President Obama is set to nominate Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim to lead the World Bank, senior administration officials have confirmed to the Associated Press. Officials are hopeful that the nomination of Kim, a doctor and former director of the HIV/Aids department at the World Health Organization, will quell criticism from developing countries who are wary of the U.S. “monopoly” on the World Bank presidency. Former World Bank president Robert Zoellick announced in February that he was stepping down. The World Bank is dedicated to promoting development and lending money to impoverished countries for infrastructure projects.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged Friday afternoon with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Afghan civilians March 11. Bales, 38, a married father of three, is accused of shooting and killing 17 civilians, including nine children. The exact details of the shooting are still sketchy, and Bales’s lawyer has said that the soldier does not remember it. Six other Afghans were wounded, and Bales has been charged with six counts of attempted murder and assault. If Bales is convicted of murder, he could face the death penalty.

Amid a growing clamor of criticism over their handling of the siege that ended in the killing of Toulouse shooting suspect Mohamed Merah, French officials on Friday defended the RAID forces, an elite unit of the national police and denied that Merah acted in connection with any foreign terrorist groups. “Everything had been done to take Merah alive,” said Paris prosector François Molins. But that opinion has been ridiculed by Christian Prouteau, founder of a special forces unit of the national gendarmerie: “How did the best police unit not manage to take one man?” The French press is leading the charge for a fuller explanation of the raid.

More bad new for Jon Corzine, former governor of New Jersey and chief executive officer of collapsed bank MF Global. According to company treasurer Edith O’Brien, Corzine ordered that $200 million be taken from a client account to cover an overdrawn account with JPMorgan three days before the company collapsed. O’Brien, who is slated to testify next week to the House Financial Services subcommittee on the problems at MF Global, said Corzine gave the order in an email on Oct. 28. Her version of events directly contradicts Corzine’s, who said he never misused client funds.

At least one person is defending George Zimmerman in the wake of the shooting and killing of an unarmed teenager last month. Frank Taaffe, Zimmerman's neighbor, tells CBS News that the neighborhood watchman was right to confront Trayvon Martin and he would have done the same thing. Taaffe also said that Zimmerman was a diligent neighborhood-watch captain and that he cared about the safety of the residents in their complex. When pressed as to whether the gunman was a racist, Taaffe said no and that he had never heard him use racial slurs. Meanwhile, reports are emerging that local residents had complained about racism in the police department long before the shooting.

After months of bloodshed, tens of thousands of Syrians protested the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad, spilling into the streets to demand his ouster. The protesters promised to storm the capital city of Damascus even as security forces used tear gas and gunfire to stop the people from organizing. At the same time, the European Union stepped up pressure on Assad and family, freezing their assets in Europe and banning them from traveling to EU countries. The international community has been trying to halt the regime’s brutal crackdown on dissidents in which an estimated 8,000 have been killed. Human-rights groups estimate that another 23 were killed on Friday.

Pope Benedict XVI touched down in Mexico Friday for his first papal visit to Latin America. The pontiff spoke out against the violence that is taking place in Mexico, saying the Catholic Church has an obligation to try to lead young people from a life of drugs. The pope also criticized the communist regime in Cuba, saying it was time for the people to rise up and find a new model. He received a warm welcome from Mexican President Felipe Calderón and thousands of faithful Catholics who were there for his arrival. He is expected to give an outdoor mass on Sunday in Guanajuato.

Employers are seeking greater access to job applicants’ social-media profiles, and Facebook has threatened to take legal action “where appropriate.” In a statement Friday, Facebook’s chief privacy officer said employer demands for prospective employees’ passwords “undermines” its strict privacy policies and could potentially leave the employer liable to suits. The demand for passwords underscores social media’s growing role in the job-hunt process: both job seekers and hunters are turning to outlets like LinkedIn and Facebook, but more companies are using them to screen candidates. “As a user you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job,” Facebook said in its statement.

Wisconsinites can rest easy tonight knowing that aliens aren’t behind the mysterious booms that have been rocking the state since Sunday. Geologists said a “swarm of microquakes” was likely behind the disturbances in Clintonville, Wis., which residents have described as sounding like thunder or fireworks and others half-joking that extraterrestrials were invading the town. Earlier in the week, quakes were ruled out as a possible cause since the state doesn’t lie on any fault lines. Some are still questioning that an earthquake caused the loud booms, since they’re not usually associated with earthquakes. A geologist explained that the soil and granite beneath Clintonville is different from most other earthquake-prone regions, which could account for the noises.

