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Britain’s “Iron Lady” Dead At The Age Of 87

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Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of England from 1979 to 1990. That was the longest time for any British prime minister since the early 19th century.

Thatcher was Britain’s only female prime minister and she was considered an important leader around the world.

On Monday Thatcher died of a stroke; she was 87 years old.

When she was Prime Minister, Thatcher was considered by most people to be very strong-willed. Her nickname was “The Iron Lady.” Once when her own Conservative party members asked her to tone down her a hard decision, she said to them: ‘The lady’s not for turning.’

On the other hand, Thatcher had a vision for her country and she was loyal to it to the end.

She believed strongly in lowering government spending, letting private companies buy government agencies and letting companies compete with each other without government help.

When a terrorist bomb, meant for her, killed five people, she made a speech that evening telling her own party that the British would never give in to terrorism.

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News

Learning How To Write A Great Essay Could Pay Off

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If you can write an excellent persuasive essay, you may be able to get a three-bedroom house for $100.

Calvin and Diana Brydges live in Aylmer, Ontario but they plan on moving to Barrie, Ont.

For the past two years, they have been trying to sell their house, without luck.

Then they had a creative idea.

They would hold an essay contest, with the house going to the winning entry.

The winning entry will be the essay that best answers the question, “why will this home benefit you?”

The house is worth about $300,000. The Brydges will sell their home to the writer of the winning essay, as long as they get 3,000 essays. Each essay writer will pay $100 to submit their essay.

If the couple doesn’t get 3,000 essays by the end of August they will give everyone their money back.

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Kids News

First Nations Teens Walk 1,500 Km To Raise Awareness

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Six young people and a guide walked 1,500 kilometres to bring awareness to the issues of First Nations people in North America. The walk was inspired by the Idle No More movement.

They called their walk, “The Journey of Nishiyuu.” In Cree, “nishiyuu” means “the people.”

The group left the Cree community of Whapmagoostui in Quebec on January 16. Along their walk, more than 300 people joined them; thousands more gathered with them at the end of their journey, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 25.

Along the way the group stopped at aboriginal communities. They also visited Victoria Island where Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence recently held a hunger strike to protest the Canadian government’s First Nations policies.

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Animals News Science

Giant Pandas Arrive In Toronto

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Two giant pandas arrived in Toronto on March 25 to begin a 10-year visit to Canada.

The pandas will spend five years at the Toronto Zoo, and then move to the Calgary Zoo for another five years. They are on loan to Canada from the Chinese government.

The pandas travelled by plane from their native China, along with several kilograms of bamboo shoots, boxes of apples and their favourite toys. The trip took 15 hours.

The pandas were greeted at the airport by a large crowd, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Zhang Junsai, the Chinese ambassador to Canada. A high school band played “O Canada” as the pandas’ crates were unloaded.

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News Politics

Change Comes 55 Years After the Cuban Revolution

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Sirens. Security alarms. Sales pitches: “Taxi? Good restaurant! Best music CD? My art studio?”

These are the new sounds of Havana, Cuba.

This is my sixth time in Cuba–I am here on vacation; this year, I hear and see change.

It is almost 55 years since Cuba became a socialist country. In Cuba, socialism means that each Cuban has the same rights, the same salary and the same education as everyone else in the country.

Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba, brought socialism to the country in 1959 when he and his rebel forces took over the government. Now Cubans receive free education, free health care and most jobs have been protected by the government.

But the Cuban government is running out of money to pay for everything.

Things have to change.

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Animals Kids News

Pterosaur Named After Girl Who Discovered It

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Like many children, Daisy Morris loves to collect fossils.

Unlike other children, however, Daisy’s hobby has led to a pterosaur being named after her.

A pterosaur is a type of flying reptile closely related to dinosaurs.

The species Daisy discovered is now known as Vectidraco daisymorrisae, or “Dragon from the Isle of Wight.”

Daisy, who lives in England, was five years old in 2008 when she and her mother were taking a walk along the beach. She noticed some black bones—about 40 mm long– sticking out of the mud and she dug them out.

The family took the bones to a fossil expert at Southampton University in England.

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Kids News

Malala Yousafzai Attends Her First Day Back At School

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Yesterday, Malala went back to school.

For girls in many countries — for instance, Canada or the United States — that statement would not be very startling.

But Malala Yousafzai is a 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was attacked for trying to get an education, and for speaking up for other girls who wanted an education.

She became known around the world as a hero for her courage in fighting for the rights of girls in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a militant and terrorist group known as the Taliban believes that girls should not be educated. In 2009 they issued a ban that said girls are not allowed to go to school. Last October, when Malala was travelling to school, members of the Taliban attacked and seriously injured her. She was taken to a hospital in Britain, where doctors saved her life.

It has been a long road back to recovery for Malala, but yesterday she went back to school, this time in England.

Her father walked her to her first day at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham.

She said it was the most important day of her life.

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News Science

Commander Hadfield’s Son, Evan, Helps Bring Space To Earth

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Chris Hadfield is the Canadian astronaut living and working on – and commanding – the International Space Station.

He’s the first astronaut to bring the “space experience” to Earthlings in the form of regular tweets, photos, Facebook posts, videos and even songs.

Hadfield lets us know what experiments he’s working on, what the Earth looks like from his vantage point and what it’s like to live in space.

Hadfield has three children, Kyle (30), Evan (27) and Kristin (26).

Evan lives in Darmstadt, Germany.

He has been helping his father communicate with Earth, via Twitter and other social media websites such as Facebook, tumblr and Soundcloud.

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News

Pope Francis A Lover Of The Poor

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The new pope has been chosen; he will be known as Pope Francis.

The pope was selected by cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy last Wednesday.

In a special meeting known as a “conclave,” the cardinals voted to elect Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina to be the new pope.

The pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and its more than a billion followers around the world. It is the first time a pope from Latin America has been chosen.

The new pope was chosen after the last pope, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned. It was the first time in 600 years a pope had resigned.

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Entertainment News

A New Meme: The Harlem Shake

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There’s a new dance that has become popular through the Internet called the Harlem Shake.

Millions have people have watched the original Harlem Shake video on YouTube and there have been thousands of tribute videos made.

It’s hard to describe the crazy-looking dance, which is done to a happy, goofy sounding song of the same name, written by an American DJ and electronic musician named Baauer. Wikipedia describes the song this way:

“The uptempo song incorporates a mechanical bassline, Dutch house synth riffs, a dance music drop and samples of growling-lion sounds. Baauer added a variety of peculiar sounds to the song so that it would stand out.”

The videos—the original and the thousands of tribute videos that have been made since—start with one person or several people dancing. Then there’s a jump-cut to a roomful of people in costumes, helmets and masks all awkwardly jerking their bodies and happily flailing their arms.

The Harlem Shake has become a “meme” (pronounced meem). An Internet meme is a video, photo or idea that spreads from person to person and is altered or combined with other videos and photos.

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