LINARES, Spain, Mar 7,2003 - On one side, the kid, dressed in black but baby-faced and fidgety. On the other, his opponent: the icy, scowling chess eminence Garry Kasparov.
Against all odds, Teimour Radjabov, 15, beat Kasparov, the world's top-ranked player, although the teen did benefit from a Kasparov blunder as the champ looked poised to win.
That duel of David and Goliath � culminating in Kasparov's failure to shake Radjabov's hand afterward � was a highlight of the Linares Chess Tournament, sometimes called the Wimbledon (news - web sites) of chess.
The venue is an unlikely one � this noisy, dusty town of 63,000 in the heart of Spain's olive-growing region.
Radjabov travels with his father, Boris, though this time his mother, Leila, also came along because the tournament was so important. She quivers with pride watching her only child, her baby, try to speak and carry himself like a man.
Radjabov started learning the game at 3, is now ranked 68th in the world and rising fast. He says he admires history's conquerors, like Napoleon, also a chess player, and Alexander the Great.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/arts/07FAMI.html?ex=1047704400&en=d79d15f78a71b8a1&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
No Taking the A Train
By LAUREL GRAEBER, The New York Times
New York, U.S.A.,March 7, 2003-This weekend children are encouraged to take a walk on the wild side. And a jump, a climb, a flight and a slither, too.
They're all part of the Prospect Park Zoo's Walk With Me weekend, a rollicking investigation into animal locomotion. "At this event, children not only get to learn how animals move, but they get to emulate the movements," said Kate McIntyre, a zoo spokeswoman.
At the Metamorphosis Marathon, children will complete obstacle courses that imitate the life cycles of butterflies and frogs. In the butterfly event, "kids start by crawling as caterpillars," Ms. McIntyre said. "Then they go through a cloth tunnel that simulates a cocoon. When they come out, they'll be handed their wings and antennae." The prize at the end of the frog cycle is a Velcro swatter: to catch felt flies of course.
On the zoo's Discovery Trail, young visitors can try a long jump. The object is to compare their leaping abilities with those of creatures like rabbits, pickerel frogs and wallabies. One warning: the animal athletes have this event pretty much sewn up. "A wallaby can jump 12 feet," Ms. McIntyre said.
Other activities include soaring, as the youngsters follow owl migration patterns on a flat map of the globe. Each child can also mimic an ape's climbing � safely � by making a cardboard monkey, then sliding it along a cardboard branch.
Zookeepers will explain how various species travel. Even better, the zoo has most of the animals featured, so children can see the moves executed by the undisputed experts.
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http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~21377~1223311,00.html
A child's words of wisdom -- posted for all the world to see
By Dennis McCarthy, Columnist, L.A. Daily News
Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.,March 07, 2003-
Hate and intolerance took it on the chin Wednesday, knocked on their keesters by a couple of hundred school kids.
The ringleader was Michael Medina, an 11-year-old fifth-grader at Reseda Elementary School. Great kid. Packed a heck of a punch.
Check it out when you're driving west on Sherman Way through Reseda. When you get to the Carl's Jr. at the corner of Geyser Avenue, look up and enjoy the kid's work.
It's a billboard bearing the slogan "Don't See Color -- See People," illustrated with five stick figures.
"One is a person in a wheelchair and another is leaning on a cane," Mike told me Wednesday morning as his billboard was unveiled to the public.
"One's a little person, one's poor, and one is different colors," he said. "I thought of my brother when I was drawing them. He gave me the inspiration and idea."
The inspiration and idea became a message that went up on a billboard Wednesday, a message strong enough to knock hate and intolerance on their keesters.
The kid had taken home one of the fliers that LAPD Officer Patti Waters dropped off at school in January. Waters was making the rounds at 30 elementary schools in the West Valley, trying to get fifth- and sixth-graders interested in a coloring contest sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department.
"They want us to draw an anti-hate picture to help teach people to be nice to each other and not look at people differently," Mike told his parents, Gilbert and Hilda Medina.
Looking at people differently -- that's what strangers occasionally did with Mike's younger brother, Gabriel, who had spinal meningitis as a baby and was left blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.
Looking at people differently -- like what happened at school to some of his best friends who had disabilities.
"People shouldn't look at other people as messed up or something," Mike told his parents. "They should just look at them as people."
He was right, Gilbert and Hilda told their son. Absolutely right. Now, go draw those feelings.
"My son's always been color-blind, always looking to make friends with the kids in school who didn't have many friends," Hilda said.
"I think he learned it from his father, who makes friends with everyone. We've taught our four children that there is already too much hate in the world, so go out and make friends instead."
"We had more than 200 kids enter, and there were so many great drawings that carried the message we wanted to get out to the community," said Ellie Vargas, a member of the West Valley Area Hate Crime Alliance -- a citizen group helping local police combat hate crimes.
The winner was Michael Medina.
"They called a special assembly, and I was sitting out there with the rest of the school when my name was called," Mike said.
"I got scared. I thought I was in trouble or something. That's when they told me I had won."
Yeah, it felt pretty good for the boy standing up there on stage, having all the teachers and students clapping. It also felt pretty good Wednesday morning, when workmen standing on a scaffold dropped the tarp covering the billboard and everyone driving along Sherman Way got to see his anti-hate message.
"Sometimes kids are a lot wiser than adults when it comes to telling people how we should live our lives," said LAPD Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann, who was on hand for the ceremonies.
"Hey, remember who's your favorite brother," yelled Gabriel Medina, the younger brother who'd helped inspire Mike's message, a message strong enough to knock hate and intolerance on their keesters.
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http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/5311662.htm
Kids donate birthday funds to Make-A-Wish
By Elissa Grossell, American News Writer
Mar. 04, 2003-A couch full of kids - with some spilling over to chairs and the floor - donned matching T-shirts and sat in anticipation last week as big bunches of balloons were brought through the front door.
What made this special treat all the more special is that the children had earned those balloons, cupcakes and then some.
The 14 children at Julie's Daycare had given up $500 in birthday money to donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of South Dakota. The Sioux Falls-based non-profit organization grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.
Last year thanks in part to their donation, a boy got his wish to be a cowboy. Another child was able to go to Legoland in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.
And though Allison Klabo said she kind of misses getting her birthday money, she's happy that her past donation helped another kid go to Disney World.
After all, the 10-year-old said that would be her own wish - "to go to Disney World . . . again."
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http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0700learning/0200pupils/page.cfm?objectid=12711249&method=full&siteid=50081
Schools join up for world record
Mar 7 2003
Teachers and children across the North East will be joining together to break the world record for the largest ever lesson.
ActionAid, Save the Children, Oxfam and VSO are calling on teachers from the region to take part in the hope of beating the current record of 28,000.
Schools in more than 50 countries around the world will be taking part in the record attempt which will support the Hands up for Girls' Education campaign to raise awareness of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of achieving more girls in education by 2005.
"Nearly one billion adults can't read or write, and 115 million children are out of school. Two-thirds of them are women and girls. On 9 April we will be trying to set a new world record for the largest number of people learning the same thing at the same time." says the website http://www.campaignforeducation.org/_html/actionweek/welcome/frameset.shtml
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News for Kids Editorial Team
http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/newsforkids/index.html
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