Innehållsförteckning för Issue 193 från The Week Junior US

Maui, one of Hawaii’s largest islands, has been rebuilding after the nation’s deadliest wildfires in more than 100 years caused massive destruction on August 8. More than 7,000 people lost their homes, and 100 people died. Much of the historic town of Lahaina burned down. The fire began after heavy winds knocked down a power line, setting dried grass on fire. Once the fires started, Maui’s emergency management agency did not activate its sirens that would have warned people of danger, and the state government is investigating why that didn’t happen. Officials said it could take years for Lahaina to fully recover. Many groups are pitching in, and the Hawaii Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund has raised more than $150 million to help rebuild homes and businesses. Visitors have been…

After 118 days, actors for TV shows and movies ended their strike (refusal to work as a form of protest)—the longest in Hollywood history. The union representing the performers (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG–AFTRA) made a deal with the film and TV companies who hire them (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP) on November 9. Under the agreement, actors got a pay increase of 7% and studios agreed to pay them for future viewings of their shows on streaming services, among other points. Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), a union of writers for TV shows and movies, also went on strike for several months. That strike ended on September 27 when WGA reached an agreement with AMPTP. With…

Scientists created a full-size, digital 3D model of the Titanic. The “digital twin” reveals details of the famous shipwreck that have never been seen before. The Titanic set sail on its first voyage on April 10, 1912, from Southampton, England, to New York City with about 2,220 people on board. On the fourth day, it struck an iceberg and sank. More than 1,500 people died. The wreck was found in 1985, about 12,500 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean. Until now, murky water and low light made it difficult to get clear images of the ship. To digitally reconstruct the ship, Magellan, a deep-sea mapping company, sent two submersibles (underwater craft) to take high-resolution video and about 715,000 still photos without touching the wreck. Magellan called the resulting 3D model…

Fat Bear Week 2023 took place from October 4 through 10, with a colossal female named 128 “Grazer” taking this year’s title. Fat Bear Week is held annually to celebrate brown bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park as they put on weight before hibernating (a very deep sleep) for the winter. Fans vote online for the bulkiest bears. Grazer, a first-time champion, triumphed over 11 other bears. She is considered a top salmon catcher in the park and has raised two litters of cubs. The week before her victory, a first-year bear named 806 “Spring Cub” won the Fat Bear Junior contest for the largest cub. Overall, 1,382,783 votes were cast this year, a new record for the event. “For bears, fat equals success,” Katmai National Park said about Grazer,…

For the first time, scientists in Brazil believe they have discovered a frog that pollinates plants. Pollinators are animals, such as bees, that carry pollen from one plant to another. Before now, no amphibians were known to be pollinators. Most frogs eat insects and other small creatures, but some include plants in their diet. Scientists noticed Xenohyla truncata, tiny yellow-orange tree frogs in Brazil, plunging their bodies into the flowers of the Brazilian milk fruit tree to drink its nectar. Afterward, they had pollen grains stuck to their bodies. When they hopped to another flower, the frogs brought the pollen with them. “This was amazing,” said study author Carlos Henrique de-Oliveira-Nogueira. “The species meets some of the requirements to be a pollinator, but we still need further study to actually…

Scientists digitally “unwrapped” the 2,300-year-old mummy of an Egyptian teenager known as the “Golden Boy.” His body was adorned with 49 amulets meant to protect him in the afterlife. The mummy was discovered in 1916 in Egypt, but its two coffins were never opened. To look inside, scientists took hundreds of detailed computerized tomography (CT) scans and combined them into 3D images. This let them see the mummy’s layers without damaging it. The boy’s bones and teeth indicated that he was 4 feet 2 inches tall and between 14 and 15 years old. He wore a gold head mask and sandals, which were likely meant to help him walk in the afterlife. The amulets were made of gold or precious stones and included a golden scarab beetle near his heart…

