More than 2,500 US performers were barred from working on games impacted by the strike while the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) negotiated a deal with studios. Now, after more than 11 months of discussions, a "tentative" agreement has been reached. "Patience and persistence has resulted in a deal that puts in place the necessary AI guardrails that defend performers' livelihoods in the AI age, alongside other important gains," said SAG-AFTRA's national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. Actors were banned from working with major game makers like Activision, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Formosa, Insomniac Games, Take 2 and WB Games. Other studios were also impacted by the strike, as actors took industrial action in solidarity. "We are pleased to have reached a tentative contract agreement that reflects the important contributions of SAG-AFTRA-represented performers in video games," said Audrey Cooling, spokesperson for the video game producers, to Sky News. "It delivers historic wage increases of over 24% for performers, enhanced health and safety protections, and industry-leading AI provisions requiring transparency, consent and compensation for the use of digital replicas in games." In the UK, actors protested in solidarity with their American counterparts, while Equity, the UK actors' union, called for a similar wide-reaching agreement between UK studios and actors. Earlier this week, the British Film Institute (BFI) released a report detailing the risks posed by AI to the UK screen sector, including video games, and described it as a "direct threat". Read more from Sky News:Powerful new supercomputer to be built in government U-turn'Trump's anti-migrant rhetoric boosting UK's tech industry'Number of Nintendo Switch 2s sold in four days revealed The scripts of more than 130,000 films and TV shows, YouTube videos, and databases of pirated books have been used to train AI models, according to the report. AI poses a particular threat to some video game voice actors, according to one expert, because of the nature of their work creating animal or monster sound effects. "The generic stuff is the easiest thing for generative AI to replace," Video Games Industry Memo author George Osborn told Sky News previously. "Just saying to the model, 'make 200 monster noises' is much easier than convincingly [making AI] sound like it is having a conversation with someone," he said. Unlike the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike in 2023, which saw blockbusters like Deadpool 3 and Gladiator 2 delayed and entire TV series cancelled, huge delays to games were unlikely. Games take years to make and any game already in development before September 2023 was exempt from the strike. Tensions have risen in the game actor community since the industrial action began, as studios appeared to hire international actors to replace the striking US workers.

The British government this week said it will introduce legislation by the end of the year to ratify the UN High Seas Treaty. It would be the first legally binding agreement on protecting international waters, which make up nearly two-thirds of the world's oceans, but are largely lawless. Campaigners say this makes them vulnerable to over-fishing, climate change and the threats of deep-sea mining and geo-engineering. Hilde Heine, President of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, told Sky News the treaty is "long overdue". The agreement is "essential for safeguarding the health and integrity of the global ocean commons - especially the high seas, which belong to no one nation but are the responsibility of all," she added. It follows recent high profile calls to protect the common vital resource, including from Sir David Attenborough and Prince William. The High Seas Treaty was agreed by 193 countries two years ago, but will not come into force unless 60 countries ratify it. A surge in support during this week's UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, brought the number of countries ratifying it to 50. "The entry into force is within our sight," UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday. "We do not have a moment to lose." He called the ocean the "lifeblood of our planet", which "feeds the soul". "It produces half of the oxygen we breathe, nourishes billions of people, supports hundreds of millions of jobs, and underpins global trade." Campaigners have called the high seas the "wild west" of the ocean as they are mostly ungoverned, and said a treaty could deliver protection at sea "on a scale we've never seen before". Chris Thorne, Greenpeace UK oceans campaigner, said: "We're tantalisingly close to a huge moment for the planet." Governments that ratify the treaty could be held accountable under their own jurisdictions and at an oceans tribunal, but it would be difficult to force other countries to follow the rules, even if they agreed to the treaty. The drive comes as President Donald Trump pulls the United States and its money out of environmental projects, and as some European governments weaken green policy and overseas aid commitments. President Heine said although "ratification by major countries like the United States remains outstanding", island states still believe the strength of the treaty lines "in the moral and legal precedent it sets". The treaty also sets out how countries would share technology, newly discovered resources and funding. It would mean decisions would have to be made collectively through negotiations, rather than by individual countries going it alone. The UK government has previously been criticised by environmentalists for dragging its heels on ratification. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the treaty would help conserve "rare, valuable and important marine life of the high seas", safeguarding them against unsustainable fishing and industrial activities.During the conference, which finishes on Friday, the UK government also proposed to extend a ban on bottom trawling to more marine protected areas in English waters.

