8 Good Things You Probably Missed, Like a Tunnel That Cut Sewage in the Thames by 86%

London’s Thames Tideway Tunnel, a 25-kilometer, or 16-mile, sewer under the river, now catches storm sewage that used to pour straight into the Thames. Its first annual report, published on Oct. 13, 2026, estimates that overflows into the tidal Thames fell about 86% in 2025, from more than 21 million cubic meters a year to just under 3 million.

The tunnel also kept about 84 tonnes of wet wipes and other sewage litter out of the river. Days with a health risk for swimmers and rowers fell from about three in four to one in ten.

Across California, nearly 1,300 cameras run by ALERTCalifornia, a UC San Diego program, watch the hills for smoke. At each site, one camera spins 360 degrees every two minutes, and fire officials can aim and zoom another. Since 2023, artificial intelligence has scanned the footage as it comes in.

This summer, 51% of California wildfires were first spotted through AI, and that share is growing quickly, the program’s lead scientist told The New York Times in October 2026. The sooner a fire is seen, the sooner crews can reach it.

By mid-August, with more than two months of the nesting season still to run, loggerhead sea turtles had already made 13,770 nests along the 8.5-mile stretch of shore watched by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast. That is hundreds more than in any previous year.

On Sanibel Island, on the Gulf coast, loggerheads laid 922 nests, beating the 2023 record of 878. The Guardian, which reported the numbers, says they reflect the turtles’ slow comeback since the 1970s.

Since July 1, 2026, every passenger has ridden free on Ho Chi Minh City’s 134 subsidized bus routes, and the program runs through Dec. 31. By Aug. 12, the free buses had carried about 12 million trips, some 44% more than a year earlier.

On one Wednesday alone, more than 306,000 people rode, up nearly 55%. Since Oct. 1, riders tap a card to record each trip, but no money is taken.

On Oct. 5, the Australian state of Victoria officially opened three new national parks in its central west: Wombat-Lerderderg (44,000 hectares), Pyrenees (15,000 hectares) and Mount Buangor (more than 5,300 hectares). Together that is about 158,000 acres.

The package puts more than 78,000 hectares of public land in the care of Parks Victoria and adds five new regional parks. Bushwalking, camping, fishing and dog walking stay allowed in designated areas.

The nonprofit Trust for Public Land says it is helping turn 420 schoolyards in 26 states from bare blacktop into green spaces with trees, gardens and running tracks that stay open to neighbors after school. Students survey their classmates and then work with landscape architects on the designs. “The users are the designers,” one program director said.

At one school in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, the yard was bare asphalt 11 years ago. Now it has a tree canopy, a turf field and painted sea turtles, the Hechinger Report wrote in August.

In Berlin, about 12,000 registered volunteers use a free map called Gieß den Kiez, or “water your neighborhood,” to look after the street trees outside their homes. The map tracks more than 900,000 trees and works out each one’s water needs from its age, species and recent rain; trees in critical need are marked in color, along with the nearest public water pump.

One volunteer carries about 20 liters a week to the young linden by her door. She named it Linda. The Guardian wrote about the project in October.

On Oct. 1, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation bought 650 acres on Lake Palestine, in East Texas’ Henderson County, for more than $10 million so the land can become a state park. The Pollard family has owned it since 1940 as part of their pecan business: pine forest, a pecan orchard, about 10 ponds and roughly 2,000 feet of lakefront.

“This land is part of my soul,” Sam Pollard said. “It means a lot to me that we can leave a legacy for people to enjoy.” The state expects to take it over around late 2027, and visitors will have to wait a few years.