Science and climate news today is shaped by warning signs, both earthly and cosmic. In Japan, rescuers are still searching through quake-hit Kumamoto as the death toll from this week’s powerful earthquake climbs to 34, with thousands displaced and hopes fading for more survivors. At the global level, UN chief António Guterres says a strengthening El Niño is likely to intensify heat, floods, drought and other extremes, warning it could drive temperatures to new records on a planet already under severe climate stress. Beyond Earth, attention has turned to a discarded SpaceX rocket stage now projected to slam into the Moon at high speed, a striking reminder that the debris problem extends well past low-Earth orbit. Together, the day’s developments underscore a common theme: the growing challenge of managing risk in a world—and increasingly, a near-space environment—under mounting pressure.