Kid News This Week: Olympics 2024 wrap with fab factoids, New Zealand’s rat race, Taylor’s Vienna concert threat, monster walls scare NC girl
Yes, we’re back. Our summer travels are over – five countries in two months (we love this wacky world of ours!) and we’re back in the news pool! First up, yes, it might have been a week ago (or, uhhh, a little more – sorry we also got sick last week, further delaying us), but we give you the highlights of the wonderous 2024 Olympics – the highs, the lows and many little fabulous factoids we bet you didn’t even know. Also, New Zealand races to make the WHOLE country rodent-free. But just why might surprise you. In entertainment news, the world’s biggest pop star is under threat – well, her concerts were. We’ll tell you more about the latest Taylor Swift concert saga. And the spooky story of a little girl who was afraid of the dark – because of the monsters in her room. She wasn’t all wrong either… You gotta listen to the whole episode to get the buzz on this crazy story and more!
EPISODE – 182
LEELA: Yes, we’re back! With an Olympics 2024 wrap, New Zealand’s rat race, Taylor’s concert threat and the girl who was justifiably afraid of the dark.
OPENING STING – LEELA: “Hey, hey, hey. Listen up. New, new, newsy – Newsy Pooloozi!”
THEME MUSIC
LEELA: Hello all you Newsies! Our summer travels are over…
We hope you all had a wonderful summer vacation! We sure did.
MAMA: Yes, we did. And then we got sick. Last week. So, we’re a tad bit late…
LEELA: But better late than never!
MAMA: Yes!
LEELA: This week… yes it might have been a week ago or uhhh, a little more but we give you the highlights of the wonderous 2024 Olympics – the highs, the lows and many fabulous factoids we bet you didn’t even know!
Also, New Zealand races to make the whole country rodent-free. But just why might surprise you.
In entertainment news, the world’s biggest pop star is under threat – well, her concerts were. We’ll tell you more about the latest Taylor Swift concert saga.
And the drama of a little girl who was afraid of the dark – because of the monsters in her room. She wasn’t all wrong either… You gotta listen to the end to get the buzz on this crazy story.
MUSIC UP
LEELA: Alrighty then, let’s dive on in. First up, it’s the…
BIG NEWS STORY STING – VARIOUS VOICES: “The big news story of the week!”
MAMA: So, what a whirlwind summer we had!
LEELA: I know – five countries in less than two months.
MAMA: Yes, but sadly France was not on that list…
LEELA: But, still, we did manage to watch some of the Summer Olympics in Paris. And in a word: wow!!
MAMA: I know, right? What an amazing display of athleticism and heroism from so many young people that participated in the Games.
LEELA: And that’s saying nothing of the City of Lights – as Paris is nicknamed.
MAMA: Why, thank you for that fabulous fact.
LEELA: My pleasure! Yes, Paris was also a “star” this summer as host to more than 10,000 athletes and more than 11 million visitors.
MAMA: And in a world where war and suffering often dominate the headlines, I think two weeks of Olympic good feelings and friendly competition were a welcome distraction for a lot of us.
LEELA: You could say that again!
MAMA: In a world where war and suffering often –
LEELA: Ahhem! It was a figure of speech, mother. And I think you know that.
MAMA: Yes, but how could I resist…
LEELA: Yes… So, not surprisingly, the US dominated the Games again – with their athletes taking home 126 medals.
MAMA: But it was China close on their heals with 91 medals in total. Usually, it’s Russia up there too, but the team was banned because of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
LEELA: Though their athletes could compete as neutral, individuals – otherwise known as AIN: Athlete Individual Neuter. But the medals don’t count for their country.
MAMA: That’s right. Well, for more on the 2024 Olympics, let’s head to Paris and hear from our French correspondent, Maya Neuquelman.
