With its landmark climate legislation in jeopardy, the Biden administration has announced a series of new executive actions to accelerate the US’s transition to a clean power grid. On Wednesday, the White House said it would allocate billions toward projects that lead to the construction of more wind, solar and geothermal energy across the country.

Specifically, the administration announced it’s moving forward with the lease of six commercial areas off the coasts of New York and New Jersey for use in wind farm projects. On offer is more than 488,000 acres of ocean seafloor for the winning bidders to build an estimated 5.6 and 7 gigawatts of clean power generation. As part of the bidding process, the White House says it will incentivize participants to support labor jobs and to source turbine components from American manufacturers. The New York Bight development is one of the primary pillars of the Biden administration’s plan to build out 30 gigawatts of offshore wind production by 2030.

Another significant facet of today’s announcement is the “Building a Better Grid” initiative. Pulling from the $65 billion Congress set aside for power grid upgrades when it passed President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the initiative earmarks $2.5 billion toward funding the installation of new transmission lines. It’s putting another $3 billion toward an expansion of the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which supports projects that increase the capacity and flexibility of existing electrical infrastructure.

The administration notes it will also allocate $10 billion in grants to states, tribes and utility companies to help those groups strengthen their local transmission lines. Taken together, the investments will help modernize the country’s power grid, making it easier to transport renewable energy from remote generation sites to where it’s needed most. It will also harden the power grid against the kind of extreme weather events that have become more commonplace as the effects of climate change have worsened.

Today’s announcement sees the White House putting forward meaningful climate policy, but if the Biden administration is to have a chance of meeting the president’s ambitious goal of decarbonizing the country’s power grid by 2035, it will need to bypass the legislative gridlock that has left the Build Better Back Framework in limbo. Much of that will depend on whether the White House can convince Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to support the approximately $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill.

With Mamoru Hosoda’s latest movie opening in US theaters this Friday, Studio Chizu and the film’s distributor have shared a new trailer for Belle. The more than three-minute-long clip shows the movie’s opening scene in its entirety, introducing us to U, Belle’s metaverse-like virtual world. The trailer is mostly a showcase of Studio Chizu’s virtuoso animation work, but we also get to hear an equally great English cover of Millennium Parade’s “U” and learn more about the setting.

The metaverse has been a hot topic recently thanks in large part to the work Meta has done to promote the concept as the next big evolution of the internet, but Belle director Mamoru Hosoda has thinking about what virtual worlds might mean for our interpersonal relationships for a long time. Back in 2009, he directed Summer Wars. That film imagines a world where everything is connected through a separate digital realm. More than a decade ago, the idea seemed outlandish. Now it feels prescient.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can move forward with its latest antitrust lawsuit against Meta, a US district judge ruled on Tuesday. The decision is a significant win for the regulator, which had seen its first complaint thrown out by Judge James Boasberg last June.

Per The Washington Post, Boasberg now says the agency can move forward with its complaint thanks to the “more robust and detailed” evidence it presented with its amended suit, which the FTC filed in August. “Although the agency may well face a tall task down the road in proving its allegations, the Court believes that it has now cleared the pleading bar and may proceed to discovery,” the judge said.

In October, Meta asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing the FTC had failed yet again to present a “factual basis for alleging monopoly power.” The agency’s amended complaint is approximately two dozen pages longer than its original one, but it puts forward many of the same arguments. Specifically, the FTC alleges Facebook used the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 to secure its dominant position in the social media market.

“It is unfortunate that despite the court's dismissal of the complaint and conclusion that it lacked the basis for a claim, the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless lawsuit,” the company said at the time. “The FTC's claims are an effort to rewrite antitrust laws and upend settled expectations of merger review, declaring to the business community that no sale is ever final.”

Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection will make its way to Nintendo Switch on Feburary 17th, Ubisoft announced on Tuesday. First announced for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016, the compilation bundles together Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations. They’re the three games that make up the Ezio Auditore saga. It also comes with two short films, Assassin’s Creed: Lineage and Embers. The latter serves as the conclusion to Ezio’s story. Ubisoft will sell the entire package for $40. 

