Pope spends another ‘quiet night’ resting after Vatican gives medical updates
Alberto Pizzoli via Getty Images
(ROME) — The pope spent another ‘quiet night’ in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been recovering from a bout with bronchitis since Feb. 14, the Vatican said early Wednesday.
Pope Francis’ condition remains “critical but stable,” Vatican officials said in a brief update on Tuesday.
“There have been no acute respiratory episodes and hemodynamic parameters continue to be stable. In the evening, he underwent a scheduled CT scan for radiological monitoring of the bilateral pneumonia. The prognosis remains uncertain,” the Vatican said Tuesday.
Vatican officials said Sunday he remained in critical condition but officials said that he had shown a “slight improvement” on Monday.
Further updates on the pontiff’s condition are expected on Wednesday.
(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.
The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.
That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.
The US just experienced its warmest autumn on record
Another season, another climate milestone. According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), persistent above-average to record-warm conditions across much of the United States made meteorological autumn, which lasts from September to November, the warmest ever recorded.
The record-warm fall season makes it more likely that 2024 will end up as one of the nation’s warmest, if not the warmest, years on record. As of November 2024, the contiguous U.S. year-to-date temperature was 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Despite December’s chilly start for much of the country, with widespread below-average temperatures in many regions, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says that the cold will ease during the second half of the month with above-average temperatures favored from the West to the Northeast.
The stretch of abnormally warm temperatures was accompanied by extremely dry weather across much of the country, fueling dangerous wildfire conditions in regions like the Northeast. A very dry start to the season brought drought conditions to more than half of the lower 48 states by late October.
Fortunately, several significant rainfall events in November brought notable drought relief to large swaths of the country, reducing overall drought coverage by nearly 10.5% and suppressing the wildfire danger.
-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck
Nearly one-third of the planet’s species risk extinction because of climate change
Nearly one-third of the world’s species could be at risk for extinction because of climate change if the world does nothing to reduce global warming, according to a new analysis from Science.
University of Connecticut researcher and biologist Mark Urban found that while some species are adapting to climate change, 160,000 species are already at risk. Many are now facing declining populations because of changes in our climate.
According to the study, with current global temperatures at 1.3 degrees Celsius above industrial levels, 1.6% of species are projected to become extinct. As the temperatures warm even more, Urban found the extinction rate would also increase, with the most severe scenario included (5.4 degrees Celsius of warming) putting the extinction risk at 29.7%.
“The increased certainty of predicted climate change extinctions compels action,” Urban wrote. “Extinction represents just the final endpoint of a species’ existence; even when extinction is avoided, declining abundances and shrinking ranges can strongly affect many other species, including humans.”
Urban defines the risk of extinction as the probability that any one species will go extinct without mitigation efforts. Urban found that extinction rates could increase dramatically if global temperatures rise over 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to industrial levels.
1.5 degrees Celsius is the warming limit set by the world’s nations under the Paris Agreement after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that crossing that benchmark would lead to more severe climate change impacts.
Risks varied across geographic areas in the study, with Australia/New Zealand and South America facing the highest risks (15.7% and 12.8%, respectively) and Asia facing lower risks (5.5%).
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Kelly Livingston
Antarctic sea ice hits new low during Earth’s 2nd warmest November on record
Imagine you have a swimming pool with ice cubes filling it. Now, measure the total area of the pool that has ice on the surface, even if the ice cubes don’t cover it completely. Because ice often spreads out unevenly, leaving water between the chunks, scientists count areas where at least 15% of the surface is covered. So, because your pool is loaded with ice cubes, it would be considered ice covered. In the real world, scientists call it sea ice extent.
While you can add ice to your pool, you can’t to the ocean. And according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service, the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has dipped to its lowest value on record for the month of November. It is 10% below average. This occurred during a stretch of near-record global land and sea surface temperatures.
Last month ranked as the second warmest November on record globally, with an average temperature of 14.10 degrees Celsius, or 57.38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Copernicus noted the new data not only makes it virtually certain that 2024 will surpass 2023 as Earth’s warmest year on record, but it will likely be the first year to be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
As of November 2024, the average global year-to-date temperature was 0.14 degrees Celsius (or 0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than it was in 2023, which is the warmest year ever recorded.
(SANTIAGO, CHILE) — Three luxury watches, including a Rolex worth about $9,000, that were stolen from actor Keanu Reeves’ Los Angeles home have been discovered in Chile, police confirmed to ABC News.
Authorities in Chile said a man was arrested in Santiago on Saturday in connection with the robbery, and that his arrest was part of a larger, local operation.
The unnamed suspect is currently in custody, police said.
One of the three watches discovered was a Rolex Submariner that had the “John Wick” star’s name engraved on it.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed in Dec. 2023 to ABC News’ Los Angeles station that a group of burglars were at large after breaking into Reeves’ house in Hollywood Hills.
It was unclear at the time whether any property was stolen, and it was not immediately clear whether the stolen property recovered in Chile was related to that break-in.
The break-in was reported by a caller who reported observing four suspects who were also recorded by a surveillance camera entering the home through a window at the rear of the hillside residence, an LAPD spokesperson said at the time.
(LONDON) — Hamas will release six more hostages on Saturday and the bodies of four deceased hostages on Thursday, Hamas and Israel confirmed.
Four more dead hostages are expected to be released next week in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, according to Israeli officials.
The hostages who will be released on Saturday have been identified as Eliya Cohen, 27; Tal Shoham, 40; Omer Shem Tov, 22; Omer Wenkrat, 23; Hisham Al-Sayed, 36; and Avera Mengistu, 39, according to Israeli officials and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum
Hamas accused Israel of procrastinating and evading engaging in the negotiations of the second phase and said it is ready to engage in negotiations to implement the terms of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement.
Last week, Hamas threatened to not release hostages over the weekend, saying Israel was not holding up its end of the ceasefire by delaying the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, targeting them with gunfire and slowing down aid and said the hostage-prisoner exchange would be postponed.
Hamas later said the exchange will take place as planned and released three hostages on Saturday. The three hostages freed from captivity were U.S. national Sagui Dekel Chen, Iair Horn and Sasha Troufanov.
In exchange for Hamas releasing three more Israeli hostages, Israel freed another 369 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, most of whom were arrested in the Gaza Strip after the terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
President Donald Trump had issued a deadline last week, telling Hamas to release all remaining hostages by Saturday or he would leave it up to Israel to decide whether to violate the ceasefire and continue fighting.
