Month: November 2012

News Politics

EU Donates Peace Prize Money To Children Affected By War

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The European Union has decided to put all of the money it won for the Nobel Peace Prize towards projects that help children in war zones.

The EU includes 27 countries in Europe that are closely tied in business and politics.

The EU was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in keeping the peace in Europe for more than 65 years.

The Peace Prize is a very prestigious honour; the winner receives a medal and eight million Swedish kronor—about $1.18 million.

That money will be put towards projects that help children who live in areas of the world that are experiencing conflict or war.

“Children are the future of any society and at the same time the most vulnerable,” the European Commission said in a statement about the prize money.

What those projects will be, and how the money will be divided, will be decided in the next few weeks.

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Animals News Science

Baby Superb Fairy-Wren Sings For Its Supper

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If a baby Fairy-Wren wants food, he has to give the password first.

He’ll know it off by heart—because he learned it before he was hatched, while he was still inside his egg.

The Superb Fairy-Wren (its scientific name is Malurus cyaneus) is an Australia bird.

It teaches its babies a single note, even before the baby is hatched.

The mother wren sings the note over and over to her unhatched eggs.

The mother teaches the note to the father wren so he can sing it to the eggs, too.

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Environment News Science

No Signs Of Life On Mars… Yet

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Scientists have not found any signs of life on Mars yet, but they say a robotic vehicle called “Curiosity” is helping them learn a lot about the planet’s history and climate.

Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012 after travelling through space for more than eight months.

It was sent to Mars by scientists from NASA in the United States.

Curiosity is a motorized vehicle called a “rover” which is controlled by scientists back on Earth.

It is about the size of a car and has six wheels that allow it to travel across the planet’s surface and climb over sand and rocks.

It also has a robotic arm, cameras, and instruments such as a scoop, drill and microscope that allow it to examine things it finds on the surface.

Then it transmits the information back to Earth.

The main purpose of Curiosity’s mission is to find out if anything could live on Mars, either now or in the past.

On Nov. 2, NASA scientists held a press conference to discuss what Curiosity had found in its first two months on Mars.

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Kids News

World Honours Young Activist With “Malala Day”

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The United Nations declared Saturday, Nov. 10 “Malala Day.”

It was a special day around the world, honouring a brave Pakistani girl named Malala Yousafzai.

Amid terrible opposition, she stood up for the rights of girls and women.

Malala was injured but she has nearly completely recovered now.

In Pakistan, a group of militants and terrorists known as the Taliban believe that girls should not be educated.

In Jan. 2009 they issued a ban that said girls are not allowed to go to school.

When she was 11 years old, in 2009, Malala started writing in an online journal (or blog) that was part of the BBC’s news website.

She told people about the things the Taliban were doing in her village to stop girls from going to school.

Note: This article contains information that some children may find frightening.

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News Sports

Toronto Raptors Basketball Team Has A New Line-Up

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The 2012/2013 National Basketball Association season is officially underway.

There are 30 teams vying for the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, including Canada’s only professional basketball team, the Toronto Raptors.

The Raptors have a new-look team this season.

Three of the five Raptors’s starters this year weren’t with the team last year.

The Raptors’s starting lineup includes two players who have been on the team before: DeMar DeRozen and Andrea Bargnani.

The Raptors believe in DeRozen as a player.

They recently signed him to a four-year, $40-million contract extension.

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News Politics

Toronto Mayor In Another Unusual Situation

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Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, is in the middle of another controversy.

It happened last week. He was on the field with the high school football team he coaches, the Don Bosco Eagles.

The coach of the other team got into a confrontation with the referee.

Police were called in to deal with the situation.

That’s where the situation gets confusing.

The police called the Toronto Transit Commission. Police asked the TTC to send a bus to the field to pick up Ford’s team.

Unfortunately, that meant kicking passengers off two buses—stranding them in the rain—and sending those then-empty buses to the field to pick up the high school football team.

The mayor said when the buses didn’t show up promptly, he called the head of the TTC and left him a message.

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News Politics

Barack Obama Wins Second Term As President Of The United States

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Barack Obama won yesterday’s U.S. election, becoming the President of the United States for the second term in a row.

It was a close and hard-fought election.

In the end, Obama and his Democratic party won about 50 per cent of the popular vote, to rival Mitt Romney’s approximately 49 per cent.

Obama comfortably won the “electoral college” votes he needed to retain his presidency.

By early Wednesday morning, with votes still trickling in, the Democrats had won 300 electoral college votes. Two hundred and seventy were needed (out of 538) to win the election.

Romney had 206 of the electoral college votes.

In the days leading up to the election, opinion polls in the U.S. showed Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama as neck-and-neck.

It wasn’t clear who would win.

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News

New Arts Centre Part Of The Rebirth Of Old Community

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In September, Daniels Spectrum opened its doors.

Daniels Spectrum is a wonderful new 60,000-square-foot facility set up to help people learn art and business, including music and painting classes and moviemaking.

It even includes a Centre for Social Innovation where people with ideas for new businesses work with creative people to think up new ways to make communities better.

It is all part of the rebirth of Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood that has been taking place for more than 10 years.

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Environment News

NYC Marathon Cancelled In Aftermath Of Superstorm Sandy

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Two days before this year’s New York City Marathon was to take place, it was cancelled.

The marathon is one of the largest in the world, with more than 47,500 runners, most of whom travel from out of town to the city for the 42.2-kilometre run.

The run was to have been held on Sunday.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg cancelled the event because New York was still trying to clean up after having been hit by a devastating storm.

Superstorm Sandy hit the Caribbean and the eastern coast of Canada and the United States last week.

It came onto land in New Jersey on the east coast of the U.S., on Monday, Oct. 29.

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Health News

Ontario Doctors Call For Strong Action To Help Children Maintain A Healthy Weight

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The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) wants the government to put higher taxes on junk food.

Doctors say that higher costs would make it harder for children to buy junk food.

They also want high fat and sugary foods that have little nutritional value, to have more information and even warnings on the packaging.

And they want less junk food advertising, especially targeting children.

These are just three strong actions doctors say will help children eat less junk food, keep their weight at a healthy level and live a longer life.

The Ontario Medical Association said that over the years strong actions like extra taxes and scary pictures on cigarette packages have helped to reduce smoking from 50 per cent, in the 1960s, to as low as 20 per cent in Canada today.

Doctors say this kind of action can help in the same way with junk food.

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