Microsoft submits new Activision Blizzard plan in £54bn takeover battle 

with UK competition watchdog

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Tue, 22 August 2023 

The competition watchdog stressed “this is not a green light” as it agreed to look at a fresh proposal from Microsoft which the company hopes will allow its 69 billion US dollar (£54 billion) takeover of Activision Blizzard to go ahead.

The global technology giant said it has submitted a new version of the blocked deal, which will now be reviewed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

It came as the regulator confirmed on Tuesday that Microsoft’s original plan to buy the computer games company “cannot proceed”.



Under the new proposal, Microsoft would sell off its rights to offer games via the cloud for new or existing Activision PC or console games for the next 15 years outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

It will instead sell those rights to Ubisoft, a rival developer known for the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games series.

This is designed to ensure that gamers have access to Activision Blizzard’s games, even on consoles and computers not made by Microsoft.

The CMA will now launch a new probe into this deal, a so-called Phase 1 investigation.

World Of Warcraft became globally popular after it was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004 (Paul Carstairs/Alamy/AP)

CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said: “The CMA has today confirmed that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, as originally proposed, cannot proceed.

“Separately, Microsoft has notified a new and restructured deal, which is substantially different from what was put on the table previously

“This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments.”

Microsoft president Brad Smith said: “Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services.”

The CMA locked horns with one of the world’s largest technology companies over the deal (Anna Ivanova/Alamy/PA)

It marks a new twist in the case, the biggest fight the CMA has taken on since gaining new post-Brexit powers. At one point the case looked like as though it would only end after a court battle.

In January 2022 Microsoft announced that it planned to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind the Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft games, for an eye-watering sum.

When the UK was still an EU member, a deal of that size would have been assessed by regulators in Brussels. But after Brexit the CMA now has the power to investigate such deals itself.

Although both companies are American, both have significant businesses in the UK so their tie-up could have a significant impact on competition here.

Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick said: “For us, nothing substantially changes with the addition of this divestiture: our merger agreement with Microsoft, closing deadline, and the cash consideration to be paid for each Activision Blizzard share at closing remain the same.

“We will continue to work closely with Microsoft and the CMA throughout the remaining review process, and we are committed to help Microsoft clear any final hurdles as quickly as possible.

“This has been a longer journey than expected, and I am very proud of how focused everyone has remained on delivering great games.”

Why does Microsoft want to buy Activision Blizzard and will the deal go ahead?


Alan Martin and Vicky Jessop
Tue, 22 August 2023 

Activision’s biggest game is Call of Duty (Activision Publishing Inc)

Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard in January 2022. The story has popped up countless times since as more roadblocks appeared, and were navigated around.

One key one remains: the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA).

The acquisition has been given the green light by EU and US regulators, but the CMA is still holding out. Why?

Any acquisition this size is a big deal. Microsoft plans to buy Activision Blizzard for £54 billion. It is one of the biggest game publishers out there, and clearly of higher value than Skyrim creator Bethesda Softworks, which was acquired by Microsoft for around £6 billion in 2021.

The big story was initially around Call of Duty, and whether it would become an Xbox-only series. Microsoft has now promised to bring Call of Duty to Sony PlayStation and Nintendo consoles for the next decade.

However, that has not placated the CMA. Its concerns hinge on cloud streaming, used in Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. It argues the merger will be bad for consumers and innovation, by giving Microsoft an unfair advantage in the area.

In a last ditch attempt to get the deal through, Microsoft submitted a fresh proposal on August 22.

It would see Microsoft offload game streaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft, for PC and console titles released over the next 15 years. Microsoft would no longer determine which streaming services get the publisher’s games, Ubisoft would.

But why is Microsoft so keen on buying Activision Blizzard in the first place?

What games does Activision Blizzard make?

The biggie is Call of Duty or ‘CoD’. The military first-person shooter is one of the most popular games on the planet, and always elicits excitement when a new entry is released.

Both Activision and Blizzard have been in the business for decades, long before they merged in 2013 after Activision acquired Vivendi Games. They have plenty of beloved franchises beyond CoD, including Warcraft, Overwatch, and even Candy Crush, after the 2016 acquisition of mobile game maker King.

Here are the main ones:

Activision

Call of Duty


Crash Bandicoot


Spyro


Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater


Prototype


Hero (Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Band Hero)


Candy Crush
Blizzard

Warcraft


Diablo


Overwatch


Starcraft


Hearthstone

These are just the main players and there are plenty of long-forgotten IPs that could be revived: think King’s Quest, Blur, Gabriel Knight, True Crime, and Gun.

Why is Microsoft trying to buy Activision Blizzard?

Overwatch 2 (Activision Blizzard)

While once known exclusively for home-computer software (Windows, Office, Outlook, Word, etc.) Microsoft now has fingers in many pies — and gaming is one of the biggest, thanks to the Xbox gaming division.

That would be reason enough to try to add one of the world’s biggest publishers into the fold, with exclusive games often helping decide console wars, and Microsoft currently fighting a losing battle against Sony’s PlayStation 5.

But having popular franchises such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Warcraft as part of the Microsoft stable is especially significant due to the company betting much on Game Pass — its ‘Netflix of games’ — where you can play a rolling selection of titles for a low-cost monthly subscription.

