Author: Joyce Grant

News Sports

Spectacular Opening Ceremony Kicks Off 2014 Winter Olympics

The eyes of the world are on Sochi, Russia, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are taking place.

Last Friday, the official opening ceremony took the audience on a Russian journey. It began with the Russian alphabet, with each of the 33 letters highlighting a famous Russian person or achievement.

Later, the athletes flooded into the stadium, grouped according to country. Canada, with 220 athletes, has one of the largest teams in this year’s winter Olympics. The Canadians came into the stadium, a sea of red, behind flag-bearer Hayley Wickenheiser.

“It’s an amazing feeling being able to carry the flag and lead in this awesome powerful Team Canada,” Hayley Wickenheiser told CBC News. “I’m a very, very proud Canadian right now. It’s great to be Canadian in moments like this; you realize how lucky we are to live where we live. I hope everyone back home is proud and enjoys the games.”

Health News

Sesame Street Characters Help Kids To Eat Right

Sesame Street may be where the air is sweet, but these days it’s also where the food… isn’t.

The children’s television show has started a program to help get kids eating food that’s better for them.

The program is called, “Food for Thought: Eating Healthy on a Budget.”

About one in four children in the United States does not get enough nutritious food to eat, often because parents can’t afford it.

That’s about six million children, according to the Sesame Street website.

News Politics

Ukrainian Prime Minister Resigns

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov, resigned from his job on Tuesday.

Experts say this should help to ease some of the tensions that have been building in that country.

The tensions began in November when Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, made a surprise move to bring Ukraine closer to Russia rather than European Union (EU).

He asked Russia to lend Ukraine some money, rather than asking the EU for it. Ukraine needed the money to help its economy.

Many Ukrainians had looked forward to a closer association with the European Union because they felt it would bring democracy to their country.

News

Bronze Bunny In “Mandela’s” Ear Causes A Stir

A tiny bunny has created a lot of debate.

The bunny at the centre of the controversy is made of bronze—and it’s in Nelson Mandela’s ear.

Following the death of the famous world leader, officials in South Africa hired two sculptors to build a monument in his honour.

Sculptors Ruhan Janse van Vuuren and Andre Prinsloo created a majestic, nine-metre likeness of Mandela, with his arms open wide as if to embrace the world.

News Politics

East German Man Receives Contest Prize 45 Years Later

Gunter Zettl won a radio contest in 1969.

He correctly identified a song the radio station played, and he sent a postcard to the station with the name of the song (“Painter Man,” By The Creation).

Last week, 45 years later, he was finally given his prize.

The reason for the delay was political.

Following World War II, in 1945, Germany was seperated into two states: East Germany and West Germany.

At the time, Zettl was a teenager living in East Germany. Pop music was banned in East Germany at the time.

News Sports

Heatwave In Australia Affects Major Tennis Tournament

How hot was it?

It was so hot, you could fry an egg on the tennis court at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.

And in fact, someone did.

Tennis player Novak Djokovic sent around a picture of an actual egg on a tennis court, frying in the heat. The picture quickly went viral, meaning that many people saw it.

If it was that hot for an egg, imagine people playing top-level tennis in that heat.

Some of the players took baths in ice water to offset the effects of the heat, as the temperature climbed to 43-degrees Celsius.

Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is emerging as a rising star, advancing to the fourth round of the tournament.

She is the first Canadian in 22 years to reach the quarter-finals in a major tennis tournament.

Entertainment News

Neil Young Speaks Out Against “Oil Sands” In CBC Radio Interview

Neil Young is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is internationally famous.

He has been called “one of the most important figures in rock music.”

In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Young is an activist and many of his songs are political.

Now, Young is doing a four-city tour of Canada to protest what he feels is massive damage to the environment being done in the oil sands in Alberta.

Health Science

Student Doctor Finds Real, Life-Threatening Illness In “Patient-Actor”

A student doctor recently saved the life of an unusual patient, in a very unusual way.

Ryan Jones, a medical student at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, was practicing diagnosing illnesses.

As part of his training, he and other student doctors had to diagnose an actor who was playing the part of an ill patient.

The actor would act out symptoms of an illness he pretended to have, and the medical student had to figure out what the illness was.

Of course, the actors didn’t really have any illness—they were just pretending.

Except, in the case of Jim Malloy, he really did have the illness and didn’t know it.

News Politics

New Jersey Governor Embarrassed After Staff Member Caused Massive Traffic Jam

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has had a rough start to the new year.

He’s a man the Republican Party in the U.S. is hoping will become a candidate for President of the United States one day.

But what happened recently may have put an end to that hope.

It goes back to an incident that happened last September.

That month, there was a huge traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge, a bridge that links New York and New Jersey.

This wasn’t just any traffic jam.

News

Extreme Weather In Many Cities Over The Holidays

Many cities in North America experienced extreme weather during the 2013 holiday season.

On Dec. 22, Toronto was struck by an ice storm which caused trees to become covered with large amounts of ice.

Although it was often beautiful, it was also destructive.

Many of the trees couldn’t support the weight of the ice and branches came crashing down.

Some of the branches took out power lines, so hundreds of thousands of people in the city were without power for hours or days.