Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Last Sunday Kateri Tekakwitha (known as Lily of the Mowhawks) became a saint in the Roman Catholic religion. She is the first North American First Nations saint.
More than 1,000 Canadians attended the “canonization” ceremony, conducted by the Pope Benedict XVI (16th) in the Vatican City in Italy.
Many of the people at the ceremony wore feathered headdresses and beads and sang songs to Tekakwitha.
Lance Armstrong “has no place in cycling,” the president of the governing body for cycling said this week.
And with those words, the organization took away Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories. They also banned him for life from competing in cycling.
Even though Armstrong came in first in those races, he used banned performance enhancing drugs to help him compete and win races.
So the International Cycling Union (UCI) is erasing him from the sport’s history books.
Picture this. You’re on a plane, flying from Vancouver, B.C. to Sydney, Australia.
You’re flying over the Pacific Ocean. For the last 12 hours, your flight has been perfectly uneventful.
And then suddenly the captain’s voice comes over the plane’s speakers.
There is a boat in distress, the captain explains. And the plane is going to change course in order to help look for it.
That’s exactly what happened to 270 passengers on board Air Canada flight AC033 last Monday.
The captain was told there was a “vessel in distress” somewhere in the Tasman Sea, which is between Australia and New Zealand.
A yacht with one person aboard had left Sydney, Australia, about two weeks earlier. It had lost its mast, was very low on fuel and had been drifting.
On Monday night, the Premier of Ontario did something surprising. He quit his job.
It was shocking, because most people didn’t see it coming.
Dalton McGuinty has been the Premier for nine years.
He is also the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, a position he has held for 16 years.
At the same time as he resigned, he also “prorogued” the legislature. That means he stopped all business taking place in the Ontario House of Commons.
Most of the work MPPs were working on has been cancelled until a new session is called.
No one knows exactly why McGuinty quit, and so suddenly.
Some people say he intends to run for leader of the federal Liberal party—in other words, take over the national Liberals so he can run for Prime Minister in the future.
Other people say he quit because his provincial government is in the middle of many difficulties including contract negotiations with some unions.
Lots of people go skydiving. They jump out of an airplane, with a parachute, and sail down to Earth.
But on October 14, Felix Baumgartner took it to new heights.
Space.
Well, near-space, anyway.
Baumgartner rode in a helium balloon 39 kilometers above New Mexico.
And then he jumped out.
It sounds simple, but it was far from it.
Beth Feeback, who lives in North Carolina, knows how to find a good bargain. In fact, she recently turned $10 into $34,375.
Feeback shops at Goodwill, a thrift store, where people can buy used clothing and items cheaply.
In her spare time, Feeback paints folksy pictures of large-eyed kitties.
Last April, Feeback was combing Goodwill for a nice warm blanket. Instead, she stumbled on two large paintings that she felt she’d be able to paint her kitties on–after painting over them, of course.
She paid $9.99 for the paintings and took them home. It wasn’t until five months later that she fetched them to recycle them into cat paintings.
But something caught her eye on one of the paintings.
There was a sticker on the back of the canvas that said that the painting–a red diamond with blue and white stripes–had come from the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina.
Recently, the spirit of Caine’s Arcade went global.
The Global Cardboard Challenge was held on October 6 and proceeds from the day went to the Imagination Foundation.
The foundation supports creativity and entrepreneurship in children around the world.
Caine Monroy is a nine-year-old boy who lives in a neighbourhood known as East L.A. in California.
When you’re sick, you go to the doctor.
She may give you a prescription for some medicine—for example, eye drops.
If you live in Ontario, you’d then go to a drug store and give that prescription to the pharmacist, who would “fill your prescription” – in other words, make up the eye drops and sell them to you.
As it is now, if you run out of your prescription eye drops and need more you would likely have to go back to your doctor to get another prescription.
This week the Ontario government announced a new plan that gives the pharmacist an expanded role in healthcare.
U.S. President Barack Obama has a reputation for being an eloquent speaker.
When he was first elected in 2009, he won the hearts of American voters with his smart, straight talk.
His opponent in the American presidential race this time around is Mitt Romney.
On Wednesday night, the two men who want to be president squared off in a debate.
Each debater spoke for two minutes on topics such as healthcare, the American economy and how they would create new jobs for Americans if they are elected.
The Pope’s butler is on trial.
The Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church around the world. The current Pope is Pope Benedict XVI.
The Pope’s butler is named Paolo Gabriele.
His job is to look after the personal needs of the Pope—for instance, serve the Pope his meals and help him dress.
Naturally, he has access to some very private areas of the Vatican, like the Pope’s bedroom and other rooms.
For months, Italian media have been publishing private information about the Catholic Church. No one knew where the media got the information.
It looks like the butler may have done it.
