need for water at a time of drought.

If neither wants to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels, it will be “politically irrational and lead to regional destabilization at a time when neither side can afford conflict,” he said.

The agreement has been a source of tension for decades. Iran has long argued it doesn’t receive enough water. The situation worsened with the Taliban’s takeover, which came during years of drought.

And while it’s hard to analyze both sides’ claims as no water supply data is available, Fatemeh Aman, a non-resident senior fellow at Washington-based think-tank the Middle East Institute, says Iran has only itself to blame.

“The Iranian authorities had over 40 years to invest in water management or prepare the region for disaster,” she said. “They failed.”

Iranian lawmakers said in June the situation in Sistan and Baluchestan is so dire that a “humanitarian disaster” will occur if people don’t get access to water, according to local media. More than 10,000 families fled the province’s capital in the last year, according to a report.

At least 300 towns and cities in Iran face acute water stress as the planet gets hotter. Dams are evaporating, and more than 97% of the country is affected by drought, according to one estimate. Some 20 million people moved to cities because the land is too dry for farming, according to one academic.

Read More: The Women of Afghanistan Won’t Be Silenced Anymore

Some of the roughly 3 million Afghans who escaped to Iran to avoid decades of war at home are also affected. 

“We traveled for hours to reach another village and get 30 liters of drinking water,” said Sardar Ali, 45, who returned to Afghanistan this year with his family from Sistan and Baluchestan. “The heat and lack of water also killed many people’s livestock and forced many people to flee.”

Global temperatures hit records in July, with countries from Italy to China experiencing scorching heat as the emerging El Nino weather pattern helped push the mercury higher.

Afghanistan has been no outlier. 

The country is reeling from drought, with six times more households feeling the effect in 2022 compared to 2020, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Some 64% of Afghans were impacted by drought in 2022, while 30 of 34 provinces have extremely low water quality, it said.

It’s a trend that’s expected to continue over coming decades, when climate change is likely to have severe effects, according to the UN.

The water conflict comes as Afghanistan faces other emergencies. 

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs since the Taliban’s return two years ago, with women bearing the brunt of it, the International Labour Organization said in a report. The economy remains crippled by sanctions and the international community doesn’t recognize the Taliban administration, cutting Afghanistan from the global financial system.

Read More: Taliban Militants Fed Up With Office Culture, Ready to Quiet Quit

The country’s hunger crisis is also worsening. Afghanistan needs $4.6 billion this year to support more than 20 million people facing acute hunger, about half the population, according to the UN.

But that hasn’t stopped the Taliban from responding aggressively over water.

Just two days after Raisi’s warning, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar ordered the restart of work on the controversial Bakhshabad Dam over the Helmand, a project that had been delayed for years due to conflict and Iran’s attempts to stop it.

And more than two months later, no progress has been made in resolving the issues with Iran. 

“We have seen nothing in the way of fulfilling commitments and securing Iran’s water rights,” Iran foreign ministry spokesman Kanaani said at a press conference July 10. “Talks are underway at various levels with the caretaker government of Afghanistan and we will continue to pursue this issue seriously.” 

The Taliban also created friction with other neighbors. It’s building a huge irrigation canal in its northern region to divert water from the Amu Darya basin that would otherwise flow into Uzbekistan and other central Asian nations. Uzbekistan has voiced concerns but also vowed not to hinder the project.

The Middle East Institute’s Aman says transboundary water should never be politicized. But she’s also realistic: The region should brace for further climate-induced strife ahead, she says.

“The two sides should sit down and hammer out a better understanding of the 1973 water treaty,” Smith of the International Crisis Group said of Iran and Afghanistan. Both countries “have isolated governments, but even pariah states need help with adapting to climate change. Survival on a heating planet will require cooperation with everyone, even the Taliban.”

—With assistance from Arsalan Shahla and Zulfugar Agayev.

source https://time.com/6302192/taliban-suicide-bombers-water-dispute-iran/

‘Barbie’ Joins $1 Billion Club and Breaks Another Record for Female Directors

Greta Gerwig should be feeling closer to fine these days. In just three weeks in theaters, “Barbie” is set to sail past $1 billion in global ticket sales, breaking a record for female directors that was previously held by Patty Jenkins, who helmed “Wonder Woman.”

“Barbie,” which Gerwig directed and co-wrote, added another $53 million from 4,178 North American locations this weekend according to studio estimates on Sunday. The Margot Robbie-led and produced film has been comfortably seated in first place for three weeks and it’s hardly finished yet. Warner Bros. said the film will cross $1 billion before the end of the day.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In modern box office history, just 53 movies have made over $1 billion, not accounting for inflation, and “Barbie” is now the biggest to be directed by one woman, supplanting “Wonder Woman’s” $821.8 million global total. Three movies that were co-directed by women are still ahead of “Barbie,” including “Frozen” ($1.3 billion) and “Frozen 2” ($1.45 billion) both co-directed by Jennifer Lee and “Captain Marvel” ($1.1 billion), co-directed by Anna Boden. But, “Barbie” has passed “Captain Marvel” domestically with $459.4 million (versus $426.8 million), thereby claiming the North American record for live-action movies directed by women.