Microsoft’s games — including Gears of War, Forza, Halo, and Minecraft — are already included, and the company would love to add Activision’s titles to the platform to boost subscriber numbers.

What is the problem with Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard?

The reason the purchase has been bogged down by legal action is competition. By acquiring Activision Blizzard, critics argue, Microsoft’s gaming division would simply own too much of the industry, unfairly limiting its competitors and ultimately harming consumers.

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initially attempted to block the deal, with it voting three to one to issue a complaint against the buyout. In the UK, the CMA concluded that the move would ultimately result in higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation for UK gamers.

But, following a string of victories, Micrososft’s takeover of Activision appears more likely to go ahead. An American judge vetoed the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) attempt to block the deal. While the FTC has launched an appeal, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has halted its own legal battle.

Those hurdles included shortcomings in the regulatory remedies proposed by Microsoft in its bid to get the merger across the line. The tech giant signed cloud gaming deals with Boosteroid, Ubitus, and Nvidia to bring Xbox PC games to these services. It also signed a similar deal with Nintendo last December.

Many of critics’ problems come from exclusivity. To get the main benefit from an acquisition, many assume Microsoft would have to make future titles from Activision Blizzard exclusive to Xbox and PC, freezing out PlayStation gamers.

The Sony PS5 (PS5)

In terms of precedent for that, Microsoft has announced that Bethesda’s first game as a Microsoft studio — Starfield — won’t be appearing on PS5. It seems unlikely that a future Fallout of Elder Scrolls will either.

That said, Microsoft hasn’t pulled Minecraft from Sony or Nintendo platforms since purchasing the game back in 2014. And for its part, as part of the ongoing argument, Microsoft has offered to keep Call of Duty — the main prize of contention for rivals — on Sony and Nintendo platforms for a decade after the deal completes.

Microsoft president Brad Smith made the pledge in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in December. He said that the deal was good for gamers because Microsoft was “third place in console gaming, stuck behind Sony’s dominant PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch”.

What would Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard mean for big games like World of Warcraft?

Those reassurances aside, the concerns of Microsoft’s rivals are that big franchises will either be exclusive to Xbox and PC, or be otherwise hobbled on other formats with weaker performance or less DLC.

Even if Microsoft were to continue releasing its games on other formats, its rivals are concerned that they can’t compete with the Game Pass offering, where paying £70 or more for top-tier games is replaced with a flat monthly subscription.

Blizzard’s games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft, which have never had a console version, might be pushed on to Xbox in time, too. Though, given Microsoft has a substantial interest in Windows PCs, this wouldn’t necessarily be an urgent priority.
Is Microsoft’s takeover of Activision likely to go ahead?

Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Activision)

The UK’s CMA is the last major hurdle for the acquisition, after the deal was greenlit in key markets including the US and EU. Microsoft’s final gambit is the proposal to offload streaming rights for Activision Blizzard games released over the next 15 years to publisher Ubisoft, excluding existing agreements within the EEA.

“Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service—Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services,” wrote Microsoft President on the company’s blog.

The CMA says it will decide on whether that plan is enough to allow the deal to pass through by October 18.

“This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments,” says the CMA.

What does this mean for gamers?

Gamers who feared Microsoft would renege on its promise to make Activision games widely available may be concerned about recent developments.

PlayStation owners, in particular, may have been sceptical about Microsoft’s assurances to keep CoD on Sony’s consoles for ten years. In fact, Microsoft had already indicated that it wasn’t interested in extending that commitment. It said thata decade was plenty of time for Sony to create a CoD rival, signalling that it was prepared to pull the rug out from underneath its competitor as soon as the deal timer ran out.

The UK also threw doubt over Microsoft’s plans to add Activision games to other gaming platforms, including Nintendo consoles.

In a bid to assuage regulators, the tech giant had struck high-profile deals to bring Xbox PC and Activision franchises, including CoD and Overwatch, to rival platforms. They included ten-year contracts with cloud-gaming services including NVIDIA Geforce Now, and smaller competitors such as Boosteroid and Ubitus. It also struck a similar deal with Nintendo in December.

If Microsoft loses its appeal, then it will essentially be up to Activision to secure similar licensing deals with these distributors. Seeing as the company removed its games from GeForce Now in 2020, and hasn’t restored them since, it clearly has some misgivings about cloud gaming.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Nintendo deal felt like lip service to regulators. The Japanese company is largely associated with family-friendly titles such as Mario, and already has access to Activision’s Overwatch games. CoD therefore felt like a mismatch for Nintendo. Nor does the Switch boast the computing power to run the latest CoD games.

All told, Activision will have little incentive to pursue a similar deal with Nintendo, should the merger fall apart.

Who owns Activision?

As of now, Activision Blizzard is still an independent, publicly traded company owned by its shareholders. A mixture of financial conglomerates and asset managers currently hold stakes in the gaming giant, including Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, Vanguard Group, FMR LLC, and Blackrock.

The US-based video game firm was established in 2008 following the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games. The latter was the games division of French media conglomerate Vivendi, which owned Blizzard Entertainment and its blockbuster multiplayer game World of Warcraft.

Activision traces its roots back to 1979, when it was founded by a group of former Atari developers. Originally called Computer Arts, Inc., the team later changed the company’s name to a portmanteau of “active” and “television”. Thus, Activision was born.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick took the reins in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick orchestrated the merger with Vivendi Games in the 2000s, which led to the formation of Activision Blizzard, and made him the company’s first CEO.