Nearly 200 years after composer Ludwig van Beethoven died, scientists collected DNA (chemical carrying information about a living thing’s characteristics) from samples of his hair. The hair was taken from him after he died in 1827, a common practice at the time, and saved. The team examined the DNA for clues to Beethoven’s health problems, which included stomach and liver issues and hearing loss. They couldn’t identify the cause of his hearing or stomach problems. However, the team did spot signs of an increased risk of liver problems and discovered that Beethoven was infected with hepatitis B, a virus that damages the liver. Those issues likely contributed to the composer’s death.…

The 2023 MLB (Major League Baseball) season wrapped up on November 1, when the Texas Rangers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks to win their first World Series title. The season will be known as one that ushered in new rules that made games faster and more exciting. A pitch clock was added to limit the time between throws, the size of bases was increased by three inches, and fielding teams were required to always have at least two players on both sides of second base. As a result of the changes, games ended up being 24 minutes shorter than in the 2022 season and 30 minutes shorter than in 2021. There were also more stolen bases. Fans seemed to like what they saw. MLB attendance was the highest it had been…

In the August 20 final of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which was hosted by Australia and New Zealand, Spain beat England, 1–0. Olga Carmona scored the decisive goal for Spain in the match. Her teammate Aitana Bonmatí, who scored three goals at the tournament, won the Golden Ball award, which is given to the tournament’s best player. The World Cup ended up being a disappointing one for the US Women’s National Team, who had won the previous two World Cups and were one of the favorites to win this year. They were eliminated by Sweden in a tough Round of 16 match. The game was tied, 0–0, at the end of regulation time and…

This year marked the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company. One way the milestone was celebrated was with a museum exhibition called Disney100, which featured original artwork, props and costumes, and theme park memorabilia from the Walt Disney Archives. The archives director, Becky Cline, told The Week Junior the goal was to share the items “with the people who love them the most, which are our fans.” In November, Disney released the animated musical Wish, which paid tribute to the company’s movie history and recurring theme of wishing upon a star. Director Fawn Veerasunthorn told the website Slashfilm that she wanted audiences to “never forget the spark of hope you have inside you that allows you to take action toward what you want in life.”…

In May, pop and R&B superstar Beyoncé kicked off her Renaissance World Tour 2023. Over five months, she played 56 shows in 39 cities in stadiums across Europe and North America—in front of about 2.7 million fans in all. The tour earned $579 million worldwide, making it the most successful tour of the singer’s career. In December, she released Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, a concert documentary. At the shows, Beyoncé performed songs from her album Renaissance along with some of her classic hits, including “Run the World (Girls).” Some fans dressed in silver and wore cowboy hats, inspired by the album’s visual components. In addition to her 21 backup dancers, Beyoncé was also joined several times by her daughter Blue Ivy, age 11. Beyoncé had more to celebrate this year…

PAPER CHERRY BLOSSOMS What you need ● Tissue paper● Pencil● Round items to trace in a few sizes, such as coins, a spice jar lid, or a small juice cup● Scissors● Dull pencil● Hot glue and gun (with adult supervision) or white glue● Small branches with no leaves● Small jars, bottles, or vases Instructions 1. Stack a few pieces of tissue paper together and, with a pencil, trace circles onto it using the round items. Cut the circles out, being sure to cut a few layers of tissue at a time. 2. Take two circles of the same size and gently push the dull point of the pencil down into the center so the circle’s edges come up and the center is pushed down. 3. Remove the pencil. Twist the…

Sofia Tepla, a 13-year-old contortionist from Ukraine, earned a second Guinness World Records title for twisting herself into seemingly impossible positions. She first won a record in 2022 for rolling 65 feet in a back-bending “contortion roll.” Now she has achieved the most contortion roll push-ups in 30 seconds, lifting her upper body 21 times while her feet hovered over her shoulders. Tepla says flexibility has many advantages: “I can even brush my teeth with my feet!”…

