The Cucumber King

Hello, Newslings! · 0:00

Later today, you'll meet the hungriest workers in Tokyo. And would you believe... they're not even people? Stick around until the end to hear that one.

Hey Newslings! This is the new, expanded Sunday Edition! Ready to explore the big wide world? Let's go!

Here's the plan for today. Story one, why kids' phones are in the news, from Pennsylvania to Australia. Story two, a farmer who found a king in his garden. And story three, why a city is saying goodbye to rental scooters. Plus a pepper party in France, and a look back in history. Let's dive in!

Why kids' phones are in the news · 0:48

Story one. Let's start in Pennsylvania, a state in the northeastern United States.

Lawmakers there just voted to keep phones put away at school, from the first bell to the last. Even at lunch. Even at recess. The governor, who's a bit like the president of the state, says he'll sign the new law.

There are a few exceptions. An exception is a special case where the rule doesn't apply, like kids who need a phone for their health, or to translate a language.

And Pennsylvania isn't alone. In Australia, kids under sixteen aren't allowed to have accounts on the big social media apps.

France tried a ban like that too, for kids under fifteen. But a top court said it took away too much of kids' freedom to talk and share, so France is writing a new plan.

Why all these rules? Many experts and lawmakers say phones take attention away from learning and friends, and that social media can make some kids feel worse about themselves.

So recess goes back to being recess: playing games with friends, and putting screens away.

Why does it matter? Rules like these could change your school day, and help kids avoid distractions.

So remember. An exception is a special case. Countries around the world are asking: how much phone time is too much? Where do we draw the line?

Sound It Out · 2:19

Here's today's Sound It Out word. Exception. Let's clap it. Ex-cep-tion. Three beats. And it starts with the letter E, just like elephant.

The cucumber farmer who found a king · 2:34

Story two. Let's go to Egypt, in northern Africa.

In a small village near the Nile River, a farmer named Khalil grows cucumbers. He found a carved stone on his land. And instead of keeping it, he told the experts.

So archaeologists started an excavation. An excavation is a careful dig, to uncover the past. And they found a giant stone head! It is one point six meters tall, about as tall as a real grown-up. And it shows a famous king of ancient Egypt, a pharaoh called Ramses the Second.

On October fourteenth, Egypt's government announced the find. And the leader in charge of Egypt's old treasures came to thank the farmer himself.

The statue it came from may once have stood about eight and a half meters tall. That's about as tall as a three-story house!

He planted cucumbers... and helped dig up a king.

And the digging isn't over. Experts think there could be even more pieces hiding under the village.

Why does it matter? Because the farmer shared what he found, experts can study it, and learn more about the past.

So remember. An excavation is a careful dig. And in Egypt, a cucumber farmer helped find a giant statue of a pharaoh.

Lisbon says goodbye to rental scooters · 4:00

Story three. Let's go to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

In lots of cities, you can rent an electric scooter with a phone app, ride it, and leave it on the sidewalk when you're done. But in Lisbon, the city leaders decided to suspend them. To suspend something means to stop it, maybe for good.

So why? People left scooters lying all over the sidewalks, where they get in the way of strollers, wheelchairs, and people walking. Some riders even went the wrong way down the street. And there were more and more crashes, and some people got hurt. The city says it wants streets that are safer, and tidier, for everyone.

The scooter companies have sixty days to take them all away. The city hopes they'll be gone by the end of January.

Why does it matter? Cities are now deciding how everyone can best share the street while encouraging people to drive their cars less. Paris and Madrid made the same choice.

So remember. To suspend something means to stop it. And Lisbon is stopping rental scooters, to make its sidewalks safer.

Kids Who Rock: Jonathan Thai · 5:13

Now it's time for our Kids Who Rock story.

Meet Jonathan Thai. He's seventeen, and he lives in Georgia, in the United States. Jonathan loves bikes. He does triathlon races, where you swim, bike, and run.

When a store near him stopped its bike-riding classes for kids, Jonathan and his friend Jake started their own group, to help kids get riding. It's called the Pedal Forward Foundation. So far, it has collected four hundred bikes, and given out five hundred helmets! And it runs free classes where kids learn to ride, from balancing to braking.

