CNN news 2010-09-19
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: A bicentennial birthday, a trophy that's being returned, and a perfect score: We've got it all for you in today's editing of CNN Student News. Hello, everyone. I'm Carl Azuz. We're starting with our primary story.
AZUZ: It's about primaries, the elections. There were a whole bunch of them on Tuesday, and some of the results were kind of surprising. A quick "Primaries 101" for you. States have Republican primaries and Democratic primaries. Candidates who win a primary then face off in the general election in November. That's what determines who actually gets the job.
Back to Tuesday, though, and those surprise results. One of them happened in Delaware. This was the Republican primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate. The winner was Christine O'Donnell. The surprise? O'Donnell, who's never won an election before, beat an opponent who has served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another surprise came in the Republican primary for governor of New York, where Carl Paladino beat Rick Lazio. Paladino and O'Donnell have at least two things in common: Their opponents were supported by Republican party leaders; they both had strong support from the Tea Party movement.
Now, you've heard that name mentioned a lot recently. The Tea Party is a grassroots political movement. That means it's made up of a lot of groups who work on a local level. Tea Party activists are challenging some of the more established parts of the Republican and Democratic parties. Tuesday's results are being called a big victory for the Tea Party.
One other interesting result from Tuesday. U.S. Representative Charlie Rangel won his Democratic primary in New York. Now, he's held that seat for 40 years. The interesting part of his win is that he's been accused of ethics violations. Rangel has denied those charges. And it looks like they haven't had much of an impact so far on his re-election efforts.
AZUZ: Officials say a permanent seal could be finished next month on the Deepwater Horizon oil well. There's a temporary cap on it now. Before that cap was put into place, more than 170 million gallons of oil spilled out into the Gulf of Mexico. Where did all of it all go? Brian Todd looks for an answer.