Hispanic Heritage Month, Girl Scout Cookies, and Life on Mars?

Episode
Written By Tracy Kaplan

10 Things You Need to Know: Episode 605

1. Hispanic Heritage Month 🎊

2. 2025 WNBA Playoffs 🏀

3. Nintendo Switch Fake Out 🎮

4. Girl Scouts' Newest Cookie 🍪

5. Back in the Game 🏈

6. September Skywatching 🔭

7. Life on Mars?! 🤯

8. Saving the Sequoias 🔥

9. Orcas vs. Boats 🐳

10. TikTok Trivia 📱

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TRANSCRIPT

INT. TEN NEWS STUDIO

<SFX window opens> 

<SFX Ryan huffs and KICKS a football>

PAM: Ry! I think it’s time to come inside. 

RYAN: Pam if I’m gonna make it in the NFL, I have to practice! <SFX Ryan huffs and KICKS a football> 

PAM: I don’t if that’s umm, possible, at uhh, this stage of your life. 

RYAN: Matt Prater was a youth football coach one week and then kicked a game winning field goal for the Buffalo Bills the next–

PAM: Yeah, there’s more to that story. I think we should start—

RYAN: Winners never quit and quitters never win– <SFX Ryan KICKS and then a…> <SFX Window SHATTERS>

ADAM: (VO) HEY! Hey you! I saw that!

<SFX Lightning fast footsteps running away> <SFX Ryan running into the studio> <SFX door opens>

RYAN: Hey Pam, I think it’s time to start the show! I’m Ryan Willard. 

PAM: And I’m Pamela Kirkland, it’s Thursday, September 18th.

RYAN: This is Ten Things You Need to Know! 

RYAN: Monday, September 15th, marked the official start to National Hispanic Heritage Month, and guess what!? We get to celebrate all the way up to October 15th! <SFX Latin music> 

PAM: When it was first introduced by Congressman George E. Brown in 1968, it was only a week-long celebration, until President Ronald Reagan extended the celebration to a full month in 1988. But why the 15th of September? 

RYAN: Because this date marks the independence anniversaries of many Latin American countries, like Costa Rica, El Salvador, and more, followed by Mexico on September 16th and Chile on September 18th. During National Hispanic Heritage Month, we honor the history, culture, and contributions made by Hispanic and Latino Americans. There are also so many cool ways to observe this month, like attending parades, food fairs, and even local art exhibitions! Over the course of this month-long celebration, I will be eating at least 19 tacos, 14 empanadas, and a couple of gallons of rice and beans.

PAM: The WNBA Playoffs tipped off on Sunday, September 14th with a quadruple header. Some highlights from the first round include the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx taking home a game 1 victory over the Golden State Valkyries with a final score of 101 - 72. The Atlanta Dream picked up their first playoff victory since 2018, beating the Indiana Fever 80 to 68. The Fever are still searching for their first postseason win since 2016. Defending champs, New York Liberty beat the Phoenix Mercury 76 - 69, and the Las Vegas Aces extended their winning streak to 17 games with a dub over the Seattle Storm and a final score of 102 - 77. The WBNA playoffs are ongoing all the way up to the WNBA finals on October 19th, so if you missed these match-ups, there’s still plenty to catch!

RYAN: I’m personally a New York Liberty fan and wanna see them Two-pete! And now onto some Nintendo news, but I wouldn’t call them… <SFX GGs!> Isaac Lapidus of Long Island is facing charges for allegedly selling fake Nintendo products. <SFX: What? > From October 2018 to September 2025, he allegedly (which also means claiming someone did something, but there’s no proof yet) sold more than 200,000 phony Nintendo Switch docking stations, 10,000 docking station adapters, and roughly 15,705 Pokémon Go Plus accessories. Even with customers leaving reviews about imitation products, Lapidus profited more than $2 million. The scheme was eventually uncovered after Amazon and Nintendo learned about fake products being sold by five Amazon seller accounts. Following an investigation, it was discovered that all five accounts were connected to Lapidus, who we now like to call the Switch Swindler, or maybe the Switch Stealer? I need to work on this.

