It's the first time a major U.S. newsroom has gone on strike partly to demand protections from AI-related layoffs, according to a report from Nieman Lab.

They noted that one of the picketer's signs read "Thoughts not bots," : On Wednesday, roughly 150 members of the Propublica Guild, one of the largest nonprofit newsroom unions in the country, went on a 24-hour strike. About two dozen Guild members picketed ProPublica's headquarters in New York City's Hudson Square neighborhood during working hours, as simultaneous picket lines formed in front of the publication's offices in Chicago and Washington D.C...

The Guild has been negotiating its first collective bargaining agreement for two and a half years, and the one-day action was intended to put new pressure on ProPublica's management to agree to several contract proposals. The union is seeking "just cause" protections for terminations, wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living, and contract language that would prohibit layoffs resulting from AI adoption... Beyond the strike, the ProPublica Guild has also taken its dispute over newsroom AI adoption to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Monday, the Guild filed an unfair-labor-practice charge, citing a "unilateral implementation of AI policy." The filing claims that ProPublica published AI editorial guidelines on its website last month, without first bargaining with union members over its tenets and language... A petition launched Wednesday calling for ProPublica to agree to the Guild's contract terms had received roughly 4,200 signatures by Thursday morning...

Susan DeCarava, the president of The NewsGuild of New York, joined strikers in front of the ProPublica offices yesterday. During a spare moment on the picket line, she told me that while this strike may be setting precedent for her union, it likely won't be the last over AI adoption in newsrooms. "We're going to see more and more concentrated conflicts between media bosses and journalists and media workers over who has a say and how AI is used in their workplaces," she said. For one, The New York Times Guild is currently in contract negotiations after its last agreement expired in February. Already, AI language has taken center stage in the Guild's initial bargaining sessions, including over a proposal that would see Guild members receive a share of the revenue earned when their work is licensed for AI training.
"Management has offered expanded severance for AI-related layoffs as a counter proposal..." according to the article.

ASUS says the MacBook Neo is a "shock" to the Windows PC ecosystem. "In the past, Apple's pricing situation has always been high, so for them to release a very budget-friendly product, this is obviously a shock to the entire industry," said ASUS co-CEO S.Y. Hsu in a Tuesday earnings call. While he expects PC makers to respond, rising AI-driven memory shortages could push hardware prices higher across the industry. PCMag reports: Hsu said he believes all the PC players -- including Microsoft, Intel, and AMD -- take the MacBook Neo threat seriously. "In fact, in the entire PC ecosystem, there have been a lot of discussions about how to compete with this product," he added, given that rumors about the MacBook Neo have been making the rounds for at least a year. Despite the competitive threat, Hsu argued that the MacBook Neo could have limited appeal. He pointed to the laptop's 8GB of "unified memory," or what amounts to its RAM, and how customers can't upgrade it.

He also described the MacBook Neo as a "content consumption" device, similar to an iPad. "This is different from the use case of a mainstream notebook," which can handle more compute-intensive tasks, Hsu said. "How big of an impact [the MacBook Neo] will have on the PC industry will still require some time for us to observe," Hsu said while suggesting it might not gain traction among Windows PC users due to software differences. "Of course, the entire Windows PC ecosystem will push out products to compete against Apple," he added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Post: In 2024, the Ethiopian government banned the import of fossil fuel-powered vehicles and slashed tariffs on their electric equivalents. It was a policy driven less by the country's climate ambitions and more by fiscal pressures. For years, subsidizing gasoline for consumers has been a major drag on Ethiopia's budget, costing the state billions of dollars over the past decade. The country defaulted on its sovereign bonds in 2023 after rising interest rates drove up the costs of servicing its debts, and it received a $3.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund the following year.

