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How Much Did Fighter Jets Really Cost?

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In 2010, new F-35 Fighter Jets were ordered by Canada’s Defence Department (the department that oversees the country’s military).The new jets were supposed to cost around $15-billion.

Now, however, the Auditor General of Canada has said that the 65 planes will actually cost $25-billion, $10-billion more than expected. The Auditor General’s office watches over Government spending.

NDP and Liberal MPs (Members of Parliament) have accused the Defence Department (part of the Conservative government in power) of “hiding” the extra $10-billion in their financial reports when the 2011 election was coming up. Some are saying that the Conservatives wanted to keep it secret so people wouldn’t see the real costs and not vote for them.

Now that it is in the open, some MPs have demanded that Canada’s Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, step down from his job.

The Defence Department has explained their position saying that their original estimate did not include many costs such as operations (day-to-day expenses), people to run the project, or a “contingency fund” (in this case, this refers to money set aside for unknown problems in the project). Some of that money was already recorded in other budgets.

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News Technology

New Information In Amelia Earhart Mystery

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An old photograph may solve the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart, the famous pilot who disappeared on a round-the-world flight 75 years ago.

Earhart was the first woman to fly alone across North America and back, and the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping.

In 1937, she and a navigator, Fred Noonan, set out to fly around the world. They had travelled more than two-thirds of the way when their plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Ships and airplanes searched the area, but they were unable to find any trace of the plane or its crew.

What happened to them has remained a mystery. One theory is that the plane ran out of fuel and was forced to land on a tiny island called Nikumaroro, about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

An organization called The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR; pronounced “tiger”) has been searching for Earhart’s plane. The group has an old photograph of Nikumaroro that was taken about three months after the plane disappeared.

Recently, they used new technology to make the picture clearer. Now they believe that a dark shape in the picture, sticking up out of the water, may be part of Earhart’s plane.

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News Science Technology

Nomadic Gnome Puts Gravity To The Test

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A plastic garden gnome is travelling around the world to help demonstrate how the pull of gravity changes in different locations.

Gravity is the force that attracts a person or an object to the centre of the Earth. It keeps us on the ground, and it also determines how much we weigh.

Gravity may be slightly stronger or weaker depending on where you are, which means things weigh different amounts in different places on Earth.

The difference is so small – 0.5 per cent or less – that most people using ordinary scales wouldn’t even notice it.

For example, if you weigh 40 kilograms, the difference would be no more than 200 grams higher or lower, depending on where you were.

But even such a small difference would matter to scientists who need to be very accurate when measuring amounts of chemicals for an experiment or comparing weights of different objects.

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News Sports

A Great Time To Be A Sports Fan

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There are exciting things happening in baseball, hockey, basketball, golf and soccer.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is just getting underway.

Every team is hoping to make it to the World Series in October.

But that’s about 150 games away.

The Blue Jays have a real shot at it this year, and that has some of the American teams nervous.

Will a Canadian team win against the Americans in “their” sport?

It’s happened before—in 1992 and 1993 when the Jays won the World Series. You never know!

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News Politics

Is This The Next President Of The United States?

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The Republicans in the United States likely have their next presidential nominee: Mitt Romney.

Romney is the Republican who will most likely become the party’s nominee for president.

That’s because his closest rival, Rick Santorum, stepped down this week.

The Republicans have been going through a long and intense process of selecting their new nominee.

Romney—who will still have to be officially elected by the party’s members—would replace former president George W. Bush.

Unless something major happens to upset the apple cart, Romney will become the new nominee.

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Kids News

13-Year-Old Hero Saves School Bus

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He didn’t think he was “too young” to do something, and he didn’t wait for someone else to help — he just jumped into action.

Thirteen-year-old Jeremy Wuitschick is being hailed as a hero after he saved the schoolbus he was riding in and its passengers.

Wuitschick and about a dozen other kids were riding in the schoolbus on their way to Surprise Lake Middle School, in Milton, Washington (near Seattle).

All of a sudden, the schoolbus driver had a seizure.

In this case, a seizure is a medical condition that caused the bus driver to uncontrollably twist around in his seat.

He lost control of the bus, which veered off the road, according to the Los Angeles Times news website.

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News Sports

Physically Challenged Bills Fan Protests Blackout Rule

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Ralph Wilson Stadium – the home field for the Buffalo Bills football team – seats more than 70,000 people.

If the Bills do not sell every last ticket to a home game, the game is not shown on TV.

This is a rule put in place by the National Football League (NFL). It’s called a “blackout rule.” TV games are “blacked out” – not shown – if the stadium is not full.

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Kids News

How Reading The News Helped Craig Kielburger Change The World

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One morning when I was 12, I was munching on cereal and flipping through the newspaper in search of the comics.

I couldn’t get past the front-page story. It was about a young boy in Pakistan, a child labourer named Iqbal Masih.

When he was just four years old, Iqbal went to work in a cramped, dusty room for 12 hours a day, six days a week, weaving carpets in a factory.

Iqbal was 12. I was 12.

I knew I had to do something for him. But what?

I hadn’t been looking to make a big difference in the world. I was looking for Calvin and Hobbes!

Still, I tore out Iqbal’s story and brought it to school.

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Breaking News News Sports

Can Tiger Woods Win This Year’s Masters?

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The unofficial start of the golfing season begins on Thursday in Augusta, Georgia, with one of the most prestigious events in golf, the Masters Tournament.

The Masters golf tournament goes all the way back to 1934.

However, it is a recent win by Tiger Woods—perhaps the greatest player in the history of golf—that has everyone talking. They want to know: will Woods win his fifth Masters?

Even though he is a great player, if Woods wins the Masters this year it will be a big surprise.

That’s because until last month, Woods hadn’t won a tournament in nearly three years. It was the longest drought of his career.

About three years ago, Tiger Woods’s career—and his personal life—had a melt-down. He had a very public divorce with many problems. He also had issues with his golf form (in other words, the way he swung the club) as well as injuries.

He stopped winning. And many people wrote him off entirely.

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Kids Lighter News

Banning “Best Friends” At School?

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Some kids in London, England are being discouraged from having a best friend at school.

Psychologist Gaynor Sbuttoni, a specialist in children’s behaviour, told a London newspaper that some elementary teachers aren’t letting students have a best friend. Instead, they are urging children to play together in groups.

The Sun newspaper reported that Russell Hobby, of the UK’s National Association of Head Teachers, said some schools there have best-friend bans.

Teachers say the reason they do this is so kids don’t get hurt if they split up with their friend.

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