Briefly

UNITED STATES

Microsoft to buy gaming giant for $70b

Microsoft is paying the enormous sum of nearly $70 billion for Activision Blizzard, the maker of Candy Crush and Call of Duty, a deal that would immediately make it a larger video game company than Nintendo while raising questions about the deal's possible anti-competitive effects. The all-cash $68.7 billion deal will turn Microsoft, maker of the Xbox gaming system, into one of the world's largest video game companies. It will also help it compete with tech rivals such as Meta, formerly Facebook, in creating immersive virtual worlds for both work and play. If the deal survives scrutiny from US and European regulators in the coming months, it could be one of the biggest tech acquisitions in history. Dell bought data storage company EMC in 2016 for around $60 billion.

SPAIN

Nursing home blaze claims at least 6 lives

Six residents of a nursing home in eastern Spain perished after a fire broke out in the night, authorities said on Wednesday. Valencia's regional head, Ximo Puig, said that 17 more residents were hospitalized, with three in serious condition. Firefighters said that they rescued 25 residents out of a total of 70 that were evacuated from the building in the municipality of Moncada just north of Valencia. Puig said that Spain's Civil Guard police force were investigating the cause of the fire, but that investigators believe it could have been caused by a short circuit in a mechanism linked to an oxygen tank.

Agencies - Xinhua