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Hello there.
It's Ruby here and you're listening to an episode of News Time.
Hey, Ruby.
Hello.
On this week's News Time we're going to hear about a family who received a message from 100 years in the past.
We'll go on a quest to identify a mysterious animal that's been prowling around...
Then we'll put on our dancing shoes for a wild wow of the week.
Let's move and groove.
Story number five.
The jacarandas are blooming, the cicadas are chirping and Christmas lights are being strung up outside people's houses.
That means summer is nearly here.
Tell me, what are your favourite things about the warmest season?
That we can...
Run around a lot and get splashed with water.
The beach is warm and pools are open.
I like building sand castles on the beach.
Yes, and there's nothing quite like cooling down with some cold water and delicious summer fruit.
Dragon fruit.
Raspberries.
Cherries.
Stop, you're making me hungry.
Mangoes.
It tastes really good.
I agree.
I love mangoes.
They are so tasty eaten off the seed or served with a little bit of ice cream.
This summer is going to be a real treat for mango lovers.
There's a brand new mango variety and it's called Ruby Gold.
It's not named after me.
It's actually named after the ruby red color of the mango skin.
The ruby gold has been developed and grown in far north Queensland and farmers are confident there'll be enough to stock in supermarkets right across Australia.
It does raise the question, though, how do you create a new variety of mango?
By adding seeds together to make new flavours.
This mango was first found growing off the branch of a Kensington Pride tree.
A Kensington Pride is a pretty common variety of mango.
The family who was growing it knew there was something special, and they spent 10 years grafting and planting the mango until voila, it was its own variety.
They just wanted to create a new thing.
A little bit better than mango.
I think it tastes like...
A little bit sour and really sweet.
According to the growers, the flavour is a bit stronger than your average mango, but it's not quite as stringy.
They're hoping to send 15,000 trays of mangoes to supermarkets this summer.
Hmm, I wonder what new fruit varieties we might see next.
I want to know what mango seed and raspberry seeds mix together.
What would they look like when they're done growing?
I think that fruit combo would be very popular.
Story number four.
If you're at school, you'd know that spelling words is part of every classroom routine.
And some kids take spelling to the next level by taking part in a competition called a spelling bee.
I'm decent at spelling.
I'm very good at spelling because I made it into the school's spelling bee.
Well done.
Students step up one by one to spell some pretty tricky words, and the last speller standing is declared the winner.
Recently, the best spellers in New South Wales gathered for the Premier's Spelling Bee and they spelled words like inundate.
Hmm.
I-N-U-N-D-A-T-E.
Nice one.
These spellers were the best 32 in the state from the original 200,000 who began the competition.
Across three hours of the final, only the people who spelled words correctly could move on.
Eventually, there was a final two.
Ten-year-old Finn and nine-year-old Sukaina.
Sukaina was given the word sabbatical, but misspelled it.
Finn was given the word subcutaneous.
I've never heard that one.
Yeah, it's a strange one.
It's a medical term that means under the skin.
The good news was Finn spelled it correctly and was named the New South Wales Spelling Champion for 2025.
Good work, Finn.
Spelling words isn't always easy and everyone learns at their own pace, but it's an important skill to have.
You've got to do it later in life.
I think we need it because if you don't have your phone and you need to spell something, you can just use spelling.
Finn is putting his spelling skills to work and writing a book with his friend.
It's about a kid who tries to defeat a monster, which is quite appropriate, considering Finn took on a monster challenge.
Story number three.
This year, on a remote beach in Western Australia, a small and very old glass bottle whooshed up on the shore.
A family walking along the beach found it and they found something very special inside.
Memories.
Maybe photos of people.
Lots and lots and lots of sand.
A map or to a treasure or something.
The bottle contained two letters written by soldiers who fought in World War I Private Malcolm Neville and Private William Harley.
They threw the bottle overboard on a boat on the way to Europe in 1916.
That means these letters have been bobbing around in the sea for more than 100 years.
