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(Describer) In computer animation, different news scenes in rectangles move fast around a turning globe.

(Describer) In front of a blue background with a triangle and circle, title: Teen Kids News. A boy sits at a desk with monitors behind him.

- Hi, and welcome to "Teen Kids News." I'm Luke. We've got a lot to cover in this week's show, so let's get started. Here's our top story.

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(Describer) The Teen Kids News logo is on curved screens that form a turning cylinder. Passing around it, title: Top Story.

Every year, about 5,000 teens get cancer. No question, it's a bad disease. Fortunately, there are many ways to fight back. Some fight cancer with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Others fight it by swimming. Ava explains.

(Describer) People wearing swimsuits have numbers and words on their arms.

(upbeat music) - [Ava] It may not look it, but these people are dressed for battle. They're not Olympic hopefuls looking to earn gold. They're ordinary people looking to help others. - Welcome to the 27th anniversary of Swim Across America's Long Island Sound swim.

(audience applauding) - This event in Westchester, New York, is just one of the many events hosted by Swim Across America. - Everyone's here today to fight cancer. - The organization Swim Across America is just wonderful, it's great. It's amazing that this many people will get up very early in the morning and swim, and it's not easy. But it's really just a great thing to do. - [Ava] Many have very personal reasons for swimming. - We are swimming for my grandma because she beat breast cancer, and we're just making sure she doesn't get it again. - [Ava] You can swim by yourself or as part of a team. - Go Team Jane! Woo! - Team Cal, Team Cal!

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(Describer) They walk toward a dock.

- Everybody's gonna swim towards that huge house at the end of the point.

(Describer) He points straight ahead.

You're then gonna swim towards that yellow balloon in the sky that you can see through the masts of the sailboats. - [Ava] At this event, there are three open-water courses. There's the 2K, the 5K, or for really strong swimmers, the 10K. - [Announcer] Three, two, one, jump in and go!

(Describer) Some swimmers jump in from the dock. Then other jump in.

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(Describer) People in kayaks watch.

- [Ava] Buoys and volunteers, mostly on kayaks, mark the different routes.

(Describer) A volunteer stands on a paddleboard.

The volunteers are ready to give a helping hand or a paddle to any swimmer in need.

(Describer) Two people swim together.

So what do you think about while swimming? - All the people who shouldn't deserve, well, who have cancer, who shouldn't deserve how they are. Just thinking of them and how they are battling it.

(Describer) Dozens of people swim as others watch from the shore, waving and clapping. Some swimmers walk out.

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(people clapping) - I love it. Personally, I think it's so amazing how people just come together to fight a cause that is so important like this one. - [Woman] Jane, my daughter, is seven now. She's been undergoing treatment for leukemia for a year.

(Describer) Her name's on someone's shoulder. June Hatch:

- My mom swam for me. - We have another year to go, but she's thriving. And thanks to all the research, her treatment has been, it's been wonderful. - This is my first time doing it, and it was a lot of fun. I raised about $1,100. - I swam for Swim Across America four times. This time, my team raised $2,400. - [Ava] Calum may be too young to appreciate how much work it takes to organize events like this, but he certainly understands why everyone is here. - A ton of people go for a big swim to donate money to the hospital.

(Describer) Donnie Johnston:

- I'm thinking about how strong and how much he's fighting the leukemia, and he's winning. And I'm really happy about that. - Well, I know Donnie swam for me. - Team Calum raised, over the past three years, we've raised over $80,000. And this year, the numbers are not in yet, but around 15, maybe, I'm hoping for 20,000.

(Describer) Tony Sibio:

- The first year, in 1992, we had 17 swimmers, $15,000.

(Describer) People swim in a pool.

Between the seven pools and today, we'll have close to 900 swimmers, many, many volunteers, probably over 300, and I don't even know how many donors. But we raised in excess of $1.2 million, and we're still collecting. So it's phenomenal. - [Ava] The money will go towards medical research to find cures for many different types of cancer. It will also help fund the Westchester organization Cancer Support Team, CST for short.

(Describer) Alan Weiss:

- As you know, research and medicine is part of the battle with cancer, but so is the emotional cost, the financial cost, dealing with all the paperwork that has to happen. CST, Cancer Support Team, helps anybody in Lower Westchester who has a diagnosis of cancer, helps them with support groups, with counseling, nursing visits. They even have rides to help people go to and from treatment. And all these services are at no charge. CST could not do this if it weren't for you guys, for Swim Across America. For the last 20 years, Swim has been a strong and major supporter of CST. So I want to say to Tony, his volunteers and all the others that work to pull this together, thank you. And to all the people who participated, thank you. You have helped us to help, literally, thousands of people. - Swim Across America!

