Innholdsfortegnelse for 185 i The Week Junior

Tensions between the US and Iran are growing after a US drone was shot down by the Iranian military.US president Donald Trump said he considered launching missiles to target Iran in response, but has said he does not want to go to war. What happened exactly? On 20 June, Iran shot down the US drone, which is an unmanned aircraft, claiming it had entered Iranian territory and was being used by the US to spy. The US denied this and said the drone was in international territory when it was attacked. Later that evening, Trump considered firing missiles at three Iranian targets. He says he changed his mind just 10 minutes before they were due to launch, after he was told that 150 Iranians would be killed as a result…

What you need to know ● Most people who watch the BBC on live TV or use BBC iPlayer can only do so if they pay for a BBC TV licence. The money goes towards making programmes, paying staff and funding the BBC. Unlike other broadcasters, the BBC does not make money by showing adverts. ● At the moment, people aged over 75 who live in the UK do not have to pay for a BBC TV licence. However, the BBC has announced that it will end this. From June 2020, the over-75s will have to start paying £154.50 a year to watch the BBC. ● The decision won’t affect everyone. People over 75 who can prove that they can’t afford it will be given a free licence. The British…

Eleven-year-old William Rae, from the Edinburgh Academy Junior School, has been named RHS Young School Gardener of the Year. This is an annual competition by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) that recognises young people with a passion for gardening who have made an outstanding contribution to their local community. Rae told The Week Junior that he was “elated” to win this award. His favourite thing about gardening is “that you are helping to save money and the planet”. He advises starting small, as you only need a windowsill to begin growing a few herbs and plants. The judges said that William was inspirational and is “very considerate of the people and planet around him”.…

Scientists at the University of British Columbia, in Canada, say they have discovered a way of making a person’s blood compatible with (match with) any other person’s blood, which could save thousands of lives. At the moment, if a person is given blood that doesn’t match their own, then their body treats it as an infection and tries to fight it. There are four blood groups – types A, B, AB and O. Everybody has just one type of blood. When someone is ill or has lost blood because of an injury, they may need a blood transfusion (extra blood injected into them) to save their life. However, except for type O, different types of blood cannot be mixed. This is because the red blood cells in types A, B…

Washing dishes is a job that few people enjoy. Now, a robotics company called Dishcraft might be about to take it out of our hands with an automatic dishwasher that can clean 90 plates at once. Dishcraft’s founder, Linda Pouilot, says the invention was designed for restaurants, where it is often difficult to hire enough people to do all the dishwashing. Humans are still needed to wheel the special dishes into the machine, but the robot does the rest. The dishes contain bits of steel so they can be picked up by a magnet, before being washed with water and a rubber scraper. Cameras then scan the plates, using artificial intelligence (AI) to make sure they’re all squeaky clean. AI is a computer system that performs tasks that usually require…

American football is growing in popularity all the time in the UK. Now, one team from the National Football League (NFL) in the US, the Jacksonville Jaguars, has set up a simplified version of the game for young people in this country to enjoy. Called JagTag, it’s an easy-to-follow sport that teaches players how to throw, catch and defend just like you would in an NFL game. Unlike proper American football, though, JagTag players do not need padding and there’s no heavy tackling. Games are played on smaller pitches and the basic equipment is just a ball, cones and bibs. The first JagTag session in Scotland took place on 18 June. Around 120 boys and girls from South Lanarkshire took part. “It was cool to have the female players from…

Huge swarms of flies have invaded several Russian villages, forcing residents to protect their homes from thousands of the insects. The flies, which appeared in the Urals region, 1,400 miles east of Moscow, have made it unpleasant to go outside or open windows. One man said he sweeps up a bucket of dead flies from his house every few days. Some people have blamed a farmer, saying he used chicken poo to fertilise his fields, in which the flies like to lay their eggs. DID YOU KNOW? Fruit flies were the first living creatures ever sent into space.…

There were celebrations across Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, after Ekrem Imamoglu won a re-run of the election to be the city’s mayor on 23 June. The result was a blow for the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because the candidate from his political party was beaten for a second time. The election was first held on 31 March. Imamoglu was declared the winner, having gained around 13,000 more votes than Erdogan’s candidate, Binali Yildirim. Erdogan’s party, the Justice and Development Party, complained that the election had not been carried out properly and Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council decided that the election should be held again. Many people in Turkey were very angry about this and said Erdogan was trying to stop Imamoglu from winning the contest. The second time round, even…

On 22 September, the streets of central London will be empty of traffic as the capital joins other cities around the world for a car-free day. The event was announced by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who wants people to enjoy the traffic-free streets. The event will be London’s biggest ever car-free day, with 12.3 miles of road near Tower Bridge, London Bridge and the City of London closed to cars and other vehicles. London’s first car-free day was held last year, but they’ve taken place in other cities around the world for years. Khan hopes it will encourage more people to cycle, walk or use public transport more regularly, which would reduce air pollution across the city. Air pollution is one of the biggest health challenges in the capital. More…