At least it wasn’t a pie? Kim Kardashian was hit by a “flour bomb” while walking the red carpet Thursday night to promote her new perfume, True Reflection. Paramedics rushed to West Hollywood’s London hotel, but Kardashian refused to be treated, and the white dust hurled at her turned out to be harmless cooking flour. After a wardrobe change and some touching up, Kardashian emerged relatively unfazed by the incident. “You have to laugh it off!” she told E! News. “I brushed off and came right back out.” The flour-bombing perpetrator was reportedly affiliated with PETA, though the animal-rights group didn’t confirm that it was behind the attack.

French authorities say they have no proof that Mohamed Merah was connected to al Qaeda, speculating that he might have the claim in attempt to be associated with  a well-known "brand." Earlier on Friday, French Prime Minister François Fillon defended reports of security failures in the handling of Merah, who had been under surveillance in November but was never arrested. "We don't have the right in a country like ours to permanently monitor without judicial authorization someone who hasn't committed an offense," Fillon told French radio. Merah was killed in a firefight Thursday morning after a 32-hour standoff in Toulouse.

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera said Friday that Trayvon Martin’s hoodie sweatshirt is “as much responsible” for his death as the neighborhood-watch volunteer who shot and killed the teenager. Speaking on Fox and Friends, Rivera said hoodies can draw “unwanted attention” to “dark-skinned” kids. Although Rivera used his own son as an example, Rivera tweeted after the show that his son was “ashamed” of the comments, but Rivera insisted in a later tweet that "it's sad that I have to be the one reminding minority parents of the risk that comes with being a kid of color in America."

Now that the cause of Whitney Houston’s death is public knowledge, the pop diva’s family has released a statement saying they are “saddened to learn” what killed her. The family expressed sorrow over the news that cocaine was in Houston’s system at the time of her death, even though they said they were “glad to have closure.” The toxicology report showed that cocaine contributed to her death, and could have helped trigger a heart attack that caused her to drown. Houston also had marijuana, Xanax, Flexeril, and Benadryl in her system at the time of her death.

Earlier this week, Mitt Romney ignored a question from a reporter about the Trayvon Martin case. Now that President Obama has related Martin to his own children and called for the case to be investigated from every angle, Romney suddenly has something to say. There should be a "thorough investigation," Romney said of the "tragedy" in a statement that followed shortly after Obama's speech Friday. "Justice is carried out with impartiality and integrity," he said. Rick Santorum, who had also been silent on the issue, decided to weigh in Friday, telling a reporter that it's a "horrible case, chilling."

The U.N. Security Council has strongly condemned a military coup that took place in Mali early Thursday morning. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the responsible parties to refrain from violence. Rogue soldiers overtook the government after it was unable to stop a separatist rebellion in the north of the country. Mali is due to hold elections on April 29, and the whereabouts of the current president, as well as other top government officials, remain unknown as the World Bank halted its aid to the nation.

Rick Santorum is headed for a huge win in the Louisiana primary on Saturday, according to new numbers from Public Policy Polling. The survey shows that Santorum is beating Mitt Romney 42 percent to 28 percent, while Newt Gingrich is polling at 18 percent and Ron Paul at 8 percent. Romney also lost Alabama and Mississippi last week, and another big defeat could prolong the race and highlight Romney’s trouble with the South as conservative voters abandon Gingrich for Santorum.

You've heard about Nigerian scammers. So has AT&T, the U.S. Justice Department said this week. The Justice Department accused AT&T of receiving more than $16 million for providing a calling service for the deaf when AT&T knew that it was being used by the Nigerian swindlers. The government made the accusations Wednesday as part of a whistle-blower lawsuit in Pittsburgh's federal court. Prosecutors say AT&T could be in violation of the False Claims Act.

European Union foreign ministers on Friday slapped sanctions on the wife of Syria President Bashar al-Assad. Asma al-Assad is among 12 other close relatives and government ministers to be slapped with a travel ban and has had her assets frozen in a bid to stop the regime's violent crackdown on the opposition. Asma Assad, 36, was born in the United Kingdom and has British citizenship, so EU officials said she could probably still travel to England.

Hackers have disabled an independent “civil referendum” in Hong Kong aimed at criticizing the undemocratic election for the territory’s chief executive that will be held Sunday. A University of Hong Kong online poll crashed Thursday after what the director called “high-level cyber attacks” crippled the servers. It was launched to see who would win if given a vote. The chief executive will instead be chosen by a 1,200-person election commission filled with Beijing loyalists. No word on whether government-backed hackers were responsible for the attack.

Is Rick Santorum jealous of all the gaffes from the Mitt Romney campaign? Speaking in Texas on Thursday, Santorum said that if he isn’t the nominee, Republicans should vote for President Obama. While saying that a candidate wins on showing a “different vision” for the country, Santorum added “if they’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch a Sketch candidate for the future. Newt Gingrich immediately tweeted Santorum is “dead wrong” and “any GOP nominee is better than Obama.”

