Author: Nancy Miller

News Politics Technology

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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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 News Science

Canadian Awards Predict Nobel Prize Winners

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The Gairdner Foundation recently announced the winners of its 2012 awards.

The Canada Gairdner Awards are given to people who have made a new scientific discovery to combat disease or ease human suffering. It is one of the most important medical awards in the world.

As the Gairdner website puts it, “we’re dedicated to recognizing the world’s most creative and accomplished biomedical scientists.” Biomedical scientists work in medicine and biology (the study of living organisms).

The late James A. Gairdner established the Gairdner Foundation in 1957. Since then, 300 awards have been given. Seventy-three of those award winners have gone on to win a Nobel Prize in either medicine or chemistry.

The awards are selected by Canadians, but they are given to scientists throughout the world.

This year’s seven award winners include three people who broke through mysteries of the human circadian clock, the internal mechanism that controls our sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, and many other functions.

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Breaking News News Politics

Canada’s Plan To Balance Its Budget By 2015

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Last week Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, spent $138.98 on a new pair of black dress shoes.

Why? Because he was announcing a new budget.

Flaherty is in charge of presenting Canada’s budget, which is why he bought the new shoes.

It’s a tradition in Canada that the Finance Minister wears new shoes to present the budget.

According to Wikipedia no one really knows why, but it’s something most Canadian Finance Ministers have done since the 1960s. It’s a tradition.

This year, the federal government structured its budget to reduce Canada’s annual deficit to zero by 2015.

A deficit happens when a government spends more than it collects in a year.

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Breaking News Kids News

Toronto Librarians On Strike But Kids’ Website Stays Open

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Toronto’s 98 libraries are temporarily closed after talks between representatives for the City of Toronto and the library workers’ union broke down last Sunday.

Last Monday, 2,300 library workers set up picket lines at libraries. A picket line, in this case, is where the library workers march with signs that tell the public what they want from the City of Toronto, which pays their salary. Picketing is a way of letting people know that a deal needs to be made before they will go back to work.

What do both sides want?
Library workers are looking for job security*, especially for part-time workers. Part-timers want the city to let them work more hours during the week, says Maureen O’Reilly, president of the Toronto Library Workers Union. The City wants workers to be part-time because it cannot pay full-time salaries.

The deadline for a deal has come and gone four times but the two parties cannot agree on how to settle their differences. The library workers decided that a strike was the only option left for them.

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Breaking News News Politics

Two Canadian Political Parties In Hot Water Over Use Of Technology

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During elections, people often get a recorded message on their telephone that reminds them to vote and tells them where to go, to vote.

These messages, which use pre-recorded voices, are known as robo-calls.

Canada’s federal Conservative party is being accused of using robo-calls to mislead the public, during last year’s election.

The RCMP and Elections Canada (the group that makes the rules for elections), are looking into accusations that some robo-calls steered voters to the wrong polling station, or to polling stations that didn’t even exist, which would be illegal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn’t know anything about the illegal robo-calls.

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Breaking News News Politics

Scotland May Hold Independence Referendum

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For the first time in three centuries, the united part of the United Kingdom may be in trouble.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), the party that runs Scotland day-to-day, is urging the Scottish people to support independence from Britain. However it still wants to keep the Queen as official leader.

Last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Cameron went to Scotland to argue that Scotland should not separate from Great Britain.

Scotland and England have been together since 1707 when the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed under the rule of the British. Ireland and Wales were already under British rule at that time.

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News

Dramatic Rescue In Pacific Ocean For Three Canadians

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Nine-year-old West James was sailing to Hawaii with his father, Brad, and his uncle, Mitchell last week.

The boy had permission from his mother and teacher to take the trip if he documented (wrote about) the voyage.

The three were in the Pacific Ocean on their way to Mexico when they ran into a series of squalls, sudden storms with high winds and waves.

The storms flooded the sailboat’s engine and damaged their boat’s mast. They tried to rig a new sail, but it blew away.

When Mitchell James tried to fix the mast, he fell into the cold, choppy water. The others got him back in the boat but they feared he had a concussion (head injury).

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Breaking News News Technology

Do You Want to Buy A Piece Of Facebook?

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Facebook is the most popular “social networking” website in the world and it may be for sale soon. Or at least part of it.

A “social networking” website is one that lets people meet and chat with each other—not face-to-face, but over the Internet. Facebook and Twitter are two popular social networking websites.

Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook with some university friends in 2004. Recently, he decided to “go public” with Facebook. In this case, that means people he doesn’t even know will be allowed to buy a share (part) of the company.

Right now, Facebook is privately owned by some individuals and companies. Zuckerberg himself owns 24 per cent or almost one-quarter of Facebook–the largest portion.

When a company “goes public,” it is given a value (for instance, Facebook is said to be worth $100-billion) and that value is divided into “shares.” Those shares, which each represent a tiny piece of the value of the company, are then offered for sale.

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News Politics

Some Canadian Immigration Policies Changing

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Last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper outlined some new rules about immigration to Canada.

Immigration is when someone comes from another country to live in Canada.

People who want to immigrate because of their work must apply and say what work they want to do when they get here.

Harper presented the immigration rules in January at a special meeting in Switzerland.

He said Canada will still look at all people who want to come to Canada — including people who are in danger in their own homeland, and family members of people already here.

However, people with certain skills and money-making ideas will now top the list.

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