It's time for today's new episode of News Bites.

I'm Nancy Sun…

And I'm Hope Ngo.

In today's news:

Smart garbage cans, and secret tunnels.

And in today's Tasty Tidbit…

Are you any good at spelling? We've got one that we're pretty sure no one can spell. Stay tuned to find out what it is!

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桃園啟用iTrash智慧垃圾桶

Smart iTrash Installed in Northern Taiwan

If you live in a house or an apartment in Taiwan, taking out the trash means waiting for the garbage truck.

For some people, it can be peculiar (奇特的), seeing crowds standing by the side of the road with bags of garbage in their hands.

At the same time, it's also a social gathering.

Neighbors chat and share information.

It's something you might not see in other countries.

But what about people who can't follow the garbage trucks' schedule?

They might ask neighbors to help them, or think of other ways to throw out their trash.

Now there's a smart garbage can in Taoyuan that might help solve this problem.

Citizens can now throw their garbage into the new iTrash garbage can.

It can collect, compress, and deodorize garbage.

It can also keep food waste cold.

iTrash垃圾桶還有冷藏、壓縮及防臭功能。

When the garbage can is 80% full, it sends a message to a cleaning team.

And the team comes to empty it.

The first iTrash receptacle is installed in Daxi Old Street.

Daxi Old Street is a popular tourist attraction and is always crowded on the weekends.

The crowds make it hard for garbage truck to collect trash.

With the new iTrash, people can throw away their garbage without waiting for trucks.

iTrash can also collect recyclables.

It even gives a bonus for recycling.

For every 10 plastic bottles or 8 aluminum (鋁) cans, you can get $1 NT put onto your Easycard.

The government hopes 2 iTrash bins can start working this year.

And another 10 should start working next year.

Future iTrash bins will be installed in city areas where there is enough electricity.

There are also iTrash bins that use batteries.

These could be set up in places where there isn't enough electricity.

It might take a while for iTrash to become common (常見).

But garbage disposal will definitely be easier in the future.

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倫敦地下道將轉型為觀光景點

Visit Secret Tunnels in London

Have you been in an air raid shelter (防空洞)?

During World War II, many countries in the world built air raid shelters.

The shelters helped keep people safe when bombs were falling from the sky.

After the war, many shelters were used for spy work.

The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels in London were built in the 1940s.

It also helped shelter Londoners during the war.

It was built 40 meters below Chancery Lane Tube Station.

After the war, it became the home of Britain's top-secret Special Operations Executive (特別行動執行處).

It was a branch of the Secret Intelligence Service (秘密情報局), MI6.

These tunnels are also the inspiration (靈感) for James Bond's Q Branch, the department that invents amazing gadgets for 007.

After that, the tunnels were expanded to become the Kingsway Telephone Exchange.

The tunnels were used for thousands of phone cables (電話線).

More than 200 workers worked there, taking care of the phone cables.

It was also home to the "hotline" used by the leaders of the US and USSR (蘇聯) during the Cold War.

British Telecoms then took over the site in the 1980s.

But telephone centers became obsolete (過時), and the center was decommissioned (除役).

Then the tunnels were abandoned for decades.

Now, a company wants to make it a tourist attraction.

They want visitors to see the history of the tunnels.

The project will cost around $268 million US dollars.

The company wants to use high-end technology to bring the tunnels to life.

It hopes people can start visiting in 2027.

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So, in today's News Bites:

There's a new smart garbage can in Taoyuan that can collect, compress, and deodorize garbage.

It can also keep food waste cold.

When the iTrash bin is 80% full, it sends a message to a cleaning team.

And the team comes to empty it.

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And,

The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels in London were built in the 1940s to help shelter Londoners during war.

After World War II, it became the home of Britain's top-secret Special Operations Executive.

Now, a company want to make it a tourist attraction that will open to visitors in 2027.

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趣味小點

Tasty Tidbit

The longest word in English is 189,819 letters long. It would take more than three hours to say out loud!

It's the name of a protein. We don't have enough time to say it for you, or enough space here to spell it out, but some people say the word looks like something a cat accidentally typed when it sat on a keyboard.

If you have a fun fact or a joke you'd like to share with us, record your message and send us your Tasty Tidbit to [email protected], and you might hear it at the end of an episode!

Tune in again next time for an all new episode of News Bites.