According to Ubisoft, each game in the collection comes with every single piece of single-player downloadable content available for those titles. It has also enhanced them with support for Switch-specific features such as HD Rumble. As with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One release of The Ezio Collection, it doesn’t appear the Switch version includes the multiplayer mode that debuted with Brotherhood and Ubisoft later polished in Revelations. 

From a technical standpoint, the Switch versions of AC2, Brotherhood and Revelations look about on par with their original Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts. That might be a bummer if you were looking forward to seeing Ezio’s story with enhanced graphics, but at least you can take the games with you wherever you go. 

You can now add Lego to the list of companies re-evaluating their relationship with Activision Blizzard following allegations the company allowed senior employees to create a workplace rife with sexual harassment and abuse. In a statement spotted by The Verge, the toymaker told The Brick Fan, a site dedicated to Lego reviews, it’s delaying the release of an Overwatch 2-themed set that it had planned to release at the start of next month.

“We are currently reviewing our partnership with Activision Blizzard, given concerns about the progress being made to address continuing allegations regarding workplace culture, especially the treatment of female colleagues and creating a diverse and inclusive environment,” a Lego spokesperson told the outlet. “While we complete the review we will pause the release of a LEGO Overwatch 2 product which was due to go on sale on February 1, 2022.”

Activision Blizzard has been mired in controversy since California’s fair employment regulator filed a lawsuit against the publisher in July. According to a bombshell report The Wall Street Journal published in November, CEO Bobby Kotick knew about many of the worst incidents of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard and, at times, acted to protect abusers at the company. In the immediate aftermath of The Journal’s reporting, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo criticized the company, but they have yet to cut ties with it. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said Microsoft's relationship with the publisher had changed but declined to share specifics.     

China’s Chang’e-5 lunar lander has found water on the surface of the Moon, marking the first-ever time scientists have found on-site evidence of the substance on Earth’s satellite. In a study published in Science Advances, Chinese researchers claim the lander detected signs of water molecules or hydroxyl, a close chemical cousin of H2O. Chang’e-5 used a spectrometer to analyze the composition of regolith in close proximity to its landing site. It found that most of the soil had a water concentration of less than 120 parts per million, making the surface of Luna much drier than that of the Earth.

Honglei Lin et al.

Chinese scientists believe most of the molecules came to the Moon through a process called solar wind implantation. Charged particles from the sun drove hydrogen atoms to the lunar surface where they later bonded with oxygen to form water and hydroxyl. The study builds on findings NASA published in 2018 when it found evidence of water on the sunlit surfaces of the Moon using an airborne infrared telescope. For decades, scientists had believed the Moon was completely dry due to its almost nonexistent atmosphere. With no atmosphere, the thought was there was nothing there to protect water molecules from the sun’s harsh radiation.

Over the last year, US greenhouse emissions increased by 6.2 percent compared to 2020 levels, according to a new report from the Rhodium Group. The jump puts the country further behind meeting the reduction targets put forward by the Paris climate agreement. Under the deal, the US has pledged to reduce its greenhouse emissions between 50 percent and 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. As of last year, they were 17.4 percent below that benchmark. That’s a step back from the 22.2 percent reduction the country had achieved the year prior.

Behind the increase in overall emissions were corresponding jumps in pollution generated by the country’s transportation and power sectors. Compared to 2021, those sectors generated an additional 10 percent and 6.6 percent of greenhouse emissions. Driving those increases was a 17 percent increase in reliance on coal-generated power and more people driving after a pandemic-related downturn.

The report underscores how important is it is for the US to clean up its power grid and transportation sector. Another recent study found that wind and solar could meet 85 percent of the country’s current electricity needs. So much of whether the US will meet its Paris Agreement commitments will depend on if the country can mobilize investment as part of policies like President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan. The fate of the bill is uncertain, but what is clear is that the technology is there to enable a clean transition. Until recently, natural gas had never been more affordable, and yet it was still more expensive than renewable sources of energy. 

In a desperate effort to save the life of a 57-year-old man, doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have accomplished a medical first. Per The Associated Press, this past Friday, surgeons successfully transplanted a pig heart into a patient as part of an experimental procedure.

In doing so, they showed a genetically modified animal organ could survive and function within the human body without immediate rejection. Three days after the procedure, David Bennett, the individual who underwent the surgery, is alive and “doing well,” according to the hospital.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the procedure on compassionate grounds. Bennett was ineligible for a traditional heart transplant and had run out of other options. “It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said in a statement before doctors operated on him.

