The Brief

After decades of planning and years of construction, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is officially open in Exposition Park.

The center is space shuttle Endeavour’s new permanent home and a 200,000-square-foot expansion of the California Science Center. The multi-level galleries feature 100 artifacts and 100 new hands-on exhibits for visitors to explore.

Endeavour is the star of the show in the shuttle gallery, towering 20 stories tall in its vertical launch position. It’s the world’s only display of an authentic space shuttle system, according to museum officials.

The California Science Center has free general admission. The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is also free to visit, except for a $4 online reservation service fee for those who aren’t members of the museum.

Here’s what you need to know.

How do I get there?

The California Science Center is located at 700 Exposition Park Drive. Keep an eye out for the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center’s shiny silver building poking into the sky.

Parking for cars and school buses is $20 until 5 p.m. and $24 after 5 p.m. Parking for charter buses, limousines, RVs and other larger vehicles is $42.

For public transportation, you can take the Metro E Line to the Expo Park/USC Station.

You can learn more and find directions here.

How do I get in?

There are timed reservations for the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center because of expected high demand. You can find all the details and learn more here.

You’ll enter through the second floor of the California Science Center, to the right of the escalators if you’re facing forward and across from the Ecosystems exhibit.

There is no time limit once you’re inside. The California Science Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Hundreds of students were the first visitors officially welcomed into the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

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What do I need to know once I get inside?

Restrooms are on every level of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, and a food court is on the first floor of the California Science Center.

If you need a baby changing room, it's located in the gender-neutral/family restrooms.

Where can I find merch?

You can exit the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center through a gift shop. There’s also the Explorastore toward the entrance of the building.

California Science Center’s expansion for space shuttle Endeavour to open this fall

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What are some must-see stops?

It’s tempting to run straight for the space shuttle, but there are tons of other exhibits and artifacts to see along the way.

After taking a glass elevator up the side of the space shuttle, you can look over the gallery and Endeavour from a glass-floor platform.

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Courtesy ZGF Architects

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Endeavour spans about 20 stories tall.

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Walter Cho, chairman of Korean Air, celebrated the first aircraft installed in the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, including the front of a real Boeing 747-400 that was built for the airline in 1993.

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Three thematic areas in the Kent Kresa Space Gallery include humans in space, robots in space and Rocket Science, according to the museum.

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The trio of galleries span four floors, covering 100,000 square feet of exhibit space, according to the museum.

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In the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, you can walk through the front 70 feet of a Boeing 747 where you’ll be able to take a five-minute video “flight” from Los Angeles to Seoul, according to the museum.

In the Kent Kresa Space Gallery, you can program the path of a miniature rover on Mars and build your own robotic spacecraft for a mission. There are also artifacts on display that are on loan from the Smithsonian, including flown capsules from NASA’s Mercury and Gemini projects.

Last but not least, in the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, lies Endeavour. You can see the space shuttle from multiple levels, including underneath the main engines and from a glass-floor platform that takes you above the entire gallery. There’s also a pair of silver slides that fly down 45 feet to represent the shuttle’s descent and landing.

Go deeper

• California Science Center visitors will see space shuttle Endeavour in launch position this fall
• Endeavour’s new home is more than halfway done. Here’s a first look at the exhibits
• Another Major Milestone For The Space Shuttle Endeavour’s 'Go For Stack' Mission Is Here
• The Final Lift For Space Shuttle Endeavour’s 'Go For Stack' Mission

Google is a big part of the school day for millions of students. It's not only a search engine. It's a hub for sharing documents and turning in homework.

An announcement this month makes it clear: Google wants AI to be a part of that education ecosystem.

Many parents do not.

"Parents are angry," said Jodi Carreon, a mom in Southern California. "They're very angry."

When Carreon, who also runs the advocacy group Schools Beyond Screens, first read that Google was letting schools turn off AI features for students, she was excited. Her group is part of the parent-led movement demanding limits on technology in the classroom.

But even as districts including Los Angeles Unified, Seattle Public Schools and New York City Public Schools recently agreed to bans on AI in the classroom, Google did not. If schools don't want AI Overviews to appear when students use its flagship Search tool, the company said, they will lose access to Google Search altogether. Even advocates who want less tech in schools know losing the ability to "Google" something will be an issue for teachers.

In a post on X, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Google is using "its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools," and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote to Google's CEO demanding the company reverse its policy.

A baffling move

Tracy Pizzo worked at Google for more than a decade before leaving the company in 2022. Much of her time at the company was focused on education and ethical AI standards. Google's move this month baffled her, especially coming at a time when young people's use of AI is under such scrutiny.

She has a theory about why the tech giant is taking this stance: It could be linked to two recent court cases Google fended off in D.C.

Google was sued by big online publishers who said adding AI overview to search negatively affected their business. The publishers sued under antitrust laws, and their argument hinged on convincing the court that AI Overviews was a separate product from Google Search.

"The judge decided that Search and AI are an integrated product," Pizzo said, and subsequently dismissed the cases. "Now if Google were to provide an off switch for schools only … that's evidence that they can be separated. And that undermines the win they just had in court."

When asked for comment, Google directed NPR to its original announcement, where the company said, "Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit." The company did not respond to additional questions by NPR about any connection between its announcement and recent antitrust cases.

NPR asked antitrust experts about this theory. They weren't entirely convinced, but also didn't dismiss it altogether.

The "AI or nothing" approach

In any case, Google's AI Overviews doesn't get high marks from some watchdogs.

Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that evaluates how teens interact with technology, recently gave the product an "unacceptable risk" rating. Among other things, Common Sense dinged the tool for unsafe content and citing false information.

The day after the announcement, Google came under fire for another AI product in schools. Parents in North Carolina sued the company after Google's chatbot, Gemini, helped their 13-year-old daughter plan her suicide and funeral on her school-issued Chromebook.

Even some of Google's longtime partners are surprised by the company's current position, including superintendent Hank Thiele in Illinois.

"It may have caused a lot of damage in the trust that Google has built in education," he said.

Thiele has worked with Google Classroom for almost two decades and says the company has always been a great partner. His district, made up entirely of high school students, is in the process of figuring out AI for its students. As an early adopter of tech in the classroom, he wants to be on top of it with AI.

He said he thinks the company will listen to people's feedback but they bungled the messaging.

"Google should have just plainly said, 'Our bad,'" Thiele said. "That would have been the appropriate response to a school."

The "AI or nothing" approach, as Thiele put it, did not land well.

Edited by Nirvi Shah and Nicole Cohen

Google is a financial supporter of NPR.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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