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Welcome to Current Events!

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.”—Albert Einstein

The world events of today shape our future in every way, from how well we understand one another to how healthy we keep our planet. Current Events gathers the most important and unique news stories into a magazine written and designed for students. Our readers don't just learn facts, they learn to think critically about the influences within their world and about their own responsibilities to make this a better world for everyone.

On this site you'll find story updates, additional resources, including Smart Stuff quizzes, and links to CE’s News Blog for students. Be sure to check back each issue!

Issue 3 News Updates

  • Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast as a huge Category 2 storm on Sept. 13. Galveston, the same island city that was devastated by the 1900 Labor Day hurricane (see Issue 3 "Time Trip"), was directly in the path of the storm. Officials say evacuations there saved lives, though hundreds of people still stayed behind and had to be rescued after the storm. At least 50 U.S. deaths have been blamed on the storm, about half of them far from the Texas coast. Hurricane Ike’s wind and rain were still powerful as it spun into the center of the country. Dozens of people were killed by falling trees and flooding. In Ohio, 900,000 customers that lost power during the storm were still without electricity five days later. Some residents in parts of Texas and Louisiana that were hardest hit by Hurricane Ike will likely be without power for several weeks, authorities say. For those without generators, that means no refrigeration or air-conditioning, and for many, it means no clean water. See the Houston Chronicle for more updates.

  • In Haiti, a series of four hurricanes and tropical storms left so many bodies, authorities were burying unknown victims in unmarked graves. Nobody knows the true death toll there. On Sept. 14, the day after Hurricane Ike hit Texas, actor Matt Damon and singer Wyclef Jean visited Haiti to call attention to the island’s plight. "It's inhumane. I wish there was a word in the dictionary. No human should be living like this," Jean told reporters.

  • Humans weren’t the only victims to lose homes to the storm. In Crystal Beach, Texas, a lion that was rescued from a zoo made a new home out of a church sanctuary. Read Shackle the lion’s story. In Galveston, residents were worried about a tiger that was missing from an exotic pet center.

  • Bad news for CERN's particle-colliding physicists in Switzerland. Their new, $8 billion supercollider will be out commission for about two months. During testing of the Large Hadron Collider, an electrical transformer malfunctioned and allowed helium to leak into the collider's 17-mile tunnel, damaging some of the equipment. Scientists estimate it will take about two months to repair. Then, they hope, they will be able to attempt to do what the supercollider was built to do: smash protons into one another at nearly the speed of light to figure out what happened just after the big bang. Watch a BBC video report and interviews about the damage.

    Election Coverage
    Along with CE’s issue 4, you’ll receive your 2008 Election Kit, “Ready, Set, Vote.” To preview and download the kit, go to www.weeklyreader.com and log in with your subscriber account on the address page of your Teacher’s Guide. Be sure to check out these subscriber-only exclusives: interactive election kit pages; access to Weekly Reader’s student presidential election poll; and historic Weekly Reader coverage of past elections with teaching activities.

    For Weekly Reader’s political convention coverage go here.

    A New Tool For Teachers
    WR BOOST gives your students online access to Current Events stories. Students can earn points for taking quizzes about those stories, and you get useful reports outlining how they did. Interested? Find out more at http://wrteachers.uboost.com/.

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