Woo! (people clapping) - The money raised by Swim Across America has already made a major impact on the lives of kids like Jane and Calum, as well as thousands of other kids and adults. But so much more still needs to be done, and that's why the organization always needs swimmers and volunteers. To find out how you can participate, check out SwimAcrossAmerica.org. For "Teen Kid News," I'm Ava.

(upbeat music) - Coming up on "Teen Kids News," there's an old saying that we are what we eat, but I'll tell you why we really are what we think. We'll be right back.

(Describer) Spinning with the triangle and circle, title: Teen Kids News.

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(Describer) Sebastian:

Almost 100 years ago, a book was published called "The Power of Positive Thinking," but only recently has there been hard scientific proof that positive thinking truly does have power. To explain the benefits of positive thoughts, we're joined by Dr. Daniel Amen. He's the author of the book, "Change Your Brain Change Your Grades." Dr. Amen's daughter Chloe contributed to the book. Welcome to "Teen Kids News." - Thank you for having us. - Thank you. - Dr. Amen, let's start with school. Can how we think about school really affect the grades we get? - No question. Every time you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals. Every single time, negative thoughts release negative chemicals that make you feel bad and decrease your ability to think clearly. Where positive thoughts, happy thoughts, hopeful thoughts, actually release a completely different set of chemicals that relax your body but enhance your mind. - In your book, you write about ANTS, what you call automatic negative thoughts. - I developed this concept many years ago after I had a really hard day at work. I'm a psychiatrist, and I saw four suicidal patients, two teenagers who'd run away from home and two couples who hated each other, and it was really stressful for me. And then I went home to an ant infestation in my house. There were thousands of them. And as I'm cleaning them up-- when you go to medical school, you develop these things we talk about in the book called mnemonics that help you remember things. And as I was cleaning up the ants, I'm like, "Ants, automatic negative thoughts. My patients are infested with these ANTS!" - You list seven types of ANTS. Can you give an example of one? And how to change it? - One of my ANTS, the one I suffer with is fortune-telling ANTS. That's where you arbitrarily predict things are gonna turn out badly, even though you don't have any evidence of it. And so the little tiny habit to get rid of the ANTS is whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking and see if you can identify which of the seven types of ANTS--like I'm gonna fail the test, that's a fortune-telling ANT-- and then talk back to it. And the goal is not positive thinking. The goal is accurate thinking. And learning how to kill the ANTS, how to get rid of them, can change your life. - That's interesting. Chloe, you and your cousin helped your dad with his book. You contributed tech tips. Tell us about the app to help teens think positive. I love this app because you can program it to give you positive reminders every day. It gives you little tips for small things to do, small habits to develop that will make you think happier. If you're just havin' a bad day, and you're just stuck in a negative place, it kind of snaps you out of it to get little positive reminders. It has all kinds of different features that I just really like and really helped me with my anxiety and to manage my ANTS. - That's pretty cool. Doctor, do we need to be careful about the friends we choose? - There's no question. People are contagious, just like the flu. I want you to think about what you want to be like and then choose the people that are doing the things you really want to do. Find the healthiest person or the smartest person and then spend as much time around them as possible. - Good advice. Thank you both for speaking with us. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Back in the 1800s, the French painter Paul Cezanne used the power of positive thinking. Because his works weren't selling, he would often get discouraged. So Cezanne went out and bought a parrot. He taught it to endlessly repeat, "Cezanne is a great artist! Cezanne is a great artist!" It must have worked, since Cezanne is considered one of the world's most respected painters. Fortunately, we don't need to buy birds for encouragement. There are apps that can do that, and we won't have to clean out any cages. I'm Sebastian for "Teen Kids News."

(upbeat music) - Coming up on "Teen Kids News," a simple trick to solve one of the problems when reheating leftovers. I'll show you when we return.

(Describer) Luke:

- It's time for Make the Grade. Here's Christin with this week's advice.

(Describer) Car traffic fills a freeway.

(upbeat music) - When you think of a family trip, you probably think of amusement parks, historic sites or natural wonders, like a national park.

(Describer) Waves crash onto rocks. Christin sits at a table.

