Is this a big one or what? On Monday, the Supreme Court will take on President Obama’s health-care law—and its ruling, expected in June, could weigh heavily on the presidential election this fall. Opponents have pushed the law to the SCOTUS challenging its constitutionality over what the federal government can require of its citizens. Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that the issue is “probably the centerpiece of the debate in the fall—the proper role of government.” The White House says people are already benefiting from the plan.

North Korea issued a warning to the world not to criticize its nuclear program ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, saying that it will consider such criticism to be a “declaration of war.” Meanwhile, President Obama plans to offer kinder words while speaking in South Korea on Monday. Sources say he will discuss how the Unites States can continue to reduce its nuclear stockpile while maintaining enough to use as a strategic deterrent. “He will reaffirm his commitment to reduce America’s nuclear weapons and the role they play in our national security strategy,” an official said.

A black family friend of George Zimmerman spoke out on Sunday, saying that Zimmerman is “extremely remorseful” for shooting unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, but added that critics didn’t know the whole story. "I'm a black male and all that I know is that George has never given me any reason whatsoever to believe he has anything against people of color," 53-year-old Joe Oliver, a former news reporter and anchor in Orlando told Reuters. "All these people who are threatening George, what makes them any better than the person they think he is?" Oliver said.

Rick Santorum upped his attacks on Mitt Romney at a campaign stop in Wisconsin on Sunday night, calling his opponent the “worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.” He then offered a list of areas where Romney contrasted badly to Obama. When asked about the comment, Santorum explained, “I said he was the worst Republican to run on the issue of Obamacare,” and suggested that the media was “distorting my words.” The candidate faced criticism from Republicans last week after suggesting that Romney was too similar to Obama.

Director James Cameron completed a record-setting 6.8-mile solo dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench off the coast of Guam–the deepest point on Earth. The Titanic mastermind began the dive at 5:15 a.m. local time and resurfaced around noon. Cameron spent around six hours collecting samples, before making the 70-minute return journey. The only other dive to that spot was in 1960; it took the divers five hours to reach the ocean floor and they spent only 20 minutes there before heading home. Cameron was inside a "vertical torpedo" sub and used a "slurp gun" to gather samples on the sea floor.

A U.S. official has confirmed that compensation has been paid to the families of those who were killed in a shooting rampage in Afghanistan two weeks ago, allegedly committed by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. An Afghan official said Sunday that $50,000 was paid for each of the 16 Afghans killed in the spree. Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai said the families received the money Saturday and were told it came from President Obama. Lalai said each wounded person received $11,000.

The older brother of the French Islamist gunman who's suspected of killing schoolchildren and paratroopers in recent attacks in Toulouse may have helped plan the shootings, and preliminary charges have been filed by a special antiterrorist judge Sunday. Abdelkader Merah has been charged with complicity in murder and theft for allegedly helping his brother Mohamed, who died Thursday in a shootout with police as he jumped out a window. Abdelkader denies the accusations, but says he was with his brother when he stole a scooter used in the attacks.

A 32-year-old Iraqi immigrant died on Saturday, after being beaten earlier in the week. Shaima Alawadi was found by her daughter at 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday at their home in El Cajon, California, after being hit over the head with a tire iron. Reportedly, a note found nearby read, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.” Alawadi was taken off life support on Saturday afternoon and she died shortly after. A police official said, “A hate crime is one of the possibilities and we will be looking at that.”

He’s baaaaaaaack! Tiger Woods swung his way to victory on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, his first win on the PGA Tour since 2009. It has been a rocky three years for Woods, who was injured in a minor car crash that sprang a leak in revelations that he had cheated on his wife with several women, leading to their divorce. Woods took several months off from the tour, leaving the game as the No. 1 player in the world. Woods’ win was his 72^nd career title and marked the long climb back for the now-19^th ranked player.

Kansas made it to the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament after beating the North Carolina Tarheels 80-67 on Sunday. The Jayhawks, a No. 2 seed, are back in the Final Four for the first time since 2008 and the 14th time in the school’s history. Kansas will play Ohio State on Saturday for the chance to advance to the final and face the winner of the Kentucky-Louisville battle. Top-ranked Kentucky also punched a ticket to New Orleans Sunday by eliminating Baylor 82-70, marking the second straight year Kentucky has made the last four.

Chile was rocked by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake on Sunday night. The quake was 19 miles deep and struck 20 miles north of Talca and roughly 134 miles south of Santiago. There were no reports of casualties or damage, though phone service was lost because of heavy traffic. The Chilean navy emphasized that it was not the type of quake to cause a tsunami, but the national emergency office issued an evacuation order for costal residents.

Human Rights Watch accused Syrian security forces of using civilians as human shields, according to a new report released Sunday. The New York–based organization said the Syrian army and gunmen loyal to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad forced civilians to march in front of them when they attacked rebels in the northern province of Idlib earlier this month. Meanwhile, United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan is in Moscow to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, hoping to secure support to end the violence. Russia is an ally of Syria and has repeatedly vetoed sanctions against Assad.

Even Chris Matthews is getting in on the Mad Men action. Over the weekend, his show featured a parody of the drama’s famous opening, designed to highlight the 2012 election. President Obama replaces Don Draper as the falling silhouette plummeting past pictures of Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum. One of Matthews's producers explained, "The silhouette was recreated to match President Obama's profile (emphasis on his ears, and the fact that Obama is seemingly slimmer than the Draper outline we're used to) and then, to boot, Obama was animated to make him look more lifelike as he descends."

