The Brief

Countries have gathered at the annual climate change negotiations at the COP31 summit in Turkey to discuss how to achieve a goal that is increasingly unachievable. A decade ago, countries agreed to limit climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Now, that goal is out of reach.

Globally, average temperatures are already close to 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than they were before the Industrial Revolution. Heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels are still rising in the atmosphere, and most countries are not on track to meet their climate pledges to cut emissions by transitioning to cleaner energy.

The best-case scenario for the planet is now 1.7 or 1.8 degrees Celsius of warming (roughly 3 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a recent United Nations study. If fossil fuel emissions stay on their current path, the world would be around 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter by the end of the century.

While the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius may seem tiny, scientific research shows those increments can produce dramatically different outcomes for the planet. More warming raises the risk of extreme weather globally and could lead to the collapse of some of the planet's most sensitive ecosystems.

"The crucial point is that every fraction of a degree matters," says Tim Lenton, climate professor at the University of Exeter. "Every fraction of a degree that we avoid is really able to do a huge amount of limiting harm."

Coral reefs already close to the edge

Corals are architects of an entire ecosystem. As they grow, they create the framework that supports vast numbers of other species, making reefs biodiversity hotspots. They're also vital to hundreds of millions of people who depend on them for food and livelihoods.

Corals are also highly vulnerable to heat. Prolonged marine heat waves cause corals to bleach, turning them white, which can eventually kill corals. Since the late 1990s, there have been four global bleaching events. With a historically strong El Niño now raising water temperatures, scientists say the fifth global bleaching event is likely unfolding.

Even before the previous bleaching event from 2023 to 2025, researchers found that 44% of coral species globally are at risk of extinction.

"These are incredibly worrying statistics, but they also emphasize that time matters," says David Obura, director of the coral research organization CORDIO East Africa, who worked on the study published last month in the journal Nature. "Every ten years, every five years counts."

Given their susceptibility to heat, the survival of most coral reefs depends on the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that beyond 2 degrees Celsius of warming, 99% of corals would be lost.

"At 2 degrees of warming, we anticipate most corals just won't survive, not in functional ways to build a reef ecosystem," Obura says. "So you might still find some of the species, but many of them may be so rare or so compromised that they will have gone extinct by then."

With the dire forecasts for the future of coral, conservation groups and coastal communities are working to make reefs as healthy as possible in many areas so they can better withstand climate change. That includes restoring corals, reducing water pollution and even breeding more heat-tolerant corals.

"Most people around the world don't have the luxury of giving up on degraded ecosystems, because that's where they live," Obura says. "That's all they have. So we have to work out how to make them function again."

Millions more exposed to extreme heat

The goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is an average temperature, measured across the planet. What it masks is the increasingly extreme heat events that are raising the average.

Researchers have found that for every tenth of a degree of warming, an additional 140 million people are exposed to dangerous levels of heat.

Heat waves are already causing heavy death tolls, like in Europe, where an estimated 50,000 people died of heat-related causes this past summer. Heat is particularly dangerous for those with chronic health conditions, as well as for people who are elderly or pregnant. The real toll of heat waves is often hidden, since many heat-related deaths are undercounted.

"You could think of it a bit like a tipping point for the human organism or body," Lenton says. "At some point, our physiology kind of reaches a tipping point and the worst tipping point is death."

Powerful storms 

Every degree of climate change also affects the intensity of storms. Warmer air can produce heavier downpours because it holds 7% more water vapor for every degree. Rainstorms are already getting more intense in most of the U.S.

Scientific research also shows higher levels of warming could lead to other risky tipping points, like the collapse of Antarctic glaciers. If they destabilize, the melt would add vast volumes of water to the ocean, raising sea levels globally.

"We're never exactly sure where the tipping point is until we cross it, but we can be 100% confident that, for most of them, more warming is a bigger likelihood of crossing them," Lenton says. "Less warming is controlling that risk and that's why we should fight for every fraction of a degree that we can stave off."

At the ongoing climate negotiations in Turkey, countries are not expected to make major new commitments to cut climate emissions. Discussions are focusing on a new goal for electrification, meaning more cars and homes would run on electricity instead of fossil fuels. That would help reduce overall emissions, since a growing share of the world's electricity comes from cleaner sources, like solar and wind.

