Other News

Science

The Vesta Asteroid… Er, Planet… Er, Object?

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When you want to know more about something, you check it out, right? That’s exactly what scientists at NASA are doing.

They want to know more about an object in space they call Vesta. Is it an asteroid? A planet? What exactly is it?

Two months ago, they launched the Dawn spacecraft. Its job is to orbit and observe Vesta.

Vesta is officially listed by NASA as a “minor planet,” which means that it is an object orbiting around the sun.

But Vesta isn’t really a planet at all. It’s simply an object in space.

It has also been called an asteroid, a dwarf planet (a tiny planet), and a protoplanet, which is an object that started the same way as other planets, like Venus and Mercury, but never fully developed.

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Sports

Winnipeg Celebrates As Hockey Team Comes Home Again

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Winnipeg will have an NHL hockey team again.

It hasn’t had its own team since 1996, when the Winnipeg Jets left town to become the Pheonix Coyotes. People in Winnipeg are celebrating.

This week, the NHL (National Hockey League) said they had reached a deal to move the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg. The team will play next season.

The announcement was made at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. (Winnipeg is the capital of Manitoba.) As soon as it was made, thousands of people clapped and cheered. They also started singing “The Hockey Song,” a song made famous by Canadian singer Stompin’ Tom Connors. The song is a kind of “Canadian anthem” for hockey fans.

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News

Catholic School Board Could Turn Libraries Into “Tech Zones”

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Last month the Catholic School Board in Windsor, Ont., decided to eliminate all of its libraries and librarians.

Paul Picard, the director of the school board, recently changed this decision, saying the libraries just need to be “retooled.”

They wanted to get rid of the libraries to save money, since the school board in Windsor was hit hard by the recession.

The goal was to make libraries less book-centered, instead putting the books into classrooms throughout the school and making the library a tech-zone. The library would become a ‘learning commons area’ and would not need to be a quiet place for reading. The libraries would be a place for research and digital literacy.

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Health News

Bixi Comes To Toronto And Ottawa

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Big cities like Toronto and Ottawa have a lot of traffic.

All of those cars, taxis, trucks and buses create a lot of pollution. They also make getting around the city very difficult. There are a lot of traffic jams in big cities.

Some people ride bikes in the city. However, lots of bikes get stolen. Also, it can sometimes be difficult to find an empty spot in a bike rack when you want to store your bike downtown. Those things can discourage people from riding their bike around a big city.

But because biking is a much healthier way to travel than using a car, the City of Toronto and the City of Ottawa wanted to encourage people to ride a bike.

This summer, Toronto and Ottawa partnered with a company called Bixi to offer a new program which lets people rent a bike for short trips. People can ride to from one place to another downtown without having to own, use or lock up their own bicycle.

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News Politics

Saudi Woman Protests Ban On Women Driving

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A woman in Saudi Arabia was arrested last Saturday because she put a video on YouTube video of herself driving a car.

She was eventually released.

Manal al-Sharif was protesting the rule in her country that only men can drive. She was filmed by another woman writer who supports women’s rights.

In Saudi Arabia it isn’t clear whether it’s illegal for a woman to drive, or simply a traditional or religious custom. But Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women drivers. Many people in the country would like to see women driving but it must be approved by the King first.

Because there are strict rules that prohibit men and women from being around each other in public, women cannot take public transport like buses. So they must rely on male relative or chauffeurs to drive them anywhere they need to go.

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Arts

Group Of Seven Art To Travel To England

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The Group of Seven was a very famous group of Canadian painters.

Canadians are very proud of the work they did. Many Canadians feel their paintings captured the Canadian landscape in a very special way.

In October, 124 Group of Seven paintings and sketches will go to England to be the stars of a special exhibit called Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven.

The art will be shown in London, England. The paintings are very famous in Canada and are mostly outdoor scenes, many of them featuring Georgian Bay and Algonquin Park in Ontario.

The paintings are very important because they started a new trend in Canadian art.

However, the Group of Seven is not well known in other countries.

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Kids Sports

Nick Gilbert: What’s Not To Like?

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An unlikely hero helped lift the spirits of Cleveland Cavalier fans last week at the NBA draft lottery.

The draft is when basketball teams choose, or draft, players for the upcoming year. In the draft lottery, which happens every year, the 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs compete to decide who will get their first overall choice of players. Everyone wants to get first pick so they can choose the best player for their team.

This year Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers, sent his 14-year-old son Nick, to the lottery to represent the team. He hoped Nick would bring them good luck.

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Health Science

High School Student Working On Cystic Fibrosis

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Thousands of young students across Canada take part in science projects to learn about the world around them.

Marshall Zhang, 16, in grade 11 in Richmond Hill, Ont., earned first place in a national science competition this year. He discovered something amazing while doing research on a disease called cystic fibrosis.

Marshall used a supercomputer network called SCINET. He had never used the network before, but quickly learned how to use it because he was already good at using computers.

“Marshall applied his interest and skills in computer graphics, which he developed while in Grade 5 and 6, to solve problems presented by cystic fibrosis,” said Tony Legault, the Toronto co-ordinator for the Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge science competition.

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Lighter

Coke’s Secret Recipe Revealed?

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Want to whip up a batch of Coca-Cola?

You’ll need some vanilla, lime juice, caramel, cinnamon, coriander, 30 pounds of sugar, alcohol and the extract of a coca leaf–which is found in the illegal drug cocaine!

Fortunately, Coke doesn’t contain coca (or alcohol) any more, but it’s included in the original recipe and is where Coca-Cola got its name. Coke was created in 1886 by U.S. pharmacist John Pemberton.

The recipe for Coca-Cola is a closely guarded secret. If the recipe ever got out, everyone would know how to make the drink and that would mean that the company would likely go out of business.

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Lighter

The Ugliest Couch In The World

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The world’s ugliest couch is voted on each year by thousands of people across the world on a website called The Worldwide Ugly Couch Contest.

Each month, people send in photos of what they think is the ugliest couch they have ever seen. It could be plaid, stained, ripped, or simply an ugly colour. They might own it, it might belong to a friend, or they might have seen it in a movie or on television.

No matter what the couch looks like or where it’s from, if someone thinks it’s ugly they can send a picture of it to the Worldwide Ugly Couch Contest website.

From January to October, the best ugly couches are posted to the site, and anyone can vote on which they think is the ugliest. At the end of each month, the couch with the most votes is picked to represent that month in the Ugly Couch Contest. At the end of the year, an overall winner is selected.

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