In the two years since the ban on internal combustion engine vehicles, EV adoption has grown from less than 1% to nearly 6% of all of the vehicles on the road in the country -- according to the government's own figures -- some way above the global average of 4%. "The Ethiopia story is fascinating," said Colin McKerracher, head of clean transport at BloombergNEF. "What you're seeing in places that don't make a lot of vehicles of any type, they're saying: 'Well, look, if I'm going to import the cars anyway, then I'd rather import less oil. We may as well import the one that cleans up local air quality and is cheaper to buy.'"

For decades, Ethiopia's high import tariffs on vehicles put new car ownership out of the reach of most of the country's population. Per capita gross domestic product is only about $1,000, and even by the standards of low-income countries, it has among the lowest car ownership rates. At 13 vehicles per 1,000 people, it's a fraction of the African average of 73. With few cars manufactured in the country, the vast majority are imported, and most are bought used. The government's import policy has upended the market. In parallel, tariffs for EVs were dropped to 15% for completed cars, 5% for parts and semi-assembled vehicles, and zero for "fully knocked down" -- vehicles shipped in parts and assembled locally. That has made new EVs cost-competitive with old gasoline cars.

Thelasko shares a report from Forbes: We have not seen this before. Iran's digital blackout has now deployed military jammers, reportedly supplied by Russia, to shut down access to Starlink Internet. This is a game-changer for the Plan-B connectivity frequently used by protesters and anti-regime activists when ordinary access to the internet is stopped. "Despite reports that tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran," says Iran Wire, "the blackout has also reached satellite connections." It is reported that about 30 percent of Starlink's uplink and downlink traffic was (initially) disrupted," quickly rising "to more than 80 percent" within hours. The Times of Israel reports "the deployment of (Starlink) receivers is now far greater in Iran" than during previous blackouts. "That's despite the government never authorizing Starlink to function, making the service illegal to possess and use." "While it's not clear how Starlink's service was being disrupted in Iran," The Times says, "some specialists say it could be the result of jamming of Starlink terminals that would overpower their ability to receive signals from the satellites."

Multiple reports suggest Russia's military technology may be responsible. Channel 4 News describes Russia's activities as a "technological race with Starlink," which it says "is known to deploy trucks which deploy radio noise to disrupt satellite signals."

Simon Migliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN.com, said "Iran's current nationwide blackout is a blunt instrument intended to crush dissent," and this comes at a stark cost to the country, underpinning the regime's desperation. "This 'kill switch' approach comes at a staggering price, draining $1.56 million from Iran's economy every single hour the internet is down." He added: "Iranian authorities have proven they are prepared to weaponize connectivity, even at a tremendous domestic cost. We are looking at losses already exceeding $130 million. If the 2019 shutdown is any indicator, the regime could maintain this digital siege for days, prioritizing control over their own economic stability."

"China recently placed a supercritical carbon dioxide power generator into commercial operation," writes CleanTechnica, "and the announcement was widely framed as a technological breakthrough." The system, referred to as Chaotan One, is installed at a steel plant in Guizhou province in mountainous southwest China and is designed to recover industrial waste heat and convert it into electricity. Each unit is reported to be rated at roughly 15 MW, with public statements describing configurations totaling around 30 MW. Claimed efficiency improvements range from 20% to more than 30% higher heat to power conversion compared with conventional steam based waste heat recovery systems. These are big numbers, typical of claims for this type of generator, and they deserve serious attention.

China doing something first, however, has never been a reliable indicator that the thing will prove durable, economic, or widely replicable. China is large enough to try almost everything. It routinely builds first of a kind systems precisely because it can afford to learn by doing, discarding what does not work and scaling what does. This approach is often described inside China as crossing the river by feeling for stones. It produces valuable learning, but it also produces many dead ends. The question raised by the supercritical CO2 deployment is not whether China is capable of building it, but whether the technology is likely to hold up under real operating conditions for long enough to justify broad adoption.

A more skeptical reading is warranted because Western advocates of specific technologies routinely point to China's limited deployments as evidence that their preferred technologies are viable, when the scale of those deployments actually argues the opposite. China has built a single small modular reactor and a single experimental molten salt reactor, not fleets of them, despite having the capital, supply chains, and regulatory capacity to do so if they made economic sense... If small modular reactors or hydrogen transportation actually worked at scale and cost, China would already be building many more of them, and the fact that it is not should be taken seriously rather than pointing to very small numbers of trials compared to China's very large denominators...