Today, the company is composed of five business units: Activision Publishing; Blizzard Entertainment; King, which it acquired in 2016, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios.

Meta claims breakthrough in quest to build Hitchhiker’s Guide-style language translator

Matthew Field
Tue, 22 August 2023

Meta wants to build a universal translator similar to the ‘Babel Fish’ in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Laurie Sparham/Film Stills

Scientists at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta have claimed a major breakthrough in efforts to develop a universal language translator using artificial intelligence (AI).

The Facebook owner has revealed a new AI tool that can automatically translate speech from 100 languages.

The technology can transcribe all 100 languages into text form, while also translating speech into spoken English and 35 other languages.

Online translation tools have grown in popularity over the past decade.

Google’s Translate service, which launched in 2006, now supports 133 languages. The internet giant has since designed headphones that can translate dozens of languages in real time.

Smartphone companies have also developed apps that can automatically translate languages from pictures.

Meta said its new language translation technology was unique because it had been built on a single AI algorithm, rather than translating languages in stages using different systems.

The technology company compared the task of building a universal translator to creating a real-life “Babel Fish” from Douglas Adams’ novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, the Babel Fish is used to translate any language in the universe.

The company said universal translation capabilities have “long been dreamed of in science fiction” but are now on the cusp of reality through AI.

However, Meta’s scientists said current efforts “only cover a small fraction of the world’s languages”.

Meta’s latest AI tool, called SeamlessM4T, will be released for free.

In May, Meta said it had developed AI that can translate speech from 1,100 languages into text – out of 7,000 known languages. To do this, it collected samples of language from the few books translated so widely, such as the Bible.

As well as translating from one language to another, Meta’s latest tool can also recognise when a speaker switches languages.

The announcement comes as Meta looks to rival OpenAI, the developer of the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT.

Massive creatures roamed CA 13,000 years ago — until humans started fires, experts say

Daniella Segura
Tue, August 22, 2023

More than 13,000 years ago, massive animals roamed Southern California.

However, they quickly began to disappear, according to an Aug. 18 news release from UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

“The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change,” according to a news release from the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum.

Though it was previously thought that the huge Ice Age mammals, known as megafauna, were hunted to extinction, researchers from UCLA and the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum now say in a recently published study that wildfires set by humans likely led to their demise.

“The evidence suggests unprecedented fire activity occurring with the changing climate, along with people coming into the area,” Lisa Martinez, a UCLA graduate student and study co-author, said in the release. “It’s during this interval that the megafauna species disappeared.”

Before extinction

Fifteen thousand years ago, large mammals, like the saber-tooth cat, roamed Southern California’s terrain, foraging for food, according to the museum.

Such predators would often find “free lunch” in the “asphalt seeps” where animals became trapped after wandering into “shallow pools to take a drink,” the museum said.

This landscape, however, would soon drastically change, according to the museum.

“Beginning around 14,700 years ago, the climate began turning warmer and drier,” the museum said. “Trees died and herbivores began to disappear, creating an abundance of dry fuels.”

Then, the museum said, came humans.

Playing With Fire: Extinction and Survival at La Brea Tar Pits | In California, 13,000 years ago, huge ice age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans,... | By La Brea Tar Pits and Museum | Facebook

‘Power to create and control fire’

Just as the land faced “extreme drought,” humans arrived, according to the museum.

“With the power to create and control fire, humans lit up the land,” the museum said.

Humans of the time utilized fire for a number of things, “including to clear brush for travel, to hunt and drive prey, and to promote the growth of plants useful in basketry and medicine,” the university said.

Wildfires, coupled with “a centuries-long megadrought,” forever changed “Southern California’s landscapes, vegetation and ecosystems,” the university said.

“Post-glacial woodlands” were no longer, as shrubby chaparral overtook the area, according to the university.
‘Unique biological record’

Over the course of thousands of years, animals got stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits, preserving their bones. This has allowed the bones to accurately be carbon dated, according to the university.

With its “unique biological record,” the tar pits allow researchers to pinpoint just when megafauna died off, according to Emily Lindsey, a UCLA adjunct professor and an associate curator of the tar pits.

“We used samples from over 170 animals of seven megafauna species — saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, lions, camels, bison, horses and sloths,” Lindsey, study co-author, said in the release. “Around 13,000 years ago, our record of all of those animals stops, and it’s just coyote, coyote, coyote, coyote.”

The disappearance of megafauna coincides with the evidence from the same time period that “suggests that extensive wildfires scorched the region,” the university said.

Evidence of the massive wildfires is found in the abundant charcoal found in “lake sediments across Southern California,” according to the museum.

Such charcoal evidence, likely the result of wildfires, was found in samples of a sediment core from Lake Elsinore, about 80 miles from the tar pits, the university said.

Prior to this time period, “very little charcoal is present in the geological record,” Martinez said.

UCLA graduate student Lisa Martinez examining sediment samples from Lake Elsinore, California. The samples revealed the presence of charcoal, providing evidence of wildfires. 

Natalja Kent/Courtesy of Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County
Parallel to today

In the recently published paper, researchers draw a parallel between the landscape’s transformation 13,000 years ago and “the conditions that today are leading to climate change and devastating wildfires,” the university said.

