homework - Homeless man stabbed after trying to save woman

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Story:

Jamaica, Queens (4/28/10) - A wake was held Wednesday for the homeless man killed while trying to stop an attack in Queens.

Dozens of friends and family members said their final goodbyes to Hugo Tale-Yax, 31, a man they say is a hero.

Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed several times in the chest last Sunday morning at 88th Road and 144th Street in Jamaica after he tried to stop a man from beating up a woman.

Surveillance video captured him as he collapsed on the sidewalk.

Several people walked by, but no one called for help, and an ambulance did not arrive until an hour later.

One person stopped but all he did was take a picture.

"That really upsets me, because he has a heart to help that girl, and nobody else helped him. It's really sad. I'm still thinking about it,' said Tale-Yax's cousin, Santos Tale-Garcia.

Tale-Yax was from Guatemala so his body will be sent to Guatemala for burial.

Police are still looking for the attacker. He is described as being 5' 6" tall with a medium build, and was last seen wearing a green short-sleeved shirt and dark pants with a green hat.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What was the name of the homeless that got stabbed?

4) Why was he stabbed?

5) What country was the homeless guy from?

6) Why do you think the people who passed by did not help him?

Info and video from NY1

homework - Oklahoma has a new abortion law

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Story:

Oklahoma (4/27/10) - There are two new abortion laws in Oklahoma.

An abortion is when a woman is pregnant and decides that she is not ready to be a mother so she goes to the doctor and has an operation to terminate the fetus. These two laws affect the way women in Oklahoma would get abortions.

The first law is called Bill 2780. It says that before getting an abortion, the woman would have to get an ultrasound (a picture of the fetus) and then listen to the doctor describe the fetus while she looked at the picture.

The second law is called HB 2686. This law makes it ok for a doctor not to tell a pregnant woman about any birth defects in the fetus. This means that if the doctor could see that the baby was going to be born with something wrong, the doctor does not have to tell the parents about it.

These two laws make all the pro-life people very happy. These people believe that babies should be born no matter what.

These two laws make the pro-choice people very angry. Pro-choice people believe that women have the right to have abortions because women own their own bodies.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What is an abortion?

4) What does Bill 2780 say?

5) What does HB2686 say?

6) What do pro-life people believe?

7) What do pro-choice people believe?

8) What do you believe? Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Explain your answer.

Homework - Students march out of school in protest!

Click HERE to watch the video. Read the story. Answer the questions.

Story:

Arizona (4/22/2010) - The students in the video walked out of their classes last Thursday to protest a new law - law 1070. Law 1070 gives theArizona police the right to question people about their immigration status. If the police have "reasonable suspicion" that a person might be here illegally, then they can stop that person and ask them for their papers to prove that they are legal.

The students were protesting because they say that the only people that are going to get stopped by the police are people of color, especially Latinos. They say that the police are not going to be stopping any white people to ask if they are legal citizens. They say that this law is racist because it will only be used to harass Latinos. The students were hoping that their protest would be noticed by the Governor and that she would veto or stop the law.

The day after the protest (Friday, 4/23), Jan Brenner, the Governor of Arizona chose to sign law 1070. The governor signing the law is the last step before a law starts. The police now have to act on it.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What does law 1070 give the police?

4) Why were the students protesting?

5) What is the governor of Arizona's name?

6) What day did the governor sign law 1070?

7) What do you think, is law 1070 racist? Why or why not?

Info from Middletown Journal. Video from Fox News (redlasso.com). Pic from cbsnews.com

Homework - Shooting at the Car Wash!

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Story:

Brooklyn, NY (04/24/2010) - Police are searching for the shooter who opened fire Saturday at a Brooklyn car wash.

Investigators say the gunman was targeting a 37-year-old worker at the Magic Car Wash on Bushwick Avenue and Garden Street.

The man was shot in the arm.

Two other men, ages 20 and 29, were caught in the crossfire.

"I came out, I looked and I saw somebody laying on the floor, I saw somebody running down that way and another guy was shot," said one witness at the scene.

"It's a very quiet place here and they're always working over there, they mind their business," said one neighborhood resident.

The two other victims were struck in the legs.

All three victims were transported to Kings County Hospital.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did the story take place?

3) How many people were shot?

4) What hospital were the victims taken to?

5) What was the name of the car wash?

6) What do you think, will the police catch the guy? Why or why not?

Info from NY1

homework - Tourists kicked out!

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Story:

Harlem (4/23/2010) - A Harlem building was shut down by the city Thursday night, leaving more than a hundred tourists from all over the world with no place to stay.

