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What's up everyone? Happy Friday Eve.
Today is Thursday, September 4th. I'm
Koi Wire. This is CNN 10 and we've got
your 10 minutes to get you some of the
top news stories and some interesting
ones like a teacher who gets a tattoo of
classroom topics. We must learn more.
First up though, the official end of
summer is around the corner on the
autoutumnel equinox on September 22nd.
And this summer, 2025, is on track to be
the hottest on record. For some parts of
the United States, it was also the
rainiest. There was widespread flash
flooding in the Northeast and in Texas.
Parts of Iowa received three times more
rainfall than what is typical. Flooding
caused some major problems for
transportation systems in some of the
nation's largest cities. Why? Aging
subway stations were built during a time
with a much milder climate. CNN's Bill
Weir explores the problems and some
possible solutions that are already in
the works.
120 years ago, when New York subway was
new, few could have imagined it would
give over a billion rides a year.
Despite days like this, when air vents
become catchment basins and stairs turn
into waterfalls, when the London
Underground was new, chimneys still had
sweeps and England was 3° cooler. So
now, when temperatures 90 for days, 60%
of tomb cars have no air conditioning.
When they were first built, they didn't
necessarily have sufficient tunnel
ventilation to cope with air
conditioning. So, we've been using other
novel meth method such as fans and super
fans to reduce the heat.
And even this new subway in China shows
the perils of underengineering on an
overheating planet. When 8 in of rain
fell in an hour, 14 people died in a
subway line less than a decade old.
through climate change because the
warmer and hotter air can hold much more
moisture. We're just getting intense
rainfall events.
New York's antique system of pumps
removes up to 14 million gallons of
water on dry days and many times more
during a storm. But while better pumps
are part of the MTA's new $700 million
improvement plan, keeping water out in
the first place means raising hundreds
of little sections of the city. You'd
probably miss this if you weren't
actually looking out for it. Um, but
this is actually about a six inch, five
to six inches of an elevation.
So, it's not just a step, it's a flood.
It's a flood protection mechanism.
In one part of Brooklyn, riders take two
steps up before heading down. And
elevated air vents are spreading,
designed to stop those cascading
waterfalls so viral on social media.
This little elevation right here
prevents that from happening. and still
allows for fresh air flow um to happen
with subway vents just as it would be if
if they weren't covered.
But ultimately, a subway is only as
resilient as the city around it. So, a
hotter climate demands working with
nature to build shadier, spongier
cities.
Here we have four sections of permeable
pavers. And the idea is as the water is
coming downhill and going towards the
combined sewer, we're actually capturing
it again on site and holding it in
place.
So just instead of this being black top
asphalt, the water seeps in.
That's right. Between the pavers
at nearly 500 acres, Greenwood Cemetery
is one of New York's biggest green
spaces. with a weather station attached
here. It anticipates the amount of
rainfall that we're going to get,
releases water to the combined sewer
before it before the storm happens, and
then shuts off our access point.
And with the help of the Nature
Conservancy on a few upgrades, can now
keep 55 million gallons of storm water
out of streets and sewers.
And if you think about how many acres of
New York City alone are held within
cemeteries, if they're able to make
slight changes to the way they operate,
how much storm water could be captured
on those sites? It's just a different
way of thinking about private
institutions, private green spaces, and
trying to say despite being private and
despite having this fence around our
perimeter, we are part of this
community.
Calling all bookworms, how would you
like to have the opportunity to read for
18 straight days? That's exactly what an
ambitious squad of biblopiles in Nigeria
did as part of their bid to break a
world reading record. When the final
word was uttered, the team had already
read aloud for more than 431 hours,
finishing 79 books by Nigerian authors.
Guinness World Records is currently
reviewing the feat to make it official.
But the resolute reader novel attempt
dwarfed the current record of 365 hours.
The team says their goal was to not only
celebrate Nigerian literature, but to
promote literacy in Africa's most
populous country. An American astronaut
is sharing a stunning view from the
International Space Station this week. A
red aurora. This is video taken by Don
Pettit, who says he saw scenes like this
two or three times during his six-month
mission to the ISS. An aurora is caused
by the interaction of charged particles
from the sun when they collide with the
Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere.
Red auroras, however, are more rare than
green auroras because they are
associated with intense solar activity.
A powerful solar storm this week has
also made a stunning wave of auroras
more visible than usual to some of us
here on Earth. Parts of the lower
Midwest and Oregon getting a glimpse of
the northern lights. Did you see them?
Did you snag any photos or videos? If
so, send them to our CNN10 Instagram
account so we can share. Pop quiz hot
shot. The first issue of National
Geographic magazine was mainly filled
with what type of content? photographs,
maps and scholarly articles, travel
stories, or wildlife sketches.
X marks the spot. Maps and scholarly
articles were the publication's only
content more than 130 years ago,
dedicated to quote, the increase and
diffusion of geographical knowledge.
You've probably heard of Noah's Ark, the
biblical tale of a man loading every
animal two by two onto a ship to avoid a
flood. Well, this next story borrows
that concept for the sake of nature
photography. ANAT geo photographer has
spent the last 19 years trying to
document 25,000 animal species. And wo,
he's more than halfway there. Let's take
a look at his work. The goal the of the
photo arc is to get the public to care
about all the species that we share the
planet with. We're at more than 17,000
species now. I started with National
Geographic more than 30 years ago. And
then about 19 years ago, I had a chance
to reset and restart my career. My wife
got sick. She's fine today, but she was
uh in treatment for cancer for about a
year, and we had three little kids. So,
I stayed at home. And I thought, what
can I do that would allow us to see all
creatures, great and small, and really
look them in the eye, undistracted, give
them an equal voice by not having any
size comparisons around them. Uh, and so
that's how the photo art got started.
Most of the animals on the face of the
earth, you could fit in the palm of your
hands. And they're never going to get a
full story anywhere. So, this is their
their chance to shine and really tell
their stories. The photo arc doesn't
just exist to document it, but we give
lift to the good places that are doing
good work. I hope these pictures uh
continue to go to work long after we're
all dead and gone. You know, like just
to show people what it looked like and
hopefully the world doesn't look too
vastly different. I really hope the
legacy is to continue to inspire people
to care about nature and all that's in
it, but you know, will people be smart
enough to realize that our fate and the
fate of the natural world are the same?
[Applause]
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10 is
all about an incredible professor at the
University of Nebraska who wears his
love for pharmaceutical science on his
sleeve. For medical students in Dr.
Corey Hopkins class at the Center for
Drug Design and Innovation, Successfully
creating a new chemical compound can
earn them more than just an A on their
transcript. It can get them a permanent
spot on their teacher's arm. to make a
drug, you sometimes have to make five,
six thousand individual chemicals. As we
advance this, I think it's a good way to
um capture these at least small
milestones along the way. For more than
2 years, Hopkins has been tattooing the
chemical compounds on his arm to capture
his students achievements. And for the
students, the gesture became more
meaningful than expected.
Without him, it would have been so
difficult for me. I felt really proud
and honored honestly because like with
that it's something that I did in this
lab left a mark with him forever.
Well, that's one way to leave your mark
in science. All right, superstars. Shout
out time now. And this one goes to Miss
Todd and Miss Indie at the Mark Twain
Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia.
This stuff's incredible. You took a
field trip to the post office to send us
these letters. We thank you very much.
And from our YouTube channel, Mrs. Jamie
at the Fox Meadow School of Creative
Media in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Raiders
rise up. Have an awesome day everyone.
I'm Koi Wire and we are CNN 10.
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