President Obama announced his new pick for the head of the World Bank on Thursday and then turned his focus to the investigation of Trayvon Martin’s death. “I can only imagine what these parents were going through. If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” he said of the 17-year-old boy who was shot by a neighborhood watchman. The president urged that it’s “absolutely imperative” that every angle of the case be investigated. “All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how something like this happened.”

The chairman of the Susan G. Komen foundation is stepping down following the departures of several other high-ranking executives within the charity. Harvard University surgeon LaSalle D. Leffall Jr., 81, is leaving to focus on his duties as provost of Harvard, a Komen spokeswoman told The Washington Post, though Leffall declined to comment. Leffal's decision comes three days after the CEO of Komen's powerhouse New York City affiliate resigned, a sign of further fallout within the charity in the wake of its decision to defund—and then refund—Planned Parenthood. Other departures include three officials from Komen's Dallas headquarters, as well as CEOs of affiliate groups.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder approved guidelines on Thursday that would allow counterterrorism officials to keep data on uncharged U.S. citizens for up to five years if they are suspected of being terrorists. The previous limit had been 180 days. The new guidelines have reportedly been in the works for over a year, officials said. But civil liberties groups have criticized the new guidelines, saying they are similar to the “Total Information Awareness” program proposed—and quickly shut down—by the Bush administration. But intelligence officials said they could always get the information, this just makes access easier.

The former Rutgers University student found guilty of some hate-crime charges for spying on his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, who later committed suicide, said he has no problem with gay people. "Did you want to intimidate him?" ABC News's Chris Cuomo asked him. "No," Ravid answered. "Did you record him having sex?" "No." "Did you out Tyler Clementi?" "No." Ravi said he was sorry for what he did, but maintained that his actions were not hateful. "I really don't think he was very fragile," Ravi said, referring to Clementi. Sentencing is expected in May.

Canadians are reportedly dropping their homegrown BlackBerries in favor of the iPhone, new numbers show. Research in Motion, which is based in Ontario and makes the BlackBerry, shipped just over 2 million smart phones in the country last year, lagging nearly one million units behind Apple’s shipments. “For RIM, in its home market, to lose that No. 1 position to iPhone is strategically important,” said Paul Taylor, a fund manager in Toronto. RIM held a steady lead over Apple in Canada through 2010, when it shipped 500,000 more units than the iPhone maker.

Apparently the woman who told Rick Santorum to pretend a target at a Louisiana shooting range was Barack Obama didn't realize you can't joke about shooting the president, or even joke about pretending to shoot the president. The Secret Service is now looking into whoever made that "very terrible and horrible remark," as Santorum called it afterward, to find out if a legitimate threat exists.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld slammed Newsweek after it dared to criticize him—claiming he had “never heard of” Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion reporter Robin Givhan. In the February 6 issue, Givhan wrote that Lagerfeld is “overrated,” and acknowledged that “such a statement is heresy in the fashion world.” Such heresy, in fact, that it cost Givhan a front-row seat at Chanel during Fashion Week. And it appears that Lagerfeld isn’t through with his feud yet. At a press conference on Friday, Lagerfeld lashed out at Newsweek editor Tina Brown, saying she is “going down” with a “shitty little paper.”

Students at several high schools in Florida left their desks and took to the streets Friday to protest the shooting that left 17-year-old Trayvon Martin dead. The demonstrations took place at seven schools in southern Florida, and a crowd of the students congregated at a Miami-area shopping center, according to Miami-Dade police, who said there were no reports of incidents resulting from the protest. “Our job is to make sure the demonstrations are being run in a safe and peaceful manner,” a police spokesman said.

A Florida jury found International Polo Club founder John Goodman guilty of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide on Friday. Goodman was charged following a 2010 car crash that caused the death of Scott Wilson after Goodman hit Wilson’s car with his Bentley convertible. In a recording of a 911 call that Goodman made an hour after the accident, Goodman is heard asking the dispatcher where he was, and telling him, “I’m in a lot of trouble.” Goodman will remain in custody until sentencing, and faces up to 30 years in prison.

Officers from the New York City Police Department went undercover to gather information on liberal political groups and their members, The Associated Press reported Friday. Newspaper investigations in 2007 revealed that the NYPD used similar information-gathering methods before the 2004 Republican National Convention, and a lawsuit regarding those actions is currently pending. The NYPD’s monitoring of liberal organizations was carried out by the unsupervised Intelligence Division and ran counter to directives from the U.S. Homeland Security Department, which has asked police not to monitor individuals and groups that engage in legal forms of protest.