Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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.
After 162 games, baseball’s regular season came to an exciting close.
This year, some new changes made the year even more exciting than usual.
Major League Baseball (MLB) changed the way they choose who gets to be in the playoffs this year.
And with that new system, some teams were battling for a playoff position right down to their last game.
People around the world will soon be able to see what life in a small northern community looks like, thanks to Google Street View.
The hamlet of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, was photographed for Google Street View in August.
Street View is a feature of Google Maps which allows users to see panoramic street-level photographs of the places on a map.
In Street View, the user can click on arrows and “travel” along the streets, seeing the buildings, houses and sidewalks.
Many places around the world have been mapped by Street View but Cambridge Bay, which is located on the southeast coast of Victoria Island in Canada’s Arctic, is the farthest north so far.
The Pan American Games are coming to Toronto, Ontario in 2015.
The Games are like the Olympics, but only athletes from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean compete.
It is different from the Olympics because it celebrates culture as well as sports. And that’s where the pianos come in.
The Games don’t start for another three years, but last July a Pan Am project called Play Me, I’m Yours, put 41 painted pianos around Toronto.
The pianos stood for the 41 countries and protectorates belonging to the Pan American Sports Organization. (Protectorates are countries that have their own government but also get protection from stronger countries.)
Each piano was decorated by an artist who lives in Canada but was born in one of the 41 countries.
The pianos were placed in public parks, streets and squares.
Play Me, I’m Yours invited everybody to play. It didn’t matter if you were piano teacher or could only play Chopsticks.
The Bank of Canada recently unveiled the country’s new $20 bill.
The bills, like the recently updated $100s and $50s, are made of a polymer (a type of flexible plastic) instead of paper.
The new bills have a transparent “window” in them.
The new $20 bills are more environmentally friendly than the old bills, because they are more durable so they won’t have to be replaced as often. The government says they last 2.5 times longer than paper bills.
In any sport, referees sometimes make mistakes.
After all, no one’s perfect.
But major league football teams have been irritated by the unusually high number of bad mistakes made by the referees these days, including a bizarre call on Monday night.
The National Football League (NFL) is using stand-in refs.
The league’s usual referees are in a contract dispute and are unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement.
So the NFL has brought in replacement refs that aren’t as well trained or as experienced.
And they’re making some bad calls.
On Monday night, there was an especially poor call made by a ref that directly affected the outcome of a game.
Do you think you live in an average family?
According to the latest Census of Population, published by Statistics Canada, “average” has changed.
Every five years, Canadians are asked questions about their families and their life.
For instance, “How many people live here?” and “What are their ages?”
Some new information from the 2011 was recently published.
That census counted 9.4 million families in Canada, up 5.5 per cent from 2006.
The other thing a census tells us is what Canadian families look like.
For instance, in 1961 (according to that census) the average family comprised 3.9 people.
In 2011 (according to the most recent census) the average family comprises 2.9 people.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford went to Chicago, Illinois in the U.S. this week.
He went to promote goodwill between the two cities and also to make some business deals. But he couldn’t shake the scandal that he’d left behind in Toronto.
The mayor has been accused of using city staff to help with his personal hobby of coaching football.
He has also been accused of charging the cost of his car and other expenses to the city, even when they are used for football.
The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival ended last Sunday.
For 10 days, movies from more than 60 countries were shown around the city.
Thirty-eight of them were premieres, or films that were shown in Toronto for the first time. And all the big players–famous actors, directors and producers–came out to see them, and to be seen.
A film festival is an event about movies: watching movies, making movies and acting in movies. And of course, it’s about the business of movies. Many big movie deals are made during TIFF. Storytellers meet writers. Writers meet producers. Producers meet directors. Directors meet actors. And later–often years later–a movie is made
A typical, active kid should probably eat about 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day to stay healthy. (The exact number depends on a person’s gender, age and daily exercise level.)
But let’s say, 1,900.
Now let’s say that kid decides to buy her lunch at McDonald’s; maybe have a Big Mac and large fries.
Starting this week in the U.S., McDonald’s restaurants will show the calorie counts of each of their menu items—right up on the big menu board at the front of the restaurant.
