MLB Opening Day, News from Apple, and a Sweet Treat Takeover

Episode
Written By Tracy Kaplan

10 Things You Need to Know: Episode 633

10 Things You Need to Know

1. MLB Opening Day ⚾️

2. Nature is Calling 📵

3. Apple Updates... Update ⚙️

4. Artemis II Launch 🚀

5. A New Law for the Law 🚨

6. A Sticky Situation 🚧 🥞

7. A Supersized Sweet Treat 🍫🐰

8. Big Comeback for Tiny Animals 🐿️

9. Meet Mr. Flower Fantastic 🌼

10. It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Meteor! ☄️

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TRANSCRIPT

INT. TEN NEWS STUDIO<SFX Door Opens> 

PAM: Good morning Ry–RYAN: Are you ready Pam?! Are you ready?!PAM: Ready for…? WOW. That is a lot…of space ice cream.RYAN: Never enough, Pam, never enough! <SFX opens bag of space ice cream> We’re all stocked up for the Artemis II launch. PAM: I’m surprised you didn’t stock up on hotdogs and popcorn for MLB opening day–

RYAN: WAIT WHEN IS THAT?! I don’t have ANY hot dogs!PAM: Oh boy. Then we should probably jump right in. I’m Pamela Kirkland.

RYAN: And I’m the hot dog-less Ryan Willard. It’s Thursday, March 26th.

PAM: This is Ten Things You Need to Know.

RYAN: Well we obviously need to start in the <SFX Wild World of Sports>PAM: The most wonderful time of the year for baseball fans is finally here… MLB Opening Day 2026. The San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees officially kicked off their season yesterday evening, and the game was broadcast exclusively on Netflix.

RYAN: I can’t believe I missed it!PAM: Well, today is the day. Opening Day, when 22 teams take the field starting at 1:15 pm EST as the Pittsburgh Pirates take on the New York Mets. This marks day 2 of the 3-day Major League Baseball extravaganza, with the third ‘opening day’ kicking off tomorrow. Each team will play a three-game series to open the season, setting the stage for what’s sure to be another exciting year across the league. So you still got time to get your snacks, Ry. Play ball!

RYAN: Baseball season means warmer weather, and warmer weather means more time outside, which is exactly what Tim Cook has been encouraging smartphone users to do lately. In a recent interview with Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan, Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about the importance of experiencing the world outside of a screen. He emphasized that even though our phones may be a big part of our everyday life, they shouldn’t replace real, face-to-face connections or time spent in nature. Too much screentime can start to have negative effects on our mental health and even physical health. So, let this be a sign to put the screens away and go play! Or just touch grass. 

PAM: Well just in case you needed another reason to put your phone down… <SFX Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself> In other Apple news, iPhone users are being encouraged to update their phones after new cybersecurity research suggests that Russian intelligence, Chinese cybercriminals, and other hackers have been using tools to take over phones running on older versions of iOS. These tools, nicknamed ‘DarkSword’ and ‘Coruna’, are called ‘exploit kits’ that hackers can use to gain deep remote access to phones and search through content like Wi-Fi passwords, text messages, and more. While there’s no evidence that Americans have been targeted, researchers say these tools have been used against specific groups, including Ukrainians, Chinese crypto users, and others.

RYAN: Not gonna lie, crazy freaky hackers make me want to leave the planet for a bit... Speaking of: NASA’s Artemis 2 moon rocket is set to launch on Wednesday, April 1st! Artemis 2 has already done quite a bit of traveling as it left Kennedy Space Center last Friday and arrived at its final destination before takeoff, Launch Pad 39B. But, get this… Launch Pad 39B was only 4 miles away, and it took nearly 12 hours to get there! It took that long mainly because the rocket had to hitch a ride on NASA’s HUGE Crawler-Transporter 2, the heaviest self-powered vehicle in the world and the official Guinness World Record holder. It weighs a whopping 6.65 million pounds! Artemis 2 will be taking four astronauts on a 10-day flight around the moon, and they will be the first people to venture beyond low Earth orbit since the 1972 Apollo mission. 

PAM: There’s a new law out of Washington state that now bans all federal, state, and local law enforcement from wearing face coverings that hide their identities when interacting with the public. The law aims to increase transparency and accountability over concerns about masked enforcement actions, especially by ICE. There are some exceptions to the law, such as wearing safety gear, SWAT operations, or religious reasons, but for the most part, officers are required to remain identifiable. While supporters say this measure makes sure the public knows who is exercising authority, some argue it could endanger law enforcement. And with that, let’s take a quick break.

RYAN: Hey Ten’ers, we’re gonna do a Deep Dive on AI… So I’m curious, what do you think about AI? And what do you want to know about it? Send us an email at Hello@thetennews.com or leave us an apple podcast review or a spotify comment and we might have you on the show! Speaking of…back to it!