Copyright 2026 NPR

California will change its election recall process after voters approved Proposition 5, a ballot measure backed by Democrats who argued the process was too open to partisan exploitation.

The recall process will now take place in two parts: Voters will first decide in an election whether an official should be removed from office. If successful, they’ll vote again in a follow-up election on who should replace the recalled official. Under the previous system, voters were asked both questions at the same time.

About 52% of voters approved the measure and 48% were against it with about 91% of the vote counted Thursday, 9 days after Election Day.

Democratic lawmakers placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2024, arguing the current system leads to unnecessary state expense, confuses voters, and can lead to ‘undemocratic’ outcomes, since the winner does not need a majority to win.

Republicans used the recall process in recent years to challenge Democratic politicians. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who survived his own attempted recall in 2021, endorsed the ballot measure to change the rules.

Voters in Democratic enclaves such as San Francisco, Alameda and Los Angeles counties passed the measure by a wide margin. More rural, Northern California counties like El Dorado and Shasta favored keeping the current system.

The origins of Prop. 5

Democratic lawmakers and Secretary of State Shirley Weber began advocating for changes in the aftermath of the failed recall of Newsom in 2021. The recall effort cost taxpayers about $200 million and the campaigns on both sides spent another $100 million. Newsom walked away unscathed, with 62% of voters electing to keep him in office.

The measure got on the ballot after lawmakers passed Senate Constitutional Amendment 1 in 2024. Democratic Sen. Josh Newman, who was recalled himself in 2018, carried the proposal in the Legislature.

Republican lawmakers voted against it, arguing the reform was not needed, would dilute the power of voters and lead to additional special election costs because of the need to hold two elections.

Unlike some of the tax measures on the ballot that spurred multimillion-dollar spending sprees, no group spent any money on the effort.

Although recalls are often initiated, they rarely make it to voters. Only 11 recalls have made it to the ballot in California since 1913, and only six have been approved by voters. The current recall process is how Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came into power, replacing Gray Davis in 2003.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Mauricio Pochettino, who took over an ailing U.S. men's national soccer team in 2024 and led the squad to a Round of 16 finish in the 2026 World Cup, is departing to take over as coach of famed Manchester United.

Pochettino was the highest-profile manager the U.S. had ever hired. His aggressive attacking style of play won praise from his players and fans alike. At the 2026 World Cup, the USMNT finished first in its group and won its first knockout-round game since 2002. Pochettino's three wins were the most at any World Cup by a USMNT coach.

As a player, he represented Argentina in the 2002 World Cup and played in soccer leagues in Spain and France. As a coach, he managed some of Europe's most recognizable clubs: Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. Last August, he signed an extension to lead the USMNT through the 2030 World Cup, giving him a full four-year cycle to build the team into a true contender.

Pochettino will lead the U.S. for two more games — against Haiti in the coming days — before departing for Manchester United.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Microsoft said progress is being made in bringing its popular workplace software back online as a global outage enters its second day, disrupting business communications, police crime reporting, court operations, AI tools and many other services.

The outage, which affected a wide range of Microsoft 365 services including Outlook, Teams and AI assistant Copilot, left people, institutions and businesses across the world without access to email and other platforms.

Microsoft said it was making headway as it tried to restore services Friday.

“We’re seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure,” the company said, as some users started reporting that their emails were restored.

The company reported “broader improvements” in North America and “sustained improvements across much of Europe,” as well as “encouraging recovery signals” in the Asia-Pacific region.

Users may have “intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as mitigation progresses across the remaining affected infrastructure,” Microsoft said.

The total number of people affected is not clear, but the company said in January that it had more than 450 million paid Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions.

Microsoft scrambles to recover services

In its latest status update, Microsoft reported that it was continuing to see improvements in service with “email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels.”

The Redmond, Washington, company first flagged technical issues just before 1 p.m. Eastern time Thursday.

So far, there is no indication that the outage was caused by malicious activity, the company said.

Microsoft engineers struggled to bring systems online early. “Our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief,” the company wrote as part of a series of 22 posts on X.

By Friday morning there were signs that the situation was stabilizing.

“Some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues,” it said in its latest post.

Europe woke up to disruptions

In Britain, the outage brought a halt to a trial in Manchester. Judge Maurice Greene sent jurors home because of delays that he said illustrated the danger of the court’s reliance on technology.

The British government said it is “working closely” with Microsoft to assess any impact on public services but that “robust contingency plans” are in place to minimize disruption.

