Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Two countries in Europe had important elections last weekend – France and Greece. Both elections went against the conservative parties in power.
Experts are saying this could be a sign that more countries in Europe will protest against spending cuts by voting out current governments.
In France a new party and a new president were elected.
Francois Hollande is the head of the Socialist Party, and he was elected president, over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. (Incumbent means “currently in power.”)
Canada is the fifth happiest country in the world.
That’s according to a World Happiness Report, released earlier this month by the United Nations.
And out of everyone in Canada, people in Quebec are the happiest of all.
Just four countries, all from Europe, beat out Canada. In order, they are Denmark (happiest of all), then Finland, Norway and the Netherlands.
Last year around this time, a royal couple visited Canada.
Prince William (second in line to the throne of England) had just gotten married to Catherine Middleton and the two spent much of their honeymoon touring Canada.
Next month Canada will get a visit from another royal couple—this time, it’s the father of the groom. Prince Charles is William’s father.
Charles is first in line to the throne. That means that when his mother—Queen Elizabeth—steps down, Charles will become king.
Charles will come to Canada with his second wife, Camilla.
Charles’ first wife was one of the most well-known and popular celebrities in the world, Princess Diana.
(Princess Di, as she was known, was killed in a car crash in 1997. When that happened, millions of people around the world mourned.)
Charles and Camilla will tour New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan from May 20 to 23.
Toronto’s mayor is involved in another bizarre situation. This time, mayor Rob Ford, had a confrontation with a reporter from the Toronto Star newspaper.
(You may recall a past TeachingKidsNews article when Mayor Ford was confronted by a CBC comedian on his property, and called the police. Here is a link to that article.)
In this case, the Star found out that Ford intends to buy some property next to his home. Ironically, Ford wants to buy the property in order to erect a security fence.
Star reporter Daniel Dale went to Ford’s home around 7:45 p.m. to look at the property and take some pictures of it.
One of Ford’s neighbours called the mayor and told him someone was snooping around his house.
Ford got very angry. He drove home and confronted the reporter.
With the beginning of each National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, teams dream of winning The Stanley Cup.
The Stanley Cup is the NHL’s ultimate prize. It is a trophy awarded each year to the team that wins the playoffs.
The playoffs are composed of the top 16 teams from the regular season.
In the playoffs teams embark on a best-of-seven series in hopes of winning The Cup. The team to win four games first wins the series.
Each series win brings a team one step closer to raising The Stanley Cup as champion.
Last year the Boston Bruins were champions and won The Cup.
This year the Bruins lost in round one in a thrilling series against the Washington Capitals.
The company that makes Nutella, a spread made from chocolate and hazelnuts, has agreed to give refunds to people who bought the product because they thought it was good for them.
Four women in the United States sued the company, Ferrero U.S.A., Inc., because they said it made misleading claims about the product. Television commercials for Nutella describe it as part of a balanced breakfast, along with toast, milk and fruit.
The women said they bought Nutella because they believed it was a healthy food to give their families. Then they found out that the spread contains large amounts of sugar and fat. Eating too much fat and sugar can contribute to obesity – being overweight — which is not good for your health.
In March 2011, Japan was hit by the largest earthquake ever recorded.
It caused a tsunami–a huge wave that started out in the ocean. The tsunami swept onto the north-east coast of Japan and back into the sea, carrying away everything in its path.
Now, after travelling across the Pacific Ocean for more than a year, a soccer ball and a volleyball have washed up onto Middleton Island, off the coast of Alaska.
The man who found them plans to send them back to the two Japanese teenagers who lost them during the tsunami.
The balls were found two weeks apart and both balls had names on them. The soccer ball also had a school name and several messages.
It’s stinky and it’s huge—and it’s about to bloom.
The world’s tallest flower is set to bloom this week.
Its scientific name is The Amorphophallus titanium (Titan Arum for short).
The extremely rare flower is at the Niagara Parks’ Floral Showhouse, near the Canadian Horseshoe Falls in Ontario. When it blooms, it will be the 22nd of its kind to bloom in a botanical garden.
Titan Arum is also known as the corpse flower. That’s because of the stinky odour it gives off. It smells like rotting meat.
Its horrible smell helps the flower attract insects that it needs for pollination. (Lots of insects are attracted to rotting meat.)
Titan arum normally grows in the rainforests of Sumatra.
However, this one—and another one that is also growing and will bloom after the first one—was donated by a man who lives in New Hampshire, U.S.
When the Los Angeles Angels baseball team is losing, they’ve got a strange and funny way of rallying the team.
A rally, in this case, means when the fans and players on the losing team get themselves all fired up so they can try even harder to win the game.
For some baseball teams, fans use “rally towels” to try to help them rally. A rally towel is a white towel that fans bring out when their team is losing; they twirl the towels over their heads. The team sees all the white towels and realizes that the fans are behind them and want them to win.
For other baseball teams, fans wear “rally caps.” A rally cap is simply a baseball cap worn inside-out and backwards. It’s the fans’ way of saying, “Let’s go, team! We can win it!”
But the Los Angeles Angels may have the strangest way of rallying the team. They have a rally monkey.
Dante’s dad wants people to know about Prader-Willi Syndrome.
People with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) feel hungry all the time. That’s hard for most of us to imagine. We’re used to eating a meal and then feeling full for about two hours.
But kids with Prader-Willi don’t feel full. After they’ve eaten, they want to eat again. But of course if they do that, they’ll eat too much—not just three meals a day. That can lead to obesity—being overweight—which can lead to health problems.
Dante, who is now seven-and-a-half, was born with PWS. His dad, Keegan Johnson, wants to make people aware of the condition in order to raise money for research and, eventually, a cure.