The Department of Buildings told everyone to get out of the L-Hostel on 117th Street and 7th Avenue. They said the six-story residential building was illegally converted into a hostel.

A hostel is a really cheap hotel where you just get a bed in a big room with a lot of other people.

The owner says he has owned the building for five years, and insists it's legal.

Tourists forced out into the street say they have no idea where they are going to go.

"They came in this afternoon and told everyone to leave. People come and they make reservations, and all day long they are coming off the planes and getting here and they have no place to stay, and all the other hostels are kind of full because no one has been flying these last five days so it's hard already to find a place," said one displaced tourist.

"I have the approved plan, and I was shocked by the fact that they are forcing us to kick people to the street with no reason," said the building's owner, Gal Sela.

Sela says he has not been able to get in touch with the Department of Buildings.

Many of the tourists have been staying there for the last week or so because they have not been able to fly back to Europe, thanks to the volcano ash cloud.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What is a hostel?

4) What is the address of the L-Hostel?

5) How many tourists got kicked out?

6) Why did the Department of Buildings kick all the tourists out of the hostel?

Info and video from NY1

homework - Boat sinks off Alaskan Coast

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Story:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (4/20/2010) — The captain of a commercial fishing boat who died when the boat sank in the Gulf of Alaska had been nervous about the amount of cargo the boat was carrying, one of the surviving crewmen said. The boat's name was the Northern Belle.

Robert Jack said Wednesday that the 75-foot boat was so low in the water that Captain Robert Royer decided to take a slower route north to Alaska, avoiding the roughest water by staying close to shore.

"He was scared of that load," said Jack

Jack, 52, told The Associated Press that Royer's decision to make a last-second mayday call before their boat sank likely saved the lives of his crew, but may have cost him his.

Jack said the boat's automatic emergency GPS locating system did not activate. So Captain Royer, rather than immediately jumping ship with the others, stayed in the wheelhouse to make a mayday call and give their position to the Coast Guard. Otherwise nobody would have known that the boat sank or where they were in the ocean.

Then as he was finally jumping off the sinking boat, something hit Captain Royer in the head.

Jack and two other crew members, Nicole Esau, 36, of Ketchikan, Alaska, and Todd Knivila, 48, of Seattle, spent more than three hours in the frigid water but were hoisted to safety by a Coast Guard helicopter. Royer showed no vital signs when he was picked up.

The crew said that the boat probably sank because it was overloaded.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) How many people were on the boat?

4) How many people survived?

5) What are the names of the survivors?

6) How did the Captain save the lives of the other people on the boat?

7) Why did the boat sink?

8) How many hours were the people in the cold water?

9) What was the name of the boat?

Info from AP. Video from MSNBC.

homework - Bullying

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Story:

Massachusetts (4/21/2010) - Nine Massachusetts teens went to court on Monday for driving a pretty 15-year-old "new girl" from Ireland to suicide in a case that has become a symbol of high school bullying.

The sweeping charges - which come after months of complaints that the bullies weren't being punished - include statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, criminal harassment and stalking.

Phoebe Prince, a new arrival at South Hadley High School, was mercilessly tormented by her classmates - the "Mean Girls".

Students said Phoebe was called "Irish slut" and "whore" on Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook and Formspring.

Her books were knocked out of her hands, items were flung at her, her face was scribbled out of photographs on the school walls, and threatening text messages were sent to her cell phone.

The "Mean Girls" hated Pheobe because she dated a popular senior football player in her first freshman weeks at the school.

On Jan. 14, Phoebe was harassed and threatened in the school library and in a hallway, Scheibel said. As she walked home, one of the "Mean Girls" drove by and threw a can of Red Bull at her.

Phoebe walked into her house and hung herself in a stairwell.

The nastiness didn't even end there. Her tormentors posted vicious comments on the dead girl's Facebook memorial page.

For months, community anger simmered that no punishment had befallen Phoebe's bullies. Petitions were signed and town hall meetings held.

Seven of the nine arrested teens were girls. They were charged with a range of crimes, from criminal harassment to stalking to civil rights violations. A juvenile girl was charged with assault by means of a dangerous weapon - the Red Bull can.

The two males, 17 and 18, were charged with statutory rape.

Unveiling the indictments, Scheibel said numerous faculty members, staff members and administrators at South Hadley High School were aware of the bullying - some even witnessed physical abuse - and did nothing.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What was the name of the girl that hanged herself?

4) Why did the girl hand herself?

5) Why were the other girls bullying her?