PAM: Um, let’s move on.  It’s not quite Girl Scout cookie season, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t dreaming about our cookie favorites, like Adventurefuls, which, by the way, has a new competitor in 2026. 

RYAN: WAIT. A NEW GIRLSCOUT COOKIE?!?! TELL ME MORE PAM TELL ME MORE!

PAM: Girl Scouts of the USA has revealed a new cookie variety called Exploramores. This new flavor features a “rocky road ice cream-inspired sandwich cookie”, including chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond-flavored creme. While there’s no exact date for when you’ll be able to get your hands on a box of Exploreamores, they will make their debut in 2026 during the Girl Scout cookie season, which typically runs from January to April every year. You can stay in the know by visiting girlscouts.org/cookies and signing up for cookie alerts for when the new cookies are available.

RYAN: From sweets BACK to sports, <SFX Wide World of Sports cue> did you happen to catch the Buffalo Bills' season opener, where they defeated the Baltimore Ravens 41-40!? While it was a team effort, there’s one special player for the Bills that helped them get the dub, and his name is Matt Prater. Just three days before his game-winning assist, Prater was a free agent after 19 seasons in the NFL, and was spending his time volunteering as an assistant coach for his son’s youth football team. That all changed when, while writing up a practice plan for his kid’s team, the 41-year-old got the call that the Bills were signing him after starting kicker Tyler Bass went down with an injury. So, he hopped on a red-eye flight, got in just a couple of practices with his new teammates, and then nailed a 32-yard field goal in the final moments of the game, making for quite the comeback.

PAM: We love a good comeback! And now, let’s take a quick break!

PAM: <SFX OUT OF THIS WORLD sound cue> Have you done any star gazing this month? You may want to start. The September sky is packed with action. The planet, Saturn takes the spotlight, it will be visible all month long! The best time to spot it is on September 21, when it will be at opposition, meaning when Earth lines up between Saturn and the Sun. For our early birds, on September 19, get ready for a very cool trio. The crescent moon will be positioned right next to Venus and Regulus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. They may look close together, but they’re actually light-years apart. You can find this celestial cluster by just looking at the moon! And don’t forget, the autumnal equinox is coming up on September 22, known as the official start of fall, and when day and night are almost exactly 12 hours long. And last but certainly not least, the moon will be cycling through its phases, with the new moon next on the 21st.

RYAN: And that’s not our only space news for today. NASA’s scientists have long searched for answers about life on Mars, and they just got one step closer, thanks to Perseverance, literally. NASA’s Perseverance rover collected a rock sample called Sapphire Canyon from a reddish, vein-filled rock along the edge of the ancient river valley known as Nereta Vallis. This valley once carried water into the Jezero Crater, which held a giant lake billions of years ago, and is one of Mars’ most ancient terrains. Early studies of the rock sample show materials like organic carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, and others that on Earth are often linked to microbial activity, or the biological and chemical processes carried out by microorganisms. Now, to be clear, this isn’t proof of Martian life, just a promising clue, and one of the strongest signs yet. 

PAM: Headed back to planet Earth, we’ve got a story out of California’s Sierra National Forest. A wildfire sparked by a lightning strike burned through a grove of giant sequoia trees, setting some of them on fire. Wildland firefighters with tree-climbing experience were called to rescue the majestic trees, some estimated to be 3,000 years old. Sequoias are the world's largest tree by volume, capable of growing more than 300 feet tall, and they only grow naturally along a 260-mile belt of forest on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. In an effort to protect the trees, fire crews wrapped the trunks with fire-resistant foil blankets, raked flammable material away from the trees, laid sprinkler lines to increase the grounds' moisture, and kept an eye out for hotspots, which are small areas of heat that can flare back up even after main flames are gone. 

