Page Type: Elementary

Toys R Us, which once was the biggest toy seller in the United States, is making a comeback! The company has already opened several new stores, and many more are planned for 2024.

In November 2023, Toys R Us opened a large store in the Mall of America in Minnesota, two years after opening a large location at American Dream, a shopping mall in New Jersey. In the past three years, the company has also opened smaller stores on cruise ships, in airports, and inside Macy’s department stores. Toys R Us is growing—not long after many people thought it might disappear forever.

Toys R Us was founded in 1957 and was successful for many years. But six years ago, Toys R Us declared bankruptcy, which means that it owed more money than it could pay back. Many people were choosing to buy toys online or at stores like Walmart instead of Toys R Us. Hundreds of Toys R Us stores closed.

In 2021, an organization called WHP Global decided Toys R Us could be saved. WHP Global puts money into companies with the hopes of making more money—and it decided to put money into opening new Toys R Us stores. Its goal was to get people to want to shop at Toys R Us instead of other places.

One way to get people to go somewhere is to make it fun. Many of the new stores aim to do just that! For example, the Toys R Us at American Dream has a two-story spiral slide, an ice cream parlor, and places where kids can try out some of the toys.

Will the fun be enough to keep Toys R Us in business? Decide for yourself! The slideshow below shows what you might find if you visit a new Toys R Us store.

Bedtime may be the best time to learn and remember math! In a new study, scientists found that people who learned new math problems just before going to sleep remember them better than if they learned them during the day.

For the study, scientists in the United Kingdom asked 77 adults to learn multiplication problems at two different times of the day. They learned some problems during the day and other problems just before bed. About 10 and a half hours after the adults learned the problems, scientists tested them. The adults remembered the bedtime problems better.

The results of the study are similar to other studies that have been done with children. In 2015, scientists had parents of first graders tell their kids bedtime stories with a math theme. The scientists found that those first graders had higher math scores during that school year than first graders who didn’t hear math bedtime stories. 

Why does bedtime learning seem to be effective? Scientists aren’t sure. They know that the brain makes certain connections during sleep that help us lock in what we’ve learned. But it’s also possible that when we learn something during the day, it becomes harder to remember as we learn other new things later that day. When we’re asleep, our brains have nothing to lock in except what we just learned before bed.

When he was 7 years old, Luke Mortimer lost his arms and legs after an infection. Three years later, he climbed a mountain near his home to help other children with disabilities.

Luke, who lives in the United Kingdom, set his sights on the 656-foot (200-meter) peak called Embsay Crag in 2019, when his family moved into a home nearby.

“When we moved here, we were going down the road to Embsay, and I just saw the crag, and I said, ‘Mum, dad, one day can we climb it?’” Luke said before his 2023 climb. “It’s been a few years now, but I feel very determined about getting to the top and back down. I think the worst thing that can happen is probably rain.”

The climb wasn’t just a personal challenge. Luke set it up as a fundraiser—a way to help others after so many people helped him. The Mortimer family had received many donations to pay for Luke’s prosthetics, or artificial limbs, as well as for changes to the Mortimer home that help Luke get around more easily. So, Luke thought, why not use the climb to raise money for other kids with disabilities?

Courtesy of Adam Mortimer

Most cars are powered by gasoline or electricity. But a group of students in the Netherlands designed a car that’s powered by the Sun’s energy.

The solar-powered car, called the Stella Terra, recently completed a 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) test drive across part of the Sahara desert in Morocco. Driving across a desert isn’t easy. There are no service stations, and the sandy landscape can be rough. But that was the point. The students, who are all in their 20s, wanted to see if the car could handle being off-road for such a long distance, getting its energy from only the Sun.

One thing the desert does have is sunshine. The Stella Terra has panels on its roof to capture solar energy, so all it needs is the Sun. But the car also has a lithium-ion battery that can provide power. The battery allows the car to drive shorter distances in places where the Sun shines less often.

But if a car can run on the power of the Sun, why aren’t more cars solar powered? Experts say solar panels are expensive. Rooftop solar panels that make electricity for homes and other buildings are very large. But car solar panels need to be much smaller, which means they need to be super efficient to make enough power. And that makes them costly.

Still, the students hope car companies will figure out how to make cheaper solar-powered cars so that people can afford to buy them.

“We hope this can be an inspiration to car manufacturers such as Land Rover and BMW to make [solar-powered cars] a more sustainable industry,” Bob van Ginkel, one of the students, told the Guardian.

Check out the slideshow to learn more about the Stella Terra’s adventures!

The British rock band the Beatles broke up in 1970, more than 50 years ago. But in 2023, they released a new song, which they produced with the help of technology.

Called “Now and Then,” the song was written by former band member John Lennon long after the Beatles had broken up. Lennon recorded the song at his home on a small device called a tape recorder in the late 1970s. It’s not a very clear recording. Lennon’s piano playing made his voice difficult to hear, and a TV could be heard in the background. Lennon never made a professional recording of the song. Sadly, he died in 1980.

Today, only two of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, are still alive. The other Beatle, George Harrison, died in 2001. The three of them last worked together in 1995, when they added their voices and instruments to a couple of Lennon’s other recorded songs. They tried to work on “Now and Then,” but it was impossible. They weren’t able to make Lennon’s voice clearer or erase the sound of the TV in the background.

