Good morning and welcome the kid news sponsored today by the Latimer family to shout out

Corey Latimer of San Jose California as he gets ready to celebrate his lucky 13th

birthday.

Corey your mom and dad are proud of your accomplishments in school, scouting, and volunteer work,

and especially of the person you're becoming, and we're proud to call you a Kid News super-fan.

I'm Tori. Today is Friday, December 15, 2023.

And we begin with one of the world's most respected spy agencies

putting out its annual Secret Code Challenge for kids.

G.C.Q, which is the largest intelligence organization in the United Kingdom, just emailed

its annual Christmas card, and in it is a series of seven

complex puzzles masterminded by the agency's experts to test the problem-solving

skills of future operatives between 11 and 18 years old.

This latest version is reportedly the toughest one yet.

We've put a link to the challenge on the resource page of our website at kid news.org.

Give it a go with family and friends.

The answers will also be available on that same website starting today.

A new variant of COVID is trying to hijack the holiday season.

It's called the JN1 and now is responsible for more than one-fifth of all cases in the US based on estimates by the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention.

The variant is said to be more contagious, meaning more capable of slipping by people's

immune systems. And this is happening at a time of year

when more people get sick,

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