New competition came this weekend in the form of the animated, PG-rated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and the Jason Statham shark sequel, “Meg 2: The Trench,” both of which were neck-in-neck with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” also in its third weekend, for the second-place spot.

“Meg 2” managed to sneak ahead and land in second place. It overcame its abysmal reviews to score a $30 million opening weekend from 3,503 locations. The Warner Bros. release, directed by Ben Wheatley, currently has a 29% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B- CinemaScore from audiences. The thriller was released in 3D, which accounted for 22% of its first weekend business.

Third place went to “Oppenheimer,” which added $28.7 million from 3,612 locations in North America, bringing its domestic total to $228.6 million. In just three weeks, the J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic starring Cillian Murphy become the highest grossing R-rated film of the year (ahead of “John Wick Chapter 4”) and the sixth-biggest of the year overall, surpassing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”

“Oppenheimer” also celebrated a landmark, crossing $500 million globally in three weeks. Its worldwide tally is currently $552.9 million, which puts it ahead of “Dunkirk,” which clocked out with $527 million in 2017 and has become Nolan’s fifth-biggest movie ever. It’s now among the four top grossing biographies ever (company includes “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Passion of the Christ” and “American Sniper”) and the biggest World War II movie of all time.

Paramount’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” was close behind in fourth place with an estimated $28 million from 3,858 theaters in North America. Since opening on Wednesday, the film, which is riding on excellent reviews and audience scores, has earned $43.1 million.

source https://time.com/6302133/barbie-joins-1-billion-club/

Teen Charged With Hate-Motivated Murder in Killing of O’Shae Sibley

NEW YORK — Police have arrested a 17-year-old high school student on a hate-motivated murder charge in the fatal stabbing of a professional dancer during an altercation between two groups of friends at a New York City gas station last weekend.

Police took the teenager into custody Friday in connection with the killing of the 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, who was gay. Authorities declined to release the defendant’s name.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“Parents lost a child, a child, to something that was clearly a hate crime,” Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, said Saturday during a news conference outside the Brooklyn gas station where Sibley was killed July 29.

The stabbing occurred after the two groups got into a confrontation at one of the gas pumps, where Sibley was dancing with his friends to a Beyoncé song. Authorities said Sibley’s group was being taunted by the other group before the confrontation ended in violence.

Beyoncé would later pay tribute to Sibley on her website.

Security camera video showed the two groups arguing for a few minutes. Both sides had walked away when Sibley and a friend abruptly returned and again confronted one of the young men, who had stayed behind recording on his phone.

In the video, Sibley could be seen following the teen and then lunging at him before the two disappeared out of the camera’s view. A moment later, he walks backward into view, checking his side, and then collapses to the sidewalk.

He was stabbed once in the left rib cage, according to Assistant Police Chief Joe Kenny.

“We can see on the video a heated verbal dispute quickly turns physical,” he said.

“As they waited to refuel their vehicle, Mr. Sibley and his group began dancing to music that was being played in their car. At this point, a male called out to Mr. Sibley and his group demanding that they stop dancing,” Kenny said. “As the group began to yell at Mr. Sibley and his friends, they began to call him derogatory names and use homophobic slurs against him.”

The initial encounter lasted about four minutes, police said, when Sibley and four other men stopped to refuel while traveling home to New York City from New Jersey.

Authorities said the suspect arranged for his surrender through his attorney.

Lee Soulja Simmons, the executive director for the NYC Center for Black Pride, also spoke at the news conference.

“We wrestle with people within our community constantly facing discrimination — not just because you’re Black but because you represent LGBT” communities, he said.

“The fact that he was doing nothing more but voguing and dancing here, he did not deserve to die in that way,” Simmons said.

One of Sibley’s friends who was there, Otis Pena, said in a Facebook video that Sibley was killed because he was gay, and “because he stood up for his friends.”

One witness, Summy Ullah, said in interviews that the men complained that their behavior offended them as Muslims.

Some leaders of the area’s Muslim community condemned the slaying.

“The weight of this loss is felt deeply, not just by the family and friends of O’Shae, but by all of us who value life, peace and justice,” Soniya Ali, the executive director of the Muslim Community Center, said Saturday.

“As Muslims, we are committed to stand up for justice, even if it means standing against our own selves,” she said. “We unequivocally condemn the unjust murder of O’Shae.”

Sibley performed with the dance company Philadanco in his native Philadelphia and in New York, where he took classes with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program.

source https://time.com/6302123/teen-charged-with-hate-motivated-murder-in-killing-of-oshae-sibley/