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STUDENT NEWS
Second Presidential Debate; Rubik`s Cube
Aired October 17, 2012 - 04:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: President Barack Obama, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 90 minute debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, but the set up for this one was different than their first debate two weeks ago. This time it was a town hall format. That means instead of the candidates just answering questions from a moderator, they were asked questions directly by members of the audience. And for last night`s debate, those questions came from people who hadn`t yet made up their minds about whom they would be voting for in November. This second presidential debate covered domestic and foreign policy issues, here is a look at some of the questions and some of the candidates` answers.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a 20-year old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I would have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly, my parents that I`ll be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?
MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The key thing is to make sure you can get a job when you get out of school. And what`s happened over the last four years, it`s been very, very hard for America`s young people. I want you to be able to get a job. I know what it takes to get this economy going. With half of college kids graduating this year without a college - without a job and without a college level job, that`s just unacceptable. And likewise, you get more and more debt on your back. So, more debt and less jobs. I`m going to change that. I know what it takes to create good jobs again.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The most important thing we can do is to make sure that we are creating jobs in this country, but not just jobs, good paying jobs, ones that can support a family. And what I want to do is build on the 5 million jobs that we`ve created over the last 30 months in the private sector alone, and there are a bunch of things that we can do to make sure your future is bright. Number one, I want to build manufacturing jobs in this country again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace? Specifically regarding females, making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?
OBAMA: Women are increasingly the breadwinners in the family. This is not just a women`s issue, this is a family issue, this is a middle class issue. And that`s why we`ve got to fight for it. It also means, that we`ve got to make sure that young people like yourself are able to afford the college education.
ROMNEY: We are going to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I`m going to bring to play that are going to be so anxious to get good workers, they are going to be anxious to hire women. In the last four years, women have lost 580,000 jobs. That`s the net of what`s happened in the last four years. We are still down 580,000 jobs.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if you can I.D. me. I`m a position in the U.S. presidential cabinet. I`m fourth in line to the presidency. My primary job is to give the president advice on foreign policy and then carry out the president`s policy.
I`m the Secretary of State, a position currently held by Hillary Clinton.
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AZUZ: Secretary Clinton says another part of her job is to be in charge of security at American diplomatic facilities, that means U.S. embassy and consulate buildings in other countries. One of those facilities, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was the target of a terrorist attack last month. Four Americans were killed and there have been a lot of accusations and questions about whether there was enough security at the consulate, and about which government officials should be held accountable.
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HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I take responsibility. I`m in charge of the State Department. 60,000 plus people, all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president certainly wouldn`t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals.
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AZUZ: A group of center Republicans responded to Secretary Clinton statement. They called it, a laudable gesture, but said the security of Americans serving the nation around the world is ultimately the job of the president.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today`s "Shoutout" goes out to the social studies teachers and classes at Bemidji Middle School in Bemidji, Minnesota.
Who was the first person to break the sound barrier? Here we go. Was it Chuck Yeager, Sally Ride, Neil Armstrong or Usain Bolt? You`ve got three seconds, go.
Chuck Yeager broke the barrier when he flew faster than the speed of sound in a rocket plane named after his wife. That`s your answer and that`s your "Shoutout."
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AZUZ: Yeager made that supersonic flight back in 1947. He was an Air Force test pilot who flew more than 200 types of military aircraft. Yeager said his historic flight help give the U.S. a huge advantage in aviation advancement. Now, the speed of sound is the rate at which sound waves move through different materials. In the air it can depend a little on temperature. But it`s usually around 750 miles per hour. On Sunday, Felix Baumgartner was traveling faster than that without a plane on his record breaking skydive. But he wasn`t the only one breaking the sound barrier. That same day exactly 65 years to the minute after he first broke it, Chuck Yeager did it again, the 89-year old retired general went up in an F-15 jet to fly faster than the speed of sound again.
All right, here is a quick quiz for you. What is the best-selling toy of all time? Your hint: it is not a doll, it`s not a videogame, it`s not an action figure or a toy car. It`s a puzzle, and it`s based on geometry. It`s named after the guy who invented it and if you give up, because I probably would have by now, we are going to let Nick Glass fill in the answer.
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NICK GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a stainless steel sculpture of the world`s best-selling toy here in a park in Hungary. We know better from the handheld version, and hundreds of millions of these can be found around the world.
It`s named after the professor who first dreamt up the puzzle in 1974. Although, against his wishes, Erno Rubik didn`t really want to be famous.
The Rubik`s Cube, the toy of 1980s, is now enjoying the revival with 7 million sold last year.
A professor in interior design, Rubik first used the cube as a teaching aid.
ERNO RUBIK, INVENTOR: I believe the most characteristic part of the cube is contradiction between simplicity and complexity. First of all, I love geometry, because geometry is the knowledge of how the whole universe is structured.
GLASS: The three-by-three cube consists of 27 cube faces. Color- coded, these can be arranged in 43 quintillion different ways. But there is only one solution.
The last few years has seen a rise in speed cubing competitions, demon cubers racing against each other and the clock. It`s been proved that every cube can be solved in surprisingly just 20 moves or less. If only it was that easy.
Erno Rubik himself cannot compete with the young guns. It took him a month to crack it way back in 1974. And now ...
(on camera): Are you a good Rubik cube player?
RUBIK: It`s for me it was about one minute, my time when I was practicing, and actual world record is five point something seconds.
GLASS: Most toys come and go. But not Rubik`s cube. It`s now almost 40 years old, and it`s here to stay.
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AZUZ: Felix Baumgartner`s record skydive, this video makes it look like child`s play. But what do you expect when you recreate the moment with Legos? They got it pretty close, too, although I don`t think this capsule is going up quite as high as Felix`s did. That first step is still a doozy, and chances are, this guy didn`t break the speed of sound on his way down, but there were some cheers, probably, when his chute open and he made a successful landing. Of course, he refused to give interviews afterward, he was kind of a blockhead about it. But how do you come up with the idea to recreate something like that? You really have to use your homagination. We were toying around with other ideas for the pun, but it`s just time for us to Lego your attention. We`ll see you tomorrow when CNN STUDENT NEWS returns.
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