LEELA: Yep, I’m dying to know if those nasty bedbugs Paris was so worried about, you know, rearing their little heads and sucking everyone’s blood actually happened…
MAMA: That would be well we reported on in Episode 162, if anyone who wants to hear more on that. So, Maya, over to you!
MAYA: Thanks, you guys! Yes, it’s certainly been busy the past few weeks here in Paris!
These Olympics represented a “year of firsts” – as in a lot of unusual things happened here.
First of all, the opening ceremony was staged on our beautiful River Seine…
This is the only time it’s ever been staged outside of a stadium.
And in terms of sports, two new sports were added to the Games:
VOICE OF COMMENTATOR: Introducing… breaking (or “break dancing,” otherwise known break dancing to the oldies!) and kayak cross – which is really kayak racing. And that’s not all…
MAYA: Surfing, skateboarding and climbing – which started at the Tokyo Olympics four years ago – were brought back too, which is super cool.
As for my home team, I’m very proud of all the athletes from France – we took home 64 medals!
And as for the bedbugs… I’m happy to report the war waged on those nasty, little blood-suckers months ago… paid off and there’ve been very few complaints.
Phew!
In Paris, I’m Maya Neuquelman, reporting for Newsy Pooloozi!
LEELA: Thanks Maya! What a massive event, eh?
MAMA: A spectacle indeed! And you certainly can´t have an event the size and scope of the Olympics without some kind of controversy getting stirred up too.
LEELA: And there were a few… starting with that lovely opening ceremony on the river Seine that Maya mentioned.
MAMA: Yes! At one point a row of dancing drag queens were staged along a catwalk runway. Critics said that scene was a distasteful rendition of Leonardo Davinci’s famous painting, “The Last Supper.” But event organizers say it wasn’t meant to be that at all. If anything, they say, they were going for a painting called “The Feast of the Gods,” which depicts ancient Greece – which, of course, is where the Olympics began.
LEELA: But that wasn´t the only controversy… questions about the gender of two athletes came up, too.
MAMA: Yes, and without getting too deep into it here, the questions revolved around just how female two very strong boxers were.
LEELA: Yeah, that’s definitely a topic that's gonna rage on for a few more “rounds.” Get it? Rounds, as in boxing rounds.
MAMA: Yeah, Very good I heard what you did there, very good. And… when it comes to amazing female athletes, there were quite a few at the games, including two who were PREGNANT – while competing!
LEELA: What? I cannot even imagine how that would be possible.
MAMA: Well, women can remain active right up until the moment they give birth,
LEELA: Of course
MAMA: And in some sports that big belly or extra weight isn’t a factor at all.
LEELA: OK… Like?
MAMA: Archery and fencing.
LEELA: Whoa – princess warrior sports and all!
MAMA: Yep. This time an archer from Azerbaijan was six months pregnant and a fencing competitor from Egypt was seven months pregnant while competing.
LEELA: I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising, I mean, we girls rock!
MAMA: You can say that again! And it’s true that while women have the ability to produce a baby, typically men have stronger muscles, especially in the upper bodies and legs. But… there are a lot of ways in which female bodies are better for certain sports.
LEELA: Oh, oh. Tell me more.
MAMA: Well, actually, let’s head to our brother-and-sister team, Nina and Marky Granena, for a round-up on sports in which women typically outperform men.
LEELA: Well, then, take it away Nina and Marky!
NINA: Thanks, Leela, and you couldn´t be more correct about women being better suited for certain sports.
MARKY: And as young man being raised by a group of strong, intelligent, determined, and independent women and a feminist father, I concur 1000 percent with that statement.
NINA: We all know male bodies have more lean muscle distributed in their upper bodies.
MARKY: That’s why we look so ripped.
NINA: Well, male upper bodies can build stronger and bigger muscles than female bodies.
MARKY: Which is all part of the boxing drama mentioned earlier.
NINA: Suffice to say, women’s bodies have different layers of fat compared to male bodies.
MARKY: But in no way are women fat! I mean, absolutely, not! You do NOT look fat in that... wait, what?
