Ever wonder what hot metal would be like if it weren’t bound by containers, liquids… or even gravity? You’re looking at it. The European Space Agency has developed an electromagnetic levitator that the International Space Station is using to see ho…

Soon after Halo: The Master Chief Collection was released for Xbox One on November 11th, reports started coming in that gamers were being irked by matchmaking issues that just simply wouldn’t give up. Obviously this degraded the experience for gamers who were no doubt looking forward to the title. Developer 343 Industries was quick to acknowledge the issues and start working on a fix but even that hasn’t been able to help fully. As work continues to make things better, the developer has apologized for all the issues that gamers have faced with this title.

The “heartfelt apologies” came directly from studio head at 343 Industries Bonnie Ross who extended the apology on behalf of the entire team, adding that they have failed to deliver the experience that fans deserved. Ross assured that the team is committed to working “around the clock” until all of these issues are taken care of.

Ross also made a commitment to gamers irked by Halo: The Master Chief Collection issues that while on one hand the team continues to work on improvements and finding solutions to the problems, she commits that 343 Industries will take care of the gamers once the primary aim of fixing the issues at hand is achieved. Then they’ll detail how they plan to “make this right” with their fans.

Multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates are planned over the coming weeks, more details about these updates will be revealed when the release window becomes clear. Ross assures that 343 Industries is doing everything in its power to resolve these issues “as quickly as possible.”

Halo: The Master Chief Collection Developer Apologizes For Issues , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

This story originally appeared on Climate Central.

Clues to the United States’ energy future are everywhere, if you know where to look.

By 2050, the technology will likely be available to provide 80 percent of the country’s electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources.

But even if the nation doesn’t adapt to that degree, it is clear that the way Americans get their electricity and how it’s generated will be vastly different than today, toppling the current model of power flowing in one direction, from major power plants into American homes.

In the era to come, much of the power generated in the U.S. will come from renewables, and much of it will be generated on rooftops and in backyards, and the buildings using that electricity are likely to be much more energy efficient than they are today. That means many people will feed power back into the grid, a two-way system that changes the energy landscape dramatically.

In many ways, the country is already squarely on that path. Renewables now generate 20 percent of California’s electricity, a percentage expected to grow as new solar power generators come online and Los Angeles connects itself to a new wind farm proposed for eastern Wyoming, potentially generating power for 1.2 million homes in the Los Angeles area.

Texas also broke a record for wind power production this year. Wind turbines have been built atop buildings in New York City.

After Hurricane Sandy knocked out power for tens of thousands of people for weeks, it inspired a widespread interest in microgrids, another way to lessen reliance on power plants.

Among the longer-term trends, according to Doug Arent, executive director of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, or JISEA, at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., is a clear push toward low-carbon energy.

The lab published a 2012 study showing that the U.S. could obtain 80 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2050 in part because every corner of the U.S. would be able to generate power from renewables, not just the sunniest, windiest places.

By 2050, he said, the U.S. is likely to see a lot of more distributed generation from solar panels, small wind turbines and other small power generators supplying electricity to individual buildings or groups of buildings.

While nuclear power generation is likely to remain flat because it’s too expensive to develop new reactors, the percentage of power in the U.S. generated by renewables is likely to double each decade as federal climate-related regulations force utilities to retire their coal-fired power plants, Arent said.

“The pace of change is being driven by the remarkable changes in technology cost, especially solar, which is dropping in price quickly,” Warren Lasher, director for system planning for the operator of Texas’ main power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said.

The cost of electricity generated from utility-scale solar power installations has dropped by more than 70 percent since 2008, according to research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab, allowing some heavily coal-dependent utilities such as Georgia Power to explore solar.

“That’s an indication even in areas where solar isn’t world class, solar is becoming a cost-effective option,” Lasher said.

Within the next five years or so, big box stores and other commercial building owners are likely to adopt rooftop solar on a large scale as solar panel prices drop, helping to usher in the new era of distributed power generation, he said.

“If commercial facilities facilities see this as a cost-effective investment, then we might see development that’s only limited by how many people are licensed to install solar on rooftops,” Lasher said.

The trend toward distributed power generation reverses the usual one-way flow of power from a major plant to consumers, but it also requires a power grid that can effectively manage this two-way street.