RYAN: We’re back with a sticky situation out of Fontana, California. While traveling in the westbound lanes of the 10 Freeway at Citrus Avenue, a semi-truck overturned, spilling hundreds of gallons of syrup onto the highway. The exact cause of the accident is unknown, but officers said the syrup began to spread quickly, causing an inch-thick layer of the gooey substance across all westbound lanes. 

PAM: The California Department of Transportation first tried to clean up the mess using absorbent material, but that didn’t work. So, they pivoted to a water truck, which hosed down the syrup and vacuumed up the remaining residue. The cleanup took almost nine hours and closed down four lanes of the freeway, causing a five-mile-long traffic jam. 

RYAN: How come I never come across delicious accidents? 

PAM: Ryan, you were the cause of the “Great Spaghetti Explosion of 2024.” 

RYAN: You’re right, that was delicious, wasn’t it? Well. Onto another sweet treat story. Costco is taking Easter candy to the next level this year. The retailer is selling a 10-pound chocolate bunny, also known as Pete the Bunny. Pete is a giant chocolate bunny made of semi-solid milk, white, and dark chocolate, with one floppy ear and a smile. You can purchase Pete the Bunny to enjoy during your Easter festivities for a low, low price of $112.97. But he requires quite a task force to eat. To enjoy the chocolate bunny, you have to crack it open with a hammer or mallet, or slice it with a warm knife. So yes, Pam, I will share my Pete the Bunny with you. As long as you don’t bring up the “Great Spaghetti Explosion of 2024” again. 

PAM: You’ve got a deal. So Ten’ers, I’d normally play a sound and tell you to guess what animal this is…but not today, because this animal was thought to be extinct! But thanks to a collaboration among scientists, indigenous communities, and citizen scientists, it’s actually alive and well! Previously known only from fossils, the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider have now been identified in the wild in New Guinea. According to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, this marks the first confirmed sightings of these species in over 7,000 years! They’re a part of the marsupial family, and are now known as a ‘Lazarus species’, too, which is a term for organisms that reappear after they’re thought to be extinct. 

RYAN: Have you ever met Mr. Flower Fantastic? Not many people have… until recently. Also known as ‘MFF’ or “Flower’, you could call him the Botanical Banksy because this floral artist remains anonymous because he wants the real focus to be on his work. Typically, when he’s out in public, he’s wearing a gas mask to hide his identity, and ironically enough, he is allergic to flowers, so he wears a pair of gloves too! But this all changed during his work at the New York Botanical Garden’s annual orchid show. Because he is a lifelong New Yorker, he used the opportunity to reveal his secret identity and invite the public to see New York as he does. Some of his floral structures in this show included a dumpster overflowing with white moth orchids and English Ivy, and a car wash with a taxi driving through it made of synthetic and real carnations. 

PAM: Okay that is so cool, I wish I got to see that in person!

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

OWEN: Thanks Ry. I know how much you want to go to space, so today’s trivia is all about it! Which of the following is another name for a meteor? Is it:

A. A comet

B. A shooting star

C. A solar flare

D. An asteroid

The answer is… B, a shooting star! That’s the bright steal of light we usually see in the night sky. And speaking of shooting stars, something pretty cool happened recently. Last Tuesday morning, just before 9 a.m. ET, people in 10 different states reported seeing a bright fireball in the sky. Witnesses in places like Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania even heard a loud boom. It was an asteroid, about 7 tons, racing through the atmosphere at 45,000 miles per hour. As it burned up, it lit up the sky like a giant meteor! 

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

PAM: So which snack are you going with, space ice cream or popcorn…?

RYAN: Thank you for asking. I’ve realized that I can mix space ice cream INTO my popcorn and I get a sweet and salty sensation and it is OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD!PAM: Lemme try… <SFX grabs popcorn and chews/crunches> Oh wow. That is delicious. Can I have some more?

RYAN: You can, right after we give some Ten News Snaps to some of our listeners–

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

<AD BREAK>

RYAN: Time for Ten News Snaps!

PAM: A Ten’er named Messi left us a five star Apple Podcast review and said, “I thought in the March 10th episode the animal was my dad snoring.” Your dad must have a mighty snore! 

RYAN: And a Ten’er named Zane499 also left us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and said, “March 27th is my birthday, so the closest episode to it, can you shout me out please?” Okay: ZANE499! Does that work? Oh and also happy birthday! My birthday was on March 25th! Can you shout me out please?

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 putting their phones down and going for a picnic in the park and includes Tracey Not a Crooks, Adam the Great Bambino Bernard, Brian Not Ryan Douglas, the Duke of Earl Davis and Carson Not So Harry Potter. Big thanks to Owen, Not Slowin Down for Anybody.

PAM: Our Production Director is Jeremiah 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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Spring Happenings, March Madness, and New Emojis