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The nine justices of the US Supreme Court, the nation’s most powerful court of law, handed down two decisions in June that affect millions of people who attend college. The court voted 6–3 to end affirmative action, a policy intended to give people of all races a fair chance of being admitted to elite colleges. Lawsuits had been filed against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, claiming that their affirmative action policies discriminated against white and Asian American students. The court’s majority agreed. In another ruling, the justices voted 6–3 to overturn a government plan that would have reduced or eliminated debt for millions of Americans who took out loans to pay for college. Some people said the plan was unfair to Americans who did not go to…

Hip-hop, the musical genre that began in Black and Latino neighborhoods in New York City, turned 50 this year. On August 11, 1973,18-year-old DJ Kool Herc introduced a new technique at a party. Using vinyl records and two record players, he played beats from one song and layered them over a different song. In 1979, the first hip-hop record, “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang, was released and became a hit. In the 1980s, rap group Run-DMC helped hip-hop go mainstream. In the 2000s, Run-DMC and the group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. To mark 50 years of hip-hop, museums across the US put on special exhibits and major music industry awards shows included tributes to the genre. On…

In a major win for US soccer fans, Argentinian soccer legend Lionel Messi signed a contract to play for Inter Miami CF, a Major League Soccer club. A sold-out crowd of about 20,000 fans attended the ceremony Inter Miami held to welcome Messi on July 16. Messi, age 36, has won a record eight Ballon d’Or awards, which are given out every year to recognize the world’s best male soccer player. He led Argentina to the World Cup title in 2022 and the Copa America, the South American continental championship, in 2021. He has scored 106 goals for Argentina, the most in the country’s history and the third-highest of any male soccer player in the world. At the club level, Messi spent most of his career with FC Barcelona in…

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, DC, said goodbye to its beloved giant pandas—Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, and Xiao Qi Ji. The pandas arrived in 2000 under an agreement that they would eventually return to China. The zoo honored the pandas before they traveled to China on a FedEx plane. Once they arrived, zookeepers helped them adjust to their new home, a nature preserve where Mei Xiang and Tian Tian will enjoy “retirement,” a zoo official said. Three-year-old Xiao Qi Ji will join a program to increase the number of pandas in the world.…

A strip of land that runs between North and South Korea, setting a boundary between the countries, has unexpectedly become a wildlife haven. The land, known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ), was blocked off as a buffer zone between the two countries when the Korean War ended in 1953. Since then, human activity in the 150-mile-long area has been restricted, which has helped nature thrive. Scientists, who were allowed into the DMZ for research, found 6,168 species of wildlife living there. This includes golden eagles, mountain goats, wildcats, lizards, and otters, as well as flowers and herbs. Using remote cameras, they were also able to spot an Asiatic black bear cub, providing hope for this threatened species.…

A study in Germany found that a total of 1.7 billion Tyrannosaurus rexes walked the Earth. This is down from 2021, when a different study estimated that 2.5 billion T. rexes existed. In the first study, researchers said there were about 127,000 generations of the dinosaurs, with about 20,000 T. rexes each, for a total of 2.5 billion of them. Scientists conducting the new study disagreed and thought there were fewer generations, with fewer T. rexes in each one. According to their calculations, there were about 90,000 generations with 19,000 dinosaurs each, totaling 1.7 billion.…

A new technology generates text by scanning people’s brains. It could help people who are unable to speak and improve our understanding of the brain. For the study, people had their brain activity monitored while they listened to podcasts. Artificial intelligence (AI, when computers imitate human learning) matched specific brain activity with certain words from the podcasts. The AI then used what it learned to generate text based on brain activity. The results weren’t always literal. For example, when one subject heard “I don’t have my driver’s license yet,” the AI came up with the sentence “She has not even started to learn to drive yet.”…