Two candidates remain in the race to become the new Conservative Party leader and UK Prime Minister. On 20 June, Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) voted for their favourite candidates, leaving Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson as the final two with the most votes. Johnson won 160, and Hunt got 77. Hunt and Johnson will now compete for votes from the roughly 160,000 members of the public who are registered as members of the Conservative Party. These members are the only people in the country who are allowed to pick the next leader of the party. The result will be announced on 23 July. Whoever wins will become the Prime Minister. That’s because the Conservatives won the last general election (when the public gets to vote) in 2017. In the…

Johann König’s job is to sell artworks that he cannot see. The art dealer lost most of his sight in an accident when he was a teenager, but his passion for art meant he still wanted to be surrounded by it. For many years he kept his disability a secret but in a new book, he explains how he became one of the most successful art dealers and gallery owners in Germany. He admitted to The Guardian newspaper he had been worried about what people would think, but he’s now realised that blind people are better concentrating on things. “Sometimes being able to see isn’t that great after all,” he says, “or at least not for me.””…

This stunning photo appears to show a sledge being pulled across a bright blue sea by a pack of dogs running on water. In fact, they are wading through ankle-deep water on top of sea ice that has started to melt because of unusually high temperatures. The photo was taken in Greenland, a large island in the North Atlantic Ocean that is mostly covered by a massive ice sheet. The image was snapped on 13 June by Steffen Olsen from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), which studies the atmosphere and weather. Olsen and his team noticed large amounts of water on top of the ice that floats on the sea around Greenland. In total, about two billion tonnes of ice are thought to have melted after temperatures rose to °…

STRANGE TALES OF EVOLUTION From birds that came back from the dead, to plants that talk to bats, meet the creatures that tell some of evolution’s most amazing stories in this month’s Science+Nature. Elsewhere in this jam-packed magazine, blast off from Earth to relive the Apollo Moon landing of 50 years ago, meet the man saving the world’s weirdest birds and enjoy amazing space-themed activities. Look for the latest issue in newsagents and online now. VISIT sciencenature.theweekjunior.co.uk THE WEEK JUNIORSUBSCRIBERS GET AN EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT. CALL 0330 333 9494 TO CLAIM! ISSUE 11 OUT NOW JUST £3.49…

Marta Brazil were knocked out of the Women’s World Cup by France, but Marta set a record at the tournament. The Brazilian forward scored her 17th World Cup goal to become the all-time highest scorer at either the men’s or women’s competition. She had shared the record with Germany’s Miroslav Klose, who scored 16 times in men’s World Cups. ● Marta first played in a World Cup in 2003. The 33-year-old striker has scored in all five World Cups between then and this summer’s event. ● She has won the Copa América Femenina (South American championship) three times and earned two Olympic silver medals with Brazil. ● She has been voted the best women’s player in the world six times, including last year.…

ITV will no longer make any comedy shows that don’t have at least one female writer, it has been announced. Saskia Schuster, who is in charge of comedy at ITV, said that entertainment programmes could no longer be written by an all-male team. Some existing programmes are now hiring female staff to meet the new rules. Schuster said there has been a noticeable lack of shows written by women or with women on the writing teams. She has also said that any new programmes must aim to have an even split of women and men working on them to make sure there is a good mix of talented writers. Schuster was encouraged to make the change last year when she discovered that for every comedy script she received from a…

Games such as Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite have shown how many young gamers have a passion for digital building. Now Google has launched a new application that, like Roblox, aims to help people of all ages create their own games. Game Builder has been released as a free download for PC and Mac computers, although users will need to be registered (for free) on the Steam digital-games store to get it. The application can be used to create 3D games, including platformers, racing games and even Fortnite-style shooters. It comes with its own collection of characters and Minecraft-style scenery blocks to work with, as well as a feature for searching the web to find other 3D models to use in games. Game Builder also promises that people won’t need to…

The augmented-reality (AR) mobile game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite can finally be played in the UK. Augmented reality is where computer graphics are overlaid onto real-world situations. The game has been made by Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, and was announced in 2017. A test version launched in Australia and New Zealand in May this year, but the full game is now available in the UK and US. The game follows on from Voldemort’s defeat, with a plot that has the Wizarding World under threat of being discovered by Muggles. Players become a wizard or witch, casting spells, mixing potions and battling alongside their friends. Like Pokémon Go, the action takes place based on a map of real-world locations. It’s free but has optional in-app purchases, and you can…

What you need ● 3 medium-sized beetroot ● 1 onion ● 1 stick of celery ● ¼ red cabbage ● 1 carrot ● 1 tablespoon olive oil ● 1 litre of stock ● Sour cream ● Dill or parsley (optional) ● Knife ● Chopping board ● Saucepan with a lid ● Blender Instructions When it comes to preparing the vegetables, the pieces don’t have to look neat because the soup will be blended, but they should be in bite-sized chunks so that they all cook at the same speed. Peel the beetroot and the onion and then chop them. Next, chop the celery, cabbage and carrot. Heat the oil in the pan. Add the onion, celery and carrot and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the beetroot and cabbage…

