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Good morning and welcome back to Kid News.
Our team had a wonderful summer break, but we're thrilled to be back in the studio.
I'm Tori. Today is Monday, August 11th, 2025.
And we begin with Major League Baseball catching up with the times.
Over the weekend, the first woman to ever umpire during the regular season took up position on the field and behind home plate for matchups between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves.
48-year-old New Jersey native Jen Powell started calling balls and strikes in high school and was a standout catcher for Hofstra before officiating more than 1,200 minor league and spring training games.
She says umpiring is in her DNA and reaching the majors is a dream come true.
Fans in the stands were just as thrilled, holding up signs that read, Welcome to the show, Jen, and thank you from girls and women everywhere.
Major League Baseball trails other sports when it comes to having women call the shots.
The NBA put female refs on the court in 1997 and the NFL in 2012.
There may be hope on the horizon for an end to the three-year war in Ukraine.
This Friday, President Trump, Russian President Putin, and possibly Ukrainian President Zelensky will hunker down in Alaska to try and hammer out a peace agreement.
It won't be easy. Russia wants to keep the land it invaded, while Ukraine is saying, not a chance.
As interesting as the meeting itself is the location.
Alaska is not only a geographically convenient choice, it's also historically significant.
Alaska used to be Russian territory. The U.S. bought the land from Moscow in 1867.
It gained statehood only 66 years ago in 1959.
A meteorite that slammed into a Georgia home a few months ago is older than Earth itself.
It was late June when a fireball whizzed through the southern sky, tore through a roof near Atlanta before leaving a dent the size of a cherry tomato in its floor.
Planetary geologist Scott Harris spent the past few months analyzing the galactic guest and announced over the weekend that it dates back 4.56 billion years, which is 20 million years older than our own planet.
Going forward, it'll be known as the McDonough meteorite, named after the zip code it landed in.
The homeowner, meantime, says he's still finding specks of space dust around his living room from the collision.
Think you can dance? There's a good chance that one particular species of bird has you beat.
Now, it's no secret that cockatoos can headbang.
We've even talked about it here on Kid News.
But a new study out of Australia has documented 30 distinct cockatoo dance moves, 17 of which are brand new to scientists.
Not only that, some of these well-coiffed birds string their body rolls and sidesteps together into some serious choreography.
Case in point? One pink cockatoo at the Wagga Wagga Zoo in New South Wales, who took a particular liking to The Knights by Avicii, he or she, we're not sure, performed 257 moves during a 20-minute jam session while the song played on a loop.
Researchers say these findings are exciting because they demonstrate that dancing to music is not uniquely human.
A homeschool teenage math whiz has apparently done what adults couldn't.
She solved a 40-year-old mathematical mystery.
Hannah Cairo conquered calculus at 11 and taught herself from graduate-level textbooks before getting accepted into a prestigious program at UC Berkeley.
It was there last spring, as a 17-year-old, that she debunked the Mizohara Takeuchi conjecture, a long-held educated guess about how functions behave.
According to Futurist, her proof has rocked the math world.
We were all shocked, absolutely, said a much older researcher who spent years trying to prove the conjecture true before young Hannah proved it false.
This fall, Hannah is headed to the University of Maryland, which along with Johns Hopkins, was the only graduate school willing to admit her without a high school diploma.
In other Kid News notes, football history was foreshadowed on the field in Jacksonville Saturday night when Jaguars kicker Cam Little made a 70-yard field goal to end the first half of a preseason game against the Steelers.
Had it happened just a few weeks later in the regular season, it would have set a new NFL record.
Still to come, her flaws are now famous.
We'll meet the pooch proudly crowned world's ugliest dog.
But first, we want to shout out super gymnast Adele Cohen of Encino, California, who's just celebrated her golden 10th birthday.
Adele, your mom, dad, and Theo tell us your strength, independence, and sweetheart shine in everything you do, and they hope you keep flipping high and dreaming big.
Happy birthday, Adele. Now, today's Kid News Quiz.
How did Jen Powell make baseball history this weekend?
She became the first regular season female umpire in the majors.
Where and when is President Trump meeting with Russian President Putin to try and end the war with Ukraine?
Friday in Alaska. How old is the meteorite that slammed into a Georgia home?
4.56 billion years, 20 million older than Earth.
According to Australian researchers, cockatoos have how many dance moves?
30, 17 of which are brand new to scientists.
In today's Kid News Kicker, why be perfect when being imperfect can be so much more interesting?
For example, the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, which is held every year in Santa Rosa, California.
Instead of making fun of beauty challenge FIDOs, its purpose is to promote adoption and remind people that pedigree doesn't mean you get a better pet.
In fact, missing fur, funky teeth, a too long tongue are, as the New York Times writes, badges of honor.
And this year's winner, crowned on Friday, is bursting with badges that make her beautiful.
Petunia is her name. She's a two-year-old hairless English-French bulldog rescued from neglect whose flaws are now translating into fame.
Look for her wrinkly face on T-shirts, dog toys, and unlimited edition cans of mug root beer.
Petunia's victory tour starts this morning with an appearance on NBC's Today Show.
Thanks again to the Cohen family of Encino, California for sponsoring today's quiz.
Happy 10th birthday to Adele, and hello to her brother Theo and all her friends at the Lawrence School.
And to all our Kid News teachers, we're about to roll out another year of classroom shout-outs.
They fill up fast, so sign up soon. It's free, and all the information can be found on our website at kidnews.org slash teacherslounge.
Thanks for listening. Have a great day. We'll see you back here for more Kid News tomorrow morning.
