10 things you need to know today: November 2, 2014

1. U.N. report warns of 'irreversible' impacts of climate change

A failure to swiftly rein in greenhouse gas emissions will send the planet hurtling toward "severe, pervasive and irreversible" consequences, according to a new United Nations report. Adopted Saturday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 175-page report is the fifth and final document to emerge from the group since 1990. It warns in the starkest terms yet that humans are causing climate change, and that the ramifications are no longer theoretical but are already being felt in the form of warming oceans and extreme weather patterns. "Science has spoken," U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon said Sunday in announcing the report. "Time is not on our side."

The New York Times The Washington Post

2. Ukrainian separatists hold disputed elections

Voters in eastern Ukraine head to the polls Sunday to cast ballots in elections the West considers illegitimate. Pro-Russian separatists have organized the votes to choose new leaders in the rebel-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk. The U.S. and its European allies have said they will not recognize the outcome of the elections, which the government in Kiev called a "power grab."

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3. SpaceShipTwo crash investigation could take a year

Virgin Galactic on Saturday identified 39-year-old Michael Alsbury as the pilot who died Friday when SpaceShipTwo broke apart during a test flight and crashed in the Mojave Desert. Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board said its investigation into the crash could take a full year to complete. "We are determined to find out what went wrong," Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said at a Saturday press conference.

USA Today BBC

4. Protesters reject army takeover in Burkina Faso

Thousands of people gathered in Burkina Faso's capital on Sunday to protest what they called a military coup. The army on Saturday backed Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, a former presidential guard, to lead a transition of power after President Blaise Compaore resigned Friday following days of protests. "The victory born from this popular uprising belongs to the people, and the task of managing the transition falls by right to the people," the opposition said in a statement.

Bloomberg BBC

5. Republicans on top in key Senate races

With two days to go before the midterms, a wave of new polls over the weekend found Republican candidates leading and in some cases pulling away in key Senate races. Three NBC News/Marist polls put Republicans on top in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana; a PPP survey gave Republican Tom Cotton a cushy eight-point lead in Arkansas; and a Des Moines Register survey gave GOPer Joni Ernst a seven-point edge in what had previously been a close race in Iowa. "Polls are clearer now that the GOP will probably win the Senate," election forecaster Nate Silver said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

NBC

6. Egypt jails eight for allegedly attending gay wedding

An Egyptian judge has sentenced eight men to three years in prison for "inciting debauchery" by appearing in a video of an alleged same-sex wedding. Prosecutors claimed the video, which went viral after being posted to YouTube, showed the nation's first gay wedding, and that the footage was "humiliating, regrettable and would anger God." Same-sex marriage is not legal in Egypt, but since homosexuality itself is not outlawed, the men were charged with spreading images that "violated public decency."

Al Jazeera

7. ISIS executes 50 Iraqi tribesmen

ISIS militants on Sunday lined up and executed 50 members of the Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe, including six women and four children, in Iraq's Anbar province. The slaughter came days after ISIS extremists murdered another 50 tribe members in the same fashion. ISIS has now executed more than 300 members of the tribe in recent days as part of a mass killing campaign.

The Associated Press Reuters

8. Roughly 45 dead in Pakistan bombing

A bombing on Sunday killed nearly 45 people near a paramilitary checkpoint along Pakistan's border with India. A local police chief said more than 70 people were also wounded in the attack, and that the death toll would likely rise because some of the wounded were in critical condition. No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack.

The Associated Press

9. Bangladesh hit with nationwide blackout

Electricity was back on Sunday for most of Bangladesh after a transmission line failure one day prior knocked out power across the entire country. Officials said a "technical glitch" in a high-voltage line carrying electricity from India caused power plants and substations in the country to go dark. It was the worst blackout in the country since a cyclone in 2007 knocked out the national grid for a few hours.

The Associated Press

10. Iran jails woman for attending volleyball game

Iran has sentenced a British-Iranian woman to one year in prison after she tried to watch a men's volleyball game. The court found 25-year-old Ghoncheh Ghavami guilty of spreading "propaganda against the regime" after she tried to attend a match between Iran and Italy in Tehran's Freedom Stadium in June. Women are prohibited from attending male-only sporting events in Iran, and Ghavami was tying to enter the venue with other women to protest the ban.

CBS The Guardian