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Hello, my name's Emily and I'm your brand new host of News Time.
Welcome aboard, Emily.
Alrighty, I've lined up a rich menu of tasty news morsels this week.
We'll meet some basketball players who are about to live out their hoop dreams.
Then we'll hear about a rare butterfly that survives thanks to some very helpful ants.
Next we'll head down to the bottom of the ocean to discover some unusual treasure in our wow of the week.
OK, are you ready?
It's time for the countdown.
First news time of 2026.
Let's go.
Story number five.
It's been quite a hot start to 2026.
Some places have had bushfires, extreme heat waves and up in North Queensland, where I live, we had a cyclone.
Tell me, what have you been doing to stay cool?
I get an ice cream or an ice pack from the fridge.
Go on the slip and slide so you can drink lots of water.
Lie on the couch and complain it's too hot, then turn the air conditioner on and then complain it's too cold.
Well, not everyone in Australia has air conditioning at home, and that can make it very hard to stay cool.
During last week's high temperatures on the far south coast of New South Wales, some volunteers opened spaces in churches and community halls and they called them heat havens.
What do you think happens there?
I think it's a big room that's got one million air conditioners and it's sort of like a giant ice bar.
I think it's like a room underground with a ginormous fan.
It's a nice cool spot where everyone can cool down.
You got it.
It's a place to chill out and watch a movie, listen to music and for the kids there's stacks of colouring in.
What a smart way to beat the heat.
Two thumbs up, but three if I can for me.
And you know what else?
The heat havens are powered by solar energy, batteries and backup generators.
So if the power ever goes out, everyone can keep their cool.
Thank you for setting it up because some people don't have air conditioning.
Nice work, volunteers.
Story number four.
If you play sport, where do you dream of playing one day?
At a stadium, the Gabba.
At the MCC.
A big stadium with a tennis court.
And lots of people cheering.
Wiradjuri teenager Hugo loves playing basketball.
He spends most of his afternoons shooting hoops at the PCYC courts in Wagga Wagga.
Hugo's dreamed for years about playing competitively in America, where there are some pretty serious high school basketball competitions.
Practising every day.
Probably flowers.
Last year the New South Wales PCYC launched a program to create a First Nations team of 10 players to send over to the USA to compete in a youth league.
More than 400 players tried their best to impress the talent scouts, who were looking for certain qualities in the players.
Very strong and good players.
Good players, but also players who have good sportsmanship.
The best players, the fairest players, and the players that are the kindest.
The Talent Scouts weren't just looking for good players, but also a strong school attendance rate and connections to local elders.
Hugo met all the requirements, impressed the Scouts and got the call up to join the team.
Hugo says he can't wait to represent his Wiradjuri culture overseas.
Being an Indigenous person, it's good because not many of us get this opportunity.
I mean, if I can work anywhere in basketball and even supporting kids like me now.
Hugo's going to get plenty of air when he flies to America in April.
We hope his time in the States is a real slam dunk.
Story number three.
Robots are getting very clever.
I've seen robots do recording what people say.
Moving like any direction.
Vacuum, mow the lawn, mop.
The Robot Olympics last year.
In the very futuristic country of Japan, you can dine at a cafe where robots entertain you and deliver your food and drinks.
You can also get a little robot that sits on your shoulder, of course, to be your tour guide in Tokyo.
Oh, it looks so cool.
But these robots haven't been programmed.
They're being controlled by humans who work from home as robot pilots.
So it's a bit like a video game, I think.
So they have the controller and then they speak into, like this microphone thing and they can see through the eyes and they say you are now here, you are now here, turn left to go here, and it will be good, because then it will help all the people.
You got it.
There's a company in Tokyo that employs people with a disability or are housebound, meaning they can't leave home due to illness.
These people move the robot using a special program on their home computer and can see and speak to guests.
Would you like some sushi?
That's so good because they help people and they also don't have to go anywhere.
Some robot pilots have said the work has helped their mental health and allowed them to feel part of society again.
I wonder what kind of things pilots might do with their robots next.
A robot teacher.
Teach kids when our teacher can't teach.
