Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The FIFA World Cup, the biggest event in men’s soccer–perhaps in sports, period–will be co-hosted jointly in 2026 by Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Each of the three countries will host some of the games. One proposal is for Canada and Mexico to each host 10 games, and for the United States to host 60 games.
Canada hosted the women’s world cup in 2015, one of only four countries to host both events.
A lot happened at the G7 summit this year.
The G7 (the G stands for “group”) is made up of seven of the world’s wealthiest countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The leaders of these countries, plus representatives for the European Union, get together every year. That meeting is called a summit. Every summit is held at a different G7 country; this year, it was held in Quebec, Canada.
At the summit, the leaders talk about issues that affect them all. This year, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said he wanted to discuss: strengthening the middle class, supporting women’s equality and ensuring that more girls can access education, dealing with global warming and promoting respect for diversity.
Some very good things happened at the G7 summit this year. For instance, the leaders agreed to give nearly $3 billion to help women and girls access education. That pledge received praise from many people, including activist Malala Yousafzai, who said, the money will “give more girls hope.”
No longer is she simply Meghan Markle, an actress and activist. Now, she will be known as the Duchess of Sussex.
Last Saturday, Markle married a prince–Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, grandson of Queen Elizabeth and brother of Prince William.
In front of a crowd of about 600 people in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle–and tens of thousands more who stood outside in the streets of London and millions around the world who watched on TV–England’s Prince Harry married US-born Meghan Markle.
It was one step, but it represented the possibility of lasting peace for North and South Korea.
Kim Jong-Un, the leader of North Korea, walked to the border between his country and South Korea … and stepped over it, into South Korea.
There, he shook hands with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.
It was a joining together not just of two leaders, but of two countries that have been at war for 65 years.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and, although fighting ended in 1953 (when an armistice* was declared), no peace treaty was signed by both countries. Officially the two countries remained at war.
Mark Zuckerberg, the high-profile creator and CEO of social media website Facebook, is being asked a lot of tough questions by the US government.
US Senators were asking him how Facebook uses the personal information it collects on people who use the popular social media website.
When people join Facebook and use it, they provide lots of information on themselves. Companies pay to use that information when they post advertisements.
If they have information about a person — for instance, whether they have kids, or where they like to go on holiday — they can do a better job targetting ads at them. That makes the person more likely to buy the product that’s being advertised.
That’s only one way companies use people’s personal information. Other people, who may be less honest, can sometimes use personal information to try to take advantage of people.
Young people in more than 800 cities in the United States and around the world took to the streets last Saturday to protest.
It was called “The March for our Lives.” The students were protesting for “gun control” which in this case means they want stricter gun laws in the United States.
Canada’s gun laws are different than in the United States, in terms of when and how someone can buy a gun. Canada has “fairly strict gun laws,” according to a recent article in The Walrus magazine. Canada has “detailed licensing procedures, age restrictions, and background checks required before you can purchase a firearm.”
The students want politicians in the United States to make it harder for people to buy guns. They say that will make everyone safer.
The federal government of the United States was shut down Friday at midnight.
The shutdown means that most of the services provided by the federal government won’t be available.
It happened because the government failed to get enough votes to pass its 2018 federal budget; it needed 60 votes but only got 50. (The budget is an important document that details how the government will spend money. Without a budget, the government cannot fully operate.)
Both of the major parties in the United States are blaming each other. The Democrats are blaming Trump and his Republican Party and vice-versa.
The reasons for the shutdown are complicated, and they have to do with the fact that government bills are usually about more than one thing. Voters have to agree to the whole bill when they vote for it. One of the reasons the Democrats didn’t vote to pass the budget had to do with the “DACA” part of the bill.
The January thaw is coming. The term describes unusually warm weather for the time of year–and many people in Canada and the United States should experience it around the end of this month.
Many cities in Canada and the U.S. have been hit with blizzards and extremely cold temperatures, as well as high winds and lots of snow.
Many cities in Canada had snow and temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) or colder. With the “wind chill factor,” -20 degrees Celsius feels like -35 degrees Celsius.
Many people in southern California (on the west coast of the United States) have had to leave their homes.
For more than a week, wildfires have been burning in the “Golden State.”
The fires started after a period with very little rain dried out the grasses on the hillsides. CBC News reports that “hardly any measurable rain has fallen in the region over the past six months.” The new conditions may be due to climate change.
Californians were warned about the fires so they could leave in time. A variety of methods were used to warn residents, including texts sent to their cell phones.
The timely warnings have saved lives, giving tens of thousands of residents time to evacuate their homes.
Last week, some elections were held in the U.S. state of Virginia, to choose a new governor and other leaders.
There were some surprising results in that election; some key Republicans lost their positions to Democrats.
The new governor, Ralph Northam, was elected on Nov. 7. He is a Democrat.
Republicans are currently in power in the United States; the president, Donald Trump, most of the leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and most U.S. governors are Republican. The Democrats are the other major political party in the United States.