RYAN: For 10 points, can you guess what animal this is? <SFX ORCA sound> <SFX Tick tick tick DING!> That was an ORCA and they are making a big splash over in Spain. Spanish authorities warned mariners off the coast of Galicia after two vessels had run-ins with Iberian orcas. But, here’s the wild part - this isn’t new! There have actually been hundreds of similar incidents since 2020 with the same pod of about 40 orcas. And, get this, scientists think the animals are actually just having some fun! Several theories have been floated around, but it’s most likely that the orcas have decided this is all a game. A senior scientist of marine mammal biology at the Animal Welfare Institute has said that it seems that the orcas’ goal is to break the rudder, which is used to steer the boat. Since the whales are very smart, he explained that if they actually were trying to sink the boat or hurt anyone, they’d do just that! So does that mean Orcas are…gamers? Yeah that’s pretty cool. 

PAM: And for the last thing you need to know, let’s go to our Trivia Master, Owen. 

OWEN: TikTok has been all over the news lately, with the US government working on a possible deal to buy TikTok from China… But do you know which company actually owns TikTok? Is it:

  1. Meta

  2. ByteDance

  3. Google, or

  4. YouTube

OWEN: The answer is… B, ByteDance! ByteDance is a privately owned global company based in Beijing, China. TikTok has been at the center of a huge debate in the US because leaders worry about data privacy and national security. Basically, who gets access to all that information users put on the app. The app has been at risk of getting banned if a deal couldn’t be reached. President Trump has pushed out the deadline while a potential buyer could be found. And right before the latest deadline, U.S. officials have announced that they have struck a “framework for a TikTok deal” with China. There aren’t many details about the agreement yet, but it is said to be fair to the Chinese, while also respecting U.S. national security concerns. Creators across the U.S. can keep dancing and posting for now.

PAM: And that was Ten Things You Need to Know. 

RYAN: I’ve accepted the fact that I lack the 19 years experience that Prater had before he made that game winning field goal. 

PAM: I support you Ry, but I don’t think you’re built for the NFL. 

RYAN: Yeah I’m gonna train for Girl Scout cookie eating season instead. But we should give Ten News Snaps to some of our listeners! 

PAM: But before that, here’s a quick note for the grownups. 

<AD BREAK> 

RYAN: Time for Ten News Snaps!

PAM: And a Ten’er named PodcastLover #13 left us a  review on Apple Podcasts and said: “Great Podcast! I love this podcast - 5 out of 5. I think Ryan is super funny and I think Pamela is really kind. But Ryan the butterflies might come soon, so get ready to hide! Butterfly emoji. Please put this on Ten News Snaps.” Thank you Podcast Lover 13, we appreciate your kind words! And I’m sure Ryan appreciates your warning…

RYAN: I will be hiding, sooner than later. Also, the Jones Family left us a comment on Spotify and said, “Do you like Animal Crossing cause I loooooooooooove Animal Crossing!” Thank you Jones Family I don’t like it, I LOVE IT. Obv. Also FYI Animal Crossing: New Horizons looks and runs even better on Switch 2!

PAM: And two extra notes for the grown-ups, you can now get ad-free versions of our episodes when you join the Ten’ers Club on our website. 

RYAN: And if you want to help support the Ten News, you can make a tax-deductible donation at the link in our show notes. The whole team thanks you for your support!

PAM: “The Ten News” is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts, and part of the Airwave Podcast Network.

RYAN: The Ten News creative team is eating their secret stash of girl scout cookies and includes Tracey Not a Crooks, Adam the Great Bambino Bernard, Brian Not Ryan Douglas and Carson Not So Harry Potter. Big thanks to Owen, Not Slowin Down for Anybody.

PAM: Our Production Director is Jeremiah “On Fyaaah” Tittle, and our Executive Producers are Donald “Albright, Albright, Albright!” and show creator Tracy Takes the Leeds Kaplan. I’m Pamela Kirkland.

RYAN: And I’m Ryan Willard, thanks for listening to the Ten News.

Tracy Kaplan
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