Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Last Saturday, a relatively unknown pitcher did something that’s only been done 20 times before in the whole history of Major League Baseball.
The last time it happened, was in 2010. And it’s only happened for the White Sox twice before, in their 112-year history.
Last Saturday, Chicago White Sox pitcher Philip Humber threw a perfect game.
Canadian movie director James Cameron is known for doing some amazing things, in a big way.
He has directed some of the biggest movie blockbusters ever including Avatar, The Terminator and Aliens.
In 1997 he directed the film he is perhaps best known for, Titanic.
This year–100 years after the original Titanic ship sank to the bottom of the ocean–Cameron has gone down to the ocean floor himself, to the deepest point on Earth.
Three students have won the chance to have science experiments they created carried out by astronauts in space.
The students won an international competition called the YouTube Space Lab Contest. Last October, students around the world aged 14 to 18 were invited to come up with ideas for experiments that could be performed on the International Space Station.
The space station is a satellite that orbits the Earth. It includes a research laboratory where astronauts from the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada conduct experiments. Because there is no gravity on the space station, they are able to do experiments they could not do on Earth.
For the contest, students had to make a video explaining their hypothesis – the idea they wanted to test – and the method for doing the experiment. Then they posted the videos on YouTube.
Winners were chosen by people voting on YouTube, and by a panel of judges that included scientists, teachers, astronauts and journalists.
April 16 was a very hot day in Boston, Mass. It was a record-setting 27 degrees Celsius.
It was the day of the 116th Boston Marathon.
A marathon is a long-distance race, covering just over 42 kilometres. On this day, many runners (16 per cent of them, in fact) decided to pass on the event because it was too hot. Many other racers posted slower than usual race times.
Except for one participant. Canadian Josh Cassidy, 27, set a world record.
Cassidy won the men’s wheelchair division. He raced in a three-wheel, high-tech wheelchair; he uses his arms to power it.
Cassidy finished with a record time of 1:18:25 (one hour, 18 minutes and 25 seconds). His time was two seconds faster than the previous best time, set by South Africa’s Ernst Van Dyk in 2004.
There are exciting things happening in baseball, hockey, basketball, golf and soccer.
Major League Baseball (MLB) is just getting underway.
Every team is hoping to make it to the World Series in October.
But that’s about 150 games away.
The Blue Jays have a real shot at it this year, and that has some of the American teams nervous.
Will a Canadian team win against the Americans in “their” sport?
It’s happened before—in 1992 and 1993 when the Jays won the World Series. You never know!
The Republicans in the United States likely have their next presidential nominee: Mitt Romney.
Romney is the Republican who will most likely become the party’s nominee for president.
That’s because his closest rival, Rick Santorum, stepped down this week.
The Republicans have been going through a long and intense process of selecting their new nominee.
Romney—who will still have to be officially elected by the party’s members—would replace former president George W. Bush.
Unless something major happens to upset the apple cart, Romney will become the new nominee.
Ralph Wilson Stadium – the home field for the Buffalo Bills football team – seats more than 70,000 people.
If the Bills do not sell every last ticket to a home game, the game is not shown on TV.
This is a rule put in place by the National Football League (NFL). It’s called a “blackout rule.” TV games are “blacked out” – not shown – if the stadium is not full.
One morning when I was 12, I was munching on cereal and flipping through the newspaper in search of the comics.
I couldn’t get past the front-page story. It was about a young boy in Pakistan, a child labourer named Iqbal Masih.
When he was just four years old, Iqbal went to work in a cramped, dusty room for 12 hours a day, six days a week, weaving carpets in a factory.
Iqbal was 12. I was 12.
I knew I had to do something for him. But what?
I hadn’t been looking to make a big difference in the world. I was looking for Calvin and Hobbes!
Still, I tore out Iqbal’s story and brought it to school.
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.
March Madness can grip a sports fan from the second week of March through the first week of April.
March Madness is the nickname for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Basketball Tournament. (When NCAA is said out loud, people usually say “N C double-A.”)
The tournament determines the national champion of college basketball.
