Kids
 
  •             
  • Classroom Store Store
  •              
  • Search site:
  •   
  •   
Writing Pals Online

 

Tell a friend   Print   Feedback!

Welcome to Current Events !

 

Issue 24 News Updates

  • Young Pennsylvania Democrats turned out for Barack Obama at the state’s Democratic primary on April 22. Hillary Clinton won the primary with 55 percent of the vote to 45 percent for Obama. However, exit polls conducted for The Associated Press found that the majority of young voters ages 18-29 voted for Obama instead—61 percent to 39 percent for Clinton.


  • Vermont and Illinois are considering lowering the voting age in their political primaries to 17 for anyone who will turn 18 before the year's general election. “By bringing the youth into the process earlier, we’ll be making lifetime voters out of them,” Vermont Sen. Jeanette White tells The Associated Press. States with similar rules include Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia.


  • The Boston Red Sox baseball jersey that a construction worker buried under the new Yankee Stadium raised $175,100 for charity on April 24. The New York team jackhammered the shirt out of the stadium's cement, then donated it to the Jimmy Fund, which supports cancer research in Boston.  The top bidder for the jersey was not immediately identified. According to the New York Daily News, the Yankees spent about $30,000 digging up the shirt.


  • ISSUE 6 UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 16 that Kentucky's lethal injection law is constitutional. Attorneys for inmate Ralph Baze had argued that the three-drug lethal injection method used by most states could cause excrutiating pain and should be outlawed. The court ruled 7-2 that for a lethal injection method to be declared unconstitutional, it would have to create "a demonstrated risk of severe pain" and there would have to be alternatives that "significantly" reduced that risk. It said those standards had not been met in the Baze case. The ruling does not mean Baze will be excuted soon, because he still has other issues before the Kentucky Supreme Court.


    • For more issue-related updates and web-only content, check out the CE News Blog.
    • The Issue 24 Teacher's Guide is available online.
    • Click on "Resources," above, for more activities and the latest Smart Stuff.

    Sign up for your FREE trial of Weekly Reader uBoost
    —an exciting online extension of this magazine!

    · Kids boost comprehension skills through interactive quizzes

    · Teachers get instant reports on their students’ progress

    · Students (and classrooms) earn points for great rewards

    Go to www.weeklyreader.com/uBoost today!

Back