Training wheels: off. Helmets: on. Wobbling: totally okay.

Now their group is helping kids in New York and Tennessee too. And next year, they're planning a charity bike trip to Vietnam, where Jonathan's parents grew up.

Want to see the Pedal Forward Foundation in action? Find the link in the app, and look together with a grown-up.

So remember. When something you love goes away, you can help build it back, for everyone.

Around the World: The pepper party · 6:22

Next, we're going to Espelette, a village in the Basque Country, in the southwest of France.

This weekend, the village is throwing a party, for peppers! People parade through the streets in costumes, there's a market, and the peppers even get a blessing. They've been doing it for more than fifty years.

And here's the best part. In the autumn, people hang long strings of red peppers on the walls of their houses, to dry in the sun. Again, lots of the houses turn red!

Imagine your house wearing a necklace of peppers. And don't worry. These peppers are more tasty than super spicy.

Whoa Fact: The bread shovel game board · 7:04

Okay, Newslings. It's time for a Whoa Fact!

Did you know... that someone, a thousand years ago, carved a game board on a bread shovel?

In an old town in Russia, archaeologists dug up part of a wooden bread paddle. One side is flat, for sliding bread into the oven. But on the other side, someone carved a game board! It was in the news this month.

The game is called nine men's morris. Each player gets nine pieces. Line up three in a row, and you get to take one of the other player's pieces! Kids still play it today, a thousand years later.

Grown-ups always say, don't play with your food. But nobody said anything about a bread shovel!

A game board on a bread paddle. Whoa!

Check it out on our website at newslings.xyz, and you'll even find a working version of this game to play.

This Day in History: The first home microwave · 8:07

It's time for This Day in History!

On October twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-five, a company called Tappan introduced the first microwave oven for people's homes. It cost almost as much as a car, and it weighed about one hundred fifty pounds!

And here's how microwaves started. An engineer named Percy Spencer was working near a radar machine, when the candy bar in his pocket... melted! So he tried some popcorn kernels. And they popped.

So it's an invention that started with a melting chocolate bar.

Poem time: Windy Nights · 8:50

It's poem time! This poem is by Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish writer who lived more than a hundred years ago. It's called "Windy Nights". It has two stanzas. A stanza is a group of lines in a poem, a bit like a paragraph in a story.

The poem is read by a LibriVox volunteer (public domain).

Wacky But True: The goats with a job · 9:38

And now, it's time for our first Wacky But True!

Remember those hungry workers in Tokyo? They're actually goats! Two goats, named Nagi and Pokke. Since October ninth, they've been working outside a busy train station in the middle of Tokyo, in Japan. Their job? Eating the weeds. It was a station worker's idea.

Nagi is one year old, and Pokke is two. They can stay until December. But their job ends as soon as the grass is all gone.

So... their job ends when they've eaten their whole office!

Hoad's Wood gets cleaned up · 10:21

Before we go, here's something hopeful.

In Kent, in England, there's an old forest called Hoad's Wood. But people dumped huge piles of trash there, where it never should have been. Some piles were taller than a grown-up standing on another grown-up's shoulders.

So little by little, for fifteen months, workers cleaned it up. They took away almost forty thousand tons of rubbish. They also cleared the ditches, and made ponds, so the wood can start to heal. And on October ninth, they said the job was finally done.

That's the biggest tidy-your-room job ever. And now it's done!

Today's Big Question · 11:20

Want to see the giant stone head, and the goats at work? They're on our website, newslings.xyz, with today's pictures, the quiz, and our friendly reading coach.

That's it for this Sunday's edition of Newslings. Let's do a quick look back. Story one, phone rules from Pennsylvania to Australia. Story two, the cucumber farmer who found a king. And story three, Lisbon's goodbye to rental scooters.

Here's your big question for the day. If you found something really old in your garden, what would you hope it was? Talk about it with your family.

Stay curious, and I'll talk to you on Tuesday, October twenty-seventh.

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