But there's something else you might take in on your next trip, a college tour. While this is usually something high school juniors and seniors do, it doesn't hurt to visit some schools, even if you're still in middle school, especially if you happen to be visiting a part of the country that takes a lot of time and money to get to. If there's a college or university you've heard about in the area, ask your parents if there's time for a side trip. Go to the school's website and check their schedule. Many colleges have tours throughout the year, and they're free. The tours are usually led by students, who have lots of information about campus life. You're never too young to take advantage of what I call the three Vs of college prep. Visit, so you get a feel for the area. View, so you see what college life there is like. And visualize, see if you can imagine yourself as a student there. And here's one more v: very. If you don't wait until the last minute to start checking out schools, you'll be very happy when application time finally rolls along. I'm Christin, here to help you make the grade.

(Describer) Luke:

- Next time you're in the kitchen, you might want to give this tip from Katie a try.

(Describer) A white circle appears with an orange line around the edge. Different foods like avocado, tomato, carrot, apple and orange appear on it. Title: Katie's Kitchen Tips. In a kitchen...

(upbeat music) - Here's a smart way to heat up leftovers in a microwave. Don't just pile them up in a heap. Instead, space out the leftovers so the center is open.

(Describer) With a spoon, pushes some fried rice into an O shape.

Then just pop them in the microwave as usual.

(Describer) She opens it and puts in the rice on a plate.

(Describer) She sets the time and turns it on.

(Describer) Soon after, she comes back.

(microwave beeps)

(Describer) She opens the microwave. With a towel, she takes out the plate.

This is a great tip to remember for leftovers, 'cause as the Spanish philosopher Santayana once said, "Those who don't remember their repast are doomed to reheat it." Actually, Santayana didn't exactly say that, but if you look up his original quote, it'll make more sense, sorta. For "Teen Kids News," I'm Katie.

(Describer) Luke:

- Let's face it, most of us don't get enough sleep. And while dozing off in class may get you detention, if you get behind the wheel when you're too tired, the consequences can be much worse. Check out this video from The National Road Safety Foundation.

(Describer) In a car at night...

(gentle music) - Are the kids asleep? - Yeah, and I'm fading. - Get some shut eye. We'll be in Indiana soon. - Sure you're not too tired? We can get a hotel. - No, I'm fine. You rest. - (yawns) Okay. Pull over if you get too drowsy. Better safe than sleepy.

(Describer) Later, as he drives on the highway, he yawns and see the woman in the mirrors.

Are you sure you're not too tired?

(Describer) He catches himself.

Pull over if you get too drowsy. Better safe than sleepy. - You're right, honey. I'm pullin' over.

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(Describer) Title: Better Safe Than Sleepy. Luke:

- If you want to see the latest NRSF videos and get more info on driving safely, be sure to like, follow and subscribe to The National Road Safety Foundation.

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(Describer) Titles: Coming up, A Cut Above the Rest. Dozens of swords are on display.

Ask just about any teen, "Where's Toledo?" and most will tell you it's in Ohio. But there's also a much older city called Toledo. Nicole tells us about its claim to fame in her report, The Reign in Spain.

(Describer) Pictures with curved edges show sunny scenes of cathedrals and old buildings. A man plays guitar and a woman stands on a scooter with her leg out behind her. A girl eats in a market. Skewers have olives and peppers on them. Titles: Teen Kids News - The Reign In Spain. "Reign" is spelled r-e-i-g-n.

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(Describer) Large buildings stand on a hill above brown roofs. A street view is framed by a window that's round on top.

(gentle music) - Toledo, Spain has been called the Imperial City because under Charles V, it was the center of the Holy Roman Empire. It was also the home of one of Spain's greatest artists, El Greco. Except El Greco wasn't Spanish. He was actually born on the Greek island of Crete, but he lived much of his life in Toledo. And El Greco wasn't even his real name. El Greco is simply Spanish for The Greek. But Toledo is famous for something else, and you see it sold everywhere. Here's a hint.

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(Describer) A wall has a coat of arms with two swords crossed. Real swords are on display.

Hopefully, you got the point. Toledo is world-famous for its bladed weapons, specifically for the metal it makes, aptly named Toledo steel.

(Describer) Subtitles: "It's very famous because in Roman times, some centuries and centuries ago, they discovered here iron mines.

- It's very famous because in Roman times, so centuries, centuries ago, they discovered here iron mines. - [Nicole] The iron from those mines was different. When turned into steel, it made swords that had extreme hardness but still great flexibility.

(Describer) Swords of different lengths and with elaborate handles hang on a wall.

