Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The world is mourning the passing of one of the greatest leaders of our time.
Nelson Mandela is dead at 95.
He died on Thursday in Johannesburg, South Africa, from a lung infection.
Mandela was a symbol of freedom for the people of South Africa.
“Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father,” South African President Jacob Zuma said in an announcement.
He called this, “the moment of our deepest sorrow.”
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).
Some former professional hockey players are suing the National Hockey League.
In this case, it means they are asking the NHL to pay them money.
Two hundred former players say the NHL didn’t do enough to protect them from concussions.
They say they have brain injuries because hockey is so rough, and they want the NHL to pay for their medical treatment.
The players say they should have been told how dangerous repeated brain injuries are.
They say the NHL waited until 1997 to put a “concussion program” in place, but the league should have known long before that how dangerous concussions are.
The players say the league should have changed the rules of hockey to make it less likely that players would get concussions.
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.
Comet ISON is about to put on a show.
Scientists around the world are watching as ISON streaks, ever-faster, towards the sun.
NASA has been studying ISON since December, when it was more than 800 million kilometres away.
Experts are calling Comet ISON as “the comet of the century.”
What is a comet? Here’s how astrophysicist Julie Abraham describes a comet: “It’s basically a big ball of dirty ice in orbit around the sun that gradually melts or burns up, spewing out debris and water in a plume blown out behind it.”
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.
