Election Day

Hello, Newslings! · 0:00

Today, millions of grown-ups in the United States are voting. What are they choosing? And what did a grandmother's voice sound like 90 years ago in a language from the United States that you've probably never heard spoken? Stick around to learn more and hear the answer to last episode's Mystery Sound.

Hey, Newslings, it's Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026. Ready to explore the big wide world? Let's go. Here's the plan for today. Story one, it's Election Day in the United States. Story two, voices from 1935. Story three, tiny fish that look like seahorses, but aren't?

And story four, students in Serbia in another big election. Plus, a girl who reads aloud like a champion and a forest planted by hand. Let's dive in.

Election Day in the United States · 1:14

Story one. Today, Tuesday, November 3rd, is Election Day in the United States. Millions of grown-ups are voting. This is called a midterm election. Mid-term means the middle of the term. It comes halfway through a president's four years. The president isn't on the ballot this time.

Instead, people are choosing who sits in Congress. Congress is the group that makes the country's laws. Congress has two parts. All 435 people in the House of Representatives are up for a vote. In the Senate, 35 of the 100 seats are, and 36 states are choosing a governor, the leader of the state.

Lots of people didn't wait to vote until today. They voted early, in person or by mail. By Sunday, more than 50 million people had already voted. That's already more early votes than in the whole last midterm election, back in 2022. In Texas alone, more than 7.5 million people voted early.

That's a record there for a midterm. So who are they voting for? In the United States, most of the people who win belong to one of the two big political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. A party is a group of people who share ideas about how to run the country.

There are smaller parties too, but they rarely win big races. That's why people call it a two-party system. And the two parties even have animal symbols, a donkey for the Democrats and an elephant for the Republicans. If your class had to choose between two teams with different ideas, how would you decide?

Hmm, probably a vote, because that's usually the most fair. It's the same for a country. When will we know who won? Some races will be called tonight. Others can take days because every vote has to be counted, including the ones that come in the mail.

We'll tell you what happened on Friday. Why does this matter to you? The people chosen today help make laws about things like schools, roads, and parks. And most American citizens can vote once they turn 18. So here's the big idea. Today, Americans are choosing many of the people who make their laws, and more people voted early than in any midterm before.

Voices from 1935 · 3:47

Story two. In 1935, almost 100 years ago, a scientist named Lorenzo Dow Turner traveled around the state of Louisiana in the United States. He studied languages. He's been called the first African American language scientist. He carried a recording machine. It was big and heavy, and it needed electricity, so some doctors helped him.

They found people who spoke the language he wanted to record and let him do it in their offices, which had electricity. He recorded their voices onto metal discs. Each disk held only a few minutes of sound. The people spoke a language called Louisiana Creole.

It grew up in Louisiana about 300 years ago. People from France, people from West Africa, and their children all lived side by side. Many of the Africans had been forced there and made to work as enslaved people. They mixed French words with their own ways of speaking, and a brand new language was born.

Those discs sat in a university collection for a long time. Now a language scientist in England, Oliver Mayeux, has found them and listened closely. He says they're the oldest known recordings of people speaking Louisiana Creole, not singing, just talking about their lives. Here's one of them.

Her name was Emma Benoit. She worked on a farm and she was a mother of 12. Listen to how she talks.

Did you catch any words? If you know a little French, maybe you did. Here's what she said. I'm 69 years old. I'm the mother of 12 sweet children. I raised four orphans, and my life was working in the field all through my life and my marriage.

Today, only a few thousand people still speak Louisiana Creole as their first language, and they're all quite old. But some young people in Louisiana are learning it again. They call it Kouri-Vini, and they share lessons online so others can learn it too. Why does this matter to you?

Every language holds stories that only its speakers can tell. And thanks to these old metal discs, we can still hear Emma Benoit tell her story and learn about the history of the region.

Sound It Out · 6:30

Here's today's Sound It Out word: language. Let's clap it. Lang... gwij. Two beats, and it starts with the letter L, just like lion.

The sea muppets · 6:43

Story three, picture a fish no longer than your thumb. It has a curly tail and a head shaped like a tiny horse's. A seahorse, right? Nope. Scientists in Australia say three of these little fish aren't seahorses at all. They just look like them.

They've been given their own new group and a great nickname, the sea muppets. There's a helmethead sea muppet with a bump on its head like a helmet. There's a bullneck sea muppet and a paradoxical sea muppet. Paradoxical means puzzling. Here's the strange part.

Only seven of them have ever been found over about 65 years, all by accident in nets and scoops dragged along the sea floor off southern Australia. And one of them was put in the wrong place in a museum. It sat with the wrong group of animals for years before anyone noticed.

So how did scientists check? They used a special X-ray scanner that makes 3D pictures of tiny bones. Seahorses have a stiff cage of bony plates around their belly and a little bony crown on their head. But the sea muppets don't. So different bones means different fish.

But like seahorses, the dads carry the babies in a pouch. Cool! Nobody has ever seen a sea muppet alive. Scientists call them lost species. That doesn't mean they're gone. They think the sea muppets are still down there, and they want to go and look.

To summarize, three tiny fish that look like seahorses turned out to be something new, and nobody has ever found one alive.

