Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
He dances, he gives funny interviews, he bows to his teammates and he loves to flash a smile – even when taking a pie to the face.
His name is Munenori Kawasaki, and he is the gregarious new shortstop for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.
Kawasaki was called up on April 13 to replace shortstop Joe Reyes, who had suffered an ankle injury.
Kawasaki is originally from Japan, and often carries around a Japanese-English phrasebook to help him communicate.
Jiroemon Kimura is the oldest living human being.
Kimura, who lives in western Japan, is 116 years old. He’s the last man alive who has lived in three different centuries.
The only other man who was alive before the 20th century (before the year 1901) was James Emmanuel Sisnett, who died last week at age 113.
Not only is Kimura the oldest man living right now, he is also the oldest man who has ever lived whose birth age can be verified. “Verified” means proved to be true. There are other men who have said they are older than 116, but there wasn’t any way to be certain of the truth.
Kimura worked for the post office until he was 65 and then farmed until he was 90.
He isn’t the only one in his family to live a long time: four of his siblings lived to be 90 or older and one of his brothers made it to age 100.
One of the strangest things about Kimura’s age is that his hometown of Kyotango, Japan, is reported to have 95 centenarians, even though the population of the whole city is just 60,000. “Centenarian” means “over the age of 100.”
AN ACTIVITY FOR GRADES 6-8 Activity: Ordering News Stories and Determining Newsworthiness Preparation Decide on 4-7 relatively current news stories to focus on. They can be from Teaching Kids News, or articles of your own choosing. For the sake of […]
Only a quarter of Canadian kids walk or bike to school and that’s not enough, according to a new “report card on physical activity for children and youth.”
Active Healthy Kids Canada (AHKC) is a Canadian charity that encourages children and their parents to get more exercise.
Their report found that only 24 per cent of five to 17-year-olds in Canada use “active transportation” to get to school.
“Active transportation” means not using cars, trains or buses.
On the other hand, their parents were twice as likely to walk to school when they were children.
Every year in its report card, AHKC focuses on one aspect of healthy living.
This year’s theme, “driving,” looked at how much exercise kids are getting when they travel to and from different places near their homes.
A four-year-old boy named Robert Tufts is the mayor of the small town of Dorset in Minnesota.
He was given the job last August – when he was only three – and will continue to be mayor until this August.
The boy was awarded the position after his name was pulled out of a hat.
Once a year, people who live in or nearby Dorset can pay $1 to have their name written on piece of paper and put into a hat.
Then a name is randomly drawn out of the hat, and the person whose name it is becomes the mayor.
Last year, Robert Tufts’ name was pulled out.
The Liberals unexpectedly won the provincial election in British Columbia on Tuesday surprising many people, who thought the New Democratic Party (NDP) would win.
The Liberals and the NDP are two of Canada’s biggest political parties.
The Liberals were already in power in B.C.; after this election, they will stay in power.
Being “in power” in this case means they are responsible for making many of the important decisions involving laws and money in the province. It also means that their leader is the Premier of the province.
Many people—including political experts—thought the New Democratic Party would win the election. Not only did the Liberals win, but they won a “majority government.” That means they have more seats in the legislature than all of the other parties combined.
Things appear to be changing for the better for people who work in clothing factories in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is a small country in south-east Asia.
About four million people there work in clothing factories, cutting and sewing clothes. A lot of the clothing they make is sold in stores in North America.
Most of the factory workers in Bangladesh earn much less than workers who do similar jobs in North America. Often they work long hours, and many of them work in unsafe conditions.
Recently there was an accident involving workers in a clothing factory near Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka. Many workers were injured or killed.
AN ACTIVITY FOR GRADE SEVEN Article: New Blue Jays Pitcher Separated From Beloved Pit Bull, by Joyce Grant Activity: Considering Different Points-Of-View In A News Story Preparation: Choose a story in the news to examine. For the sake of […]
A supermarket in England is taking packages of peanuts out of their stores because their containers do not say they “may contain peanuts.”
Booths is a grocery store chain; they have 29 locations in northern England. They pulled 300 of the packets off their shelves after a health agency issued an allergy alert.
The alert was issued because the food didn’t have a warning telling the customer that it might make people with allergies get sick.
The containers are labelled as “Whole Hearted Roasted Monkey Nuts.”
“Monkey nuts” is a British nickname for peanuts in the shell.
The allergy alert was issued by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is in charge of ensuring food safety in the United Kingdom.
The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team has finally made the playoffs.
Tomorrow, the Leafs will play their first post-season game since 2004.
Toronto hockey fans are well known for their enthusiasm for their team—and their patience.
They’re excited their team has finally made the playoffs again.
For each Maple Leafs playoff game Toronto’s CN Tower will light up blue, the colour of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