So, the federal government is pushing for utilities to build a “smarter” power grid, one that can adjust power production and flow based on how much electricity homes and businesses are using at any moment and forecasting how much energy can be expected from renewables.

Looking to 2050, all the country’s most populous regions will generate their power differently, but the trend is toward a much greater reliance on energy efficiency and renewable power produced both at major wind and solar installations and on rooftops.

“For Los Angeles and Chicago, maybe that means more wind from America’s heartland,” Mark Brownstein chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund’s U.S. Climate and Energy Program, said. “For New York, maybe it’s some combination of distributed solar plus wind and even some hydro imported from Canada.”

And for everywhere else, it’ll be more of the same: Greater efficiency, locally produced energy, more renewables, more wind turbines and solar panels big box stores.

Michèle Flournoy, the most-widely rumored candidate to replace Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of defense, has taken herself out of the running for the job, according to sources familiar with the situation. The decision complicates what will be one of the most important personnel decisions of President Barack Obama’s second term.

On the day of President Obama’s immigration announcement, I went to bed late at night, doing a mental checklist of everyone I know who qualifies and does not qualify under the President’s immigration action. As a community advocate and formerly undocumented immigrant who fought for this change, the word that most aptly describes executive action on immigration is “bitter-sweet.”

While the announcement is not enough, we do need to celebrate our victories, and what change this temporary reprieve will bring to so many members of the community. However, I am also frankly terrified for those that it would not help, and what would happen in the absence of permanent changes.

I am making a quick reference checklist here for the good, bad and ugly things in this announcement. These are simply my initial mental impressions of the various memos released by the DHS and available here. They are in no particular order:

Good

1. Expansion of DACA – The DHS will remove the upper level age cap on DACA so people who were above the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012 will not miss out. The date of entry was moved to January 1, 2010 from June 15, 2007, which means thousands more people who are newer arrivals would benefit. DACA will also be made into a temporary reprieve of 3 years, and the changes rolled out in 3 months.
2. The New DAPA program – The DHS is tasked with creating a separate deferred action program for parents of U.S. citizen sons/daughters or LPR sons/daughters born before November 21, 2014. Parents must have resided in the U.S. since at least January 1, 2010, physically present in the U.S. on the day of announcement and had no lawful status on that day, passed background checks, and are otherwise not ineligible (i.e. not an enforcement priority according to the new Johnson memo).
3. The provisional stateside waiver (I-601A) will be extended to all family members eligible, which will now include adult sons and daughters, and spouses of LPRs. The provisional waiver is for the 3/10 year bar for unlawful entry, and requires an individual to prove “extreme hardship” to their U.S. citizen family member if they are deported. Usually, individuals who are trying to adjust their status in the U.S. but entered the country unlawfully, need to travel abroad to their home country for approval of a waiver. In 2012, the Administration started accepting “extreme hardship” waivers without requiring immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to leave and wait outside. Now this benefit is also available to the children and spouses of lawful permanent residents. This provision will require rule-making, so it will take some time to roll this out. The DHS will also engage in rule-making to expand the “extreme hardship” definition.
4. Naturalization – Lawful permanent residents who are naturalizing can now pay via credit card and may qualify for fee waivers.
5. Expansion of parole-in-place to immediate relatives of those U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who “seek to enlist” in the US Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, National Guard, or the Reserve of any of the five Armed Services). This benefit means that not only would the family members of those who seek to enlist not be subject deported-they may also be eligible to adjust their status in the future.
6. Clarification of travel on advance parole by DHS so that people on DAP, DACA can travel abroad, and return to adjust their status in the U.S.
7. Department of Labor (DOL) reforms: DOL will start issuing U visa certifications in three key areas: extortion, forced labor, and fraud in foreign labor contracting, and certify applications for trafficking victims seeking T visas. According to DOL, “These efforts will significantly help qualifying victims of these crimes receive immigration relief from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and access the range of victim services that they need to recover and rebuild their lives.”
8. Reforms to the employment-based immigration system such as extension of OPT for STEM graduates, defining “specialized knowledge” for L-1B intracompany transferees, increasing H-1B portability by having USCIS define “same or similar” jobs, expanding the use of the “national interest waiver” and starting a new parole program to bring talented entrepreneurs to the U.S.