Scientists have tried to save humans with animal organs for decades. One of the most notable attempts occurred in 1984 when doctors grafted a baboon heart into Stephanie Fae Beauclair, an infant born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. The congenital disorder left her body incapable of circulating blood properly. Baby Fae, as she was better known, survived for 21 days before her body eventually rejected the transplanted organ.

According to The New York Times, what makes this latest procedure different is doctors used a heart that had been genetically modified to remove four genes that encode a molecule that causes the body to reject the orphan organ. They also inserted six human genes to make the immune system more tolerable of the foreign tissue. Whether the experiment represents a breakthrough will depend on what happens next. Bennett’s body could still reject the pig heart. For the moment, however, he’s alive, and doctors are understandably excited about what this could mean for patients.

“If this works, there will be an endless supply of these organs for patients who are suffering,” Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s xenotransplantation program, told The Associated Press. That would be a dramatic change from the status quo. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, more than 100,000 people are on the national transplant waiting list, and 17 individuals die every day waiting for an organ transplant.

Razer has removed any mention of its Zephyr and recently announced Zephyr Pro smart face masks including “N95-grade” filters from its website and other marketing materials. “The wearable by itself is not a medical device nor certified as an N95 mask,” a Razer spokesperson told Engadget. “To avoid any confusion, we are in the process of removing all references to ‘N95 Grade Filter’ from our marketing material.”

The company’s website now says “Razer Zephyr is not a certified N95 mask, medical device, respirator, surgical mask or personal protective equipment (PPE) and is not meant to be used on medical or clinical settings." Following the change, Razer claims the Zephyr’s filters are 95 percent effective at filtering out particles and 99 percent effective against bacteria. The company told Engadget it will also notify Zephyr owners of the tweak.

The change comes after YouTuber Naomi Wu wrote a Twitter thread about the wearable over the weekend and publications like PC Mag drew attention to Razer’s labeling. In November, Wu posted an extensive review and teardown of the Razer Zephyr in which she said the company’s marketing of the smart mask was “deceptive.” Wu reiterated those claims after the company announced its new "Pro" variant of the Zephyr at CES 2022. 

As Wu points out in the video, “N95” is an official certification granted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for respirators that filter out at least 95 percent of airborne particles. It’s a designation that involves an entire mask, not just part of it, and accounts for both fit and filtration. Neither the Zephyr nor the Zephyr Pro is listed on the agency’s website as a NIOSH-approved respirator.

According to Wu, Razer made the change following pressure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and NIOSH, a claim the company disputes. "The clarification has come from Razer ourselves rather than an outside entity," the company told Engadget.

The timing of the reversal comes as public health officials in the US and other countries have called on the public to wear surgical, N95 and KN95 masks, as opposed to a simple cloth mask, to better protect itself from the highly contagious omicron variant. The new coronavirus strain has sent COVID-19 cases soaring throughout much of the world, putting further strain on hospital systems that are already on the edge of burnout.

Bel-Air, Peacock’s modern-day reinterpretation of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, will debut on February 13th, the streamer announced on Monday and shared a first-look trailer. Announced back in 2020, Bel-Air re-envisions the classic ‘90s sitcom as an hour-long drama series. All the main characters from the original return, including Uncle Phil and Carlton, though they may not be like you remember them. That's most apparent with Carlton who comes off as bashful in the trailer. Thankfully, Will's best friend Jazz looks true to his inspiration.  

The project was inspired by a fan film writer and director Morgan Cooper released in 2019. Both Cooper’s creation and the Peacock series lean into the original premise of The Fresh Prince, using Will’s journey from West Philidelphia to Bel-Air to tell a story about second chances, race and class. Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios produced the series, with Cooper serving as director, co-writer and executive producer. He told Smith in 2019 the idea for Bel-Air came to him while driving down Interstate 71. He was thinking about the original show when he drove an underpass and inspiration hit. "I knew I had a story to tell," he said at the time.

Peacock will release the first three episodes of Bel-Air on Super Bowl Sunday, with subsequent episodes to follow weekly. The series is currently slated to run for two seasons.