NINA: Focus please! Women, even elite athletes, have different layers of – yes, fat – that, believe it or not, in some cases makes them BETTER athletes than men.
MARKY: I’m listening.
NINA: In the case of open-sea long distance swimming, for example, where you’re in freezing water for hours and hours, that extra layer of fat is like a layer of insulation!
MARKY: Oh… you mean female bodies don’t get as cold as male bodies!
NINA: Exactly. And, as researchers from Norway have discovered, female bodies can pace themselves better during long distance events, like running.
MARKY: Pacing yourself means, not starting out too fast, so you save energy for later.
NINA: Indeed. And finally, my dear brother, it’s mental. Sometimes female athletes, like long distance swimmers, and women who compete in shooting and riffle events, have said, it feels like they’re better prepared to deal with the psychological aspect of competition.
MARKY: Ahhhhhh... if it’s mind games that you’re talking about, then, yeah… I may only be 10, but I have no doubt that females are usually the winners of any kind of mental sparing.
NINA: Hmmm. We have trained you well. Now, go. The dishes await!
TOGETHER: In Barcelona this is Nina Granena and Marcky Granena for Newsie Pooloozi!
LEELA: Thanks, you guys, love it!
MAMA: Yeah. Completely fascinating!! I guess that’s one of the things that’s awesome about the Olympics - learning how the human body can do amazing things.
LEELA: Indeed! OK, then, that’s a wrap on our wrap of Olympics 2024.
https://time.com/7004418/what-is-ain-russia-olympics-2024/
https://www.today.com/news/paris-olympics/paris-olympics-new-sports-rcna135885
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7930971/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men]
MAMA: Imagine a country without rats and mice.
LEELA: Sounds good to me!
MAMA: I hear ya. But what about no ferrets, possums or weasels?
LEELA: Hmmmm. Cuter creatures, that’s true. But, well, I'm guessing there's a reason why some places want them gone?
MAMA: You got it. Now while there are some people who love rodents and they ARE a part of the cycle of life in many biospheres, there are people who don’t like them.
LEELA: And not just because they’re, you know, creepy creatures?
MAMA: Exactly, but because they’re predators of NATIVE, local species.
LEELA: Like?
MAMA: Like a New Zealand.
LEELA: What? Those big islands way down under, past Australia, had no NATIAVE rats?
MAMA: Nope.
LEELA: Didn’t we do a story about a small island in New Zealand that ran a rat-catching competition for kids?
MAMA: You got it. That would be Episode 127 – a pretty funny oddball story, in fact.
And here to tell us more is our very correspondent from New Zealand- which also goes by the name of Aotearoa.
LEELA: Ah, that would be the name given by the original inhabitants, the Māori people, right?
MAMA: You got. So over to Lucy McMickon from the capital, Wellington.
Lucy McMickon: Thanks, you guys.
So, you’re right we're those Islands way down on the other side of the Earth from you in India or even North America.
You could say we’re geographically isolated.
And, well, we have been for about eighty million years.
Over this very long time a totally unique species thrived in this very different location and climate.
But since the arrival of humans in Aotearoa - New Zealand - 30 endemic species - as in just from this area - have died out.
See, the Māori people, who came around the 1500s, hunted some of them.
And then European settlers, who arrived in the 1800s, cleared forests and introduced pests that have hurt our endemic species.
Yes, we're talking pests like rats, weasels, stoats, possums and mice – stowaways on boats and ships that came ashore with the sailors, can you believe.
Well, get this - each year 25 million native birds are killed by these non-native predators.
Enter the government’s Predator-Free 2050 drive.
Yep, the entire country aims to be free from predators that attack our native, or endemic, species of birds and animals by 2050.
SFX OF TUATARA ENVIRONMENT
Like, for instance, our unique tuatara – a species of reptile that thrived in the age of dinosaurs and survives to this day.
