This story appeared on Simple English News in 2007.

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Jiang Zemin, the former president of China, sang at Beijing’s National Grand Theater on Tuesday.

Jiang, who is a big opera fan, sang parts of Western and Chinese operas to workers at the theater.

Jiang once sang together with the late opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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The city of Seattle is trying a new way of fighting crime.

Seattle is paying musicians to perform in city parks.

The city, located in the northwest United States, is hoping the musicians will bring more people to the parks.

If there are more people in the parks, then fewer people will try to do something illegal, the city believes.

Source: www.latimes.com

This story appeared on Simple English News in 2007.

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The problem of guns in the United States surfaced again yesterday after two separate shooting incidents took place.

Four people were killed in the eastern city of Philadelphia when a man walked into a business meeting and started shooting at people. He later shot and killed himself.

A couple of hours later — and a couple of thousand miles to the west — a man entered a shopping mall in Salt Lake City and shot five people to death.

A policeman, who was in the mall, then shot and killed the gunman.

Approximately 30,000 people die because of guns every year in the United States.

Source: www.cnn.com

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Kristina Schneider, a cashier at a store in North Canton, Ohio, told a customer on Friday that he should buy the store’s last lottery ticket.

The customer said “no”.
It was lucky for Kristina that he did.

She then found a $10 bill in the store.

She bought the last ticket with it. Later in the day, she discovered that her lottery ticket contained the winning numbers.

Kristina said she cannot believe she won.

She will now receive $50,000 for the next 20 years.

Source: www.associatedcontent.com

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Some homeless people in Honolulu, Hawaii are now living in a mansion, thanks to a wealthy Japanese businessman.

Genshiro Kawamoto, who made his fortune in real estate, is letting homeless and low-income Native Hawaiian people live in the mansions.

They will be allowed to stay in the homes for 10 years.

Mr. Kawamoto is lending eight of his mansions.

The mansions are situated in one of the richest neighborhoods in Honolulu.

Source: www.hawaiinewsnow.com

This story appeared on Simple English News in 2008.

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The New York Times proved yesterday that it is never too late to correct a mistake.

In an article about the Broadway musical “West Side Story”, the newspaper erroneously printed the name of one of the performers in the show as George Johnson. His real name is George Liker.

The article first appeared on April 28, 1960.

Mr. Liker contacted the newspaper about the mistake last month.

Words

erroneously: wrongly, mistakenly.

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Maria Amelia Lopez, age 95, never imagined that she would become a popular Internet blogger.

Today her Internet page, written in Spanish, is receiving thousands of readers every day.

She writes about many subjects, including politics, history, religion, the Internet and death.

Her grandson set up her blog for her eight months ago.

“You have to live life, and not sit around in an armchair waiting for death,” she wrote recently.

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Several ancient homes have been found near the historic site of Stonehenge in England.

According to archaeologists, the people who study historic cultures, the homes in the village may have belonged to workers or people going to a festival.

The village was built in 26 hundred B.C.

The homes are three kilometers from the mysterious circle of stones that make up Stonehenge.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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A Ugandan woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl last week while on a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam to Boston.

Two doctors who were on the flight helped the mother give birth.

The baby is a Canadian citizen because she was born while the plane was flying over Canada, according to a report in The Times.

Source: foxnews.com

Words

transatlantic: crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

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An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that people should not be allowed to send text messages while driving.

However, 66 percent of Americans admit to reading text messages while driving. Another 57 percent said they wrote text messages when they were behind the wheel.

The American state of Washington has already banned writing text messages while driving.

Source: tgdaily.com