Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
More than 550 “wounded warriors” are gathered in Toronto, Ontario this week, to compete in the Invictus Games.
The competitors are soldiers who became injured during their military service. Many of them are missing a limb, for instance, and many others have PTSI which is a mental health condition caused by trauma.
The Cassini space probe’s 20-year mission to Saturn is over. On September 15, at 4:55 a.m. Eastern Time on Earth, the spacecraft entered the atmosphere around Saturn. Moments later, it was destroyed. Cassini was launched in 1997. It had been […]
Everyone is talking about Harvey, Irma, Jose and Katia.
They are the names of very large storms, affecting the area around the Caribbean*, Mexico and the southern United States.
Hurricanes are given names, like “Irma” to make it easier to refer to them.
People in these areas are used to dealing with storms. But these storms are much larger than normal. They have very high winds—up to 120 kilometres an hour—with lots of rain that can flood people’s houses and force them to leave the area. (In this case, leaving your home is known as “evacuating.”) In Florida, more than 6.4 million people have been told to evacuate before Irma gets there, according to a report from CBC News.
Julie Payette will be Canada’s next Governor-General, replacing David Johnston. She will start her new job on October 2.
Payette, 53, is a former astronaut, who spent more than 25 days in space.
She speaks six languages.
Roberto Osuna is a professional pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. But on Friday, June 23, when the Jays needed a pitcher to come in and help them win the game, Osuna didn’t pitch.
Osuna was the logical choice to come into the game; he is known as a closer, someone who comes in to pitch near the end of the game, to save it. The 22-year-old has saved games before–in fact, 18 of them this year.
In Canada, it will soon be a law that transgender people cannot be treated differently than other people are treated.
What is transgender? It refers to a person who doesn’t feel like they are the gender (male and female are two genders, for instance) that they were assumed to be when they were born. For instance, a person who was originally thought to be male and who is known as male, but doesn’t feel like they are male. (And the same for female.)*
Last week, Bill C-16 was approved by the Canadian Senate. It says no one can discriminate against transgender people. (In this case discriminate means treat them differently than they would be treated if they were not transgender.)
The British Prime Minister may be regretting her decision to call an early election.
Theresa May and her political party, the Conservative Party, were the leaders in the UK (United Kingdom). They had a “majority” government. (In other words, they had more “seats”—or representatives—in the House of Commons than all of the other political parties, combined.) That’s important, because having a majority means that you can really get things done—you won’t be voted down by the other parties. May hoped that by holding an election, she could expand her majority even more.
However, things didn’t go as she planned.
In a couple of weeks, we’ll know who the best basketball team in the National Basketball Association is.
It will be either the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors.
Those two teams are now battling it out in the finals of the playoffs. This is the third straight year the NBA playoffs have come down to these two teams. Last year, Cleveland won and the year before, Golden State won.
Scientists have identified a new organ in the human body. It’s called the mesentery (pronounced mess’-en-tair-ee). An organ is a group of tissues that has a specific function in the body. Our bodies have 79 organs, including the heart, lungs, brain, skin and stomach. The mesentery is made of fatty tissue and is shaped a bit like a fan. It is attached to the back wall of the abdomen and it helps to support the intestines and hold them in place.
In October 1997, a spacecraft called the Cassini orbiter was launched on a mission to explore Saturn and its moons.
Now, after nearly 20 years in space, Cassini’s mission is coming to an end. Cassini is running out of fuel. Scientists expect it to burn up in Saturn’s atmosphere in September.
But before that happens, the spacecraft will make a series of dives between Saturn and its rings, sending photographs and other information back to Earth.
