CNN news 2012-05-21 加文本

cnn news 2012-05-21

CARL AZUZ, HOST, cnn STUDENT NEWS: It is Friday, TGIF. It is awesome. I`m Carl Azuz. Thank you for wrapping up your week with cnn Student News. And congratulations to Stillwater High School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, who got our social media trivia question right this week. Now it`s on to today`s headlines.

First up, this is the first day when everyone can buy stock in Facebook -- if you`re willing to pay for it. The social networking site was scheduled to make its IPO this morning. It stands for initial public offering, and it means that Facebook stock is now being traded on Wall Street. The company has been building up to this for months.

Executives have been meeting with potential investors, figuring out what the price should be for each share of the Facebook stock. That price was finalized late yesterday. During this IPO, each share was originally priced at $38. Some investors, mostly financial institutions, made orders in advance. Everyone else had to wait until after the stock market opened this morning.

With that share price of $38, Facebook is expected to raise $16 billion with its initial public offering. That would be the biggest IPO ever for a tech company and it`ll be the third biggest IPO in U.S. history.

AZUZ (voice-over): Well, the business world is also keeping a close eye on what`s happening right now in Greece. The country held parliamentary elections earlier this month, but the political parties who won seats couldn`t find a way to come together in a coalition. So Greece will hold new elections in June.

Does the business world care about this for a reason? Yes. Greece has a major debt crisis, and it`s had to get bailouts from other European countries. The concern is if Greece doesn`t have a working government in place soon, it could miss making payments on its debt, and that could have serious consequences for Greece.

And since what happens in one country can impact the economy of others, this kind of crisis could have rippled effects around the globe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today`s first Shoutout goes out to Ms. Lannan and the first graduating class of Wylie East High School in Wylie, Texas. What country operates the Soyuz spacecraft? Here we go. Is it China, Russia, France or India? You`ve got three seconds, go.

The Soyuz is a Russian spacecraft, and there`s always one part at the International Space Station. That`s your answer and that`s your Shoutout.

AZUZ (voice-over): In fact, the first crew that ever went to the International Space Station got there inside a Soyuz rocket. So did the most recent arrivals. This spacecraft took off on Tuesday, carrying on U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts. Even though the Soyuz is a Russian vehicle, it launches from a space pad in the nearby country of Kazakhstan. The ship arrived at the space station yesterday.

One of the men on board said the docking went very smoothly. The three new crew members are scheduled to be on the ISS for four months, four months in space. They`re joining three other men who have been living on the space station since April.

AZUZ: The U.S. military is no stranger to technology. It`s got night vision goggles. You`ve heard of unmanned drone aircraft we reported on our show. Now there`s a new kind of robot that lets troops see through walls and around corners. Ashleigh Banfield reports on how this machine works and how its makers hope it can help save lives.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, cnn HOST (voice-over): You can toss it over a wall or even drop it from a three-story building. Known as the Throwbot, this device is helping soldiers and Marines detect insurgents and IEDs in Afghanistan.

JEREMY BLADE, RECONROBOTICS: It`s retreating deeper in.

It`s essentially a 1.2-pound throwable reconnaissance device that soldiers, Marines, SWAT teams, bomb teams use for situational awareness. So you can take it, throw it into a room and you get a live video feed of what`s going on.

BANFIELD (voice-over): You steer the robot by remote control, and you see what it sees.

BLADE: The recon`s got XT. It can be deployed in less than five seconds. It`s simple. Pull the pin, flip the switch, you`re ready to go.

BANFIELD (voice-over): Infrared sensors let you see in the dark and it`s small enough to fit in a backpack or a pocket.

BLADE: The thing that makes this robot unique is its size. Back in 2007 when this first came out a lot of the bigger systems were 30 pounds, 50 pounds, a lot to carry for soldiers.

BANFIELD (voice-over): The U.S. military is using over 2,000 systems and more than 400 police SWAT teams are using this robot.

BLADE: Something like this can save lives. If this goes in first and it does get shot at, you`re not coming out or one of your buddies isn`t coming out shot. You can get eyes inside before you go in.