What is notably absent from publicly available information is detailed disclosure of materials, operating margins, impurity controls, and maintenance assumptions. This is not unusual for early commercial deployments in China. It does mean that external observers cannot independently assess long term durability claims.
The article notes America's Energy Department funded a carbon dioxide turbine in Texas rated at roughly 10 MW electric that "reached initial power generation in 2024 after several years of construction and commissioning." But for both these efforts, the article warns that "early efficiency claims should be treated as provisional. A system that starts at 15 MW and delivers 13 MW after several years with rising maintenance costs is not a breakthrough. It is an expensive way to recover waste heat compared with mature steam based alternatives that already operate for decades with predictable degradation..."

"If both the Chinese and U.S. installations run for five years without significant reductions in performance and without high maintenance costs, I will be surprised. In that case, it would be worth revisiting this assessment and potentially changing my mind."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader cusco for sharing the article.

Goldman Sachs analysts have identified a notable shift in how investors respond to corporate layoff announcements, finding that even job cuts attributed to automation and AI-driven restructuring are now causing stock prices to fall rather than rise. The investment bank linked recent layoff announcements to public companies' earnings reports and stock market data, concluding that stocks dropped by an average of 2% following such announcements, and companies citing restructurings faced even harsher punishment.

The traditional Wall Street playbook held that layoffs tied to strategic restructuring would boost stock prices, while cuts driven by declining sales would hurt them. That distinction appears to have collapsed.

Goldman's analysts suggest investors simply don't believe what companies are saying -- firms announcing layoffs have experienced higher capex, debt and interest expense growth alongside lower profit growth compared to industry peers this year. The real driver, analysts suspect, may be cost reduction to offset rising interest expenses and declining profitability rather than any forward-looking efficiency play.

Goldman expects layoffs to keep rising, motivated in part by companies' stated desire to use AI to reduce labor costs.

CNN's prediction for 2026? "Any device that uses memory, from phones to tablets and smartwatches, could get pricier." But will it be a little or a lot?

The article cites an analysis from multinational strategy/management consulting firm McKinsey & Company which found America's data center demand could continue growing by 20 to 25 percent per year" through 2030. "That's prompted memory manufacturers like Micron and Samsung to shift their focus to data centers, which use a different type of memory, meaning fewer resources for consumer products. (Jaejune Kim, executive VP for memory at Samsung, said in October that their third quarter saw strong demand for memory for AI and data centers, and that they expected the supply shortage for mobile and PC memory to "intensify further.") Memory prices are rising for consumer products because major manufacturers are instead ramping up production for AI data centers as artificial intelligence companies boom. "It's pretty much brutal and crunched across the board," said Yang Wang, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

The International Data Corporation, a global market research firm, reported earlier this week that the smartphone market is expected to decline by 0.9% in 2026 in part because of memory shortages. Memory prices are expected to surge by 30% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and may climb an additional 20% early next year, Counterpoint Research said last month... TrendForce, a research firm that follows the semiconductor industry, estimates memory price hikes have made smartphones 8% to 10% more expensive to produce in 2025 (higher production costs don't always translate into higher consumer prices for a variety of reasons).

Some smartphones could cost more as soon as early next year, said Nabila Popal, a senior research director for the International Data Corporation. Cheap Android phones may see the biggest impact, since less expensive products usually have thinner margins. "It's going to be almost impossible for them to not raise prices" of cheaper Android phones, said Popal. Companies may also postpone phone launches to focus on expensive models that may be more profitable. The average selling price for smartphones is expected to climb to $465 in 2026, compared to $457 in 2025, according to Popal, putting the smartphone market at a record high value of $578.9 billion.

