Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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.
Canada has hundreds of offices around the world in many different countries.
Recently, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) signed an agreement to share some of their embassies.
The two countries have a “common history and shared values,” Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a press release. He said the new arrangement will help Canada save money on office space and resources. It will also allow Canada to have offices in countries where they don’t already have them.
“Canada will be sharing space, as we do with other trusted countries, to get maximum reach at minimal cost to taxpayers,” said Baird.
Baird’s UK counterpart agreed that the two countries share common interests. The most “pressing international issue on our common agenda” is the situation in Syria, said William Hague, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
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.
The start of the NHL season, and the season in general, may not happen as expected.
The NHL has locked out its players.
For the second time in eight years, the NHL is experiencing problems between its owners and players.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and owners has expired.
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
Europe’s central bank thinks it has a good plan to help countries like Greece, Spain and Italy. Those countries are struggling because they took on too much debt.
The idea is that the European Central Bank will agree to buy some of the debt.
In return, the troubled countries must agree to spend less money and to put their finances in order.
When countries lend money to other countries, they receive small payments called interest.
When a country borrows too much money, some of the people who lent the money begin to worry that they won’t get their money back. So they demand higher and higher interest payments.
This puts pressure on countries that are already having trouble paying back all the money they borrowed.
It pushes their debt even higher.
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.
Apple launched its new cell phone last week—the iPhone5.
Although the iPhone5 has some new features, it’s essentially the same phone with a longer screen (see the picture that accompanies this article).
The new phone is thinner, lighter and faster than its predecessors.
It’s less than 8 mm thick.
The screen is now a bit longer, at 4” (measured diagonally), or 10.2 cms. The iPhone4 screen is 3.5” (8.9 cms).
The new iPhone is also faster than the other iPhones.