“Throughout history, fire has magnified the impact of humans, for better or worse,” Glen MacDonald, a UCLA geography professor and study co-author, said. “Humans today are responsible for at least three factors that produce wildfires: the ignitions themselves, climate change and the introduction of invasive species, which changes the fuel structure.”

Researchers hope future studies of specimens from the tar pits can help paint a better picture of “possible effects of a warming planet,” the university said.

“This site is uniquely positioned to inform a lot of questions that are of key environmental significance today — things like what the long-term impacts of climate change will be,” Lindsey said.

Half a Million US Jobs at Risk of Vanishing in Payroll Revision








Reade Pickert
Tue, August 22, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- US payrolls growth in the year through March is forecast to be weaker than current data illustrate — by one estimate about 500,000 jobs weaker.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Daniel Silver estimates Wednesday’s government preliminary benchmark revision will shave nearly half a million off the level of total employment for March, or about 40,000 fewer jobs per month over the 12-month period.

Even with a downward revision of that size, average job growth would still be strong at around 300,000 payrolls a month. As a result, the revisions would likely not fundamentally alter economists’ views on the health of the labor market.

“While we expect the BLS preliminary estimates to indicate that payrolls growth has not been as strong as initially reported, revisions are not likely to be so large as to suggest a meaningful shift in labor market conditions,” said Oscar Munoz, chief US macro strategist at TD Securities.

Last year, the government’s employment reports consistently surprised economists with larger-than-expected payrolls gains. The figures were also a key reason behind a steady drumbeat of Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes as policymakers scrambled to contain inflation.

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases an estimate of payrolls across a range of industries based on responses from a sample of employers. With every fresh monthly jobs report, the two prior months are typically revised as more businesses send in their payroll data.

Once a year, the BLS also benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

That QCEW data are based on state unemployment insurance tax records and cover nearly all of US jobs. Once the March payrolls figures are aligned to that count, the change is proportionally distributed across the year ended in March.

First-quarter QCEW figures will also be released on Wednesday, but as the data currently stand, reported payroll growth is running stronger than the QCEW data imply. That helps explain why economists expect the preliminary benchmark revision to payrolls to show less job growth. Some Fed officials pointed to this discrepancy, minutes of their June policy meeting showed.

For Munoz, “the message is likely to remain the same; that of a labor market that continues to steadily normalize.”

The durability of the labor market is key to the resilience of the US economy, and economists have been closely watching it for signs of weakness. Job gains have gradually moderated but continue to indicate robust labor demand.

Bloomberg Economics’ Stuart Paul said the QCEW data will likely validate the group’s long-held view that the labor market is weaker than the headlines suggest. But “people who have been outright saying ‘the labor market is tight’ might be in for a shock,” he said.

Standard Chartered Bank’s Steve Englander estimates the downward revision could be around 650,000, with much of that softness concentrated in recent quarters. That would indicate “a much weaker labor market profile” than what underpinned Fed tightening in recent quarters, Englander said. “This would reduce the pressure for further hikes.”

The government’s preliminary benchmark projection will be followed by final revisions that are incorporated into the January employment report that is released in February.

Birth-Death Model

One of the reasons economists have argued that the monthly payrolls data are stronger than the QCEW figures is due to what is known as the birth-death adjustment. In any given month, new businesses open and others close. BLS uses historical data in an effort to adjust for this in various industries in their sample.

“A lot of people actually think that the birth-death adjustment in the establishment survey is too large,” said Jonathan Millar, senior economist at Barclays Plc. But if you look at other data sources, like new business applications, “it suggests that probably the birth-death adjustments are just fine.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the revision ended up being smaller to the downside than what you might infer from the fourth quarter,” Millar said. “I also wouldn’t be surprised if it showed a positive revision.”

In fact, he noted that it’s possible the preliminary benchmark announcement could be negative but completely go away by the time the official data are published early next year if the QCEW data are revised higher.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Ocean off California’s Central Coast may be ‘thermal refuge’ from climate change, study says

Mackenzie Shuman
Tue, August 22, 2023 

In an otherwise warming planet, new research shows that the ocean off California’s Central Coast may be a thermal refuge for marine wildlife.

Cal Poly associate professor Ryan Walter, who teaches physics, and fourth-year physics student Michael Dalsin analyzed temperature data gathered from 1978 through 2020 at a site just north of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

They found that while other areas of the world see sharp rises in ocean temperatures and more frequent and more intense heatwaves, the Central Coast hasn’t seen such intense trends.

The region still experiences marine heatwaves and cold spells brought on by factors such as the ocean-wide climactic patterns of El Niño and La Niña, but cold current upwelling brought on by strong local winds helps maintain the marine ecosystem along the Central Coast, according to a study by Walter and Dalsin published on July 31.

“This research showing the Central Coast could be a thermal refuge is incredibly important,” said Crow White, an associate professor of biology at Cal Poly. “Without a cooler water refuge, that means species like the Dungeness crab would no longer be able to exist along our coast.”

A humpback whale kicks up its tail in the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary on July 12, 2023, just offshore from Morro Bay.
Study: Marine heatwaves, cold spells partially predictable

The study also found that marine heatwaves and cold spells along California’s coast are partially predictable — providing a mechanism for better managing the ocean’s resources.