I think it says, hi family, it's me.
I'm currently in war and I wish I could be here with you.
The people who found the bottle jumped online to try to track down each of the soldiers' families.
They were hoping to send the letters on to the grandchildren.
After a bit of searching, success!
One soldier's family was found in Adelaide and the other was in Alice Springs.
The letters were carefully packaged up and sent in the post.
They're happy that they have those memories of the people who have died.
Private Harley's grandchildren say they'll be forever grateful to the people who found the bottle because they took really good care of their grandfather's precious letter.
These days we know not to throw bottles into the ocean, but 100 years ago that wasn't really the case.
It's not very often that bottles from a century ago could be found and for those letters to be kept safe.
Most bottles would have smashed or lost their cork or sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Historians reckon there could be more bottles buried in sand dunes that haven't been discovered yet.
Dear grandchildren, I am in the future.
Now that would be one surprising message.
Story number two.
OK, now we're heading over to the Republic of Ireland, where local police have received some curious calls from residents who've been reporting sightings of a lion prowling around their local forest.
I don't think it should be there because lions live in Africa.
I wonder if the lion escaped from a zoo.
I feel like the locals were saying there's a lion around and...
The police have to come get it because they don't feel like it should be there.
The police put on a brave face and went to the forest to look for the creature.
When they found it, they couldn't believe their eyes.
It was a large animal with a puffy tail and a big mane.
That doesn't really look like a lion.
That looks like a dog.
It's so cute.
It's a lion.
I think a scientist mixed DNA.
It turns out, my friends, this was not a lion.
It was a Newfoundland dog named Mouse who just had a fresh haircut.
Half of its fur has been cut off.
Yep, the dog's owners had shaved the dog's fur off, which is why the hair around its head looked like a mane.
The local animal protection agency said you should never shave a Newfoundland's coat unless it's for medical reasons.
They probably should have checked.
Very, very, very angry at the owners for giving them such a bad haircut.
One local policeman has a theory that Mouse's coat had been trimmed for Halloween so his owners could take him from house to house trick-or-treating.
So the residents of the town can get Very scared.
I guess you could say the whole town was tricked in the end, believing that this mouse was actually a lion.
OK, friends, time to move on from a maned animal to the main event.
It's time for... Wow, I'll do it.
This story made me go, well, cos how good his legs are and how he... hasn't got them tired out yet.
In the country Hungary, a man with the nickname Grasshopper has achieved a world record by doing something for 144 hours, six days straight.
Can you guess what it was?
Being in water but not having your head on them.
Running a marathon.
Oh, that would be exhausting.
I think he did jumping jacks.
Not quite, but Grasshopper did a lot of moving around.
He danced.
It's a status.
Grasshopper bopped along to more than 3,000 songs on a video game called Dance Dance Revolution.
I played it and I thought it was impossible.
I got up straight away.
To play the game.
You stand on a dance platform and hit coloured arrows with your feet in time with the music.
Some schools in the United States and the UK use the game to help students get exercise.
But there's no way they'd get their students to do it for six days straight.
His legs, oh, would be so tired.
Grasshopper spent six months preparing for the challenge.
He focused on strengthening his legs and his glutes.
He even had a diet plan.
So you're dancing and then you go, oof, falling asleep dancing.
Then you fall asleep dancing.
Then you wake up dancing.
Then you fall asleep dancing.
Then you eat lunch dancing.
Well, every one hour of dancing earned Grasshopper a 10-minute break.
He was allowed to build up those breaks to an hour or two, and then he could use that time to have a snooze.
Grasshopper was so pleased to hit the 144-hour mark.
He described the world record as tediously joyful.
And with that, my friends, it's time to step off the Newstime machine and put our feet up.
Phew.
That was gold, Ruby.
Ah, I see what you did there.
Make sure you come back next week for another delicious serving of Newstime.
Thank you.
Bye, Ruby.
See you later.
Or as they say in Turkish, güle güle.
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