RYAN: After 15 months of war, an Israel-Hamas ceasefire went into effect. A ceasefire is when fighting is temporarily stopped. This means aid trucks can come to provide medicine, food, and fuel that are desperately needed after more than a year of war. More than 630 of these trucks entered Gaza on the first day alone.

PAM: Also as part of the agreement, hostages are being released. So far, three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners have been released, with more to come over the next six weeks. This is the first of three phases in the deal.

PAM: Since the ceasefire went into effect, it has been a whirlwind of emotions. There were celebrations in the streets with fireworks and cheering, but joy was mixed with sadness in both Israel and Gaza. In Gaza, families are returning to destroyed homes, and in Israeli, families are still waiting for the return of the other 94 hostages that have been held for almost 475 days.

RYAN: How things will unfold is still uncertain, but the hope is that the next stages will see all the hostages released, and a permanent end to the war.

PAM: Former President Trump is no longer President Elect Trump and is now officially, President Trump. Again. <SFX Hail to the Chief>. President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday, January 20th, and became America’s 47th president. Washington DC’s below-freezing temperatures meant that Trump took the oath from inside the Capitol Rotunda, making this the first time in 40 years that the swearing-in took place somewhere besides on the Capitol steps. The limited space indoors meant that most people who wanted to watch the inauguration had to go elsewhere, but Trump was still joined by world diplomats and tech moguls like Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Singer Carrie Underwood performed as well. In his speech, President Trump was very vocal about actively and immediately getting to work on issues like immigration, the economy, and energy.

RYAN: And Trump wasted no time. Before he was even sworn in, he made promises to save TikTok. <SFX TikTok ending screen sound effect> Last weekend, a ban on the app went into effect in the US. Well, for about 12 hours, or what I call “a quick nap.” This past Saturday evening, TikTok users in America got an error message saying the app was offline. But the next day, we got access back, along with a message suggesting that Trump is going to really fight to save TikTok. The temporary ban comes after almost a year of debate following U.S lawmakers’ decision to give TikTok’s Chinese owner the choice between selling to a different country or being banned in the U.S. Since a Chinese company owns the app, there are concerns that the user data may be shared with the Chinese government which would be a threat to American security and privacy. We don’t know how things will play out with the ban, but after being a leading voice in calling for the app to be banned, now President Trump has promised to fight hard to keep TikTok accessible in the US.

PAM: Our next story is about food!

RYAN: FOOD? What food? Doesn’t matter what kind. I’ll take all of it. Extra sprinkles.

PAM: Oooo, not so fast. The US just banned a dye called Red 3 from the nation’s food supply. It gives things like candies and the cherries on top of your ice cream their bright red color, but research has shown that it’s been linked to sickness in lab rats that have been exposed to the substance in high levels.

RYAN: Wait…rats and I eat the same things…?

PAM: Not just any rats, the testing was done in a lab setting.

RYAN: Wait, who’s being tested on, me or the rats?!?

PAM: Definitely the rats. However, there may be some pushback from food manufacturers because research shows that the negative effects the dye has on rats does not translate to humans. For now, it looks like food manufacturers will have until January of 2027 to get rid of the dye from their products, and medicine manufacturers will have until January of 2028. Some are already finding substitutes like color from naturally red sources like beets or red cabbage. Yet another benefit of vegetables!

RYAN: In the wide world of sports <SFX Soccer Ball Kick, then Baseball Bat Crack, then Basketball Net Swish and a Stadium Crowd Roar> this past Monday was a big day in college football! Ohio State made history after defeating Notre Dame in the College Football Championships 34 -23. Ohio State was considered the underdog in the matchup but took the win and made Buckeye fans across the U.S. very happy.

PAM: What a game huh, Ryan? Ry?

RYAN <chewing, SFX bag rustling>: Talking football always makes me want nachos! <Gulps, swallows>

PAM: Ten’ers, we’re going to take a snack break but we’ll have plenty more news for you in just a few!

RYAN: Hey Ten’ers, if you didn’t hear the Nintendo Switch 2 was announced last week! Yeah…I freaked out too. I also recorded a bonus episode explaining everything we know about it…it dropped last Thursday, so check back on your feed and give it a listen. And if you want more gaming content, email us at hello@thetennews.com or leave us a review or comment and tell us what kind of game news you want to hear about! Alright, back to the show.

PAM: Here’s a two-for-one. It’s sports news and also political news. <SFX Soccer Ball Kick, then Baseball Bat Crack, then Basketball Net Swish and a Stadium Crowd Roar> and <SFX Hail to the Chief> at the same time. Okay that sound mash-up didn’t work. As for the news, The House passed a bill banning transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools. The bill will move to the Senate. If it passes there, it would stop trans women from playing on women’s sports teams. That’s tricky because the women’s team is the team that’s consistent with their gender identity, or how they see themselves. The argument in favor of the bill is that transgender women, who were born male but identify as female, have a physical advantage over biological women. On the other hand, the argument against the bill is that it adds to the challenges that trans people already have to face, especially trans youth.

