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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See if you can ID me. I started out mostly as a coin-operated business, but now I make billions.
My journey took me from computers and arcades to consoles and apps. Early examples of me included chess and Spacewar!, but I really got off the ground with Pong.
I`m video games, and my industry has been booming since the 1970s.
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AZUZ: OK, this is sweet, but I`m totally going to wreck.
All right, look, when I was a kid, we could have gone to the arcade, we could have plugged a console into our TVs. But we only could have dreamed about having video games here. But Dan Simon is at a conference to show us exactly why this is changing the landscape for video games. Check it out.
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DAN SIMON, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Nearly 20,000 people rolled into San Francisco last week to see the latest trends in video games. According to the industry, it`s a $50 billion business, bigger than the music industry, bigger than Hollywood.
For aspiring programmers, the future has never looked better. In fact, those who design games can expect to earn an average of about $90,000 a year. Why so big? Because a single game like Madden Football can earn a company billions of dollars in revenue.
PETER MOORE, COO, EA: We`re not a $50 billion industry by coincidence or by mistake. This is something that ties into what people want to do. They want to dictate the outcomes. They want to have interactive and engaging experiences with the content.
SIMON: Thanks to mobile devices and social networking, the video game industry has been on even more of a tear, more platforms means more games. It`s also means developers can entice more players. Think about it. Anyone who owns a smartphone is a potential customer.
MOORE: If you asked me seven or eight years ago, I`d said that the global gaming population was maybe 220 million, 225 million people. If you ask me today, I think it`s closer to 2 billion.
SIMON (voice-over): EA and other firms are in the midst of a major transformation, where consoles and discs once ruled the day, it`s expanded the user base by delivering games digitally, whether directly to an Xbox, iPad or on Facebook, because many of these games are free, some with ads or cheap add-ons to make the games better, that may help explain some of the growth despite the recession.
MOORE: The key for us it to be able to take this big funnel now that`s coming in, maybe it`s $2 billion people who say they`re a gamer, and be able to provide an experience that they want, regardless of price, regardless of time, regardless of platform.
SIMON (voice-over): Electronic arts can spend tens of millions to make a hit. But because of the success of games like Rovio`s Angry Birds, gamemakers have come to realize it doesn`t always take millions to create a stir, just like a low-budget film that becomes a top grosser.
At a time when many industries can`t run on their base, here`s one that has grown because of accessibility. That new game, after all, is just one click or download away.
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AZUZ: CNN had covered the African warlord Joseph Kony in the past. In fact, we covered it last fall. But we asked on our blog why you think this has gotten so much attention recently on social media.
Jake says that a great amount of kids spend a lot of time on social networks, and it`s through these networks that you saw the video of other kids suffering such a terrible fate.
Sasha told us that any time children are involved in dangerous situations kids want to help and spread the word to as many people as they can.
Simran writes, "The video is very close to many people`s hearts. They feel the need to share it in any possible way they could."
And Amanda felt that when the video was put out there, it came as a shock to many people, therefore they wanted everyone to see it.
Now Stewart said the video`s producers were smart in their use of social media to drum up public support. "The use of marketing tools like T-shirts and bracelets also helped make it `trendy` to care."
Andrew called the video source unreliable and said people should research it before becoming involved and giving their money to an organization that made the video.
And Mike says that many people thought the video looked cool, so people suddenly decided to care. But, "It`s sad when something has been going on for 20 years and people suddenly decide to care now."
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AZUZ: OK. Before we go today, we are featuring a hands-on musical experiment.
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AZUZ (voice-over): About 10 hands on, if our math is right. This is the band Walk Off the Earth, and the members are either short a few instruments or just really good at sharing.
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AZUZ (voice-over): The group showed off its five-people-one-guitar routine at the South by Southwest conference this month in Texas. Certainly impressive in terms of musical skills --
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AZUZ: -- but finding space for five people to play the same guitar might be even more noteworthy. It`s time for us to head out. No fret. CNN Student News returns tomorrow. I`ll see y`all then.
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