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Hello, my name's Emily and you're listening to Newstime.
Hello, Emily.
And a special hello to our first Newstime listener legend, Zoe in Toowoomba.
Hello from the lands of the Gaiable and Jadawa peoples.
Every week on Newstime, you'll be hearing from a listener legend.
So if you'd like to be one, tune in until the end of the podcast to find out how.
Okie dokie.
On today's Newstime, we'll head to the Australian Open to meet some people making a racket.
We'll meet an endangered parrot that's in a total flap.
And in our wow of the week, we'll visit a supermarket that's been quite wild and woolly lately.
Rightio, shall we get going?
Let's dive in.
Story number five.
If you've been on school holidays, there's a good chance you might have made a stop to your local library.
You can borrow books there and there's also some paper where you can draw some pictures on.
There's also a quiet space that you can get work done.
It has a cool kids section with books I really like, and it has an xbox open in the holidays.
I love libraries.
They're great, filled with squishy chairs and packed with stories that you can borrow for free.
And it's not just me that loves visiting a library.
A recent report showed that in 2025, in-person visits to libraries across australia increased by 10 percent.
People are borrowing more than ever.
Experts think this is because people are looking to save money by borrowing books instead of buying them, and borrowing movies instead of paying for streaming services.
It would cost more money because you would need to buy them, but the library is free.
Brisbane's libraries recently shared their most borrowed junior fiction books of last year.
Topping the list was Arndo's Weirdo series, Wings of Fire by Tui T Sutherland and Dave Pilkey's Dogman spin-off Cat Kid Comic Club.
It's about how this cat named Little Petey and this psychic tadpole make a comic club with the family of The psychic tadpole, and their dad are fish.
A comic club run by a psychic tadpole?
I know what book I'll be reading next.
Story number four.
You might have heard this noise a bit lately.
Yep, it's Australian Open time, my personal favourite time of the year.
The Australian Open is for tennis and there's lots of people that play tennis and it's a big competition.
Tennis is a sport and if you do it you get really strong muscles and that will keep you healthy.
Every January, the world's best tennis players gather in Melbourne to play in Australia's Grand Slam tennis tournament.
Grand slams are the world's biggest competitions in the professional tennis world, with the highest ranking points and big prize money up for grabs.
But while the tennis players are on the courts, there's a team working very hard behind the scenes.
I can see some people in white coats.
They look like they're doing something with a big tube.
Looks like they're making a science experiment about like a machine or something.
People are being very careful and they're holding tennis rackets.
These are racket stringers.
I think they put the strings on the rackets so then the tennis players can play tennis.
The strings on tennis rackets need to be tense. because they have to hit balls over and over again.
If the strings have the wrong tension, players won't be able to hit the ball accurately.
Tennis Australia actually pays racket stringers to string rackets to the stiffness players are used to.
But there's a problem.
There's a shortage of racket stringers.
Tennis Australia will really need to find some more in the coming years.
How do you think they'll do that?
I would advertise...
Maybe they could pay higher salaries.
Maybe they could do some advertising and show them the good of doing it, like how it translates to being strong and healthy.
Their plan at the moment is to run a training program for people who love tennis and want to learn the craft of stringing.
It's not an easy job, though.
At last year's Australian Open, nearly 8,000 rackets were strung.
If you think the players' feet move fast on the court, think of the stringers' hands working through the rackets.
Good on you.
Thanks for letting people play tennis.
Story number three.
Across the ditch in New Zealand... there's a very special creature ready to make an impression.
It has a white beak, green feathers and a brown, whitish face.
It looks like a camouflage bird.
It kind of looks like a parrot, but all green and fat.
I mean, sure, to put it politely, this beautiful parrot has a wonderful large tummy.
It is officially the world's heaviest parrot.
Its name is the Karkapo.
The Karkapo holds a few other titles too.
It's also the world's only nocturnal parrot and the world's only flightless parrot.
I think it's interesting how it's a parrot but it can't fly.
If you can't fly like emus and penguins, you can just go running everywhere and swimming.
Around 100 years ago, this unique parrot was seen all over New Zealand, but it's now critically endangered.
Because of the dinosaurs?
Its local source of food was running low.
Maybe it's predators. were, like, attacking it.
Yep, predators like cats make life pretty hard for this bird that isn't able to just fly away.
But there is some good news.
The native rimu tree is growing heaps of berries at the moment, which tells the kakapo it's time to find a mate and produce eggs.
Can you guess what the males do to impress the females?
Some birds do like dances to try to get the female birds to go to it.
So they like make their feathers colourful.
It might be like what cicadas do and cockroaches do they might like make noise to attract the females.
