CNN news 2012-03-17 加文本

cnn news 2012-03-17

CARL AZUZ, HOST, cnn STUDENT NEWS: Do you know the difference between an official visit and a state visit? You will have a better idea of it by the end of today`s program. I`m Carl Azuz. Welcome to cnn Student News.

First up, a full breakdown on Tuesday`s Republican presidential contest. The biggest events were primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.

AZUZ (voice-over): Now we say biggest in terms of delegates. Former Senator Rick Santorum, on the right of your screen, won in both states. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa.

AZUZ: Candidates were awarded delegates from those events based on how many votes they got. So for example, Senator Santorum got the most delegates in Mississippi because he got the most votes there. But he didn`t get all of that state`s delegates.

AZUZ (voice-over): It takes 1,144 delegates to win this year`s Republican nomination. Here`s where things stand after Tuesday`s contest: Governor Romney with 498 delegates, Senator Santorum with 239, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has 139 delegates and U.S. Representative Ron Paul has 69.

AZUZ: Following up now on a story out of Afghanistan, the American soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians has been transferred out of Afghanistan, and military officials said the decision was based on a legal recommendation.

AZUZ (voice-over): Yesterday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan for a trip that had been scheduled before the shooting happened. There`s been a lot of tension in Afghanistan because of the shooting, and a recent incident when U.S. troops accidentally burned copies of the Quran, Afghan officials have been outraged at all of this.

The Taliban, a militant group that U.S. and coalition forces are fighting in Afghanistan, have threatened violence against Americans because of those incidents. Secretary Panetta addressed the tension during his visit.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA: Each of these incidents is deeply troubling. And we have to learn the lessons from each of those incidents so that we do everything possible to make sure that they don`t happen again. But none of this, none of this is reflective of the overwhelming majority of troops, ISAF troops, Afghan troops, who, day to day, are doing the job of trying to protect this country.

AZUZ (voice-over): The conflict in Afghan was one of the subjects that President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed yesterday. The leaders said they`re both committed to completing the military mission in Afghanistan, and handing over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Prime Minister Cameron was at the White House as part of an official visit. It included a joint press conference and a state dinner last night.

This wasn`t a state visit. State visit is the title used when heads of state come to the White House. Prime Minister Cameron is the head of government, not state. The British head of state is the Queen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today`s Shoutout goes out to Ms. Truttman`s geography class at Wittenberg Middle School in Wittenberg, Wisconsin. The warning, "Beware the ides of March," comes from what Shakespearean play? Here we go. Is it from "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet" or "Macbeth?" You`ve got three seconds, go.

That famous warning is given in and to Julius Caesar. That`s your answer and that`s your Shoutout.

AZUZ: Unfortunately for Caesar, at least in the play, he didn`t pay much attention to that warning. That`s the reason why the ides of March are so famous -- or infamous -- today. But we`re getting a little ahead of ourselves.

AZUZ (voice-over): For starters, "ides" comes from a word that means "to divide." On the old Roman and Julian calendars, the middle of the month was called the ides. And it was supposed to coincide with the full moon. So today the 15th is the ides, and it was on the ides of March back in 44 B.C., when Julius Caesar was assassinated.

We don`t know if he was actually warned about it like he was in Shakespeare`s play, but Shakespeare did make the date even more famous when he included that particular line. Now the ides of March is sometimes used symbolically to mean a specific day of major changes with repercussions, so beware.