Students and a big vote in Serbia · 8:28

Story four takes us to another election in Serbia, a country in Europe. For almost two years, lots of students in Serbia marched in the streets. They wanted their leaders to be honest and fair and to follow the rules. Seems reasonable. Then the students had an idea.

Instead of just marching, what if they helped pick new people for the government? They chose a list of people to vote for. teachers from universities, athletes, engineers, and more. People called it the Student List. And so, on October 25th, Serbia held an election to choose who sits in its parliament.

A parliament is a group of people who makes a country's laws, like Congress, as we talked about earlier in the United States. More than half of the people who voted picked the Student List, so it won 141 of the 250 seats. On the other side was Aleksandar Vučić.

He's been one of Serbia's top leaders since 2012. That's 14 years. He hoped to become prime minister again, but he said his side had lost. When a leader says that out loud, it's called conceding. In the capital city, Belgrade, people celebrated in the streets, honking car horns, and then hundreds of volunteers went to a big park in front of the parliament building and cleaned it up so everyone could use it again.

Why does this matter to you? It shows that young people's ideas can change things peacefully by voting. Hey, how many more years until you're 18 and can vote? Do the quick math.

Kids Who Rock: María Andreína Lárez · 10:10

Now it's time for our Kids Who Rock story. Meet María Andreína Lárez. She's 11 and she lives in Copiapó, a city in the north of Chile in South America. María Andreína loves reading out loud, so she entered a contest called The Joy of Hearing Reading.

It's Chile's biggest read-aloud contest. Tens of thousands of kids from third to sixth grade took part all over the country. Only 10 made it to the final, and it was on TV. María Andreína read a part of a famous book, Anne of Green Gables, and she won.

Her prize? A trip to Chiloé, an island in the south of Chile, for her and two people. The judges didn't care how fast she read. They listened for feeling, good pauses, and how well she kept everyone listening. Want to try it? Pick a page you like and read it out loud with feeling to someone at home.

Brain Builder: Three good things · 11:09

It's time for a Brain Builder, a minute to help us understand our brain and emotions a little better. Tonight, before you fall asleep, try a little game called Three Good Things. Think back over your day and find three things that went well or that you're thankful for.

They can be so tiny. Just a warm pancake for breakfast, a friend who saved you a seat next to them, the way your dog snores. Feeling thankful has a name, gratitude. Scientists have even tried something like this with middle school kids. For two weeks, kids wrote down five things they were grateful for every day.

Kids who felt more thankful also felt more hopeful and less grumpy. And the kids who counted good things said they liked school more than the other kids did. Our brains are a bit like detectives. They're really great at spotting what went wrong. This game trains them to spot what went right, too.

So tonight, think of three good things. You can say them to a grown-up, whisper them to yourself, or write them down. And remember, if a big feeling sticks around for a long time, tell a grown-up you trust.

Hope: A forest planted by hand · 12:25

Before we go, here's something hopeful. In New Zealand, there's a giant tree called the kauri. Kauri can grow huge and live for more than a thousand years. Long ago, kauri forests covered big parts of the north of New Zealand. Today, less than one out of every hundred of those old forests is still standing.

So a farmer named Peter Parsons in a place called Otago had 14,000 baby kauri trees planted by hand. In an area about as big as 20 rugby fields. Usually lots of young trees don't make it, but here about 95 out of every 100 are growing.

And every single tree has its own number and its exact spot on a map so scientists can watch the forest grow. Peter says he'd like to leave something lasting for the future. I think 14,000 trees pretty much does it.

Joke time, from Dominic · 13:26

Alright, it's joke time, and today's joke comes from one of our listeners. This one is from Dominic, who's five from the United States. Take it away, Dom!

Hahaha, yes, that's so funny. He said, why can't you give Elsa a balloon? Because she'll let it go! Sounds like someone's a Frozen fan. Thank you Dom from the Bronx. Hey, did all of our listeners know that the Bronx is one of the five main boroughs of New York City?

Mystery Sound number 4 · 14:14

It's time for our Mystery Sound. On Sunday, you heard this sound.

Did you guess it? It was a zipper. Zzzip! Did you get it right? Okay, here's a new one. Listen closely.

Hmm, what did you think it was? Tell your family or write down your guess, and I'll tell you the answer on Friday.

[Mystery Sound number 4 plays here. The answer is on Friday.]

Today's Big Question · 14:59

Want to see Emma Benoit's photo and the tiny sea muppets? They're on our website, newslings.xyz, with today's pictures, the quiz, and our friendly reading coach.

That's it for today, Newslings. Let's do a quick look back. Story one, Election Day in the United States, with more early votes than any midterm before. Story two, voices from 1935 speaking Louisiana Creole. Story three, the sea muppets, tiny fish that look like seahorses but aren't.

And Story four, students in Serbia who helped choose new leaders. Here's today's Big Question. If someone recorded your voice today and kids heard it in 90 years, what would you want to tell them? Talk about it with your family. And here's something new you can find in our app.

Want to hear an older episode? Just tap the date right next to the story's title and pick a day to go backwards. Stay curious and I'll talk to you on Friday, November 6th.

▶ Listen and read alongThe app highlights every word as it's said