TEXT:President Obama, Vice President Biden Speak at the DNC
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Madam Chairwoman, delegates, I accept your nomination for president of the United States.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: It is Friday, September 7th, and we now officially have this year`s presidential nominees. I`m Carl Azuz. Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS.
At this time a week ago, we were reporting on Mitt Romney accepting the Republican Party`s presidential nomination. Last night, the Democratic National Convention wrapped up when President Obama did the same thing for his party. The day before that, the convention heard from the last Democrat in the White House, former President Bill Clinton.
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me now. No president, no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.
AZUZ: In Tampa last week, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, gave a speech on Wednesday. His Democratic counterpart, Vice President Joe Biden, spoke yesterday.
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We`re on a mission to move this nation forward. From doubt and downturn to promise and prosperity. A mission I guarantee you we will complete.
AZUZ: The evening and two weeks of political conventions came to a conclusion with President Obama taking the stage in Charlotte and making his case for reelection.
OBAMA: Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place, and I`m asking you to choose that future. I`m asking you to rally around a set of goals for your country. Goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security, and the deficit. Real, achievable plans that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation. That`s what we can do in the next four years, and that is why I am running for a second term as president of the United States.
AZUZ: A lot of people you`ve seen at these conventions are delegates, representing their home states. Hannah McCarley is a delegate from West Virginia, who celebrated her 18th birthday in Charlotte on Monday. She talked with us about the experience of being a delegate.
HANNAH MCCARLEY, WEST VIRGINIA DELEGATE: At our county conventions, we were selected to go to the state convention. You could be nominated, and you could file your paperwork and have your name placed on the ballot at the state convention, where you could run to be a delegate for the national convention. So I had to campaign and talk with people, and I had to have enough votes to be able to go.
It means a lot for me, because I`ve always worked on politics on a local level, and this summer I got the opportunity to do something on the national level, and I think it means a lot, both as a young woman and as a youth going into education and going into the college admissions process to have a voice in politics.
As far as education policies, health care policies, women`s rights and equality, I think that Barack Obama is ready to move this country forward, and I think that everyone deserves their given rights, and I don`t think that people should be telling, you know, the rest of the country what they can and cannot do, health-care wise, education-wise, what opportunities they can and can`t have. And I think President Barack Obama will give us more of these opportunities that will allow us to live our -- each live our American dreams.
AZUZ: On our show from August 29th, we heard from 17-year-old Evan Drame (ph). He`s the youngest Republican delegate in Tampa, and you can check out what he had to say in the transcript archives of our home page.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s time for the Shoutout. How many hurricane categories are on the Saffir-Simpson scale? If you think you know it, then shout it out. Is it 10, 8, 5, or 3? You`ve got three seconds, go.
The Saffir-Simpson scale rates hurricanes on a 1 through 5 scale, based on their intensity. That`s your answer and that`s your Shoutout.
AZUZ: When a hurricane`s winds hit a certain speed, the storm moves up a category on that scale. On Thursday, Hurricane Leslie was a category 1, but forecasters are saying it could get stronger as it moves toward Bermuda. Experts think it could hit the Caribbean island nation this weekend. Officials there are telling residents to prepare for the worst. Hurricane Michael formed on Wednesday. It got big in a hurry. By early Thursday, Michael was already a category 3. That made it the first major hurricane of the season, but forecasters are saying it`s not likely to pose any immediate threat to land.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if you can ID me. I`m a musical instrument that`s existed for hundreds of years. There is some debate about whether I`m a string or a percussion instrument. I come in grand and upright varieties. I`m a piano, and I make music when hammers hit my strings.
AZUZ: Well, whether it`s part of the string or the percussion family, one thing we know for sure is that Benjamin Grosvenor can play it. He`s performed in the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Australia. The young virtuoso says it takes talent, hard work and dedication. Check out his story.
BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, CONCERT PIANIST: There are concerts for which you have about a half hour. You just feel pretty awful. During that time, you`re questioning, why am I doing this to myself again? When I walk out onto the stage, it is a realization of weeks and months of work. This has been a long process to get there. A lot of time spent just me alone in a practice room with a piano.
I think being a concert pianist is probably the most -- one of the most difficult things that human beings can do. Because you have the physical aspect to it. To an extent, we`re athletes using our fingers, and then you also have this sort of intellectual side of it, learning how to memorize pieces of music. And then there`s the emotional side to it as well.
I had my first lesson at the age of 5. I had no great desire to practice, and then some friends at school started playing, and I was spurred on to work by all of them catching me up. And then I think from that moment onwards, like, you know, gradually fell in love with playing for what it was.
Being good at it isn`t just about talent. It requires a lot of work. And a lot of practicing.
There are really two sides to playing the piano, I suppose. There`s the ability to just play the notes. And the ability to sort of find meaning in them. Generally, I practice about 8 hours a day, playing same things over and over again, to get them under your fingers and to get them in your muscle memory. There are times when I get very frustrated with certain passages. I`m very obsessive about it, and there are those moments when it`s very difficult to leave the piano alone.
I think now what really appeals to me about music is the ability it has to communicate emotions to people. And I think that`s what it`s all about.
AZUZ: You might have grilled some burgers on Labor Day, but we`re guessing none of them measured up to this mammoth. It`s the world`s biggest burger, weighing in at more than 2,000 pounds, and it`s bigger than a king-size bed. The chefs needed a construction crane to flip the thing while it cooked, and they didn`t skimp on the fixings. 60 pounds of bacon, 50 pounds of lettuce, 40 pounds each of cheese and pickles.
With a story like that as our "beef-ore we go," there`s plenty of opportunity for a good bun. You know we relish those, even if they are a little bit cheesy. They still are a ton of fun, as long as we don`t bite off more than we can chew.
We hope you all had a great weekend, and that you`ll let us bring you more headlines on Monday. I`m Carl Azuz.