But the pendulum is expected to swing back in the other direction late next year as the supply chain adjusts, according to Popal and Wang, potentially bringing prices back down or at least capping increases.

Residential utility bills in America "rose 6% on average nationwide in August compared with the same period in the previous year," reports CNBC, citing statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: The reasons for price increases are often complex and vary by region. But in at least three states with high concentrations of data centers, electric bills climbed much faster than the national average during that period. Prices, for example, surged by 13% in Virginia, 16% in Illinois and 12% in Ohio.

The tech companies and AI labs are building data centers that consume a gigawatt or more of electricity in some cases, equivalent to more than 800,000 homes, the size of a city essentially... "The techlash is real," said Abraham Silverman, who served as general counsel for New Jersey's public utility board from 2019 until 2023 under outgoing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. "Data centers aren't always great neighbors," said Silverman, now a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. "They tend to be loud, they can be dirty and there's a number of communities, particularly in places with really high concentrations of data centers, that just don't want more data centers..." [C]apacity prices get passed down to consumers in their utility bills, Silverman said. The data center load in PJM [America's largest grid, serving 13 states] is also impacting prices in states that are not industry leaders such as New Jersey, where prices jumped about 20% year over year...

There are other reasons for rising electricity prices, Silverman said. The aging electric grid needs upgrades at a time of broad inflation and the cost of building new transmission lines has gone up by double digits, he said. The utilities also point to rising demand from the expansion of domestic manufacturing and the broader electrification of the economy, such as electric vehicles and the adoption of electric heat pumps in some regions...

In other states, however, the relationship between rising electricity prices and data centers is less clear. Texas, for example, is second only to Virginia with more than 400 data centers. But prices in the Lone Star state increased about 4% year over year in August, lower than the national average. Texas operates its own grid, ERCOT, with a relatively fast process that can connect new electric supply to the grid in around three years, according to a February 2024 report from the Brattle Group. California, meanwhile, has the third most data centers in the nation and the second highest residential electricity prices, nearly 80% above the national average. But prices in the Golden State increased about 1% in August 2024 over the prior year period, far below the average hike nationwide. One of the reasons California's electricity rates are so much higher than most of the country is the costs associated with preventing wildfires.

"Media headlines suggesting some slowdown in EV sales are simply incorrect," writes the site Electrek, "and leave out the bigger picture that gas car sales actually are dropping..." Over the course of the last two years or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage growth rates than they had in years prior. EV sales used to grow at 50%+ per year, but for the last couple years, they have grown closer to ~25% per year. This alone is not particularly remarkable — it is inevitable that any growing product or category will show slower percentage growth rates as sales rise, particularly one that has been growing at such a fast rate for so long. In some recent years, we had even seen year-over-year doublings in EV market share (though one of those was 2020->2021, which was anomalous). To expect improvement at that level perpetually would be close to impossible — after 3 years of doubling market share from 2023's 18% number, EVs would account for more than 100% of the global automotive market, which cannot happen...

We have seen a global EV sales growth rate of 23% in the first 10 months of this year, according to a report just released by Rho Motion (recently acquired by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence). That includes a +32% bump in Europe, +22% bump in China, +4% in North America, and a big +48% bump in the "rest of the world." Notably, this 23% global growth rate is higher than last year's YTD growth rate, which was 22% at this time...

In covering these trends, some journalists have attempted to use the less-wrong phrase "slower growth," showing that EV sales are still growing, but at a lower percentage change than previously seen. But for the first ten months of this year, that isn't true — EV sales are up more in 2025 than in 2024 by a percentage basis. They are also up in raw sales numbers — in 2024, EV sales grew by a larger number than in 2023. And the same is true so far in 2025. Going back to 2023, 10.7 million EVs were sold globally in the first 10 months. Then in 2024, 13.3 million were sold, a difference of 2.6 million. And so far in 2025, 16.5 million EVs have sold, a difference of 3.2 million. Not only are the numbers getting bigger, but the growth in unit sales is getting bigger as well.
Even in America, the EV market "has increased so far this year, with 11.7% US EV sales growth YTD." In terms of US hybrid sales, much has been made of customers "shifting from EVs to hybrids," which is also not the case. Conventional gas-hybrid sales are indeed up and plug-in hybrids, which have grown more slowly than gas-hybrids/BEVs, have also shown some growth lately. But gas-hybrid sales have not come at the cost of EV sales, rather at the cost of gas-only car sales.

