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Politics

Youngest-Ever Canadian MP Elected To Parliament

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Nineteen-year-old Pierre-Luc Dusseault has a summer job. But he won’t be working at McDonald’s or as a lifeguard, like many kids his age. Instead, he’ll be in Canada’s House of Commons in Ottawa, earning more than $100,000 a year.

The first-year university student ran as the local Member of Parliament for his area (or riding) of Sherbrooke, Que., during the recent federal election–and he won.

He now has a seat in the House of Commons, along with 307 other MPs. However, Dusseault stands out because he is officially the youngest Canadian MP ever, at the age of 19 years (and 11 months).

Dusseault is a member of the NDP (New Democrat Party) and was the co-founder and president of the NDP association at his university. It comes as no surprise to his parents that he landed his amazing new job, since he was always interested in politics and was studying political science in university.

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Health Kids

Exercise + Learning = Better Test Scores

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Combining exercise and school work may boost kids’ ability to learn, according to a new study.

Researchers looked at students in grades 1 to 6 in a school in South Carolina where students often didn’t do well on tests. They increased the children’s gym classes from 40 minutes a week to 40 minutes a day and changed their exercise programs so the kids were doing exercise and learning at the same time.

For instance, the kids in grades 1 and 2 hopped through ladders while naming the colours on each rung. Or they crawled across the floor, recognizing and calling out different shapes.

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News Sports

Young Detroit Tiger Pitches His Second
No-Hitter

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Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers baseball team made one of the most impressive feats in sports recently. He pitched a “no-hitter” against the Toronto Blue Jays leading his team to a 9-0 victory.

Very few pitchers have ever thrown a no-hitter. It’s very difficult and very rare. But Verlander has now done it twice in his seven seasons playing baseball professionally.

The Milwaukee Brewers were the first victim of Verlander’s no-hitter back on June 12, 2007.

A no-hitter is when a pitcher doesn’t allow any hits from the opposing team’s 27 batters.

A “perfect game” is a pitcher’s ultimate goal, and it’s even better than a no-hitter. In a perfect game, none of the hitters the pitcher threw to reached first base. Verlander nearly pitched a perfect game against the Blue Jays, but he walked Blue Jays’ catcher, J.P. Arencibia right near the end of the game – in the eighth inning.

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People playing ball hockey in Toronto; Image: Joyce Grant, www.teachkidsnews.com
News

Street Hockey Banned In Toronto – Or Is It?

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Canada loves hockey! It’s one of the country’s two national sports.

Right across the country, lots of kids play street hockey (or ball hockey) after school. A few kids, some sticks, nets if you have them, and a ball – that’s all you need for a great afterschool game.

But you may not know that street hockey is banned in Toronto.

Of course, many people – adults and kids alike – play the game anyway. They may not know it’s banned, or they may simply play and just hope they don’t get caught.

The City of Toronto is deciding whether to keep the by-law or change it to make street hockey legal.

Josh Matlow is a city councillor in Toronto. He thinks the by-law banning street hockey does not make sense since many people play street hockey anyway. He is fighting to lift the ban, especially for people who live on a residential street.

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Breaking News News Politics

Who Was Osama Bin Laden?

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Two weeks ago, US President Barack Obama went on television to make an historic announcement. He said that US troops had killed Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the terrible events on Sept. 11, 2001 (known as 9/11).

On Sept. 11, thousands of Americans and 24 Canadians died in terrorist attacks.

For many Americans and other people around the world, bin Laden’s death gave them a sense that justice had been done. On that day, hundreds of people went to “Ground Zero” in New York, where the World Trade Center towers had been destroyed, and cheered because bin Laden was no more.

bin Laden’s history

Osama Bin Mohammed bin Awad Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957. He was the son of a very rich man and inherited a lot of money from his family.

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News

World’s Last Remaining WWI Veteran Passes Away

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The last remaining veteran from the WWI has died. Claude Choules was 110 years old.

A “veteran” is someone who has fought in a war. WWI, or World War I, began in the summer of 1914 and ended in November 1918. About 70 million people fought in the war, and more than seven million of them were killed. More than half a million Canadians fought in WWI and 60,000 died. Another 170,000 Canadians were wounded in the war.

Choules pretended to be older than he was, when he signed up for the war at age 13. He tried to become a boy bugler, but was sent instead to a boys’ training ship. He served in the British Navy on the battleship HMS Revenge. From his ship, he watched as the Germans surrendered on Nov. 21, 1918.

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Environment News

BC Woman Survived In Wilderness For Seven Weeks

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A woman from British Columbia, who was lost for nearly 50 days, has been found alive. Rita Chretien left Penticton, B.C. with her husband, Albert. They were going to a trade show in Las Vegas when they decided to go off-road to see some landscape. They got turned around and their van became stuck in mud on a remote road in northeastern Nevada.

The couple waited for three days before Albert set out for help.

Meanwhile, Rita survived eating a small amount of trail mix and other food the couple had in the van. When that ran out, she stayed alive by eating melted snow.

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Sports

NBA’s Grizzlies Making History For Memphis

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When the Vancouver Grizzlies basketball team moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 2001, not many people expected them to be very successful. However, they’re now making history.

They spent six years in Vancouver, and they didn’t do very well. Every season they lost more games than they won. After doing so poorly, the fan support in the city gradually decreased so the owner, Michael Heisley, decided the team would do better with a change of scenery. He moved them to Memphis, where they are known as the Memphis Grizzlies.

This year there were rumours that the owner of the Vancouver Canucks (the city’s hockey team) wanted to buy the New Orleans Hornets basketball team to bring a basketball team back to Vancouver. However, that seems unlikely now.

The Toronto Raptors are now Canada’s only professional basketball team. The only member of the Vancouver Grizzlies still playing in the NBA is guard Mike Bibby, who plays for the Miami Heat.

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Sports

Parkour: A Running, Jumping, Leaping, Vaulting Sport

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At The Monkey Vault in Toronto, a 12-year-old girl leaps over a pile of foam blocks, runs up a ramp, slips horizontally through a set of bars, and lands safely on the floor.

It may sound smooth and easy, but she fell the last three times she tried, so doing it without a mishap is a good accomplishment. For the last three hours, she has been practicing the basics of a sport called parkour.

Parkour is a type of non-competitive sport that involves running, jumping, and balancing to complete obstacle courses that can be made of anything from pits, fences and bricks, to walls, ramps, and gates.

The basics of parkour, which she and seven other girls were practicing that morning, are simple. They walked forward and backward, trying not to bump into each other—and giggling when they did. They somersaulted over and over, eventually getting too dizzy to keep rolling, and then they practiced walking on all fours—on their hands and feet at the same time, like an orangutan.

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Arts

Mona Lisa’s Burial Site Discovered

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Arguably, the most famous painting in the world is Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. There is a lot that is mysterious about the painting, from her hint of a smile (what was she thinking about?) to the relationship between Mona Lisa and DaVinci (were they ever dating?) to her real name (is it Lisa Gherardini or Lisa Giocondo?).

One of the unsolved mysteries has always been where she was buried. Well, experts now think they know.

An art expert in Italy, Giuseppe Pallanti, poured over thousands of ancient documents. He said they showed that Mona Lisa was buried in the Convent of St. Orsula in Florence, Italy.

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