RYAN: As LA continues to deal with devastating wildfires, it’s amazing to see the different ways that people have been stepping up to help. When restaurant owner Marissa Hermer was told that her restaurant The Draycott, located in the Pacific Palisades Village was damaged by the fire, she decided to use her other restaurants to launch a food delivery service called “You Give, We Cook, They Eat.” Hermer raises money to provide food to frontline workers and families who have had to evacuate their homes. Even though she is currently living in a hotel with her family, after evacuating her own home, she hopes that her food service can provide some help and comfort to her community. Marissa definitely deserves some Ten News snaps. SFX: snaps. Thanks for being awesome Marissa!

PAM: In science news, <SFX Beaker bubbling, Static Electricity, Zaps> a research team has taken an ice core from Antarctica that dates back 1.2 million years. At over 9,000 feet long, it’s as big as almost 25 soccer fields, or six and a half times taller than the empire state building!

RYAN: OR more than 11,000 cats if the cats made a feline tower! <SFX cats yowling>

PAM: As you can imagine, pulling out this ice was a big job. Experts from 12 scientific institutions spent more than 200 days collecting the ice over the last four summers. But it was worth it, because this ice is extra special.

RYAN: Besides getting me excited about the possibility of a 9,000 foot popsicle, scientists can use this ice to learn about how the world’s climate has changed over time by looking at the air bubbles in the sample. Earth’s climate responds to changes in things like solar radiation and volcanic activity, which will change greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature, all of which change the formation of the ice.

PAM: Scientists also hope that studying the ice will help find some answers about how and why about a million years ago, the length of ice ages went from being 40,000 years to about 100,000 years.

RYAN: Our next thing to know is the BEST USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT I’VE EVER HEARD OF… a non-profit called Earth Species Project is studying how to use AI to decode “non-human communication.” In other words, they’re using AI to study how animals talk!

PAM: But it is more for the benefit of the environment than it is to listen in on our pets’ juicy gossip.

RYAN: I just want to know why my cat’s baking biscuits all the time!

PAM: If we can better understand how animals communicate, it might lead people to have a greater appreciation for the environment. The goal isn’t to chit chat with animals -

RYAN: AHEM.

PAM: Sorry, chit CAT with animals. Experts are trying to collect animal noises to analyze and build basic “dictionaries” for them. To do this, scientists are working to document the calls and sounds of different birds and animals, then using AI to sort out speech patterns. The technology can identify species and characteristics like sex or stage of life. When patterns in communication emerge, they could help us come up with better conservation strategies and ways to help the ecosystem. With AI at the forefront of this research, new grants totaling $17 million are going towards hiring engineers and more people for the research team.

RYAN: Animal noises are pretty cool, but I think I’d rather listen to the latest tunes. Which reminds me, I think Owen has some music trivia for us. Take it away, Owen!

<SFX Trivia Theme song>

OWEN: Ryan, you’re clearly not the only one that’s in the mood to listen to music lately, because 2024 was a record-breaking year for streaming music. In all of 2024, across the globe, how many streams were there? Remember that in this case, a stream is when you listen to a song on a device like your phone or computer.

Almost 5 million streams worldwide
Almost 5 billion streams worldwide
Almost 5 trillion streams worldwide
Almost 5 quadrillion streams worldwide

<SFX five second clock tick>

OWEN: Did ya get it? The answer is C, almost 5 trillion streams worldwide! Ten’ers, 2024 set a record with a whopping 4.8 TRILLION streams throughout the year.

RYAN: The record is a 14% increase from the previous record in 2023.

OWEN: Female artists topped the charts all over the place! Their streams made up almost ⅔ of all audio streams in the top 100 pop artists in the US.

RYAN: Leading the way by a landslide was Taylor Swift with 13 billion streams.

OWEN: Other top artists were Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, and Chappell Roan.

RYAN: Owen, are you thinking what I’m thinking?

OWEN: Are you thinking about a—

RYAN and OWEN: –Dance party?!

PAM: And that’s Ten Things You Need to Know! Ry, last week I said the first two weeks of the year had been wild…and now I’m saying the first THREE weeks of the year have been bonkers.

RYAN: We got a cease-fire, a new but old president, Tik Tok left and then came back…the Switch 2 was announced! I need some ice cream to help me calm down.

PAM: I will definitely join you for that, but first, we gotta give Ten New Snaps to one of our listeners.

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

[Ad Break]

RYAN: Time for Ten News Snaps! <Grand fanfare SFX>

PAM: A user named Ericka Sylvester left us a comment on Apple podcasts with the subject “Only podcast my kids like!!” and in the body of the comment it said “Love the jokes” followed by SO many butterfly emojis. Ericka, we love the feedback!

RYAN: We do NOT love the butterflies, though. And FYI, Ten Things You Need to Know drops on Thursdays, and our deep dive episodes drop once a month. 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. 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 trying to communicate with their pets and includes Tracey Not a Crooks, Adam The Great Bambino Bernard, Brian NOT Ryan Douglas, Hebba the Big Cheese Gouda and Carson Not That 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 and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I’m Pamela Kirkland.

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

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Tracy Kaplan

Israel-Hamas Update & More - 10 Things You Need to Know

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10 Things You Need to Know: Episode 525

A Ten News Special Report: LA Wildfires ❤️‍🩹