The Denver Nuggets beat the Miami Heat on June 12 to win their first NBA championship. Nuggets star Nikola Jokic—a two-time league MVP award winner—became the first player to lead the playoffs in points, rebounds, and assists and was named the NBA Finals MVP. On October 18, the Las Vegas Aces defeated the New York Liberty to win their second straight WNBA championship. They are the third team, and the first in 21 years, to win back-to-back WNBA titles. The Aces A’ja Wilson, a two-time WNBA MVP, won the 2023 WNBA Finals MVP award.…

The Netflix documentary TheElephant Whisperers was one of the year’s most memorable films. It is about a couple in India and the bond they have with orphaned elephants. In March, the film won the Oscar (top film award) for Best Documentary Short Film. It was the first Indian film to receive the honor in that category. Accepting the award, director Kartiki Gonsalves spoke about “the sacred bond between us and our natural world.” She also thanked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars, “for recognizing our film highlighting Indigenous…

Many children from Asian backgrounds grow up hearing tales about the Monkey King. This year, he became more well known in the US. The character, which originated in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, played a big part in May’s Disney+ series American Born Chinese, which was based on the graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. In August, the animated action-comedy The Monkey King premiered on Netflix. Producer Peilin Chou, who was born in Taiwan, told The Week Junior she wanted to make the movie so “children around the world would be like, ‘Yes, the Monkey King!’”…

A woman searching for aquatic wildlife along a UK seashore came across a colorful surprise. After picking up a large rock, “something extremely bright and unusual caught my eye,” said Vicky Barlow. It was a rainbow sea slug, a rare mollusk typically found in the warmer waters of Spain, France, and Portugal. Barlow said she carefully placed the sea slug in a pot and watched “in complete awe” as it unfurled and began exploring. Then she returned the animal to the rock pool. “It had quite the personality,” she said.…

Now you can “catch ‘em all” — home addresses, that is. A new neighborhood in Nevada has named its roads after Pokémon characters. Construction manager Andrea Miller, whose child suggested the theme for the street names at the housing development, hopes that living on roads named after Squirtle and Snorlax will bring joy to residents. If “you had a bad day,” she said, “and you have to turn on Jigglypuff Lane, that will make you smile.”…

Taylor Swift toppled records and delighted millions of fans around the world in 2023. Swift, age 33, won dozens of music industry awards, became Spotify and Apple Music’s most-streamed artist of the year, and was the first artist to be named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. In January, Swift became the first musical act to top Billboard’s Artist 100 chart in eight separate years. In March, she kicked off her global Eras tour, which is the highest-grossing musical tour ever and the first to earn more than $1 billion. In July, Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was released, becoming her 12th number one album. With that, she set the record for most number one albums by a woman on the Billboard 200 chart. Her October release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version),…

On August 14, a group of young people won a legal battle arguing that the state of Montana had violated their right to a healthy environment. This was the first youth-led climate lawsuit (legal dispute) to go to trial in US history. In 2020, 16 people—who were then ages 2 to 19 and were represented by the law firm Our Children’s Trust—brought a suit against Montana, where they live. They charged that when Montana approved energy projects involving fossil fuels (like oil, gas, and coal) that contribute to climate change, the state was violating its constitution (highest law). The constitution requires the state to maintain a clean environment for “present and future generations.” The state argued that climate change is a global problem and Montana uses few fossil fuels compared…

Twelve countries in Africa were chosen to receive 18 million doses of a vaccine to prevent malaria. The vaccine, called RTS, S/AS01, is part of an international effort by the World Health Organization and an organization called Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Malaria is a disease that is spread by mosquitoes. It kills nearly 500,000 children under the age of 5 in Africa every year and is one of the continent’s deadliest diseases. A trial of RTS, S/AS01 began in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi in 2019. A new study found that the rate of death dropped 13% among children eligible for the vaccine and the number of children hospitalized with malaria fell by 22%. Nine more nations—Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone,…