“We believe that management of our marine resources, our ecological resources, our fisheries ... that should be informed by these forecasts of these extreme events,” Dalsin said. “If you can predict that there’s going to be a very disruptive heatwave or cold spell in the next season, it seems sensible that you should change your management policies.”

Marine heatwaves and cold spells have triggered harmful algal blooms and kelp die-offs, which in turn have caused entire ecosystems to near collapse as food chains hang in the balance.

But the Central Coast’s ecosystems are more adapted to temporary variability in ocean temperatures because of the region’s upwelling, said Ben Ruttenberg, director of Cal Poly’s Center for Coastal Marine Sciences.

“When a heatwave comes along, the system will undeniably be disrupted,” he said. “But as long as you have the predators and their food in place, then it can probably recover.”

Fish-eating sea anemones and purple sea urchins cling to the rocky reef off Point Estero, near a sound-monitoring station inside the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

What causes coastal upwelling?

The upwelling of cold ocean currents off California’s coast is mainly caused by strong winds that push warm water off the surface and allows cold water to flow upwards toward the surface.

The colder water carries nutrients up from the ocean’s depths and therefore provides a great source of food for many marine animals such as phytoplankton, fish and whales.

Typically, the strongest upwelling happens during the spring and summertime. It’s a phenomenon unique to the Pacific Ocean area to about 60 to 100 miles from California’s coastline.

Along the East Coast of the United States, no such upwelling occurs and researchers there have seen ocean water temperatures soar year over year as the global climate changes.

In late July, a buoy in southern Florida measured water temperatures at 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit — roughly the ideal temperature of a hot tub.

The hot water resulted in the worst coral bleaching in the Florida Keys’ history and could mean hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean could be far worse than what was historically normal.

Painted greenling, convict fish, bat star and sea urchins inhabit a rocky reef off Point Estero near the sound monitoring station in the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

Could warmer ocean temperatures hit California coast?

Marine heatwaves could occur along California’s coast this year as scientists predict El Niño conditions to persist through February.

El Niño is defined as warmer ocean temperatures that build up along the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean. It can cause wet and warm winters on land and marine heatwaves.

While the current El Niño’s warm waters haven’t yet reached California’s coast, Walter and Dalsin noted that their research showed that the state’s coastal waters have become unusually warm in the winter during previous El Niño years.

“We have this early alert system to say, ‘there might be a greater likelihood for thermal stress in different organisms that scientists and managers can watch out for,’ ” Walter said.

After the marine heatwave events, however, California’s coastal waters typically return to about the same baseline temperatures.

This is what provides the area its status as a “thermal refuge” from global climate change, Walter said.

“In California, we do still have warm years and we do still have cold years,” Walter said. “But we don’t have the steep rising of ocean temperatures that you might expect over on the East Coast or elsewhere.”

UK
Leaked documents reveal devious secret scheme designed to keep utility costs high: ‘[It’s a lot] more expensive’

Rick Kazmer

Tue, August 22, 2023 

Lobbyists in the UK’s energy sector say that rules pushing for more heat pumps are a pipe dream.

The Guardian, reporting on leaked documents the newspaper reviewed, wrote that gas boiler industry officials are working to halt rules that would quicken the installation of efficient heat pumps as early as next year.

They’d like the measure to be delayed until 2026, while also pushing for hydrogen alternatives, according to the report.

What’s happening? 

The proposed rules would require that, starting in 2024, makers of dirty-energy-burning furnaces need to install more heat pumps as part of a quota system. Fines would be levied for failure.

The UK’s Energy and Utilities Alliance claimed that the rules are unrealistic and that potential fines could be burdensome at hundreds of millions of pounds (or dollars), all per The Guardian.

“The central proposal that boiler manufacturers are able to dictate the products homeowners install in their homes is flawed,” the Alliance wrote in a document cited by The Guardian.

The report said the Alliance (a nonprofit trade association working toward a “sustainable, energy secure” future) is touting hydrogen as an alternative to gas. Hydrogen supporters claimed the transition would be easier to pull off than moving to heat pumps, as gas boilers could be refitted.

Critics in The Guardian report counter that hydrogen is “unsuitable” for home heating.

“[H]eating with hydrogen is a lot less efficient and more expensive than alternatives such as heat pumps, district heating and solar thermal,” Jan Rosenow, Europe’s director at the Regulatory Assistance Project think tank, told The Guardian.

For the Alliance’s part, chief executive Mike Foster sees a future with a variety of systems.

“I am clear that three [technologies] will be needed: heat pumps, distributed heat networks, and hydrogen for home heating,” he told The Guardian.

Why is it important? 

Heat pumps are an efficient way to both heat and cool homes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that, on average, heat pumps use about half the energy of other electric heat sources. The U.S. Department of Energy lists the pumps as an “energy-saving” alternative to furnaces and air conditioners in “all climates.”

Other sources claim the pumps are up to four times more efficient than furnaces. Laws mandating heat pumps in new construction are starting to be passed in the U.S., as well.

International consensus on their use would be a boon in the effort for more efficient and planet-friendly home heating and cooling.

How to be heat-pump efficient 

Keep an eye out for government rebates, which can be worth thousands of dollars for heat pump upgrades. Companies, including Airbnb, have offered incentives to hosts who install the energy-efficient tech.

Before buying a new furnace, research the cleaner alternatives. Twenty minutes of online reading could save you money for decades.

