991029 A Race to Help Haiti-Michael

October 25, 2010
A Race to Help Haiti
Officials are working around the clock to stop the spread of a deadly disease
BY SUZANNE ZIMBLER

Nine months after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, more than a million people are still living in temporary camps in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. With so many people living in close quarters, officials have long feared a major outbreak of disease. Now, they are fighting to prevent a deadly disease from spreading to the camps.




A medical worker helps a mother and child at a hospital in Haiti.

Last week, in an area about 60 miles northwest of the capital, more than 3,000 people became sick with cholera (kol-er-uh). The disease can spread quickly when there is a lack of clean water and sanitation. Officials are racing to help those who are sick, and to prevent the disease from spreading to other parts of the country.
In the Water
Cholera is spread when people drink contaminated, or dirty, water. Authorities think that water from Haiti's Artibonite River is to blame for the outbreak. The river is the country's central drainage system. Waste flows into the river. Communities that do not have access to enough clean water have been drinking from the river.
"We know that the disease is affecting the community near the river," says Jean-Francois St. Felix, who works for Haiti's National Department of Water Supply and Sanitation. "We are in the middle of informing people in the region."
Education Is Key
Haiti has not had a major outbreak of cholera for more than a century. The disease is a threat in many parts of the world. There are an estimated 3 to 5 million cases every year.
"One of the biggest challenges is that Haiti is not particularly familiar with this disease," says Imogene Wall, of the United Nations. Aid workers are teaching thousands of families how to avoid the disease. Radio announcements are explaining the importance of hand washing. The International Red Cross is sending out text messages, telling people to drink only safe water.
Help Is on the Way
Aid agencies like Oxfam are making sure that affected regions have clean water and medical care. Since authorities were worried about an outbreak of disease, they stored medical supplies in the country ahead of time. As a result, Haiti has enough medicine to treat 100,000 cases of cholera.
Health experts are hopeful that they will be able to control the outbreak. "It's not difficult to prevent the spread to Port-au-Prince," said Health Ministry director Gabriel Timothee. "We can prevent it."


http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,2027478,00.html

991029 A Race to Help Haiti-Michael
Cholera is a big disease if you want to get rid of it you need to spend a lot of time. In Haiti, they have cholera around their country. I think the most reason why they have cholera in their country is that they don’t have good hygiene-conscious so they will get sick or other disease easily. The International Red Cross is helping in Haiti for the cholera and they also tell people to drink clean water instead of dirty water because dirty water may have germs and bacteria in it. I wish they will have better hygiene-conscious.

991022 Debate!-Michael

Debate!
Do Pennies Make ents?
BY TIME FOR KIDS

A penny is only worth a cent. But each one-cent coin costs 1.7 cents to produce. That's why some people would like put an end to pennies.
Lawmakers have tried to retire the one-cent coin in the past. In 2001, a congressman tried to do away with the penny. If the "Legal Tender Modernization Act" had passed, merchants would have been required to round up or round down to the nearest nickel on all cash purchases. If the price of an item were $5.02, a customer would pay $5.00. But for a $5.03 item, he or she would be charged $5.05.
Critics of the penny point out how much money would be saved if we said goodbye to the one-cent coins. But many people think that pennies are worth saving. The coin is part of our country's history, say penny fans. After all, it was the first U.S. coin to feature a President: Abraham Lincoln.
A group called Americans for Common Cents is worried that merchants would always round up to the higher five-cent number, even if the price were actually closer to the lower five-cent number. The group also points out that there are charities that collect donations in pennies.
U.S. military bases in other countries already round purchase prices up or down because it's too expensive to ship pennies to the bases. Australia and New Zealand have retired their one-cent coins.
Should the U.S. follow their example and do away with pennies? Explain your opinion in an email to tfkasks4you@timeforkids.com. Your writing could be featured in a future issue of TIME For Kids.


http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1921366,00.html


991022 Debate!-Michael
Do you know that how much it will take to make a penny? If a penny worth more than one cent than making the penny will cost even more money to make it! In America this kind of thing happened! Each one-cent coin costs 1.7 cents to produce so making ten one cent coins will cost seventeen cents! If I am the money producer, I will not keep producing the money because it is too expensive to make. The coin will also make people who sell things raise the price of a thing because people who sell things want to make money that is their goal of selling things. So how will America think a good way to solve the problem?? I think they can use cheaper things to make coins. Or another way is to change the value of the money such as using the same materials to make a coin but it can be a coin that has a value of two cents. So what will the US government do? I think in Taiwan there is also a coin problem. Maybe someday later we can see Taiwan using a different kind of money and it will be very special.

