Good morning and welcome to Kid News.
I'm Tori.
Today is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025.
And we begin with a historically busy few days on the roads and in the skies.
In fact, it may have been the busiest Labor Day travel weekend ever.
If you were on a plane, we don't have to tell you that you didn't have much elbow room.
Airlines say their flights flew nearly 100% full.
And the TSA expects that when all the numbers are in, they'll have screened more than 174 million passengers nationwide, which would be a new holiday high.
The roads were equally crowded, with AAA estimating more than 72 million travelers behind the wheel.
The top destinations?
Orlando, New York, Seattle, San Diego, and national parks.
AI may have met its match at the drive-thru.
Taco Bell is pulling the plug on its experiment after some pretty big errors.
One viral video shows a customer frustrated when he ordered a Mountain Dew, only to be repeatedly asked what will you have to drink with that?
Other customers have successfully pranked the system one when he ordered 18000 cups of water, and another who asked for McDonald's food, and the AI went along with it and even suggested McDonald's menu items.
Taco Bell's chief technology officer admitted to the Wall Street Journal that, while there is a place for artificial intelligence at Taco Bell, perhaps the drive-thru just isn't it.
It was a rough debut for the nephew of football greats Peyton and Eli Manning.
Arch Manning's much-anticipated first game as the Texas Longhorns' starting quarterback was basically a bust.
He finished 17-30 for 170 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, in a loss to defending national champions, Ohio State.
After the game, the player with the famous last name was matter of fact.
I've got to play better for us to win.
His coach, Steve Sarkeesian, isn't worried.
For Arch, the expectations were out of control on the outside.
I'd say let's finish the book before we judge him.
That's one chapter.
If you take a look at the world map in your classroom, you can see the relative sizes of land masses.
Or can you?
The African Union, which represents all 54 nations on that continent, says Africa is consistently shown as smaller than it really is.
In reality, the US China India Spain France Germany Italy, Peru and Japan could all fit inside Africa.
You just wouldn't know it, because projecting a round surface, the Earth, onto a flat surface means you have to enlarge what's at the top and bottom and shrink what's in the middle to keep the map rectangular.
As a result, Greenland appears larger than Africa, even though Africa is 14 times its size.
The African Union wants the adaption of new flat maps that show the proper size of things.
These already exist, but they're not widely used.
You can Google corrected world flat map to see a few examples.
We've also put a link on our resource page.
One of the top performers on the weekend box office was a movie half a century old and you might say it's eating the competition.
Jaws.
Steven Spielberg's 1975 thriller about a shark, a beach and tasty tourists was number two last weekend.
The film is undergoing a re-release in select theaters for its 50th anniversary.
Zach Kreger's scary supernatural weapons took the top spot with Caught Stealing, Freakier Friday and The Roses rounding out the top five.
Still to come, a tech CEO pays the price for grabbing a hat from the hands of a young tennis fan.
But first, today's Kid News quiz.
What fast food chain is rethinking AI in its drive-thru?
Taco Bell.
Which continent is much bigger than how it appears on maps?
Africa.
What 50-year-old movie ranked at number two in the box office this past weekend?
Jaws.
The TSA expected to screen how many people at U.S. airports this holiday weekend.
17.4 million, which would be a new Labor Day record.
In today's Kid News.
Kicker, a tech CEO from Poland, is feeling the long arm of social media after snatching a hat from the hands of a kid at the US.
Open in Queens, New York.
Tennis player, Kamil Majczak, had just won his match and was autographing balls last Thursday when he handed his cap to a young boy in the stands.
As cameras rolled and, unbeknownst to the tennis player, tech CEO Piotr Szczurak grabbed the sweaty souvenir out of the boy's hands and stuffed it into his own bag.
The internet then did its thing and sent the video viral.
The boy, named Brock, landed a one-on-one meeting with Camille, along with a new autograph hat.
The CEO, on the other hand, landed in a bunch of hot water.
He's since gone public with an apology, calling the hat-stealing moment a grave mistake.
Before we go, it's shout-out time for our Kid News classrooms.
Mrs. Starkey and her Panthers at Pleasant Knoll School in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Mrs. Ramos and her Panthers at Parkview Elementary in Ripon, California.
To Indiana, Mrs. Perkins and her Eagles at South Putnam Central in Greencastle.
And Mrs. Jeffrey and her Patriots at Lesterby Summer School in Crawfordsville.
Teachers and parents.
Our fan favorite free weekly word search is making a comeback starting this Friday.
If you receive our emails, you'll get instructions today on how to jump on the bandwagon.
If you don't receive our emails, visit our website at kidnews.org.
Click sign up and follow the prompts.
We'll see you back here for more Kid News tomorrow morning.