So, making the country pest free seems like a big ambition, right? But how will they do it is the real question.
Well, thousands of New Zealand households have been given traps to put in their backyards.
And a bunch of native trees and plants are being planted too.
So, we’re slowly but surely making progress with entire suburbs being pest free.
And you'd better bet when a pest is seen on the loose – even the cute ones, like stoats – the whole neighborhood is on the hunt!
Now if we can just keep any other pesky stowaways off the boats…!
In Wellington, New Zealand, I’m Lucy McMickon, reporting for Newsy Pooloozi.
LEELA: Thanks so much, Lucy. Keep us posted on how this goes!
MAMA: OK, let’s glam up now for some of this…
[SOURCE: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/predator-free-2050/
ACE STING – LEELA/MAMA: “Now it’s the ace part of our podcast: Arts, Culture and Entertainment. Darling.”
LEELA: Yes, something horrible took place in the swifty-verse, and for Viennese citizens in general. As you know I am hard core swifty and something as tragic and honestly scary as this must be covered.So, the big news Taylor Swift is not just the fact that the leg of the Eras tour that was to take place in Vienna
MAMA: Which is in Central European Country Austria
LEELA: Exactly. But all the commotion and headlines are not just that Vienna’s shows got canceled but the reason why.
MAMA: Yes, in headlines most of them just read, “Taylor’s Vienna Show Cancelled” or things
like that, mainly so that you’ll click on the article to find out why.
LEELA: But, if you’re JUSTS scrolling through news headlines, you might not necessarily get the whole story.
MAMA: That why we’re here!
LEELA: Yes! So, here's the lowdown. Taylor’s Vienna show was down because of a serious threat, a terrorist threat. The Austrian officials arrested two teenagers who they charged guilty for plotting the terrorist attack. Then the concert planning company that was in-charge of the event broke the news to the public saying, “we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety”.
MAMA: Gosh, imagine if the authorities had never found that out.
LEELA: Exactly!
MAMA: But at least it was cancelled before any damage – any real damage – was done. But I do think all the people attending got refunds, right?
LEELA: I’m pretty sure, yes. And Taylor said that she would definitely come back sometime.
MAMA: Well, the most important thing is that nobody got hurt, and all of the concerts happening currently in London have been very safe.
LEELA: Yes, and I hope they are in the future too! Now let’s go over to a story that has a different amount of buzz!!
[SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/arts/music/taylor-swift-concert-terror-plot-vienna.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/arts/music/taylor-swift-concert-terror-plot-vienna.html]
ODDBALL STING – VARIOUS VOICES: “Step right up, step right up… Have a go at the lucky dip machine… What’s it gonna be today, eh? An oddball, no doubt!”
LEELA: So, I feel like this week’s oddball is all about justice for kids who are afraid of the dark.
MAMA: Justice for kids afraid of the dark? As in, they have a good reason to be afraid. Well sure. Being afraid to go to sleep at night is a very common problem. Specially with the children, when you were a wee thing, there were many nights you’d scamper into my bed afraid of shadows…
LEELA: Yes, yes… Moooving on, mother. So, yes, this is a story about three-year Saylor Class, from North Carolina in the U.S. For months, she’d been telling her parents... that there was… a monster in her ceiling.
MAMA: Hmmmm... any chance she had seen the Disney movie Monsters and was maybe like you know... projecting her fears?
LEELA: Yes, she did! And yes, that’s exactly what her parents thought too! But she kept complaining to her parents about the monster in the ceiling. Then one day, her mother noticed a beehive swarming near the house.
MAMA: Ah ha! So, it was just a bit of mother nature?? That can be scary. Bees and rustling leaves, wind perhaps?
LEELA: Kind of... When Saylor’s mother had an exterminator come out to check the house, what they discovered was straight out of a horror movie!
MAMA: Oh, Okay, just to be clear exterminator is like a professional to kill pests…. Right? And do I want to know how this ends??