They could get robots at home and just get them to cook and them to clean.
They could get a big garden and then they could have robots which would tell you what type of flower it is.
Ooh, or a weed removal robot.
I could really do with one of those.
At a tiny regional school, there's been a rare, colourful creature fluttering about.
Looks like a sort of like moth.
I think it's a moth slash butterfly.
It looks like maybe a rainbow moth or a rainbow butterfly.
It's got really long antennae.
With its wings that glint in shades of purple blue, copper and green, this is a purple copper butterfly.
It's the size of a 10 cent coin and lives in very small pockets of habitat because well, they're a little bit picky with their food.
There's only one plant they like.
It's the native blackthorn.
The colours, they're a bit different to other butterflies and they like that plant.
They're also picky about their habitat because they only want a certain amount of sunlight each day.
They have a rock so it can sunbake.
And the strangest thing about the purple copper butterfly?
It needs a special ant to be nearby to take care of its babies, which, remember, are caterpillars.
You see, when they hatch ants, come along and take them out at night to feed and protect them from predators.
Then, by morning, the ants carry the caterpillars home.
They're like nature's babysitters.
Those are very kind little aunties.
It's very cool.
I've never, like, heard of an animal looking after another animal.
Oh, Mrs Ant.
You need to go for walkies now.
When a small school learnt about this butterfly, they set to work planting 60 native blackthorn saplings in the hope that this threatened insect would move in.
Because the butterflies can come and survive and live to make more of them.
Well, would you look at that?
We've fluttered our way to a native blackthorn.
No, actually, it's our...
Wow of the Week.
This story made me go wow because I never knew there might be a safe in such a random place.
This story made me go wow because I never knew that would be inside the safe.
Let's head to sea. off the coast of Western Australia's Shark Bay.
A man named Coyne and his daughter Belle were riding a jet ski together and found something very unusual sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor.
It was a safe and it was locked shut.
What do you think was inside?
Some important parchment, fancy, secret, piratey stuff.
Maybe a monkey did it so there was a very stinky banana inside.
Coyne took the heavy box back to shore and asked around to find the owner of the rather modern treasure chest.
Maybe went to the news station and put it on to see if anybody had lost it.
When nobody claimed it, Coyne found a friend to open it with an angle grinder.
And inside was a packet of the world's hottest beef jerky.
What's beef jerky?
It's a snack made of dried beef that lasts a long time.
But even this packet expired four years ago.
The safe must have been under there for a very long time.
Don't eat it.
They didn't eat it, but the mystery remains.
Why would anyone put beef jerky into an undersea safe?
To make it cold.
Maybe it was an animal who just found a packet once and it found a safe, so it put it in and went boop boop boop boop boop boop boop, boop.
It didn't know what it was doing and it pushed it off a cliff into the ocean.
Maybe.
And of course, if you find something strange, make sure you tell a grown-up about it.
And don't get too excited about becoming rich.
It might just be an old, salty snack.
What a fun first news time it's been.
Great job, Emily!
Before you go, I have a quiz for you to see how well you've been listening.
I'll ask you five questions.
See if you can shout out the answer and beat any grown-ups nearby.
Ready?
Question 1.
What's something you'd find in a heat haven?
Question 2.
Which country will the First Nations basketball team be visiting?
Question 3.
We found out people work in Japan as robot pilots but what do the robots do?
Question four, what insect works to look after the caterpillars of the purple copper butterfly?
Question five, what was locked in the safe on the ocean floor?
And here's a bonus tricky question, what is the name of the Wiradjuri basketball player we met?
Alright, thinking time's up.
Let's see if you were right.
You'd find air conditioning, movies, music, colouring in and even volunteers in a heat haven.
The First Nations team is headed to the USA.
The robots in Japan serve food and drinks or give people tours of Tokyo.
Ants look after the caterpillars.
And it was a rare packet of old beef jerky inside the safe.
And for the bonus tricky question, the Wiradjuri basketball player we met is Hugo.
Nice work, everyone.
Bye, Emily.
Stay cool and happy butterfly spotting.
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