But today, a technology called machine learning allows people to separate different sounds on a music recording. With help from music producer Giles Martin, McCartney and Starr cleaned up Lennon’s recording of “Now and Then” so that only Lennon’s voice and piano could be heard, and his voice was clearer. Then they added more sounds. McCartney played guitar and piano, and Starr played drums. The song also includes a recording of George Harrison’s guitar playing.

John Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, is a fan of the finished song.

“My dad would’ve loved that, because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology. I think it’s really beautiful,” said Ono Lennon in a short video the Beatles released.

A runner stopped in the middle of a race, giving up the chance for a record finish to help a tiny kitten!

Sarah Bohan was running the Chicago Marathon, a 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) race. She had only 5 miles left when she saw the black and white kitten in a pile of leaves near the side of the road. Bohan thought maybe the mom cat would be back soon. Then again, it was also possible the mom cat wouldn’t come back. After all, the kitten was alone, with none of its brothers or sisters. Bohan decided to pick it up.

Bohan loves animals—and she has two cats of her own. Her participation in the race was even being sponsored (paid for) by PAWS Chicago, an animal shelter. 

Bohan took the 1-pound (0.5-kilogram) kitten in her arms and walked along the racecourse. Another racer, Gia Nigro, soon noticed Bohan carrying the kitten and stopped running to find out what was happening. Together, the two runners decided to find someone in the crowd who might take the kitten.

Andrea Maldonado was watching the race with her family. She promised to adopt the kitten and take him to a vet to make sure he was okay.

Bohan ended up finishing the race in just over 3 hours and 31 minutes. It wasn’t her fastest time, but Bohan is okay with that. She says she’ll try for a record again next year.

Today, the kitten—named Casper—is part of Maldonado’s family, which also includes four kids, a dog, and two other cats.

“Our girls love him,” Maldonado told Business Insider. “Our family loves him. Our dog loves him.”

You can check out more photos of Casper in the slideshow below!

The next Summer Olympic Games will take place in 2024, but officials are already planning for the 2028 Summer Games. The International Olympic Committee has decided to add five new sports to the 2028 Games. They are baseball/softball, cricket, squash, lacrosse, and flag football. All five are team sports.

The Olympics take place in a different city each time. The 2028 Summer Olympics are set to occur in the American city of Los Angeles, California, so it’s fitting that three of the new sports were invented in North America. Here’s a bit more about how each of the sports is played.

Baseball/Softball

In professional sports, baseball is usually played by men while softball is usually played by women. The two sports have similar rules. A hitter hits a ball with a bat and then tries to run around three bases and back to home plate to score before someone from the other team has a chance to tag the player with the ball. If a player from the other team catches the ball before it hits the ground, or if the hitter is tagged while running around the bases, they are out and don’t score.

Cricket

As in baseball, cricket players try to hit a ball with a bat, but there are many differences between baseball and cricket. In cricket, the game area is a rectangle called a pitch. A batter stands on each end of the pitch in front of small wood structures called wickets. Someone from the other team, called a bowler, throws the ball to one batter. If the bowler knocks down a small stick that rests on top of the wicket, the batter is out. If the batter hits the ball, the two batters run to switch places (and their team scores). They keep batting until the other team’s players recover the ball.

Squash

In squash, two players stand on one side of a four-walled indoor court and use rackets to hit a ball against the wall in front of them. Each player tries to keep the other one from getting control of the ball when it bounces back.

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a bit like field hockey. Players use sticks to try to get a ball into the other team’s net, which is guarded by a goalkeeper. But unlike a hockey stick, a lacrosse stick has a basket on the end. A player can scoop up the ball into this basket and use their stick to throw the ball toward the net.

Flag Football

In football, players try to get the ball toward the goal while the other team tries to stop them. In professional American football, players try to stop their opponents by tackling them, or knocking them down. In flag football, players have flags hanging off the waistbands of their uniforms. One player can stop another player from running with the ball by getting that player’s flag.

Once, there were millions of bison (or buffalo) in North America. Bison were important to the cultures of many American Indian groups. But by the 1880s, the bison were almost gone. Today, the bison are back. And American Indians are rebuilding their ties with these animals.

The relationship between American Indians and bison started thousands of years ago. The Yuchi, the Sioux, and other American Indian groups relied on bison. The animals provided food, shelter, and clothing. They are still part of American Indian stories, traditions, and beliefs. But when white people began to settle in the West, they killed so many bison that the animals nearly died out.

During this time, white settlers and the U.S. government also forced many American Indians to leave their homelands. Many parts of American Indian culture were lost.

In the late 1800s, the U.S. government started taking steps to save the bison. There were only a few bison left. Officials rounded them up and put them in national parks so that they would be protected. Since then, the bison population has grown to almost 500,000.

And now, steps are being taken to reconnect bison with the American Indian groups that once relied on them. Little by little, some of the bison that live in America’s parks are being returned to American Indians.

In March 2023, dozens of bison were moved from a park in Colorado to the Yuchi of Oklahoma, as well as other American Indian groups. Richard Grounds of the Yuchi people said the return of the bison is helping to restore Yuchi culture.

“We’ve lost that connection to the buffalo,” Grounds told the Associated Press. “So we’re saying, we Yuchi people are still here and the buffalo are still here, and it’s important to reconnect and restore those relationships with the land, with the animals, and the plants.”