6) What did the "mean girls" do to the girl that hanged herself?

7) What did the teachers do about it?

8) How many teens were arrested?

9) What were the teens charged with?

10) Do you think the teens should go to prison? Why or why not?

Info from MSNBC and Daily News pic from childsafetyaustralia.com

homework - Unschooling?

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Story:

Westford, Massachusetts (4/19/2010) - The Biegler kids live life without school. They're at home all day, but they're not being homeschooled. They're being "unschooled." This means that there are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world. The kids just get to say what they want to learn.

What's more, that hands-off approach extends to other areas of the children's lives: They make their own decisions, and don't have chores or rules.

Christine Yablonski and Phil Biegler "radical unschoolers." This means that they allow their teen daughter and son to decide what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it.

"They key there is that you've got to trust your kids to … find their own interests," Yablonski told "Good Morning America."

Yablonski said that unschooling is "living your life as if the school system didn't exist."

When asked how their children learn things like math, she said, "If they need formal algebra understanding, then they will, they'll find that information."

Asked by "Good Morning America" about how they could parent without any rules, Phil Biegler said, "We find that we don't need a whole lot of rules."

"They might watch television," Yablonski said. "They might play games on the computers."

"They might read," her husband added.

Most children will always choose television over reading every time, but Yablonski said that "the key there is that you've got to trust your kids to ... find their own interests."

She isn't worried that her daughter stays up all night, because "she's getting everything done that she wants to get done."

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What is a 'radical unschooler'?

4) What are the names of the parents in the story?

5) How many kids do they have?

6) Do you think 'unschooling' is a good idea? Why or why not?

Info from ABC

homework -Prejudice in Bronx

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Story:

Bronx (4/17/2010) - Some Bronx residents turned out Saturday for a town hall meeting in the Concourse to discuss what they believe to be discrimination in the city's private health care system.

They say that New Yorkers who are on Medicaid are told to go to the clinic by the hospital staff. While patients who have better insurance like Blue Cross or GHI get to stay in the hospital, see the hospital doctors and sometimes get better treatment.

A clinic is a small heath care office. It sees lots of patients and is generally crowded. They have less staff and equipment than hospitals. It is cheaper to go to a clinic.

People of color tend to have Medicaid insurance while white people tend to have heath insurance from private companies like Blue Cross or GHI. People from the Bronx are saying that this creates a heath care system that is prejudiced because whites are getting better treatment than Latinos or Blacks.

Bronx Health REACH says the practice is illegal and has a lawsuit pending against three area private hospitals -- Montefiore, NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai.

The hospitals said that they are not racist. They said that they set up clinics for the Medicaid patients because many of their doctors simply do not accept low paying insurance like Medicaid.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) Where are the people on Medicaid told to go?

4) Where do the people on private insurance like Blue Cross or GHI get to stay?

5) What kind of insurance do people of color tend to have?

6) What kind of insurance do white people tend to have?

7) What 3 hospitals are being sued?

8) Why did they hospitals say they send the Medicaid patients to the clinics?

9) What is a clinic?

Info and video from NY1

homework -Volcano!

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Story:

London, England (4/15/10) - Ash clouds from a volcano in Iceland messed up airplane traffic across Europe on Thursday as authorities shut down their airports all over Britain, Ireland and other European countries.

Ash messes up plane engines. If it gets inside it could stop one or more of a planes engines and cause the plane to crash.

Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded as flights were canceled and it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again.

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said non-emergency flights would be banned in all airports until at least 6 p.m.

Irish authorities also closed their air space for at least eight hours, along with closures by aviation authorities in countries such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

London's Heathrow airport, a world's busiest international airport, handles upwards of 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day. Those passengers will not be flying until at least 6 pm tonight.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) Why did the airports get shut down?

4) When will Britain's airports reopen?

5) Why is volcanic ash bad for planes?

6) Name 2 countries other than Britain whose airports were closed.

7) How many passengers fly through London's Heathrow airport everyday?

Info from MSNBC

homework -Electric scooter

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Story:

England (4/12/2010) - A British company called Econogo has released the Yogo scooter. This little scooter is different from other scooters in some ways. First of all, the scooter is electric and uses zero gas. Second, the Yogo scooter can be charged indoors. How? By removing the 25-pound battery and taking it into your apartment while the scooter sits stays on the street. This is cool because you don't have to run a power cord from your apartment window to the street in order to charge it. Plus, if it has no battery then it is hard to steal. This is important for people like us who live in NYC where everything gets stolen.