Because that's just the thing: the number of gas-only vehicles being sold worldwide is a number that actually is falling. That number continues to go down year over year. Sales of new gas-powered cars are down by about a quarter from their peak in 2017, and show no signs of recovering... And yet, somehow, virtually every headline you read is about the "EV sales slump," rather than the "gas-car sales slump." The one you keep hearing about isn't happening, but the one you rarely hear about is happening... No matter what region of the world you're in, EV sales were up in the first 10 months of this year.

Solar geoengineering could increase the ferocity of North Atlantic hurricanes, cause the Amazon rainforest to die back and cause drought in parts of Africa if deployed above only some parts of the planet by rogue actors, a report has warned. The Guardian: However, if technology to block the sun was used globally and in a coordinated way for a long period -- decades or even centuries -- there is strong evidence that it would lower the global temperature, the review from the UK's Royal Society concluded.

The world is failing to halt the climate crisis and the researchers said that in future, a judgment might need to be made between the risks of geoengineering and the those of continued global heating, which is already costing lives and livelihoods. The logistics of a large-scale geoengineering effort would be daunting, the experts said, but the cost would be small relative to climate action -- billions of dollars a year against trillions.

The researchers emphasised that geoengineering only masked the symptoms of the climate crisis, and did not tackle the root cause -- the burning of fossil fuels. Geoengineering could only complement the cutting of emissions, not replace it, they said. If geoengineering was halted abruptly but emissions had not been reduced, there would be a termination shock of rapidly rising temperatures -- 1-2C within a couple of decades -- that would have severe effects on people and ecosystems unable to rapidly adapt.

North Dakota experienced an almost 40% increase in electricity demand "thanks in part to an explosion of data centers," reports the Washington Post. Yet the state saw a 1% drop in its per kilowatt-hour rates.

"A new study from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the consulting group Brattle suggests that, counterintuitively, more electricity demand can actually lower prices..." Between 2019 and 2024, the researchers calculated, states with spikes in electricity demand saw lower prices overall. Instead, they found that the biggest factors behind rising rates were the cost of poles, wires and other electrical equipment — as well as the cost of safeguarding that infrastructure against future disasters... [T]he largest costs are fixed costs — that is, maintaining the massive system of poles and wires that keeps electricity flowing. That system is getting old and is under increasing pressures from wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather. More power customers, therefore, means more ways to divvy up those fixed costs. "What that means is you can then take some of those fixed infrastructure costs and end up spreading them around more megawatt-hours that are being sold — and that can actually reduce rates for everyone," said Ryan Hledik [principal at Brattle and a member of the research team]...

[T]he new study shows that the costs of operating and installing wind, natural gas, coal and solar have been falling over the past 20 years. Since 2005, generation costs have fallen by 35 percent, from $234 billion to $153 billion. But the costs of the huge wires that transmit that power across the grid, and the poles and wires that deliver that electricity to customers, are skyrocketing. In the past two decades, transmission costs nearly tripled; distribution costs more than doubled. Part of that trend is from the rising costs of parts: The price of transformers and wires, for example, has far outpaced inflation over the past five years. At the same time, U.S. utilities haven't been on top of replacing power poles and lines in the past, and are now trying to catch up. According to another report from Brattle, utilities are already spending more than $10 billion a year replacing aging transmission lines.