An emerging body of research has spotted the risk that climate change could weaken or even collapse a major ocean current that brings heat northwards from the Atlantic into Europe. In the absence of that warm front, Britain would be plunged into a new ice age in winter, battling frozen runways, roads, forests and farmland. Arctic sea ice would blanket much of Scotland and most of the North Sea down to East Anglia by late winter. Temperatures in London would reach lows of -19C, a staggering 16C colder than lows in the 1800s, before humans began warming the climate. That's according to a new study published today that has modelled what a collapse of the so-called "AMOC" (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), combined with 2C of global warming, would mean for Europe. All scientists know at this stage, more or less, is that the AMOC is less stable than previously thought. They don't know how likely a collapse is, how quickly it could unfold, and what the precise impacts would be. What they do know, is that if it happens, it would be "quite devastating," said lead author Rene van Westen, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "The AMOC is currently regulating the global climate. And if this shuts down, you will get substantial and drastic climate shifts... on a planetary scale." It raises difficult and terrifying questions about what kind of climate we should be trying to adapt to. What is the AMOC? Snaking its way around the world, the so-called AMOC plays a crucial role in regulating both the European and global climate by circulating heat via the oceans like a conveyor belt. But as the climate warms, it dumps more freshwater in the ocean via rainfall and melting ice. This freshwater could slow down the conveyor belt to a point where the system shuts down completely. Arctic sea ice would creep much further southwards in winter, coating parts of Scandinavia and the Netherlands as well as Britain. What would an AMOC collapse do to Europe? Today's study modelled what it would mean for Europe if the world warmed by around 2C, and the AMOC collapsed. Edinburgh would in some years see cold extremes of nearly -30°C - almost 23°C colder than in the pre-industrial climate. Once a decade, there would be frost for almost half the days in a year. In Cardiff, temperatures would reach -19.6C. Meanwhile, sea levels in Europe would rise by 50cm, and rain would fall by 20%. "The extreme winters would be like living in an ice age," said Professor Tim Lenton, an Exeter University scientist who also researches AMOC. But bizarrely, summer temperatures would not be affected by the AMOC weakening, resulting in cold-hot extremes more common in continental weather systems. That's because the sea ice would still melt in summer, and the effect of the 2C of warming would kick in. "In extreme years, it would be like coming out of the freezer into a frying pan of summer heatwaves," added Prof Lenton. "It is hard to over-stress how different a climate this is. Adapting to it would be a monumental challenge." When could this happen? The impacts suggested in this study - published in peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters - are extreme and there remains a long list of questions. Scientists don't expect the AMOC to fizzle out this century. And if the world warmed by more like 4C, the warming effect would override the cooling effect of any AMOC collapse. But Prof Richard Allan from Reading University said it is still "important to test the ground for these unlikely but high impact possibilities, in the same way that we insure our homes against improbable calamity". Although scientists are undecided on whether the AMOC will die out, what they do agree on is that the complexity and weirdness of the climate system is why we should mess with it as little as possible. Prof Allen added: "Even the mere possibility of this dire storyline unfolding over coming centuries underscores the need to forensically monitor what is happening in our oceans, and to continue building momentum across all sectors of society to cut greenhouse gas emissions which are driving our climate into dangerous, uncharted territory."