They might fart and put up like smells like I'm over here and I'm strong.
I'm pleased to say the only fluffy thing is the birds feathers.
What the males do is dig a little hole in the ground, sit in it and make a booming noise that sounds like a cello being plucked.
The noise is so loud it can be heard from five kilometres away.
Scientists are confident that there will be plenty of heavy nocturnal flightless chicks born this year.
Go, go, Karkapo!
Story number two.
Here's a question for you.
Have you ever left anything behind on a holiday?
Once I almost lost my favourite toy.
I think I lost my drink bottle once.
I have lost my goggles once.
One sock and one pair of undies.
You might be surprised to learn that every year...
Tens of thousands of items are left behind at airports by passengers.
Things like laptops, surfboards and even expensive jewellery.
Sometimes there's a lost and found box.
That's right.
Airports work hard to try and get items back to their owners, but sometimes they just can't.
So what do you think they do with all the lost things?
I think...
That they should just give them to the pilots because they're the ones flying the people around.
Ha!
What actually happens is the airports in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane hold auctions.
All the items are put on sale and the person willing to pay the most gets it.
The great thing is that all the money raised goes to charities.
Brisbane Airport recently held an auction featuring a gold diamond necklace worth $11,000.
Imagine if you were the person who lost that one.
I feel disappointed that it's lost, but happy that someone else can enjoy it now.
I'll just run up to the airport or drive up probably and then say, hey, that's my necklace.
There was also drones, cameras, musical instruments, prams and even a vacuum cleaner.
Friends, take this as a warning.
If you're about to head home from school holidays, don't leave anything behind.
Zip up your bag.
Triple check if you have anything left on the seat or something.
Great advice.
Rightio, we've made our way through the news time terminal and found four stories, but there's still one to seek out.
Of course, it's our... Wow of the Week.
This story made me go wow because how could sheep even get past security cameras?
Let's head to a country called Germany, where a flock of sheep got a little distracted during their seasonal migration across the countryside.
Rather than following the traditional roads, 50 sheep broke free and went somewhere very unusual.
I see a lot of sheep in, I think it's a shopping centre, with lots of food.
A bunch of sheep walking, walking, walking around and buying stuff.
Yep. they decided to go grocery shopping.
Or at least check out the local supermarket.
Why do you think they walked in?
Maybe they smelt the food.
I think they were trying to get food.
There was a food shortage.
They were trying to get, like, the pineapples there.
I think they were shopping for stuff because they only get wool.
They weren't bargain hunting. but followed a trail of acorns near the shop.
When they got inside, they made a real mess of the drinks aisle, knocking over glass bottles which smashed on the floor.
It's hard to imagine what they were thinking.
This place is too expensive.
I only have one cent.
This place is weird.
Where's all the cats?
Where's all the grass?
Please put that in my basket.
It took staff in the store's human customers about 20 minutes to get the herd to make a U-turn and leave the store.
I think they herded them out like their owners were sheepdogs.
I think they went like walkity-walkity.
Woo!
Sheeps!
Out of my way!
I'm shopping here.
Out of the shop!
It's kind of funny that all of the sheep went into the shop without...
Anyone, like, trying to get them in there?
Well, it wasn't so funny for the supermarket's owners, who had to clean up the big mess caused by the lamb bush.
Despite the chaos though, you'll be pleased to know that the herd of sheep were not put behind bars.
Well, that's just about all the bad wordplay I can fit in one episode.
But before I 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 answers and beat any grown-ups nearby.
Ready?
Question one.
What was one of the most borrowed books in Brisbane last year?
Question two.
What is the name of Australia's Grand Slam?
Question three.
Finish this sentence.
The kakapo is the world's only flightless what?
Question four, where does all the money go that's raised through auctioning lost luggage?
Question five, in which country was there a herd of sheep in a supermarket?
And how about a bonus tricky question?
The male kakapo makes a booming noise that sounds like what?
All right, we're all out of thinking time.
Let's see if you were right.
The most borrowed books in Brisbane were the Weirdo series, Wings of Fire and Cat Kid Comic Club.
Australia's Grand Slam is called the Australian Open.
New Zealand's Karkapo is the world's only flightless parrot.
Money raised through airport auctions is given to charity.
And the herd of sheep visited a supermarket in Germany.
And for the bonus tricky question, the male kakapo's call for a mate sounds like a cello being plucked.
Great job, news sleuths.
Well, that's it for Newstime this week.
But if you would like to be a Newstime listener legend, just like Zoe in Toowoomba was today, have a look in the podcast show notes and get in touch, or just head straight to the Newstime page of the Kids Listen website.
I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks, Emily.
Catch you next time and enjoy the tennis.
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