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Entertainment Lighter News

Surprise! That’s Justin Bieber Busking At The Avon Theatre

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Theatre-goers in Stratford, Ont. are used to seeing buskers.

(In this case, a busker is someone who performs music on a street corner for money that people throw into their hat or guitar case.)

But they were surprised and thrilled when they came out of the theatre last Saturday and saw that the busker on the steps was pop superstar Justin Bieber.

Bieber grew up in Stratford, and some members of his family still live there. However, he’s usually out of the country on tour or recording.

He was in town for the Much Music Video Awards.

Busking on the steps of the Avon Theatre is nothing new to Bieber. In the early days, before he became an international pop icon, he often used to busk there.

However, this time it was a bit different. For one thing, although he had his guitar case open in front of him he wasn’t collecting any money for his performance. (According to an estimate by Forbes magazine, Bieber earned $55-million last year.)

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Kids Lighter News

The Biggest Swimming Pool In The World

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What’s more than one kilometre long, covers 7.7 hectares, holds 250 million litres of water, is as deep as 35 metres and is a beautiful turquoise colour?

It’s the biggest swimming pool in the world.

In case it’s hard to imagine just how much water that is, imagine a huge lagoon the size of 6,000 regular-sized pools. It’s a whopping 12 football fields long.

Located beside the ocean at a resort named San Alfonso del Mar in Algarrobo, Chile, it holds the Guinness record as the world’s largest swimming pool.

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Lighter News Politics

A Penny Saved Is A Penny Spurned

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The Canadian penny will soon be a thing of the past—like the Canadian one-dollar and two-dollar bills. The loonie and the toonie replaced those bills in 1987.

In its last budget, the government said the Royal Canadian Mint will stop making pennies starting this Fall, and that stores will stop using them.

Everyone is asked to return their pennies to a bank; they will be melted down and recycled.

Pennies will always be worth one cent. However, there will be fewer and fewer of them out there as the years go on.

Any prices that don’t end in a zero or a five (in other words, purchase we can use nickles, dimes or quarters for) will be rounded up or down to the nearest zero or five.

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Lighter News Technology

UK Insurance Company Has An Email Accident

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Lots of companies use email to communicate with their employees.

Most companies create email “distribution lists.” A distribution list is a group email, that lets a company send a message to many employees at once, with just one email.

Aviva is an insurance company in the United Kingdom.

Recently, someone in the company sent an email to one of Aviva’s employees who was being let go, or fired. The email gave instructions to the employee about what they needed to do, now that he’d been fired.

However, the email was accidentally sent to everyone in the company.

Aviva has 1,300 employees around the world.

That means that 1,300 people who work at Aviva were all sent an email that implied they had been fired.

Everyone.

But it wasn’t true.

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Amorphophallus-Apr282012 worlds tallest flower
Environment Lighter News Science

World’s Largest (And Stinkiest) Plant About To Bloom Near Niagara Falls

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It’s stinky and it’s huge—and it’s about to bloom.

The world’s tallest flower is set to bloom this week.

Its scientific name is The Amorphophallus titanium (Titan Arum for short).

The extremely rare flower is at the Niagara Parks’ Floral Showhouse, near the Canadian Horseshoe Falls in Ontario. When it blooms, it will be the 22nd of its kind to bloom in a botanical garden.

Titan Arum is also known as the corpse flower. That’s because of the stinky odour it gives off. It smells like rotting meat.

Its horrible smell helps the flower attract insects that it needs for pollination. (Lots of insects are attracted to rotting meat.)

Titan arum normally grows in the rainforests of Sumatra.

However, this one—and another one that is also growing and will bloom after the first one—was donated by a man who lives in New Hampshire, U.S.

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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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Health Lighter News Science

Chocolate May Be Good For Your Heart

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Chocolate – eaten in moderation – may actually be good for you, according to a new study.

The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, said that people who ate small amounts of dark chocolate instead of other high-fat treats, had slight improvements in the health of their heart.

For some participants, their blood pressure came down slightly. Some people had lower insulin levels.

The researchers, at the Norwich Medical School in the UK, studied more than 1,000 people. They asked people to eat chocolate (or not eat chocolate) and then they monitored them to check for changes in their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is a type of waxy fat; too much of it can cause damage to the heart.

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Kids Lighter Science

Are Parents Smarter Than Their Kids In Math And Science? Maybe Not

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Do you think you know more about science than your parents do? You could be right.

At a big science fair in England last November, 2,000 moms and dads were asked what sort of questions their kids had about science, and how they answer them.

Most of the parents said they found it hard to answer their children’s questions. A few of them said they think their kids know more about science than they do.

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Arts Lighter News

Mahler Symphony Gets An Unwelcome Addition

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When you go to hear live classical music, it’s usually quite a formal occasion.

The audience is respectful of the musicians.

Usually people even clap only at certain times. That’s so the beauty of the music isn’t interrupted.

The New York Philharmonic is a very famous classical music orchestra.

So you can imagine what people in the audience were thinking when, right in the middle of the soft and beautiful ending of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 – someone’s cell phone started ringing.

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Ellen DeGeneres and her Mascot
Arts Entertainment Lighter

Mascot Creator Helps Ellen DeGeneres Be In Two Places At Once

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In one episode of her popular talk show, Ellen DeGeneres bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t be in two places at once.

Lots of people wanted her at events, but her schedule was packed.

John Kernaghan was listening to her show that day.

He’s a Toronto-based mascot maker. His company, Hogtown Mascots, makes life-sized puppets that are used as “mascots” for companies and sports teams.

He decided to make it possible for the entertainer to be in two places at once.

John created a giant mascot costume that looked just like Ellen DeGeneres. And then he sent it to her.

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