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft travelled 15 degrees below the sun's solar equator to take the images in mid-March - with the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA revealing them to the world on Wednesday. It is only the second craft to have passed over the sun's poles - with the ESA and NASA's 1990-2009 Ulysses craft lacking the capacity to take any photos. Read moreCould Britain face a winter ice age?Will there be a hosepipe ban in the UK? "Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the sun's pole," ESA's director of science, Professor Carole Mundell, said. Describing it as a "new era of solar science", she added: "The sun is our nearest star, giver of life and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behaviour." 'Best is yet to come' According to the ESA, previous images of the sun have been taken from around its equator. This is because Earth, the other planets, and all other operational spacecraft orbit the Sun within a flat disc around the Sun called the ecliptic plane. However, by tilting its orbit out of this plane, Solar Orbiter has revealed the star from a whole new angle - and because the spacecraft is set to tilt even further "the best views are yet to come". The Solar Orbiter took off from Florida in 2020. Unlike Earth, which has fixed north and south poles, the sun's equivalents flip on an 11-year cycle. This is because its equator spins faster than its poles - every 26 days compared to every 33 days - meaning it does not rotate as a solid object, instead becoming so unstable it eventually flips. The sun is currently at what is referred to as "solar maximum", when the star is building up to the polar flip. During this period, its spots and solar flares are most active. In five or six years, the sun will reach its "solar minimum", when its magnetic activity is at its lowest. The images from Solar Orbiter's recent journey reveal a fragmented mosaic of north and south polarity at the sun's base. The spacecraft will continue its orbit around the sun until Christmas Eve 2026. Its next flight will see it fly past Venus in 2029.

Up to £750m has been put aside for the project, Rachel Reeves revealed as part of her spending review. The Conservatives, when in government, had previously pledged £800m for the project but in August, Labour scrapped the plans, claiming it was part of "unfunded commitments". "We are investing in Scotland's renewal, so working people are better off," said Ms Reeves on Wednesday. On Monday, one of the leading figures in AI, the chief executive of NVIDIA, told the prime minister the UK had all the ingredients to be a leader in AI except for the infrastructure. "You can't do machine learning without a machine. The ability to build AI supercomputers here in the UK will naturally attract more AI startups" and create a better ecosystem, said Jensen Huang at London Tech Week. The UK is the third-largest AI market in the world and if the technology is "fully embraced", it could bring £47bn to the economy every year, according to the government. This new computer, built at the University of Edinburgh, will "give scientists from across the UK the compute power they need," according to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It will be the most powerful in the UK and work alongside the AI research resource, which is a developing network of the UK's most powerful supercomputers. This "marks a pivotal step forward for the tech sector," Carolyn Dawson, the chief executive of Founders Forum Group and Tech Nation, told Sky News. "The UK's AI ecosystem is brimming with talent and ambition, but to truly compete on the world stage, we need robust, future-ready infrastructure," she said. "This investment in compute power is exactly what's required to accelerate innovation and secure a leading role for Britain in the global AI race." The resource has already been used to test millions of potential drugs virtually and speed up research into Alzheimer's vaccines and cancer treatments. "If all the forecasts are right, the demand for compute is going to grow exponentially over the next few years," Laura Citron, who leads London & Partners and works on bringing international companies to the capital, told Sky News before the announcement. "That's why it's so important that the government is investing very significantly in AI infrastructure, as well as really freeing up the planning regulations so we can get data centres built at speed." Read more from Sky News:'Trump's anti-migrant rhetoric boosting UK's tech industry'Musk says he 'regrets' some of his posts about TrumpNumber of Nintendo Switch 2s sold in four days revealed AI demands increasingly huge amounts of computational power because the models process vast amounts of data through billions of mathematical calculations. In order to complete those calculations quickly and accurately, powerful hardware is required, like this new supercomputer. On top of Wednesday's £750m pledge, the prime minister also announced £1bn funding on Monday to scale up the country's AI compute power by 20 times.