Readable, teachable news.
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Some of Toronto’s most popular sports teams including the Maple Leafs, Raptors, and Toronto Football Club have new owners.
They have been bought for more than $1-billion by Rogers Communications and Bell Canada, two Canadian companies that sell phones and TV and internet services. Bell and Rogers also own the country’s two main sports-only channels, TSN and Sportsnet.
Canada and the United States are working together to make it easier for people to travel across their common border.
This week, U.S. President Barack Obama and Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, agreed to a “cross-border plan” to make it easier and quicker for Canadians to travel to the U.S. It will also help companies in both countries to do business together.
Harper has agreed to a “common perimeter”–a type of border all around North America–so more careful checking can be done on who and what comes across the borders from Canada. Canada has also agreed to get more information about people when they come into Canada from other countries and to put in American-style bomb detection machines for checking luggage.
Recently, Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia.
The official count of votes said he won with a clear majority of the votes (more than 50 per cent) but many people believe that his supporters stuffed the ballot boxes with false voting cards and that he really shouldn’t be President.
The car maker, Subaru Canada, has had to take one of its radio ads off the air.
The ad tells people that “roads are an unpredictable place, so drive with confidence.”
It then tells people that Subaru cars are very safe.
To demonstrate what it means by “unpredictable place,” the ad describes a truck driver who hasn’t slept in two days and is nearly asleep at the wheel.
The trucker is also described as eating a bag of ketchup potato chips while he’s driving.
Canada’s rich people are getting richer and the country’s poor people are getting poorer.
That’s because the gap — or distance — between the amount of money the richest and poorest people earn at their jobs is widening.
The richest Canadians earn 10 times more than the poorest.
That means if the average rich person earns about $100,000 a year, the poorest earns only about $10,000 for a whole year.
A new report by an international organization called the OECD* said the same thing has been happening in many countries including the United States.
It has been happening since the 1990s, before the new millennium.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) is going to elect a new leader.
The NDP is Canada’s official opposition party.
The leader of the NDP was Jack Layton. He passed away last August from cancer.
It will be hard to fill his shoes, because he was well respected and liked not just by members of his own party, but by Canadians across the country.
There are nine candidates vying to be leader of the NDP.
On Sunday night they held a leadership debate.
A debate is when candidates talk about the issues, and say why they think they’d make the best leader.
When Xenia Benivolski heard about the problems in Attawapiskat, she wanted to do something to help.
The people in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat are living in terrible housing conditions, often without heat or running water.
Temperatures there drop to -20C at night.
The community has declared a “state of emergency.”
Benivolski set up a Facebook page, asking people to donate items to help the community.
“Then people started Tweeting it… and it just kind of snowballed,” says Stephanie Guthrie, a friend who is helping with the drive. “You see something (like this) happening and you just can’t not do anything.”
Rhinos are being poached in South Africa.
“Poaching” is when people (“poachers”) illegally kill a wild animal.
This year so far 341 rhinos have been poached in South Africa.
That’s the most, ever, for one year.
Rhino horns are believed by some people, particularly in Asia, to be able to cure ailments like nosebleeds and fevers.
No one knows if this is actually true.
Students at the Etobicoke School of the Arts had a special guest at their anti-bullying assembly last week.
Lady Gaga sent the Toronto school a specially recorded video message.
The student council president, Jacques St. Pierre, is a huge fan of Lady Gaga.
He had sent emails to several celebrities, asking them to help launch the school’s anti-bullying campaign.
He was thrilled when Lady Gaga read his email and responded.
St. Pierre was the only student at the school who knew about the video until the assembly.
Almost a year later, the effects of Arab Spring are still being felt.
Last December, the people of North Africa started what is being called “Arab Spring.”
Arab Spring refers to a series of uprisings by the people in a number of Arab countries.
The citizens rebelled when they could no longer put up with dictators and their cruelty.
They forced the President of Tunisia to flee to Saudi Arabia and the President of Egypt to quit his job and move away.