Unpaid workers, silent sites: China's property woes hit Country Garden

Tue, August 22, 2023 

By Laurie Chen

TIANJIN, China (Reuters) - At an unfinished Country Garden residential complex on the outskirts of the northern Chinese metropolis of Tianjin, construction has slowed to a dull whirr and a few idle workers roam a near-empty site.

"They haven't paid us since Chinese New Year (in January). We are all worried," said a labourer surnamed Wang, 50, who said he had stopped work at the Yunhe Shangyuan site last week.

The sprawling complex is one of two projects Reuters visited on Friday in Tianjin, a port city of 14 million people about 135 km (84 miles) southeast of Beijing. Both sites are run by Country Garden, China's largest developer by sales volume before this year, now mired in a debt crisis threatening to spill over to the wider economy.


Construction had partially or fully stopped at both sites - the larger one with a few rows of unfinished five-storey apartment blocks and the other with lifeless cranes and thick green scaffolding hanging over skeletal high-rises. Workers at dorms on the sites complained of months without pay.

"I'm under a lot of pressure," said a worker at the Yunhe Shangyuan site surnamed Wei, also in his 50s, who added that he had only received a one-off living stipend of 4,500 yuan ($618) so far this year.

"I have a wife and kid who's about to return to school, as well as elderly parents ... Workers can't live on this."

Once considered one of the more financially sound developers, Country Garden is now a bellwether of how the cycle has turned for developers.

Its financial woes have added to the debt crisis in China's real estate sector, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the world's second-largest economy, currently losing steam amid a housing slump and weak consumer spending.

A representative of Country Garden's Yunhe Shangyuan project said in a Wechat statement its "registered employees" were all being paid.

At the Yunjing Huating site, the government in June ordered construction to be suspended to fix management problems, a project representative told Reuters in a separate statement. It has since passed inspection and work is expected to resume next week, the person said, adding the suspension would have no impact on the targeted completion date of October 2024.

Some workers are not employed directly by the developer, the Yunjing Huating representative said, but by its contractor, which "has promised to pay the workers' wages by the end of this month".

The project contractor, Shenyang Tengyue Construction, did not pick up calls from Reuters or respond to emails seeking comment.

The housing ministry did not comment on Reuters queries about halting of construction in the property sector in general or Country Garden in particular.

UNFINISHED HOMES

Country Garden has nearly 1 million homes to complete, according to estimates from Japanese investment bank Nomura. It has not publicly acknowledged whether any of its projects have halted construction due to financial constraints.

In an exchange filing on Aug. 10, Country Garden said it would "spare no effort to ensure delivery" of apartments and that it would "ensure the operation of projects nationwide" to fulfill its commitment to home buyers.

Country Garden built its success by quickly selling a large number of units for low margins and by promising "five-star living" in less popular, smaller cities.

Tianjin has about a dozen Country Garden projects, with the majority finished and delivered, said Gao Fei, investment advisory manager at the Tianjin branch of Centaline Property Agency.

Gao said halted construction projects were "relatively rare" in the city, representing about a dozen out of 300 sites for sale, but "there are indeed projects whose development progress has slowed down".

"In China, it is a common phenomenon because now all developers control the rhythm of construction based on the sales rate ... so once sales slow down, so will construction," Gao told Reuters.

Confidence in the sector took a big hit last year after many Chinese homebuyers threatened to stop repaying mortgages, as developers stopped building pre-sold housing projects due to strapped liquidity and strict COVID-19 restrictions.

China's real estate market slightly rebounded in the first quarter of 2023 but transaction volumes have since declined, with the majority of city housing markets remaining in a "depressed" state, said Gao.

"We have seen that many home buyers are affected by a lack of income, and their home buying choices and what they can afford have been impacted in turn."

(Reporting by Laurie Chen in Tianjin; Additional reporting by Clare Jim in Hong Kong; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Sonali Paul)

Feds approve offshore wind farm south of Rhode Island and Martha's Vineyard

STEVE LeBLANC
Tue, August 22, 2023 

FILE - Three wind turbines from Deepwater Wind stand in the water off Block Island, R.I, the nation's first offshore wind farm, Aug. 15, 2016. Another planned offshore wind farm, by Revolution Wind, moved a step closer to construction on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, with the Department of the Interior announcing it has approved the project, to be located in federal waters about 15 miles southeast of Point Judith, R.I, and south of Martha's Vineyard, Mass. 

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) 

A planned offshore wind farm moved a step closer to construction Tuesday with the Department of the Interior announcing it has approved the project, to be located in federal waters near Rhode Island south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The Revolution Wind project will have an estimated capacity of more than 700 megawatts of renewable energy, capable of powering nearly 250,000 homes, and is expected to create about 1,200 jobs during construction, regulators said.

It's the department's fourth approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project, joining the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, the South Fork Wind project off Rhode Island and New York, and the Ocean Wind 1 project off New Jersey.

The Revolution Wind project is another step toward the Biden administration's goal of developing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, said U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

"Together with industry, labor and partners from coast to coast, we are building an entirely new industry off the east and west and Gulf coasts,” Haaland said in a statement.

The final version of the plan approved by the department calls for installing fewer turbines than originally proposed by the developer. The goal is to help reduce impacts to visual resources, the ocean floor habitat, and other ocean activities.