Bad

1. Elimination of Secure Communities with a new program that targets immigrant communities: DHS is replacing the current “Secure Communities”  program with a new “Priority Enforcement Program” to remove individuals convicted of criminal offenses. While it could be a marked improvement that moves us from a pre-conviction to post-conviction model and uses notification instead of detainers, unfortunately, this continues the entanglement of local law enforcement with immigration enforcement.
2. Exclusions for parents of DACA recipients, undocumented workers and farm workers without families, and LGBT individuals less likely to have family members in the U.S. – While these exclusions are not categorical, and some parents of DACA recipients who also have U.S. citizen/LPR children would continue to benefit, the President’s immigration action does not specifically benefit those who do not have immediate family ties to the U.S. but are nonetheless, members of our community. It is also unclear at this point whether parents with final orders or re-entries after deportation would be eligible for the program. At this point it appears that they would be eligible since they are not priorities under the new memo.
3. Visa backlogs – The announcement punts on the question of family visa backlogs that affect so many of us. However, there will be Presidential Memorandum to create an interagency group to look at “visa modernization” which has 120 days to prepare recommendations for further action.
4. Limited expansion of DACA:  It is great to see an expansion of DACA and elimination of the age-cap. It would have been nice to see public benefits such as ACA (healthcare) given to DACA recipients, as well as increasing the age of entry to 18 from 16 years.
5. Employment-based immigration: DHS expects to finalize regulation on H4 visa holders soon but the rule will not be expanded to all H4 visa holders
6. New enforcement priorities that continue to target immigrant communities: The President is rescinding past memos such as the Morton Memo, and issuing a new one, effective January 5, 2015. The new priorities are troubling and continue to criminalize immigrant and border communities, pitting good immigrants against bad immigrants, and separating families. I have listed the priorities below, and some initial thoughts on each:

Priority 1: Non-citizens convicted of aggravated felonies, suspected terrorists, convicted gang members, people apprehended at the border while unlawfully entering the U.S., will be a priority for removal unless they qualify for asylum or another immigration benefit.

Most troubling here is the use of language such as “suspected terrorists” without built in civil rights protections that discourage racial profiling. Additionally, people apprehended at the border will now be a top priority, even though many are coming to reunite with family. The prioritization of people with gang-related membership (without conviction) is very troubling, as law enforcement targets specific racial/ethnic groups as gang-affiliated.  

Priority 2: Non-citizens convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses, non-citizens convicted of significant misdemeanors (including DUI), non-citizens apprehended who entered after January 1, 2014; non-citizens who are perceived to abuse the visa waiver program should be a priority of removal unless they qualify for asylum or another immigration benefit.

Significant misdemeanors – a new legal fiction created by DACA – is here to stay, even though it has no legal foundation. The prioritization of people with a DUI, and their exclusion from DACA, is incredibly troubling, as is the prioritization of people who overstay their visas under the visa waiver program. Many of these people are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and have much to contribute to the U.S.

Priority 3: Non-citizens issued final orders of removal after January 1, 2014 should generally be a priority for removal unless they qualify for asylum, or another immigration benefit.

Immigrants who dared to come to the U.S. in 2014 will now be subject to draconian enforcement. 

Ugly

1. Increased border enforcement – DHS plans to fund an additional 20,000 CBP agents, and continue to trend towards further border militarization of the Southern border we share with Mexico.
2. Ramped up interior enforcement through existing programs such as the Criminal Alien Removal (CARI) Program, which profiles Latinos for detention and deportation, and  ICE raids, which will continue under these new announcements, despite right-wing talking points.
3. Due process concerns: Expedited deportations and Operation Streamline will continue.
4. No reforms to the existing detention system: Family detention will continue as the DHS opens a brand new center in Dilley, Texas, and arriving asylum seekers at the border will continue to be detained.

Finally, I just want to say that this is a deeply personal issue for me. I want to send some love and light to everyone who has worked hard for this announcement and emotionally drained from last week, and left out or have family members who are left out. We all deserve justice; we all deserve to be able to reunite with our families; and we most certainly deserve to be able to go home to safety–wherever that is.