And finally, escalating extreme-weather events are knocking out local lines, forcing utilities to spend big to make fixes. Last year, Hurricane Beryl decimated Houston's power grid, forcing months of costly repairs. The threat of wildfires in the West, meanwhile, is making utilities spend billions on burying power lines. According to the Lawrence Berkeley study, about 40 percent of California's electricity price increase over the last five years was due to wildfire-related costs.
Yet the researchers tell the Washington Post that prices could still increase if utilities have to quickly build more infrastructure just to handle data center. But their point is "This is a much more nuanced issue than just, 'We have a new data center, so rates will go up.'"

As the article points out, "Generous subsidies for rooftop solar also increased rates in certain states, mostly in places such as California and Maine... If customers install rooftop solar panels, demand for electricity shrinks, spreading those fixed costs over a smaller set of consumers.

Microsoft has announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will cost $29.99 per month, up from $19.99. The company restructured its subscription service into three tiers ahead of the October 16 launch of two Xbox ROG Ally handheld consoles. The new Essential tier offers 50-plus games for $9.99 monthly. Premium includes 200-plus games for $14.99. Ultimate subscribers gain access to more than 400 games, day-one releases, improved cloud streaming quality, and services including EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and Fortnite Crew.

Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue with 34 million subscribers in 2024. Console hardware prices are also increasing, with the Xbox Series X rising $50 to $649.99 starting October 3.

"Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech's energy-hungry data centers..." reports the Associated Press.

"Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against tech behemoths like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta." [T]he Data Center Coalition, which represents Big Tech firms and data center developers, has said its members are committed to paying their fair share. But growing evidence suggests that the electricity bills of some Americans are rising to subsidize the massive energy needs of Big Tech as the U.S. competes in a race against China for artificial intelligence superiority. Data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie published a report in recent weeks that suggested 20 proposed or effective specialized rates for data centers in 16 states it studied aren't nearly enough to cover the cost of a new natural gas power plant. In other words, unless utilities negotiate higher specialized rates, other ratepayer classes — residential, commercial and industrial — are likely paying for data center power needs. Meanwhile, Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog for the mid-Atlantic grid, produced research in June showing that 70% — or $9.3 billion — of last year's increased electricity cost was the result of data center demand.

Last year, five governors led by Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro began pushing back against power prices set by the mid-Atlantic grid operator, PJM Interconnection, after that amount spiked nearly sevenfold. They warned of customers "paying billions more than is necessary." PJM has yet to propose ways to guarantee that data centers pay their freight, but Monitoring Analytics is floating the idea that data centers should be required to procure their own power. In a filing last month, it said that would avoid a "massive wealth transfer" from average people to tech companies.

At least a dozen states are eyeing ways to make data centers pay higher local transmission costs. In Oregon, a data center hot spot, lawmakers passed legislation in June ordering state utility regulators to develop new — presumably higher — power rates for data centers. The Oregon Citizens' Utility Board [a consumer advocacy group] says there is clear evidence that costs to serve data centers are being spread across all customers — at a time when some electric bills there are up 50% over the past four years and utilities are disconnecting more people than ever.
"Some data centers could require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans," the article points out...

Apple reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth since 2021, with iPhone sales jumping 13% and total revenue up 10%. CEO Tim Cook also announced increased AI investments and hinted at future acquisitions to accelerate Apple's AI roadmap. CNBC reports: "It was an exceptional quarter by any measure," Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC's Steve Kovach. Cook said that about 1% of the company's 10 percentage points of revenue growth could be attributed to customers buying more products to get ahead of potential tariffs. The company's most important business remains the iPhone, which saw 13% growth on an annual basis during the quarter to $44.58 billion in sales. Cook said that iPhone revenue was strong because the iPhone 16 is more popular compared to the iPhone 15 devices on sale last year at the same time. Cook said iPhone 16 sales were up "strong double digits" versus its predecessor. Cook specifically highlighted popularity among current iPhone users upgrading to a new one.