The plan identifies possible locations for the installation of 65 wind turbines and two offshore substations.

Revolution Wind will create a fund to compensate for losses by recreational and commercial fisheries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts — as well as fisheries from other states — directly related to the construction of the turbines.

The project will also take steps to reduce potential harm to protected species like marine mammals, sea turtles, and Atlantic sturgeon.

The Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management remains on track to complete reviews of at least 16 offshore wind project plans by 2025, representing more than 27 gigawatts of clean energy, the bureau said.

Vineyard Wind, a separate project, is under construction 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. It includes 62 turbines and is expected to put out 800 megawatts, enough electricity to power more than 400,000 homes, beginning this year.

The first U.S. offshore wind farm opened off Rhode Island’s Block Island in late 2016. But with five turbines, it’s not commercial scale.

Equinor inaugurates world's largest floating wind power farm in Norway

Tue, August 22, 2023

By Nora Buli

OSLO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Norwegian energy firm Equinor and its partners will inaugurate the world's largest floating offshore wind power farm on Wednesday, whose output will supply nearby oil and gas platforms and cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

The Hywind Tampen wind farm, where Equinor is partnering with other oil firms including OMV, Vaar Energi - majority-owned by ENI - started producing power in November last year, with full output reached earlier this month.

Its 88 megawatts of capacity will cover around 35% of annual power demand for five platforms at the Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas fields in the North Sea, about 140 kms (87 miles) off Norway's west coast.

This will cut CO2 emissions from the fields by about 200,000 tonnes per year, Equinor has said. That is 0.4% of Norway's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2022.

Some environmentalists say the move is positive as it helps bring down the country's CO2 emissions, while others say Norway should instead stop producing oil and gas.

Hywind Tampen comprises 11 wind turbines fixed to a floating base that is anchored to the seafloor, rather than fixed to the ocean bed, a new technology industry experts say is suitable for use in deeper waters offshore and that Equinor hopes to develop further.

Norway, which is targeting 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2040, which would double the country's current power output, is tendering its first commercial wind farms, including three floating ones, this autumn.

Equinor's other parners on the project are Wintershall Dea, majority-owned by BASF, INPEX Idemitsu and Norway's Petoro.

($1 = 10.5859 Norwegian crowns) (Reporting by Nora Buli, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

UPS workers approve 5-year contract, capping contentious negotiations that threatened deliveries

HALELUYA HADERO and MATT OTT
Updated Tue, August 22, 2023 


 UPS Teamsters and workers hold a rally in downtown Los Angeles, as a national strike deadline nears on July 19, 2023. The union representing 340,000 UPS workers said Tuesday, Aug. 22, that its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month, putting a final seal on contentious labor negotiations that threatened to disrupt package deliveries for millions of businesses and households nationwide. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

The union representing 340,000 UPS workers said Tuesday that its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month, putting a final seal on contentious labor negotiations that threatened to disrupt package deliveries for millions of businesses and households nationwide.

The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes casts were in favor of ratifying the national contract. They also said it was passed by the highest vote for a contract in the history of the Teamsters at UPS.

The union said more than 40 supplemental agreements were also ratified, except for one that covers roughly 170 members in Florida. The national master agreement will go into effect as soon as that supplement is renegotiated and ratified, it said.

UPS said voting results for deals covering employees under two locals are expected soon.

“Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS," Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. "This contract will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers.”

He said the contract set a new standard for pay and benefits.

“This is the template for how workers should be paid and protected nationwide, and nonunion companies like Amazon better pay attention,” O'Brien said, giving a nod to the union's growing ambitions to take on the e-commerce behemoth.

Voting on the new five-year contract began Aug. 3 and concluded Tuesday.

After negotiations broke down in early July, Atlanta-based UPS reached a tentative contract agreement with the Teamsters just days before an Aug. 1 deadline. It came as large and small businesses were working on contingency plans in the event of a strike, which would have spiked shipping prices and scrambled supply chains.

Earlier this month, the delivery company reported its revenue fell for the second quarter as package volume declined amid negotiations with the union. The shipping industry has also been impacted by unpredictable consumer spending.

The company, which has lowered its full-year revenue expectations by $4 billion, had said it expected bargaining to restart if members rejected the deal. But that outcome could have also opened the door to a strike with the potential to cause widespread disruption.

Under the tentative agreement, full- and part-time union workers will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and $7.50 more in total by the end of the five-year contract. Starting hourly pay for part-time employees also got bumped up to $21, but some workers said that fell short of their expectations.

UPS says that by the end of the new contract, the average UPS full-time driver will make about $170,000 annually in pay and benefits. It’s not clear how much of that figure benefits account for.

As part of the deal, the delivery company also agreed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a full holiday, end forced overtime on drivers’ days off and stop using driver-facing cameras in cabs, among a host of other issues. It eliminated a two-tier wage system for drivers and tentative deals on safety issues were also reached, including equipping more trucks with air conditioning.

Union members, angered by a contract they say union leadership forced on them five years ago, argued in the lead up to the deal that they have shouldered the more than 140% profit growth at UPS as the pandemic increased delivery demand. Unionized workers said they wanted to fix what they saw as a bad contract.

The Teamsters’ leadership was upended two years ago with the election of O’Brien, a vocal critic of union President James Hoffa — son of the famed Teamsters firebrand — who signed off on the previous contract in 2018.