Name: The Mount Stewart Junior Blog Team “On 9 May, Ciaran Sneddon, a writer at The Week Junior, came to Mount Stewart Junior School to address our Blog Team about how to write interesting and factual articles. Our journalists gave Ciaran a tour of our school, then Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have an assembly all about the news. After this, the team showed Ciaran how we publish different articles for our Blog, and we were able to ask questions on how to improve our writing. Ciaran gave us some tips about ensuring that our articles are from reliable sources. He also suggested putting the most important information in the first few sentences to capture the reader’s attention. Ciaran told us the importance of using our own…

A singer in Malaysia has been arrested for keeping an endangered animal in her home, after realising that her pet dog was in fact a bear. Zarith Sofia Yasin said that she found the bear cub by the side of a road one night and assumed it was an abandoned dog. After realising all was not as it seemed, her plan was to nurse the animal – whom she called Bruno – back to health before handing him over to a zoo. However, police raided her home when the bear was spotted by a startled neighbour. Bruno has now been taken to a wildlife rescue centre.…

On 21 June, people across the UK and the northern hemisphere (the half of the Earth that lies north of the equator, an invisible line around the centre of the planet) celebrated the summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year (and the shortest night). The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere occurs when this half of the Earth is tilted towards the Sun during orbit, so the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky. This results in the longest period of daylight. This year, the UK had a total of 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight on 21 June. To celebrate, 10,000 people flocked to Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, to watch the sunrise at 4.52am. Stonehenge is a prehistoric stone circle dating back to roughly 2500BC,…

Paris, France City prepares for heatwave A heatwave in France has sent temperatures soaring; forecasts in Paris predict it will be more than 40˚C. Many schools have closed and to help people cope the city’s authorities have turned 900 public places into air-conditioned cool areas. Special fountains have opened and public swimming pools will stay open later than usual each day. The heat is also affecting other parts of France and neighbouring countries. Canadian Arctic Scientists shocked by extreme thaw Permafrost (ground that has been continuously frozen for at least two years) in the Canadian Arctic is melting 70 years sooner than expected, a new study shows. Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks found that giant sections of ice that had been frozen for thousands of years are now…

Next time a dog looks at you with what seems to be a sad or begging expression in its big eyes, think twice. New research shows that the expression – sometimes referred to as puppy-dog eyes – is probably a clever trick developed over thousands of years to try and make you look after it. Dr Juliane Kaminski from the University of Portsmouth carried out a study comparing how often dogs and wolves (their closest living relatives) make the expression, which is all down to the eyebrows. She found that dogs make that eyebrow movement far more often than wolves – and even when they do try it, wolves don’t seem able to do the sad look very well. To explain the difference between such closely related animals, Anne Burrows…

Red sea Russia’s Scarlet Sails event celebrates students graduating from primary and secondary schools. Crater creation The crater left by an old Second World War bomb that went off in a German barley field. Don’t bug me An ant hitches a lift on the head of a green pit viper in Indonesia. Playing dirty Swamp soccer players get muddy in Pogy, Russia. Squirrel gets stuck A red squirrel had to be rescued after getting stuck in Dortmund, Germany. Something fishy going on A mask on display at a parade in New York, US.…

On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. Now, 50 years later, you can relive his famous “one small step” as the film Apollo 11 presents viewers with previously unseen footage of the event. Apollo 11 was the name of the space flight that took Armstrong and his fellow astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, to the Moon. It was part of the Apollo programme, a series of missions by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Work on the programme started in 1961, and aimed to put a human on the Moon by 1970. Film director Todd Douglas Miller wanted to tell the story of Apollo 11 with archive materials. That means using only footage that was filmed at the time, rather…

Dreams This was released for the PlayStation 4 console earlier this year as an early-access version, which means that it’s still a work in progress. You can create 3D worlds, fill them with characters and obstacles, then set rules to turn them into playable games. Quest The Quest website helps you build your own “text adventure” games and interactive fiction. These are stories where players choose what to do and where to go by typing in their commands. It’s not all text, however; you can add pictures, sounds and video too. Scratch / ScratchJr Scratch is the free coding site used in many schools. It’s good for more than just making cats dance across the screen, though. You can create some fun games. If you prefer to code on a…

French is the second most studied language in the world and is often described as the language of love (partly due to its smooth sound). It’s spoken at the Eurovision Song Contest (viewers in the UK often joke that a bad song deserves nul points, which means no points). French has always been a widely used language, and it’s relatively easy to learn. You might know that the Normans came from Normandy in France in 1066 to invade England. Well, it’s thanks to them that there are plenty of French influences in the English language. The Normans introduced French to the country, and over time, some French words mixed into English. For example, prison, café and souvenir are all French words that are still commonly used today. English speakers are…

Two young goats have set up a new exercise class in Fife, Scotland. The goats, Hazel and Mabel, stand at the front of the class and show the participants different stretches and moves as part of their pilates class at Bellcraig Farm. Pilates involves holding different poses and stretches and is a bit like yoga. Anyone not trying hard enough has to do the exercises with one or both of the goats on their backs to make things more challenging. One person who attended a class, Billy G. Gruff, said, “It’s a lot of fun, and Hazel and Mabel really know their stuff.” So, has this goat to be true, or are we kid-ding?*…