President Obama had a sharp message for China during a visit to South Korea ahead of a nuclear security summit: help rein in North Korea’s “bad behavior.” Obama said he would raise the subject during a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday, and at a news conference warned new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that the regime will be further isolated if it goes on with a planned rocket launch, which Pyongyang says is to fire a satellite into orbit, but many view as a cover for a long-range missile test.

Legendary diva Aretha Franklin is not skipping a beat as she celebrated her 70th birthday at a swanky New York hotel party Saturday night. She’s even planning a new album after reuniting with musical mentor Clive Davis. “I’m recording with Clive again,” Franklin said of the Sony Music Entertainment mogul. “We’re going to sit together and decide what it is we’re going to record.” Franklin threw a party at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, and guests included Diane Sawyer, Al Sharpton, and Willie Wilkerson, Franklin’s longtime companion who was also her fiancé for a brief time earlier this year.

Much to the public's discontent, an elite committee of mostly Beijing loyalists in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong has picked a former government cabinet member as the city’s next leader. Leung Chun-ying was declared the next chief executive after securing 689 votes from the 1,200-strong committee of business leaders and politicians. Former government chief secretary Henry Tang, who was Beijing’s choice until a string of gaffes and scandals, received 285 votes. But hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters voted in a mock election to show their disapproval of the selection process—55 percent of the 222,990 votes were blank.

No service members will face disciplinary charges over the NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. A previous American investigation found that the U.S. and Pakistan were both to blame for the deadly strike, but that Pakistan fired first. Based on these findings, a second inquiry was set up to figure out whether any American personnel should be punished over the incident. The review found that the Americans fired in self-defense. One military official said, “We found nothing criminally negligent on the part of any individual in our investigations of the incident.”

The GOP primary isn't over just yet. Rick Santorum cruised to an easy victory in Louisiana, winning twice as many votes as presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney. Santorum took 49 percent to Romney's 26 percent, while Gingrich placed a distant third with 15 percent. Though the conventional wisdom says the win won't help Santorum much, the former senator seemed to expand his appeal, winning majorities of voters who only consider themselves moderately conservative and who think the economy is the most important issue in the election. 

Six Afghan police, a translator, and a U.S. soldier were killed when a roadside bomb exploded just as a NATO-Afghan team arrived to defuse it in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. The explosion occurred Saturday in Arghandab district, which has long been considered a Taliban stronghold. The bomb was possibly remotely detonated, the district’s police chief said. In an email to CNN Friday, the Taliban vowed to take “strong revenge” for the March 11 shootings, allegedly by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, which killed 16 Afghan civilians.

Rick Santorum is counting on basic math to help him fight against Mitt Romney. Santorum said Sunday on Face the Nation that “bad math … doesn’t reflect the reality of what’s going on on the ground.” Santorum called out Romney’s wins in Florida and Arizona, where Romney was awarded all the delegates. Santorum said RNC rules bar states from holding winner-takes-all primaries prior to April 1. Romney leads the count 568 to 272; 1,144 delegates are needed for a party nomination. Team Romney fired back, saying Santorum’s camp was like a football team “celebrating a field goal” when “losing by seven touchdowns.”

As outrage grows over the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, an attorney for the Martin family says bringing a federal hate-crime charge against the alleged killer will be “a challenge, to put it lightly.” Daryl Parks said Saturday that prosecution on the state level stands a better chance. “I think the focus is not necessarily a federal arrest over a state arrest. We want an arrest, period.” The unarmed 17-year-old Martin was killed about a month ago in Sanford, Fla., by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who says he was acting in self-defense.

Rick Santorum, fresh off a badly needed win in Louisiana, is already looking ahead to the next big contenst: Wisconsin, with its primary on April 3. Santorum gave his Louisiana victory speech in Green Bay and urged his supporters to stick with him. “This race is long and far from over, and to the people of Wisconsin, I just say to you: On, Wisconsin! Let’s get it done!” Santorum told a small crowd. This despite an increasingly steep climb to the nomination, since his win in Louisiana Saturday didn’t narrow the delegate gap with Mitt Romney.

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators organized two separate marches in New York on Saturday as they aimed to protest against police tactics and brutality—but what they got were more arrests. Police arrested 14 people in the hours-long march through Manhattan and a demonstration at the United Nations. Protesters carried banners that read “End Police Brutality” and “Shame on NYPD,” but demonstrators were nabbed when they snaked through Manhattan streets and broke away from attending officers.

At 71 years old and after a 20-month wait, Dick Cheney finally has a new heart. The former VP’s office said Cheney is recovering at a Virginia hospital. “Although the former vice president and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift,” an aide’s statement read. Cheney’s waiting period was a bit longer than usual, but his age may have complicated things. According to The New York Times, transplants are generally recommended for patients under 70.

Moviegoers the world over are sating their appetites for The Hunger Games by helping it gain the third-best domestic debut of all time with a $155 million weekend box office. It trails only the final Harry Potter movie ($169.2 million) and The Dark Knight ($158.4 million). The Hunger Games is also the biggest-grossing opening for a nonsequel. With two more books to cover, the games must go on, to the glee of producers at Lionsgate, as another blockbuster movie franchise is born.

Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has suspended her campaign for a Parliament seat because of ill-health one week before the vote. A spokesman said she was vomiting and suffering from low blood pressure because of exhaustion. She is contesting one of 45 seats and had given herself a punishing schedule, traveling for hours in hot weather.