Other News

Sports

NBA’s Grizzlies Making History For Memphis

When the Vancouver Grizzlies basketball team moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 2001, not many people expected them to be very successful. However, they’re now making history.

They spent six years in Vancouver, and they didn’t do very well. Every season they lost more games than they won. After doing so poorly, the fan support in the city gradually decreased so the owner, Michael Heisley, decided the team would do better with a change of scenery. He moved them to Memphis, where they are known as the Memphis Grizzlies.

This year there were rumours that the owner of the Vancouver Canucks (the city’s hockey team) wanted to buy the New Orleans Hornets basketball team to bring a basketball team back to Vancouver. However, that seems unlikely now.

The Toronto Raptors are now Canada’s only professional basketball team. The only member of the Vancouver Grizzlies still playing in the NBA is guard Mike Bibby, who plays for the Miami Heat.

Sports

Parkour: A Running, Jumping, Leaping, Vaulting Sport

At The Monkey Vault in Toronto, a 12-year-old girl leaps over a pile of foam blocks, runs up a ramp, slips horizontally through a set of bars, and lands safely on the floor.

It may sound smooth and easy, but she fell the last three times she tried, so doing it without a mishap is a good accomplishment. For the last three hours, she has been practicing the basics of a sport called parkour.

Parkour is a type of non-competitive sport that involves running, jumping, and balancing to complete obstacle courses that can be made of anything from pits, fences and bricks, to walls, ramps, and gates.

The basics of parkour, which she and seven other girls were practicing that morning, are simple. They walked forward and backward, trying not to bump into each other—and giggling when they did. They somersaulted over and over, eventually getting too dizzy to keep rolling, and then they practiced walking on all fours—on their hands and feet at the same time, like an orangutan.

Arts

Mona Lisa’s Burial Site Discovered

Arguably, the most famous painting in the world is Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. There is a lot that is mysterious about the painting, from her hint of a smile (what was she thinking about?) to the relationship between Mona Lisa and DaVinci (were they ever dating?) to her real name (is it Lisa Gherardini or Lisa Giocondo?).

One of the unsolved mysteries has always been where she was buried. Well, experts now think they know.

An art expert in Italy, Giuseppe Pallanti, poured over thousands of ancient documents. He said they showed that Mona Lisa was buried in the Convent of St. Orsula in Florence, Italy.

Entertainment Kids

You Can Read It With A Fox: The New Dr. Seuss Book, That Is

Seven new Dr. Seuss stories have been discovered, and publisher Random House is publishing them in a new book called The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss.

The stories were published in the 1950s in magazines, but they have never been put into book form before.

Charles D. Cohen discovered the stories. He is a dentist but his hobby is studying Dr. Seuss. He has the largest private collection of Seuss memorabilia (toys, clothing, books) in the world.

The new book will have seven stories in it, including Steak for Supper, about fantastic creatures who follow a boy home hoping for a steak dinner; The Bippolo Seed, in which a scheming feline leads an innocent duck to make a bad decision, and The Strange Shirt Spot, which was the inspiration for the bathrub-ring scene in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

News Politics

Conservative Majority Government, Stephen Harper Prime Minister, NDP Official Opposition

The Conservatives were re-elected yesterday. They won a majority government. As the leader of the Conservatives, Stephen Harper will remain Canada’s Prime Minister.

For the first time in history, the NDP came in second and is the “official opposition.”

The Bloc Quebecois had historic losses, falling from 50 seats in Parliament to just 4. It was also an historic election for The Green Party, which won its first seat.

Across the country on Monday, Canadians voted for a Member of Parliament (MP) in their area, or riding. Having an MP in Parliament is known as having a “seat” in Parliament. The MPs who get elected work in the House of Commons in Ottawa to represent the people who live in their riding.

Breaking News Politics

Osama Bin Laden Killed By US Forces

The “most wanted” man in the world is dead.

Osama bin Laden was responsible for many terrorism attacks including three in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. That event is commonly referred to as 9/11 (pronounced “nine-eleven.”)

The US President says 9/11 was, “the worst attack on the American people in our history.”

The United States military has been looking for bin Laden for nearly 10 years. Last night, the US president, Barack Obama, went on television to announce that they had killed bin Laden where he was hiding in Pakistan.

Kids Sports

The Shediac Capitals Play Hockey – And Read

The kids on the Shediac Capitals hockey team do all the usual stuff everyone else does: they gear up, put on skates and helmets, then they hit the ice.

During practices they do drills, learn new moves, shoot pucks, and field goals.

After practice, they go into the dressing room, unlace their skates and take off their gear, just like any other team.

But then the Shediac Capitals do something very different. They get out their books.

After every hockey practice, the grade-school aged kids who make up the Shediac Capitals in Moncton, NB have a reading circle.

Arts Lighter Sports

Sleep In A Ping Pong Paddle

In China, they’re planning to build some very funny-shaped buildings.

One is a hotel shaped like a giant ping pong paddle. It even has a huge ping pong ball out front! The building will be 150 metres tall. The windows in each room of the hotel will be round, forming the ping pong paddle’s rough texture. The “handle” of the hotel will be an observation deck, where visitors can look out over the city of Huainan, China.

Another strange building they are planning is a stadium shaped like a football.

Breaking News Politics

Problems For The People Of Syria

There is trouble in another country in the Middle East. Since January, people in Syria have been protesting against their president, Bashar al-Assad. They want him to step down. They want democracy and a better life for themselves.

The leader is fighting back. Last Monday al-Assad sent thousands of troops to a city called Daraa, in Syria, to stop the people from protesting. His army set up in the centre of the southern city and placed people with rifles, called snipers, on rooftops to shoot anyone they thought was against the president. al-Assad took this step after some politicians in the area quit their jobs to show they were not happy with the president’s leadership.

Lighter News

Wacky (And Tacky) Royal Wedding Souvenirs

There is lots of excitement building about the upcoming wedding between Prince William and the soon-to-be Princess Kate. They will be married on April 29 in London, England.

When there’s a big wedding—particularly if it involves the Royal family—people like to have a souvenir, or keepsake, to remind them of the big day. Lots of companies are churning out products with Kate’s and William’s picture on them. Some of them are nice but more often than not the products can be quite cheap and tacky and that’s part of the fun of it all.

One company created special PEZ dispensers with William’s and Kate’s faces on them. Kate is wearing the blue dress she wore during her engagement photos, and William is wearing a black suit and red tie. PEZ dispensers are meant to be filled with a special PEZ candy.