Seagrass, an underwater plant, is an essential source of shelter, food, and oxygen for marine life. It also helps prevent global warming by storing carbon, a harmful gas. To shed light on how much seagrass there is at the bottom of the ocean, scientists conducted research with help from tiger sharks, which can dive deep and explore areas people can’t reach. A group of sharks was fitted with cameras and satellite tracking tags. These showed that the sharks swam through at least 25,000 square miles of seagrass off the coast of the Bahamas—much more of the plant than they expected. The researchers concluded, in fact, that there is more seagrass growing near the Bahamas than anywhere else on Earth. The findings increased the amount of seagrass known to exist by…

According to a new study, eating less meat could make as much of a difference for the planet as taking millions of cars off the road. Food production creates up to one third of the world’s greenhouse gases (gases that stay in the atmosphere and trap heat, warming the planet). It also uses water and land and harms wildlife. Production of meat and dairy has the largest impact. Scientists looked at the effects of the diets of more than 55,000 people. Those who ate no meat created 75% fewer emissions and caused less harm to land, water, and wildlife than major meat eaters. People who ate small amounts of meat (about two slices of deli meat) per day caused half the emissions as people who ate a lot of meat…

For the first time since 2016, the winning driver at the Indianapolis 500 car race was an American, Josef Newgarden. The competition was held on May 28 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. It consists of 200 laps around a 2.5-mile track, making the entire race approximately 500 miles long. The victory was Newgarden’s first win in 12 attempts. Newgarden, who began in the 17th position, led for five of the laps. Heading into the final laps, last year’s champion, Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson, was in first and Newgarden was in second. After a crash paused the race, it resumed with one lap to go. Newgarden then overtook Ericsson and beat him by .0974 of a second. It was the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.…

Fifty years after it was first published, the popular award-winning novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume was adapted into a film, which premiered in April. The book and the movie are set in the 1970s and told from the perspective of sixth-grader Margaret Simon as she copes with new friends, family drama, and physical changes. She also tries to figure out her own religious beliefs and addresses God with questions about her life. Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig told The Week Junior she hoped audiences saw themselves in Margaret and her friends. “There’s something about watching someone else do the embarrassing things that you do that’s really funny—and also a great relief that you’re not the only one,” she said.…

Spaghetti shenanigans caused a stir in the New Jersey township of Old Bridge. On local Facebook groups, a resident posted photos of an estimated 300 to 400 pounds of pasta on the ground. Someone had dumped 15 wheelbarrow loads of spaghetti and elbow macaroni in the woods, but nobody knew why. The town cleaned up the pasta mounds, and police eventually found the culprit, yet no one was charged for the carbohydrate crime. One person said on social media, “I can fix this…just give me time to gather 3–400 cups of marinara sauce.”…

A swashbuckling sea otter has been terrorizing the California coast. The thieving critter, a 5-year-old female known as Otter 841, gained notoriety by climbing onto people’s surfboards and sinking her teeth into them. One teen surfer let go of his board and watched as 841 commandeered it. “The otter was shredding, caught a couple of nice waves,” he said. Local officials began pursuing 841, who is still on the lam. Do you think this story is real, or are you in otter disbelief?* *Real! Experts said they were concerned for the safety of beachgoers and the otter, who belongs to an endangered species. They hoped to capture 841 and bring her to a zoo or aquarium. But so far, said one, “she’s been quite talented at evading us.”…

1 True or false: The fastest-selling Nintendo game ever in the Americas was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. True ☐ False ☐ 2 What is the name of NASA’s mission to put humans on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years? 3 In the book The Wild Robot Protects, Roz the robot reunites with a goose named what? a) Brightbeak b) Brightbill c) Brightfeather a ☐ b ☐ c ☐ 4 For how many days did actors in TV and movies go on strike this year? 5 Mikaela Shiffrin set a record this year for the most World Cup titles in what winter sport? a) Skiing b) Sledding c) Snowboarding a ☐ b ☐ c ☐ 6 The Endangered Species Act celebrated which…