Apple's Mac business grew the fastest of any of Apple's units during the June quarter, growing nearly 15% to $8.05 billion in revenue. Apple released updated MacBook Air laptops, its best-selling Mac, just before the quarter started. The company's services business, which includes the company's warranties, content subscriptions, licensing deals with Google, and iCloud continued to grow to $27.42 billion in the period, a 13% increase. Cook highlighted growth in the company's iCloud subscriptions and said App Store revenue grew "double digits" during the quarter.

The two tougher spots in Apple's report were iPad sales and the company's other products division, which it sometimes calls its wearables. It consists of Apple Watch, AirPods, and other accessories. Revenue for iPad was down 8% to $6.58 billion, despite the company launching a low-cost iPad in March. Apple's wearables unit declined 8.64% to $7.4 billion during the quarter. Apple also saw success in China during the quarter, with sales rising 4% on an annual basis to $15.37 billion. Apple reports its sales from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the same unit. It's a reversal from the past two quarters, where Apple's China sales declined 2% in Apple's second fiscal quarter and 11% in the first quarter. Cook said a Chinese subsidy for some devices helped Apple in the region. "The subsidy does apply to some of our products, and it clearly helps," Cook said.

One in every 9 Americans lives in California. And right now its Congress is debating a bill that "would help establish a regional electricity market capable of tying together the American West's three dozen independent power grids," according to the Los Angeles Times' newsletter about climate change and energy issues.

But that bill "has bitterly divided environmentalists," with some seeing it "as a plot by greedy energy companies to enrich themselves." Supporters say it would smooth the flow of solar and wind power from the sunny, windy landscapes where they're produced most cheaply to the cities where they're most needed. It would help California keep the lights on without fossil fuels, and without driving up utility bills... [S]olar and wind power are still cheaper than planet-warming coal and fossil gas. Which is why Michael Wara, a Stanford energy and climate scholar, isn't worried that SB 540 will leave Californians drowning in dirty power. In a regional market, solar and wind will usually outcompete coal and gas. "Any energy source that requires fuel to operate is more expensive than an energy source that doesn't," he said.

California also needs to prove that a grid powered entirely by clean energy is affordable and reliable. The state's rising electric rates are already a big concern. And although the grid has been stable the last few years, thanks to batteries that store solar for after dark, keeping the lights on with more and more renewables might get harder. Regional market advocates make a strong case that interstate cooperation would help.

For instance, a market would help California more smoothly access Pacific Northwest hydropower, already a key energy source during heat waves. It would also give California easier access to low-cost winds from New Mexico and Wyoming. Best of all, that wind is often blowing strong just as the sun sets along the Pacific. Another benefit: Right now, California often generates more solar than it can use during certain hours of the day, forcing solar farms to shut down — or pay other states to take the extra power. With a regional market, California could sell excess solar to other states, keeping utility bills down. "This is about lowering costs," said Robin Everett, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.
"Unlike with past regional market proposals, California would retain control of its grid operator, with only a few functions delegated to a regional entity," the article points out. But opponents still worry this would give new powers to an outside-of-California group to thwart clean energy progress (if not gouge customers). Amendments passed this week add a "Regional Energy Markets Oversight Council" to address that concern — but which lost support for the bill from some of its earlier supporters.

"The amendments would make it easier for the Golden State to bail," notes the climate newsletter, and "Out-of-state utilities don't want to waste time and money committing themselves to a California-led market only to lose California, and thus many of the economic benefits..."

South Asia has warmed far more slowly than the rest of the world over the past four decades with temperatures rising just 0.09C per decade compared to 0.30C elsewhere on land, according to new climate research. Scientists believe this "warming hole" results from two factors that have masked the true impact of global warming: heavy aerosol pollution that reflects sunlight back to space and expanded irrigation that cools air through evaporation.

The protective effect is temporary and comes at a deadly cost. Air pollution currently kills between 2 million and 3 million people annually in South Asia, while extreme heat causes 100,000 to 600,000 deaths. As governments reduce pollution and groundwater depletion limits irrigation expansion, atmospheric scientists predict India will warm at twice the rate of the past 20 years. By 2047, the average Indian could experience a four-fold increase in dangerous heat stress days, threatening a region where only 10% of households have air conditioning.