LEELA: When they peeled back a portion of the ceiling and wall, bees flew out. And not just a few… or a few thousand… but some 60,000 bees flew out!
MAMA: OMG!
LEELA: And they found a gigantic 100-pound honeycomb that the bees had been building for months. That’s like what your average 13-year-old boy weighs, by the way!
MAMA: Whoa… I reckon those bees weren’t exterminated, or killed, but removed by the proper authorities, as – FAB FACT ALERT – these are classified as an endangered species in the U.S., right?
LEELA: Yes, and yes. They might have had to “buzz-off” from that North Carolina house, but they were carefully removed and taken to a place where they couldn’t terrorize little children.
MAMA: So, a happy ending for the bees, and justice for Saylor, who was actually right, there were a MONSTOUSLY large number of bees in her ceiling!
LEELA: Exactly. But too bad about the cost of the repairs, though.
MAMA: What do you mean?
LEELA: Well, it’s going to cost about $20,000 to fix the house, since these kinds of things aren´t covered by insurance, apparently.
MAMA. Ooooh, ouch. That must really… sting
LEELA: Ewwww, good one, Mama!
[SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/monsters-toddlers-bedroom-turn-massive-beehive/story?id=109741808
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68924955]
FAB FACTS STING – LEELA: “And it’s time to wrap up the podcast with the top five fab facts heard today. Here goes…”
MAMA: FAB FACT NUMBER 1 – The Olympics 2024 ended as it began with a dazzling display in the host city, Paris, which is known by what nickname?
The City of Light
LEELA: FAB FACT NUMBER 2 – Team Russia was not allowed to participate in this Olympics because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. But their athletes could compete as neutral, individuals otherwise known as what?
Athlete Individual Neuter
MAMA: FAB FACT NUMBER 3 – This year two new sports were added to the Games: breaking or “break dancing,” and kayak cross. Which three new sports debuted in the Tokyo Olympics four years ago?
Surfing, skateboarding and climbing
LEELA: FAB FACT NUMBER 4 – New Zealand is on a mission to wipe out rodents and predators that prey on native species, like the tuatara, which is what exactly?
A reptile. Even though its kind of type of lizard. Eww.
MAMA: FAB FACT NUMBER 5 – 'Monsters' in a toddler's bedroom in the US turn out to be bees living in a massive beehive. Why were the bees carefully removed from the bedroom and not exterminated or killed?
Because bees are classified as an endangered species in the U.S.
And don’t forget, if you want to test yourself later on, then go to the Lucky Dip page of our website, newsypooloozi.com, that’s pool-o-o-z-i, and take this quiz online in your own time!
LEELA: And that almost brings us to the end of this episode of Newsy Pooloozi! But first…
MAMA: A few shout-outs to our sweet and loyal fans…
LEELA: And many of the new ones we’ve picked up recently too.
MAMA: Thanks to ALL of you who’ve been patient on our summer break… Like MartyP who sent us a message saying, “Missing newsypooloozi!”
LEELA: Aahhh – we were missing it too!!
MAMA: And another one – direct again to our email from Olinka and Angus, who said, “Dear Leela - well, and I suppose your mama, who plays a small part in this – we have just listened to an episode of your podcast and are just BOWLED OVER. That’s BOWLED OVER. Both times it all in caps by the way. You are an amazing broadcaster - your voice, your style, your articulation … just perfect.”
LEELA: You guys are so sweet how nice. Thank you.
MAMA: I think you are making Leela blush..
THEME MUSIC
MAMA: Go on…. Send in more lovely emails and let’s see if we can make Leela blush some more.
LEELA: Or do us a bigger favor and tell a friend about us, why don’t ya? You can have some Pooloozi parties!
MAMA: Oh, I like the sound of that…
LEELA: Alright. That’s all from us this time. See you soon in the happy, splashy giant Newsy Pooloozi!
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