Month: June 2013

Kids News

Lego Minifigures Grumpier Since 1980: Study

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Has Lego gotten grumpier?

A new study says that the faces on Lego minifigures have become less happy and more often mad or sad.

The study was designed to find out if the Lego characters have become grumpier over the years.

Christoph Bartneck works at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He loves Lego and even worked for the company in the 1990s. He worked with another researcher on the project.

They looked at all of the 6,000 figures made between 1975 and 2010.

They made a note of each figure’s facial expression: happy, angry, afraid, disgusted, surprised or sad.

They discovered that while in 1980, all of the figures were described as “smiley,” by 1990, only about 80 per cent of them were “smiley.”

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News

Radio-Canada Flip-Flops On Name Change

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Radio-Canada, the French-language branch of the CBC, announced on June 5 that it was changing its name to “ICI”.

So many people objected to the change, however, that on June 10 the president of the CBC said the broadcaster would keep the name Radio-Canada after all.

The organization uses the tagline “Ici Radio-Canada” on its TV and radio news stories. It wanted to “rebrand” itself with a name that could be used for all of its services – television, radio, satellite and website – so it planned to drop “Radio-Canada” from its name and be known simply as “ICI.”

But many Canadians were very upset about the name change. They objected to removing the word “Canada” from the name because the organization is part of Canada’s heritage, and because it is paid for with money from Canadian taxpayers.

CBC/Radio-Canada was created by the government in 1936 to be Canada’s national public broadcaster. The organization gets most of the money it needs to operate – about 60 per cent, or $1-billion a year – from the government.

Its official purpose is to provide programming that is “predominantly and distinctively Canadian,” and to “contribute to shared national consciousness and identity.”

Federal Heritage Minister James Moore, who is in charge of giving money to CBC/Radio-Canada, also opposed to new name. He said taxpayers would only be willing to pay for the broadcaster if it was Canadian in content and in name.

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News Politics

“Father Of South Africa” Nelson Mandela Responding Well To Treatment In Hospital

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Nelson Mandela is responding well to treatment, according to his doctors.

Mandela is one of the most well-known and respected people in the world.

He is 94 years old and is in hospital, fighting a recurring lung infection.

Doctors say he is in serious but stable condition.

To many people around the world, Mandela is known as a great hero.

He fought for the freedom of blacks in South Africa.

During the 1950s until the late 1980s, South Africa was ruled by a relatively small number of white people. Black people, in the majority in the country, had few rights.

The separation of white people and black people** was known as “apartheid.”

Blacks were not allowed to be citizens, and were not given the same rights as white people. Services for black people were greatly inferior to those provided to white people. Black people were not allowed access to the best schools, hospitals, beaches or many other services to which the country’s white people had access.

Apartheid was denounced around the world, but South Africa’s government refused to change its policy.

Nelson Mandela, and people who followed him, wanted to change things.

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News

New Teachers Will Have To Go To School Longer

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Last week, Ontario’s government said that people who want to become teachers will have to go to teacher’s college for two years instead of one.

That’s after regular college or university.

The changes will start in 2015.

The Ontario College of Teachers (where teachers train) is also cutting back on the number of students who can enroll to become teachers.

There are two reasons for the changes.

One is that there are not enough jobs in the province now for all the new teachers.

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News Science

Want To Be An Astronaut? A New Post Has Just Opened Up

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Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield will soon be simply, “Mr. Hadfield.”

That’s because he has announced that he is resigning.

In this case, “resigning” means stopping his job as an astronaut.

Hadfield has been an astronaut for 35 years.

Recently, he gained wide popularity after sending photos and videos to Earth from the International Space Station.

Many people around the world enjoyed his tweets and Facebook posts from space.

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Kids News

Different Toys For Girls And Boys?

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Four-year-old Gavin Pope of Garfield, New Jersey, loves to cook.

But when his family decided to buy him an Easy-Bake Oven, they found that the colour and packaging made it look like a “girls only” toy.

The Easy-Bake Oven and its box are purple.

The packaging and advertising show only girls baking with it.

So McKenna Pope, Gavin’s 13-year-old sister, started an Internet campaign for a gender-neutral oven.

More than 54,000 people signed the petition.

Hasbro executives met with McKenna and told her they planned to introduce a black, silver and blue oven next fall.

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News Politics

Stores Near G8 Summit Location Getting Temporary Facelift

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Some businesses in Northern Ireland are getting a facelift before some of the world’s most powerful leaders meet there later this month.

The G8 Summit will take place in Ireland, June 17 to 18.

The G8 Summit brings together the leaders of eight of the world’s wealthiest countries. They are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US. The European Union is also represented at the meeting.

More than 100 businesses in a small town called Belcoo have been “spruced up,” according to news agency Reuters.

Some businesses have been made more attractive with fake store fronts. Some ugly and crumbling buildings have been torn down. Others have been covered by huge billboards, according to Reuters.

The businesses are near a golf course where the G8 leaders will meet.

So instead of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper or U.S. president Barack Obama seeing ugly storefronts, they’ll see posters of nice storefronts instead.

More than $3-million dollars have been spent by the government in Northern Ireland to make the villages look nicer.

At one store, which used to be a butcher’s shop but is now empty, colourful stickers have been put on the windows to make it look like it’s busy inside, Reuters reported.

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News Politics

Riots In Turkey Getting Worse

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In Turkey, a country in eastern Europe, a huge protest has been taking place in the largest city, Istanbul.

It started last week when the government wanted to make over a main square, taking away trees and building a shopping mall.

It also planned to rebuild a historical building, a former Ottoman army barracks.

The Ottoman Empire was very strong in Turkey in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Unlike Arab Spring, when many Middle East countries erupted with protests against the government, Turkey’s government has always been seen around the world as more tolerant than many of those countries.

So when cause of the protests seemed to be a local problem, people thought is must be a very different kind of protest.

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News

Canadian Teens Will Stand Up Against Bullying

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Teens across Canada will soon be helping their peers to shut down bullying.

The Canadian government announced it will spend a quarter of a million dollars on a new anti-bullying project called Stand Up to Bullying and Discrimination in Canadian Communities.

The Canadian Red Cross will organize the project, which will involve more than 50,000 Canadian youths.

The first step will be for 2,400 “facilitators,” aged 13 to 17, to put on anti-bullying workshops. The goal is for least 20 young people to be in the audience at each workshop.

The project’s second phase includes three gatherings, led by young people, in Ontario, British Columbia and the Atlantic region. During each gathering, 150 Canadian kids will be empowered to “take action against bullying and discrimination in their communities,” according to a media release from the Canadian Red Cross.

“The Red Cross has been working for many years in Canada to engage youth and harness their leadership to prevent bullying and harassment,” said Conrad Sauvé, Secretary General and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross,” according to the media release.

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Sports

Hockey Canada Bans Bodychecking For Peewee Players

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Hockey Canada – the organization that sets the rules for amateur hockey leagues in Canada – has voted to eliminate bodychecking for peewee players across the country.

The ban will start in September 2013.

One of the main reasons for the ban is safety, says Paul Carson, vice-president of hockey development for Hockey Canada.

Last year, researchers at the University of Calgary found that young players are three times more likely to be injured in leagues where bodychecking is allowed than in leagues with no bodychecking.

The study showed that peewee players in Alberta, where bodychecking was allowed, suffered 209 injuries and 73 concussions.

In Quebec, where bodychecking is not allowed, there were 70 injuries and 20 concussions.

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