Author: Joyce Grant

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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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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Arts News

Japanese Mom Builds Adorable Art Around Sleeping Infant

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A mom in Japan has found a way to document her daughter’s dreams.

When baby Nuno sleeps, her mom builds a fun scene around her, using everyday objects such as clothing, hangers and vegetables. Then she lovingly photographs the quirky artwork.

Mami Koise, a cartoonist, says the pictures are what she thinks her baby is dreaming about.

She started doing the artwork to send it to her husband, who often worked late at the bar he owns. She wanted him to see his daughter even when he wasn’t around.

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News

Roman Catholic Church Recognizes First Nations Saint

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Last Sunday Kateri Tekakwitha (known as Lily of the Mowhawks) became a saint in the Roman Catholic religion. She is the first North American First Nations saint.

More than 1,000 Canadians attended the “canonization” ceremony, conducted by the Pope Benedict XVI (16th) in the Vatican City in Italy.

Many of the people at the ceremony wore feathered headdresses and beads and sang songs to Tekakwitha.

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News Sports

World Renowned Cyclist Lance Armstrong Cheated, Erased From Record Books

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Lance Armstrong “has no place in cycling,” the president of the governing body for cycling said this week.

And with those words, the organization took away Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories. They also banned him for life from competing in cycling.

Even though Armstrong came in first in those races, he used banned performance enhancing drugs to help him compete and win races.

So the International Cycling Union (UCI) is erasing him from the sport’s history books.

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News

Air Canada Flight Makes A Detour To Locate A Stranded Yacht

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Picture this. You’re on a plane, flying from Vancouver, B.C. to Sydney, Australia.

You’re flying over the Pacific Ocean. For the last 12 hours, your flight has been perfectly uneventful.

And then suddenly the captain’s voice comes over the plane’s speakers.

There is a boat in distress, the captain explains. And the plane is going to change course in order to help look for it.

That’s exactly what happened to 270 passengers on board Air Canada flight AC033 last Monday.

The captain was told there was a “vessel in distress” somewhere in the Tasman Sea, which is between Australia and New Zealand.

A yacht with one person aboard had left Sydney, Australia, about two weeks earlier. It had lost its mast, was very low on fuel and had been drifting.

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News Politics

Dalton McGuinty’s Sudden And Shocking Retirement As Ontario’s Premier

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On Monday night, the Premier of Ontario did something surprising. He quit his job.

It was shocking, because most people didn’t see it coming.

Dalton McGuinty has been the Premier for nine years.

He is also the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, a position he has held for 16 years.

At the same time as he resigned, he also “prorogued” the legislature. That means he stopped all business taking place in the Ontario House of Commons.

Most of the work MPPs were working on has been cancelled until a new session is called.

No one knows exactly why McGuinty quit, and so suddenly.

Some people say he intends to run for leader of the federal Liberal party—in other words, take over the national Liberals so he can run for Prime Minister in the future.

Other people say he quit because his provincial government is in the middle of many difficulties including contract negotiations with some unions.

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Arts Lighter News

Woman Buys $34,000 Painting At Goodwill For $10

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Beth Feeback, who lives in North Carolina, knows how to find a good bargain. In fact, she recently turned $10 into $34,375.

Feeback shops at Goodwill, a thrift store, where people can buy used clothing and items cheaply.

In her spare time, Feeback paints folksy pictures of large-eyed kitties.

Last April, Feeback was combing Goodwill for a nice warm blanket. Instead, she stumbled on two large paintings that she felt she’d be able to paint her kitties on–after painting over them, of course.

She paid $9.99 for the paintings and took them home. It wasn’t until five months later that she fetched them to recycle them into cat paintings.

But something caught her eye on one of the paintings.

There was a sticker on the back of the canvas that said that the painting–a red diamond with blue and white stripes–had come from the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina.

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Kids

Spirit Of “Caine’s Arcade” Felt Around The World

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Recently, the spirit of Caine’s Arcade went global.

The Global Cardboard Challenge was held on October 6 and proceeds from the day went to the Imagination Foundation.

The foundation supports creativity and entrepreneurship in children around the world.

Caine Monroy is a nine-year-old boy who lives in a neighbourhood known as East L.A. in California.

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