991016 A Miracle at the Mine-Michael

A Miracle at the Mine
Rescue teams bring trapped miners to freedom in Chile
BY ANDREA DELBANCO

Tears of relief and shouts of joy rang out last week at the San Jose mine in northern Chile as 33 miners were lifted to freedom, one by one. The men, ranging from 19 to 63 years old, have been buried alive since a cave in the copper and gold mine they were working collapsed on August 5. It is the longest time anyone has ever survived being trapped underground.
Buried Alive
After the collapse, the men found an emergency shelter off one of the mine's tunnels. The temperature in the dark shelter was around 90F. For more than two weeks, the miners' water came from the radiator tanks on their work vehicles. They shared a supply of food that was meant to last for only 48 hours.
The miners were totally isolated until rescue teams made contact with the men on August 22. They sent a note to the surface explaining their situation. Rescuers drilled small holes to reach the cavern and sent down supply tubes containing food, water, clothes, medicine, fresh air and other supplies. They also received letters from their families, a television set and games.
A Complicated Rescue
Additional collapses slowed down rescue efforts. Finally, a tunnel was built that could fit a 13-foot rescue capsule, called the Pheonix. The escape hole measures 28 inches across, a tight fit for the twisting 20-minute, 2,041-foot ride. The first miner reached the surface just after midnight on Wednesday. The rescue mission was faster than expected, and all 33 men had been brought to safety by late the same day.
The miners were met by family members who were waiting at Camp Hope, a settlement of tents near the mine. Chile's president, Sebastián Piñera, cheered at the scene and hugged the miners. "We made a promise never to surrender, and we kept it," he said. After an immediate medical exam, the men were air-lifted to the nearest hospital for 48 hours of observation.


http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,2025274,00.html

991016 A Miracle at the Mine-Michael
The miners were trapped since August 5th. They have been trapped for sixty nine days. I can’t even think about what it will be like down there. When they were working the mine suddenly collapsed, so they were buried alive in the mine. The mine was even deeper than the Taipei 101 so staying in there was a difficult thing to do. The mine was very hot because it was closer to the earth crust. The first miner was rescued just after midnight on Wednesday. The miners’ family members were all waiting at the Camp Hope it was a tent near the mine even the Chile president was there. Their family members were all very worried about the miners because they had been buried alive for a long time. The rescue team used a rescue capsule, called the Phoenix to save the miners. After a long time of rescuing all the thirty three men were all rescued. All the people were very happy to see them to be rescued. After the miners were rescued they were air-lifted to the nearest hospital to get their treatment.

991001 A Penny's Worth-Michael

A Penny's Worth
A one-of-a-kind penny sells for more than a million dollars
BY SUZANNE ZIMBLER

Some people say pennies bring good luck. Others say pennies are not worth saving. After all, a penny is only worth a cent. But one unusual penny turned out to be worth a lot more when a coin collector paid $1.7 million for it earlier this month.
The coin is one of a kind. It is the only penny that the Denver mint made out of copper, instead of steel, in 1943. Because it is unique, it is also very valuable. No penny has ever sold for this much money.
The Changing Penny
The Lincoln penny first appeared in 1909. For 34 years, the one-cent coin was made out of copper. Then, in 1943, the penny changed. World War II was going on, and copper was needed for equipment. So for one year, pennies were made out of steel instead. At least most of them were.
A small handful of coins were made out of leftover copper. There are three main mints or places where coins are made, in the United States. Of the known copper pennies from 1943, twelve were made in the Philadelphia mint, and five were made in the San Francisco mint. Only one was made in the Denver mint.
Nobody knows for sure why a copper penny was made at the Denver mint in 1943, coin-dealer Andy Skrabalak told TFK. "There's a rumor that a mint employee [made] the coin in the middle of the night," he said.
A Special Set
The coin collector who bought the $1.7 million penny wants to remain anonymous, or unknown. But the reason for his purchase is known. He already had two copper pennies from 1943—one from the San Francisco mint and one from the Philadelphia mint. To complete the set, he needed the Denver penny. The three coins will go on display at a rare-coin convention in Tampa, Florida, this January.
The collector who sold the penny is also keeping his identity a secret. It took four years to convince him to give up the rare coin. Now that he finally sold it, he is donating all of the money to charity.

http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,2021923,00.html

991001 A Penny's Worth-Michael
A penny is just only a coin, it is not very important to people. A penny just worth 1 cent but a coin collector spends 1. 7 million dollars to buy a penny that worth one cent! Why did the coin collector do this? It is because that this penny is a very important to coin collectors they wanted to buy this special penny. This penny is the only copper penny that is made from Denver. There are three main mints that make coin they are, “Philadelphia mint”, “San Francisco mint” and “Denver mint”. The only eighteen copper coins are made from these three mints. Twelve of them were made from Philadelphia, five of them were made from San Francisco and the last one is made from Denver. One of the copper coins that cost 1.7 million is the one is from Denver. It was made in 1943. The value of a coin depends how rare it is if a coin is made from 2000 years ago, it might be very valuable. Now the American pennies are made of 97.5% of zinc and 2.5% of copper coated outside of the coin. I think these coins are very special. Maybe I can collect some coins too.