That's why Toledo steel became the sword metal of choice for Rome's world-conquering legions.

(Describer) Stone carvings depict Roman soldiers.

(machine humming)

(Describer) In a workshop, a man holds a piece of metal to a grinder and sparks fly.

(metal scraping) Even after almost 3,000 years, Toledo continues to produce high-quality swords.

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(Describer) Someone else wearing gloves works with a smaller grinder.

Traditional sword-making is still being practiced by the Zamorano family.

(Describer) A sign says "Fabrica Zamorano". Subtitles: "We know that we are the 4th generation making swords, but we don't know if we made them before that. But this is our traditional work. It's the family working.

- We know that we are the fourth generation making swords, but we don't know if we make them before that. But this is our traditional work. It's the family working. - [Nicole] The family makes swords mostly by hand with very few power tools,

(Describer) A woman adds a handle to a sword.

swords that come in all shapes and sizes.

(Describer) Subtitles: "Here you can see different styles of swords. You have... we can compare this one. This is a middle age sword, so its blade is shorter and it is stronger.

(Describer) "So with this they hit, like one stick. Pow pow. Hmm? And these in the other side here you have three different rapier. With a rapier, the blade is longer and thinner.

(Describer) "So they didn't hit like one stick. You move... like you can see in the films. Like fencing. Similar to fencing.

- Most swords nowadays are made by machine. Only a handful of master craftsmen, like the Zamorano family, are still creating swords the old-fashioned way. They're preserving history, one blade at a time. For "Teen Kids News," I'm Nicole.

(Describer) A viewer email says, "I very much enjoy your program! Thank you, you're all very sweet. Keep up the good work. Sincerely yours, G. Daniel."

(upbeat music) We've got to take a short break, and then we'll be back with more "Teen Kids News."

(Describer) Titles: Coming up, Tis the Season. Teen Kids News.

(rock music) - This report is brought to you by News Media Group. - Hi, I'm consumer technology expert Katie Linendoll. It's so good to be joining you on "Teen Kids News," and I know you're wondering, "What's the awesome stuff out for the holidays?" Well, I got you covered. I've partnered with some amazing brands. I'm gonna show you some really cool stuff. Let's just start in the world of laptops. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is a fantastic industry favorite, and it is born out of listening to customers and innovating every last detail. Multiple modes, goes into tablet mode, goes into laptop mode. Stunning virtually borderless edge-to-edge display and powered with the latest Intel processor. So giving you speed, power and efficiency. Check out the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. And then of course, I'm a proud aunt, so Myla the Magical Unicorn. Oh my gosh, this is so cute. She is an interactive friend from Vtech that glitters with lights as she talks and sings. She also has a magical brush that allows you to add color to her eyes, her horn or her wings, and maybe even she'll sing a duet with you. From VtechKids.com, ages four-plus, Myla the Magical Unicorn. Headphones are always a go-to option for me. Check out what's very unique here from AfterShokz. These are called Aeropex, and they have safety top of mind for the commuter, for the runner. They use bone-conduction technology so your ears are never completely covered. So you're alert in all environments. Waterproof, weighs less than an ounce and also eight-hour battery life. Check out AfterShokz Aeropex. And then, for that home chef makin' those holiday dishes, KitchenAid's seven-cup food processor is fantastic because it's easy to use, clean, and store. One-click bowl with latched lid. You can chop, shred, puree, and slice. And, yay, it is also easy to clean because the bowl, lid and accessories are all dishwasher safe. Check it out at KitchenAid.com. And last but certainly not least from GameStop, the hottest portable console this holiday season, Nintendo Switch Lite, $199, great price point. Plus, you can play new releases like I am, Luigi's Mansion 3 and also the newly released Pokemon Sword and Shield. Check out GameStop.com/GiftIdeas. And for all these great products, head on over to TechGifts.tv.

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(Describer) Luke:

- And that's it for this week's show. Thanks for watching. We'll be back with more "Teen Kids News" next week, so make sure you tune in.

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(Describer) Titles: Producer: Marilou Yacoub Director/Writer: Alan J. Weiss Camera and Editing: Rick Lavon, David Lauterbach Finance Manager: Tania Wilk Director, Digital Media: Ricardo Jaque Production Intern: Michael Greaney Created by Executive Producers: Albert T. Primo, Alan J. Weiss Copyright Eyewitness Kids News LLC, 2019, all rights reserved. Alan Weiss Productions Accessibility provided by the US Department of Education.

Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.