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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m President Barack Obama.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vice President Joe Biden.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m Governor Mitt Romney.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I`m Paul Ryan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is our election in Middle School in Charleston, West Virginia, and this is --
(cheers)
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CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Oh-ho, man, that was awesome. Thanks to everyone at Oresman (ph) Middle for getting things going today with that I- Report.
From your mock debate, we are going to jump right into the presidential debate.
Last night was the third and final face-off between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. This debate was held at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, and it focused on foreign policy. So we are talking about ways in which the United States interacts with the rest of the world. Election day is exactly two weeks away. Candidates will still be out at events on the campaign trail. But last night was the last chance they had to present some of their ideas to a large audience all at once. Here is some of what happened.
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MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I absolutely believe that America has a responsibility and the privilege of helping defend freedom and promote the principles that make the world more peaceful, and those principles include human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections because when there are elections people tend to vote for peace. They don`t vote for war. So we want to promote those principles around the world. We recognize that there are places of conflict in the world. We want to end those conflicts to the extend humanly possible. But in order to be able to fulfill our role in the world, America must be strong.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: America remains the one indispensable nation and the world needs a strong America and it is stronger now than when I came into office. Because we ended the war in Iraq we were able to refocus our attention on not only the terrorist threat, but also beginning a transition process in Afghanistan. It also allowed us to refocus on alliances, relationships that have been neglected for a decade. And Governor Romney, our alliances have never been stronger. In Asia, in Europe, in Africa, with Israel where we have unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation, including dealing with the Iranian threat.
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AZUZ: One of the topics that came up during last night debate was outsourcing. It`s when a company has a different business do some kind of work. So, instead of doing it themselves, companies pay someone else to do it. Outsourcing can help companies save money and maybe help keep cost down on the products that they sell. But if U.S company outsources work to a different country, it means those jobs aren`t being done by American workers. Maggie Lake has more on the impact of outsourcing and the presidential candidates` plans to do something about it.
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MITT ROMNEY: Thank you.
PAUL RYAN: Thank you.
MAGGIE LAKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Whether on the campaign trail ...
ROMNEY: If there is an outsourcer-in-chief, it`s the president of the United States.
LAKE: Or amid the barrage of political ads on TV.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mitt Romney`s firms were pioneers at helping companies outsource their manufacturing to countries including China.
LAKE: Outsourcing is a hot button issue again in presidential politics. In states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan where scores of factory jobs have been lost, it is a deeply emotional issue.
JOE KLEIN, TIME MAGAZINE: They do a lot of focus grouping, and polling and testing. And what they find is, that this is very resonant.
LAKE: In recent years, the manufacturing sector of the U.S. has been hit particularly hard. Over five and a half million jobs lost between 2000 and 2009. A million alone to China. But that tide maybe turning as companies rethink their commitment to lower wage countries.
HAL SIRKIN, BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP: Wages in China are, you know, topping $3 an hour. Wages will probably be something around $6 an hour or so in 2015. It starts to become competitive with the U.S., you have the intellectual property risk, and being far away from (ph) consumer means you are not on top of the trends.
LAKE: General Electric and Caterpillar are just a few of the companies who have recently brought some of their production back to the U.S. Economists warn the manufacturing revival has a long way to go, but both candidates are pledging they can get the job done.
Mitt Romney continues to call for lower taxes for businesses, just for investment. And tougher trade relations with China.
President Obama is also calling for tax incentives for companies that bring jobs back to the U.S. and touting the auto industry bailout which Romney opposed. Maggie Lake, CNN, New York.
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AZUZ: All right, next stop: Lance Armstrong. He won cycling`s most famous race, seven times in a row, but you can`t call him a Tour de France champion anymore. Yesterday, the International Cycling Union said it was wiping out Armstrong`s titles and banning him from the sport.
This was in response to a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. It says there is overwhelming evidence that Armstrong used banned performance enhancing drugs during his career. Armstrong has always denied that. In addition to losing his Tour de France titles, Armstrong is being asked to return nearly $4 million that he won for those seven Tour victories.
Cheerleaders, they`ve got spirit? Yes, they do. But they do a lot more than just chant and clap and try to get the home crows excited. We are talking about pyramids, flips, tosses. Cheerleading involves some pretty serious acrobatic stance, and that`s got some doctors concerned about some pretty serious injuries. The American Academy of Pediatrics just put out a new policy on cheerleading injuries. The group says that injury rate in cheerleading is low compared to other sports, but the number of catastrophic injuries, like brain and spinal cord injuries in cheering is going up. The new policy suggests that cheerleaders limit their stance and avoid doing them on hard surfaces, and that they should be checked for concussions if they have a head injury.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today "Shoutout" goes out to Ms. Kreicker in the Cougar Culture Club at South Middle School in Lawrence, Kansas. "Which of these positions is the leader of a marching band? Here we go, is it: the field marshal, drill instructor, drum major or concertmaster? You`ve got three seconds, go!
A marching band is led by its drum major. That`s your answer and that`s your "Shoutout."
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AZUZ: At the University of Missouri, the drum major leads a marching band of more than 300 members. It`s one of the largest college marching bands in the country. Now, its current head drum major says he wanted the job so that people could look up to him in difficult times, but he wasn`t just talking about the marching band. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what we mean.
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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As a drum major for marching Missou (ph), the University of Missouri`s famed marching band, Paul Heddings is living his dream.
It`s a new dream, because his original dream of playing professional baseball was disappearing.
PAUL HEDDINGS, UNIV. OF MISSOURI DRUM MAJOR: September Seventh, 2007, just (inaudible) my junior high school ...
GUPTA: The 17-year old woke up, and his world was changing.
HEDDINGS: Everything was just a little blurry, it didn`t seem like anything was wrong.
GUPTA: But something was terribly wrong. His retinas had detached and started to tear apart in both eyes.
HEDDINGS: I didn`t know how my life would change, what I`d be able to do, what I wouldn`t be able to do. I could potentially go completely blind ...
GUPTA: Paul says this was not caused by disease or trauma, but by genetics.
HEDDINGS: This has happened to my mom, my grandma and a couple of uncles. Even my little sister is having some more issues.
GUPTA: They didn`t lose much vision. Paul, on the other hand, is now legally blind. Sight in his best eye can`t be corrected beyond 2200. He says family, friends and music saved his life. He joined his high school drum line, taking the music home, magnifying it, memorizing it.
HEDDINGS: Here we go, be flat!
I just, you know, strapped up my boots and went to work.
GUPTA: He made the Missou (ph) drum line first playing cymbals and then after an extensive interview process clinched the coveted drum major spot. Most in the band didn`t even know he was legally blind.
Heddings hopes his time on the letter will change the perception of visually impaired people.
HEDDINGS: I want to be able to say when I leave here that I did something special, and that I didn`t let this hold me back.
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AZUZ: Great story. Finally today, we have a cavalcade of costume canines (ph). It may look like a dog, but this is guy is a real turkey. Gobbling up for bunch of attention at a Halloween parade for pooches. A hot dog costume for a dog? Come on, that`s too easy. Hello, if he falls behind on the parade, he`ll have to catch-up. It may seem out of the ordinary to see a dog dressed up like a former first lady of Argentina, but it`s just a sign of the season. After all, we are right around the corner from Halloween. We`ve reached the tail in the today show but we will be bark tomorrow, more CNN STUDENT NEWS. I hope to see you all then.
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