In early 2025, U.S. solar power production jumped 44% compared to the previous year, driven by end-of-year construction to capture tax incentives and long-term cost advantages. "The bad news is that, in contrast to China, solar's growth hasn't been enough to offset rising demand," notes Ars Technica. "Instead, the US also saw significant growth in coal use, which rose by 23 percent compared to the year prior, after years of steady decline." From the report: Short-term fluctuations in demand are normal, generally driven by weather-induced demand for heating or cooling. Despite those changes, demand for electricity in the US has been largely flat for over a decade, largely thanks to gains in efficiency. But 2024 saw demand go up by nearly 3 percent, and the first quarter of 2025 saw another rise, this time of nearly 5 percent. It's a bit too early to say that we're seeing a shift to a period of rising demand, but one has been predicted for some time due to rising data center use and the increased electrification of transportation and appliances.

Under those circumstances, the rest of the difference will be made up for with fossil fuels. Running counter to recent trends, the use of natural gas dropped during the first three months of 2025. This means that the use of coal rose nearly as quickly as demand, up by 23 percent compared to the same time period in 2024. Despite the rise in coal use, the fraction of carbon-free electricity held steady year over year, with wind/solar/hydro/nuclear accounting for 43 percent of all power put on the US grid. That occurred despite small drops in nuclear and hydro production.

Microsoft is raising prices for Xbox consoles globally, with the flagship Series X jumping $100 to $599.99 in the US. The more affordable Series S will increase by $80 to $379.99, while game prices will reach $80 later this year.

The company cited "market conditions and the rising cost of development" in a statement, adding that it continues to focus on "offering more ways to play more games across any screen and ensuring value for Xbox players."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Here's an easy to understand example of how Donald Trump's tariffs on imported products have completely screwed small U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs: the crowdfunding site Kickstarter is introducing a "Tariff Manager tool" that will allow creators to add extra charges to projects that were already fully funded in order to deal with the higher and unexpected costs of the president's global trade war. "Over the past few weeks, we've been hard at work developing tariff-relevant resources to support our community. From guidance to help creators navigate rapidly changing policies, to tips on shipping logistics, and even information to help backers better understand the challenges creators are facing. Our focus has been supporting you through uncertain times, but we also know that information alone isn't always enough," Kickstarter said in a blog post published last week announcing the Tariff Manager tool. "Built specifically to address the financial challenges posed by U.S. import tariffs, Kickstarter's Tariff Manager is designed to give creators more control, flexibility, and transparency at one of the most critical phases of your journey: fulfillment."

Kickstarter's Tariff Manager will allow some creators to apply per-item surcharges which will appear as a separate line item on the payment page for people who backed their project. "We understand that asking backers to pay an additional fee -- especially after a campaign has ended -- can be sensitive," Kickstarter said. "If a backer chooses not to pay the tariff cost during the pledge manager process, they'll need to reach out to you directly." Backers can pay the additional fee to get the item they had already backed in order to still get it when it's ready. If they decline, the creator can issue them a refund, or find "another resolution," the blog post says. "While this tool helps offset rising costs, we recognize that every project and backer relationship is unique," Kickstarter said. "Our goal is to provide you with the flexibility and transparency necessary to navigate those conversations with clarity and care." "Creators continue to launch, adapt, and find success on Kickstarter, even as the external landscape shifts," a Kickstarter spokesperson told 404 Media. "We know creators are navigating a lot right now, and we're focused on giving them the tools and support to adjust as needed. Our role at Kickstarter is to help creators bring their projects to life, and that includes supporting them through moments of uncertainty. That's why we're doubling down on tools that help creators stay flexible and responsive: from our Tariff Manager within our integrated pledge manager -- which we're rolling out to all of our creators soon -- to offering 24-hour support and expanding educational resources."

The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. From a report: The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world's biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.

Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company's investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management. The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was "essential" to hit net zero by 2050.