From Larrakia Country in Darwin, Australia, the latest from podnews.net with Riverside.

Tales from the Cloud Sea might be the first 100% improvised comedy adventure for kids and families.

Every episode's adventure is created by kids who call in to tell the characters where the Skytanic goes next.

We're told early feedback has been positive.

The New York City Web Fest is now accepting podcasts as an official category in its 12th annual celebration of indie storytelling.

The festival has also announced its jury members.

The festival is October the 3rd to the 5th.

Gretchen Rubin, who signed with Lemonada Media last year for her podcasts, has signed with Backyard Ventures for her newsletters.

It's interesting how podcast companies haven't also looked at newsletters, given their popularity.

Host read podcast ad platform Ossa has opened its product roadmap to the community and formed a product council to help co-create the product's new features.

And The Podcast Host has launched its 2025 Indie Podcasters Survey.

It's quick to take part and all respondents have the chance to win a Lewitt Ray or Connect 2.

And it looks like it's US Independence Day today.

From this Brit, happy Independence Day, I guess.

It sounds like a great excuse to help our independent journalism, either by giving our podcast a five-star review wherever you listen, or by posting about us on social media.

And thank you in advance for helping our independence, too.

In People News, the Modern Love team at the New York Times has gained Sarah Curtis and Amy Pearl as producers.

And in podcast news, the Aussie hit podcast Half-Arsed History has celebrated its seventh anniversary with the announcement of a new book.

The show has more than 9.6 million downloads so far and will mark the anniversary with a mini-series on the French Revolution, because of course it will.

The SDR show has a new co-host, the comedian Aaron Berg.

He replaces Big Jay Oakerson.

Berg is in the New York City comedy scene, quotes, performing nightly and continuing to set the bar for comedy greatness.

AI and Us was launched this week, hosted by actor and science communicator Stephen McGann.

It's a six-part documentary series from Audio Always that brings together powerful human stories and cutting-edge innovation.

It charts how AI is being used to improve lives across healthcare, mental health, housing, social care, music and sport.

What is democracy supposed to mean?

How have we been doing with democracy recently?

Don't answer that.

Are there any ways to approach democracy differently?

Well, in new podcast Democracy Differently, experts and political thinkers engage on topics such as post-truth, and what we do about that, and what both AI and climate change mean for democracy as we know it.

That launches today.

And hyper-local podcasts are, for some, the future of podcasting.

One such example is from the town of Warrington in Cheshire in England, The Warrington Scoop, which showcases the latest events happening in and around the town.

This month you'll hear from the team behind the Warrington Arts Festival, which kicks off on July the 18th.

And this podcast is sponsored by Riverside.

Create studio-quality podcasts anywhere.

Riverside is your all-in-one platform for professional podcast creation, with remote, high-quality recording, editing and publishing.

Trusted by Mel Robbins, Jay Shetty and other top creators.

There's a link in the show notes today.

And that's the latest from our newsletter.

To read all the stories and subscribe for free, we're at podnews.net.