British police forces said they’re unable to receive crime reports online and are urging people to phone in urgent requests.

The National Pharmacy Association said people could face delays getting their prescriptions because the outage is affecting the email systems of the state-run National Health Service.

In Norway, the government said the outage affected several ministries and had not received any indication about when the problem would be resolved.

Greece’s Minister of Digital Governance Dimitrios Papastergiou said government ministries using Outlook, Teams and Copilot were affected but not to the degree that would significantly hamper their work.

Asian businesses and governments were affected

In Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Friday that Microsoft had likened the disruption to the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, which stemmed from a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows. That outage grounded flights and disrupted hospitals, banks and retailers.

Burke said he had spoken to Microsoft’s top executive in Australia and the government’s national cybersecurity coordinator about the disruption.

“They (Microsoft) don’t believe they are dealing with a cyberattack. They believe that they are dealing in some ways (with something) similar to what we saw with respect to CrowdStrike where there is an update that has gone awry,” Burke told reporters in Sydney.

Hong Kong businessperson Danny Lau, who runs an aluminum firm, said his company couldn’t receive updates from its U.S. customers through Outlook. If the situation dragged on further, this could “impact the production timeline,” he said. Some banks in Hong Kong, an Asian financial hub, also saw some operations disrupted.

Air India and IndiGo said their flight operations were unaffected. IndiGo reported email support services were disrupted, affecting its ability to receive customer queries.

Air India temporarily rerouted its email services so customer queries could get through without interruption, the company said in a statement.

The Singapore government said emails were down and that the agency is working with Microsoft to resolve the issue. The Philippines’ Supreme Court said some operations were affected, including email responses.

In Japan, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said the government’s IT infrastructure was affected and that officials were “keeping a close eye on the developments.” Japanese authorities had taken steps including securing alternative communication tools such as telephones, the government said.

U.S.-based industrial technology company Workhorse Group Inc. delayed a quarterly earnings call.

OpenAI and Anthropic reported problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools, underscoring the ripple effects as more people use artificial intelligence platforms to interact with other companies’ software.

The widespread disruptions highlight dependence on a single tech company

The widespread impact highlights how reliance on one company and its suite of services can be crippling during such an outage, experts and officials said.

Papastergiou in Greece said government ministries using Outlook, Teams and Copilot were affected.

He told private Skai television that underscores how countries should develop technological alternatives for services considered crucial for the smooth operation of government.

Florian Druckenthaner, a spokesperson for Germany’s digitization ministry, said the government’s IT security agency believes German business was widely affected, but there were no reports of major disruption at government level.

He said that the federal government doesn’t use Microsoft in the cloud, and that the federal administration also uses an email client that was stable.

Regardless of the cause, Druckenthaner said, the incident shows “the significance of building up redundancies and alternatives – we are working on that.”

“With no emails coming or going, many office workers feel like they are having a virtual snow day,” said Jeremy Singer, a professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science.

“This problem serves to emphasize the dependence we have built on one company’s digital infrastructure, and may lead us to question whether we need more resilience in our IT ecosystem.”

Governments and institutions in Western Europe have been trying to reduce their reliance on services provided by a few big U.S. tech services in their continuing push for “digital sovereignty.”

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AP journalists Adam Schreck in Bangkok, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi, Mayuko Ono in Tokyo, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Menalaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, and Pan Pylas and Brian Melley in London contributed.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Thursday that he will run for Senate Majority Leader in the next Congress, setting up a challenge to Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer after the party swept to power in the midterm elections.

Van Hollen said in a statement that “the American people called for change” and that is why he is running.

“It’s now on us to meet this moment, and to do that we need new leadership,” Van Hollen said. “This is not about any one person — it’s about answering the call of the American people. That is why I’m running for Senate Majority Leader.”

Van Hollen’s challenge comes after he said he was considering a bid and after Schumer has said he has the necessary support to win. The closed-door, secret-ballot election will be held in early December.

The race will be the first contested election for Democratic leader in decades. The question of whether to reelect Schumer has already divided the caucus and many senators will not say publicly how they will vote. They have privately deliberated about what message to take from the election, and Schumer recruited many of the party’s winning candidates and raised money for them.

Schumer has been talking to Democratic senators since the election about forming an agenda for 2027.

“I’m going to win it,” Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview last week.