The 24 million packages UPS ships daily amount to about a quarter of all U.S. parcel volume, according to the global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes. UPS says that’s equivalent to about 6% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

This isn’t the first showdown the union has had with the delivery company. During the last breakdown in labor talks a quarter of a century ago, 185,000 UPS workers walked out for 15 days, crippling the company’s ability to function.

A walkout this time would have had much further-reaching implications, with millions of Americans now accustomed to online shopping and speedy delivery. The consulting firm Anderson Economic Group estimated a 10-day UPS strike could have cost the U.S. economy more than $7 billion and triggered “significant and lasting harm” to the business and workers.

Labor experts say they see the showdown as a demonstration of labor power at a time of low U.S. union membership. This summer, Hollywood actors and screenwriters have been picketing over pay issues. United Auto Workers are considering a potential strike.

“Together we reached a win-win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees and to UPS and our customers,” Carol Tomé, UPS CEO, said when the tentative deal was announced.

Industry groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor leaders and President Joe Biden also applauded the deal.

In session reacting to school shooting, Tennessee GOP lawmaker orders removal of public from hearing

PARENTS OF SHOOTING VICTIMS

JONATHAN MATTISE and KIMBERLEE KRUESI

Tue, August 22, 2023

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Families close to a Nashville fatal school shooting broke down in tears Tuesday after a Tennessee Republican leader ordered state troopers to remove them and others from a legislative hearing room while they waited to testify in favor of gun control measures.

The emotional scene was just one of several chaotic moments that erupted during the second day of Tennessee’s special legislative session. Republican Gov. Bill Lee initially called lawmakers back to the Capitol to consider his proposal to keep firearms away from dangerous people.

“I was supposed to speak, I was supposed to testify,” said Sarah Shoop Neumann, sobbing and shaking in front of the silent GOP-controlled House subcommittee room, which was cleared out after some clapping from the public gallery, even though she sat quietly and wasn't holding any signs.

As a parent whose child attends The Covenant School, Neumann is among the family members desperately attempting to address the state's relaxed gun laws after a shooter opened fire inside their school and killed three children and three adults. She was later allowed back to testify against a bill that allows for more teachers to carry guns at school. The House subcommittee advanced the bill, though its odds appear longer in the Senate.

“We’re just trying to do something,” Neumann later told reporters, as other Covenant parents huddled around her. “It’s overwhelming.”

However, Lee's bill has been all but defeated by the Republican supermajority, where legislative leaders have largely refused to consider the issue. Without any debate, three variations of similar proposals for so-called extreme risk protection orders, or ERPOs, carried by Democratic Rep. Bob Freeman of Nashville, immediately failed Tuesday in the same House subcommittee where the public was kicked out.

On the first day of the special session on Monday, House Republicans advanced a new set of procedural rules that carried harsh penalties for lawmakers deemed too disruptive or distracting, and banned visitors from carrying signs inside the Capitol and in legislative hearing rooms. The Senate and House also signed off on severely limiting the public from accessing the galleries where people have traditionally been allowed to watch their government in action.

The actions come after the Tennessee Republicans attracted national attention for expelling two young Black Democratic lawmakers earlier this year for breaking House rules during a demonstration in support of gun control. Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson have since been reinstated to their positions, but the actions sent shock waves about the Republican supermajority's ability to hand down strict punishments to opponents.

Yet protestors on Tuesday found ways to defy the new sign ban, showing up to the House chamber with pro-gun control messages written on their bodies and clothes. Others wrote out messages on their phones and held them up for lawmakers to see.

That defiance faced a harsher response as lawmakers broke out into committee rooms to begin debating legislation.

Allison Polidor, a gun control advocate from Nashville, was escorted out of a hearing room because she was holding a sign that said, “1 KID ALL THE GUNS.”

“I wasn’t saying anything. I wasn’t doing anything. I was holding up a sign,” Polidor told reporters outside the room.

Rep. Lowell Russell, the Republican subcommittee chairman, had also warned that he could order everyone out of the room.

Shortly after, another Republican lawmaker said his bill was stalled that would let people with handgun carry permits bring guns onto K-12 and college school property if they know the school doesn’t have armed security. That announcement sparked some gun control advocates in the crowd to break out in applause.

“Are we going to quiet down and listen, or are we going to sit there and clap?” Russell said.

When some kept clapping, Russell said, “Alright, troopers, let’s go ahead and clear the room.”

Members of the media were allowed to stay, and some members of the public who were testifying on legislation were allowed in.

“We gave them three or four times to not do outbursts in the committee hearing, and unfortunately they continued after three, maybe four warnings,” Russell told The Associated Press afterward. “So unfortunately, that’s just the way it goes, if they don’t follow the rules.”

After the public was kicked out, Neumann was allowed to return to testify against the bill that allows for more armed teachers. She said the Covenant teachers’ hands were shaking so badly that day while trying to keep the children quiet, safe, hidden and secure that they couldn’t have handled a firearm.

“They are heroes. They enacted every protocol in place perfectly,” Neumann said. “And they could not have done those things if they were also meant to be armed and go out and attack the shooter.”

A woman watches the House Civil Justice Subcommittee meeting on a monitor in the hall after the audience was removed by the Republican chairman during a special session of the state legislature on public safety Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. 

(AP Photo/George Walker IV)