The Yogo cost about $3,000. It has top speed of up to 38 miles per hour and it can go for 22-miles before you have to recharge the battery.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What is the name of the company that released the Yogo scooter?

4) How much gas does this scooter use?

5) How do you recharge the battery?

6) How much does it cost?

7) How fast does does it go?

8) How far can you go before you have to recharge the battery?

Info from the guardian and autobloggreen

Homework - A Plane that runs on the sun...

Click HERE for to watch the video. Read the story. Answer the questions.

Story:
Switzerland, (4/8/10) - The world's first solar powered plane took off on Thursday. The plane flew for 87 minutes and went up as high as almost 4000 feet. The plane is called the 'Solar Impulse' and is powered by 12,000 solar cells. This means that the plane uses no gas, instead it uses energy from the sun.

It took seven years to build the Solar Impulse. The program that built the plane was started by Bertrand Piccard, who was the first guy to go around the world non-stop in a hot air balloon. He wants this plane to go around the world in 2012.

The Solar Impulse has one seat, goes at about 45 miles per hour and weighs about the same as the average car.

Questions:
1) Where did this story take place?
2) When did story take place?
3) What is the name of the solar plane?
4) What type of power does the plane run on?
5) How long did it take to build the plane?
6) How long did it fly for?
7) How high did it go?
8) How fast does it go?
9) When is it going to go around the world?
10) How many seats does the plane have?

Info from wired.com and video from the guardian. Pic from you4planet.it (google image search)

Homework - The Yankees are the most expensive baseball team in the world!

Click HERE to watch the video. Read the story. Answer the questions.

Story:

The Bronx (4/8/2010) - The World Series champions are the most valuable team in the game, according to Forbes Magazine.

Valued at $1.6 billion, the New York Yankees are on the top of the Forbes Magazine rankings of the most valuable teams in baseball. Their value increased seven percent from the year before.

The team's profits were helped by the YES Network on TV, which made the Yankees over $180 million.

The investment continues to be good for the owner George Steinbrenner, who bought the Yankees in the 1970s for just $10 million.

The Mets are not far behind as the third-most valuable team, worth $858 million. However, their value dropped six percent from last year.

The top five has the Yanks and Mets sandwiching the Red Sox at number two, with the Dodgers and Cubs coming in fourth and fifth place.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) How much money are the Yankees worth?

4) Who is the owner of the Yankees?

5) How much did he pay for the Yankees in the 1070's?

6) How much are the Mets worth?

7) Name the top five most valuable teams.

Info and video from NY1. Pic from students.ithaca.edu (google image search).

Homework - New York might get a Space Shuttle!

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Story:

Manhattan, NY (4/7/2010) - The Intrepid Museum is looking to land a space shuttle on Manhattan's West Side and is turning to the public for help.

Nearly 45,000 people have signed the museum's petition to ask NASA to bring one of their retiring space shuttles to New York, where it would be put beside the Intrepid.

NASA is retiring the shuttles Discovery, Endeavor and Atlantis and will make them available to different institutions throughout the country.

Bill White, the president of the Intrepid Museum, says the signatures on the petition come from all over the world.

He says they will send the petition to NASA once they have gathered 50,000 signatures.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What is the name of the museum that is trying to get one of the space shuttles?

4) How many shuttles is NASA retiring?

5) What are the names of the shuttles that are being retired?

6) How many signatures does the museum want to get on their petition?

Info and video from NY1. Pic from goldenstate.wordpress.com (google image)

Homework - Bronx mom jailed for leaving kids alone

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Story
Bronx, NY (4/5/2010) - A Bronx mother is in jail after being arrested Tuesday for leaving her three young children home alone.

Police say Araceli Sanchez-Reyes was arrested at her Benson Street home yesterday.

The 27-year-old mother is accused of leaving her three young children alone inside their Westchester Square Apartment.

Police say she had gone shopping for three hours.

Officers were called the building because of a possible gas leak inside the apartment, and found the children.

Sources say the door lock needed a key for both sides and there were gates on the windows, meaning the children would not have been able to escape.

Police say the children, ages four, seven and 10, were taken to Jacobi Hospital for observation. The police department says there were no signs of abuse and the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) has no history with the family.

Questions:
1) Where did this story take place?
2) When did this story take place?
3) What was the name of the woman who got arrested?
4) Why was the woman arrested?
5) How many children were locked in the apartment?
6) How old were the children?
7) Why were the police called in the first place?
8) Do you think the children should have been left alone? Why or why not?

Info and video taken from ny1