Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Imagine winning $50-million in a lottery.
Now… imagine losing your ticket.
That’s what happened to Kathryn Jones, from Hamilton, Ont.
In Nov. 2012, Jones bought a Lotto Max lottery ticket from a Shoppers Drug Mart store in Cambridge, near her work.
She didn’t think much about it at the time. In fact, she even misplaced the ticket–she hasn’t seen it since.
That should be the end of the story.
In 2017, Canada turns 150.
That’s a “milestone” birthday–known as a sesquicentennial–and the government will be doing a lot of special things to celebrate that year.
In anticipation of 2017, the government tested five different logos to decide which one would best represent the country’s 150th.
The logos were designed by the Department of Canadian Heritage, a department in the Canadian government that is responsible for programs relating to the arts, culture, official languages and multiculturalism.
Each logo features the colour red and has a maple leaf, like the Canadian flag.
And each logo features the number 150 and the word Canada.
Lots of people buy books and products from Amazon, an online seller.
They order and pay over the Internet and the books are shipped through the mail or a delivery service like FedEx.
One day, people could get their Amazon deliveries from an “unmanned aerial vehicle” — a tiny flying vehicle that looks like a toy helicopter.
And instead of waiting days to get the parcel, it could be at the buyer’s home in half an hour or less.
The company is working on a fleet of tiny vehicles they call “Prime Air.”
The vehicles are also known as “octocopters.”
It’s customary for the country that will host the Olympic games to send the Olympic flame on a vast relay.
The flame is passed from person to person, travelling around the country, often accompanied by cheering crowds watching the runners along the route.
For the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, the torch is on a journey like no other.
It has moved by runner, troika, reindeer sleigh, dragon boat, go kart, snowmobile, skier, snowboarder, ice-swimmer, speed skater and even on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker (ship).
How much would you pay for a book? $15? $20?
How about more than $14-million?
That’s what businessman David Rubenstein paid for one on Tuesday.
It’s the most expensive book ever purchased in an auction.
It is believed to be the first book ever printed in what is now the United States of America.
It’s called the Whole Book of Psalmes, or the Bay Psalm Book for short.
Think of some of the things that used to be very popular, but which practically don’t exist anymore. Like vinyl records. Or fax machines. Or… door knobs?
Door knobs may become a thing of the past, with door levers taking their place.
That’s because Vancouver, a large city in British Columbia, recently changed its building code to say that new buildings will be built with levers instead of knobs.
The city’s building code is changing to levers because they are easier to open. People with arthritis, for instance, often find door knobs difficult.
Using levers will make doors as accessible to as many people as possible.
This week, a “robotic explorer” left Earth on its way to Mars.
It should get there next September. Mars is more than 700 million kilometres away.
The explorer is going to Mars to try to solve some of the planet’s mysteries.
For instance, why is Mars now a cold, dry planet when it started out warm and wet?
The Associated Press reports that “the early Martian atmosphere was thick enough to hold water and possibly support microbial life.”
Scientists at NASA want to know what happened to change that.
The good people of San Francisco, California can sleep a little more soundly.
Last Friday, their city was been made safer by a very special superhero.
Batman and a special Batkid spent the day patrolling the streets and battling crime.
Batkid’s real identity (ssssh, don’t tell anyone!) is five-year-old Miles.
Miles has been winning his own battle, ever since he was just one year old—against a disease called leukemia, which is a form of cancer.
Miles’s leukemia is in “remission,” which means that he is doing very well now. In fact, he started kindergarten this year.
On Tuesday, someone paid more than $142-million for a painting.
It’s the most anyone has ever paid for a painting sold in an auction.
The painting is called “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” by an Irish-born painter named Francis Bacon.
It’s actually three paintings that go together. That is known as a “triptych.”
The sale took just six minutes.
Because it was an auction, people had to bid for the painting.
Some people were bidding in person, and some people were bidding over the telephone.
The auction house is not saying who purchased the painting.
Toronto has a new landmark–an aquarium.
Nestled in beside the Rogers Centre at the base of the CN Tower, the new Ripleys Aquarium opened last week.
It’s home to more than 16,000 marine animals and 450 species.
There are lots of interactive displays to let kids see and experience the fish.
In the “dangerous lagoon,” visitors board a moving sidewalk which takes them on a slow ride through a 97-metre see-through tunnel filled with 17 sharks and thousands of marine animals. Sea turtles and saw fish swim overhead as visitors file past.
“Touch pools” feature horseshoe crabs, stingrays and bamboo sharks. The pools are shallow, so people can reach in and gently pet the animals.
An exhibit called Planet Jellies houses many different species of colourful jellyfish.
