A North Carolina judge ruled Friday that a black man who killed a white teenager in 1991 was sent to death row in part because of racial discrimination. The judge ordered that Marcus Robinson be taken off death row and ordered that the man serve a life sentence without parole. Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks found that black jurors were excluded from Robinson’s trial. His case is the first of many that will likely be filed under the state’s new Racial Justice Act, which allows death-row inmates and capital-murder defendants to present evidence of racial bias in court.

A plunge in big donations from industries across the board has left the Obama campaign seeking out smaller donations as the campaign season revs up. He’s still well ahead of Republican candidate Mitt Romney, though his cash flow is short of where it was at this point during his 2008 presidential campaign—when he had almost $40 million more. Since he’s not campaigning for the primary he has more money available, yet aides and supporters have growing concerns about the enormous sums tucked away in the Republicans' super PACs that have significantly more than their Democratic counterparts.

A Florida judge granted bail to George Zimmerman on Friday, but said the accused killer would not be released immediately. The judge set bail at $150,000 for Zimmerman, who faces second-degree murder charges in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman apologized to the teen’s parents for the “loss of their child.” George Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie Zimmerman, testified by phone that her husband is “absolutely not a violent person.” As a condition of his release, Zimmerman will wear GPS monitoring. His release date is unknown.

The first round of voting in France’s presidential election happens Sunday, and the unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy spent his last day on the campaign trail lashing out at his country’s election rules, which requires that all candidates get equal air time on television. He also issued an apology for flaunting his upper-class lifestyle shortly after he won the 2007 election, which started his downhill slide with the French public. The second-round vote is set for May 6, but polls show Socialist Party candidate François Hollande with as much as a 10-point lead.

According to an autopsy released Friday, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure. The report found a small amount of alcohol in his system, but no trace of illegal drugs. The blogger was attributed with bringing down Anthony Weiner by posting the representative’s incriminating Twitter pictures on his website.

Pakistani officials said they had recovered 50 bodies from a downed Boeing 737 that crashed near the Islamabad airport. The plane was carrying 121 passengers. The Karachi-to-Islamabad flight was scheduled to land at 6:40 p.m. local time and belonged to Bhoja Air, a small Pakistani airline that offers only domestic flights. Rescue teams searched through the wreckage for survivors at the crash site near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport. Two of the passengers are said to have been newlyweds on their honeymoon.

Three more Secret Service agents resigned Friday in the wake of the Colombia prostitution scandal that has shaken the ranks of the presidential guard. The resignations came after the dismissals of three agents and six more who are on leave during an ongoing investigation. The military is also investigating six Army members, two Marines, one Navy and one Air Force for misbehavior, including heavy drinking, strip club visits, and payment to prostitutes.

US Airways filed forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission in a key move toward a takeover of the bankrupt American Airlines, CBS reported Friday. A successful merger will be a major feather in US Airways’s cap, and the company has been working toward the deal for some time, lobbying in Congress and working with major American Airlines unions and creditors. Friday, the airline announced it had organized a deal with three major labor unions at American Airlines. The merger could add key domestic routes to US Airways’ services, as well as additional international routes and equipment.

The man who gave us High School Musical and Hannah Montana at Disney Channel has stepped down as the head of Walt Disney Co.’s movie studio after failing to find a winning formula for film. Named to the position in 2009, Rich Ross announced his decision to resign in an email to staff on Friday. A successor was not immediately named. Ross’s departure follows the monumental fiasco that was Disney’s John Carter, a sci-fi flop approved by Ross that will likely lose the studio about $200 million. Ross got his first job at the Disney Channel in 1996, and became president of the channel in 2004.

Times Square will be showered in confetti-style notes to American Bandstand host Dick Clark next New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Clark was the longtime face of the world-famous ball-dropping ceremony in New York City. People will be able to write tributes to Clark on confetti squares being given out at the Times Square Visitor Center & Museum and they can also be submitted online.

But what to wear? For three lousy dollars the Obama campaign is offering a chance to win tickets to dine with Jeffrey Katzenberg at George Clooney’s May 10 Los Angeles fundraiser for the president. “Want to meet George Clooney and Barack Obama—at Clooney’s house?” the email to supporters reads. And if the buddy-comedy setup isn’t enough, the lucky winners will also be getting quite a deal—tickets to the event will be going for $35,800 a pop, and Barbra Streisand is slated to be among the guests. Last month, the Ides of March star was at the White House for a state dinner honoring British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Bollywood actress Meenakshi Thapar was allegedly gruesomely murdered by two of her film co-stars when they kidnapped her and tried to extort money from her family. Amit Jaiswal, 36, and his girlfriend, Preeti Surin, are accused and have reportedly confessed to killing Thapar, decapitating her and putting her head in a bag, which they threw out the window of a bus, and dumping her body in a water tank. The two reportedly tried to extort $28,000 from her parents, warning them that she would be forced to make pornographic films, but Thapar's mother transfered only $1,000. The two aspiring actors reportedly heard Thapar boast about her family's wealth during a film they shot together.

Happy birthday to one of baseball's most hallowed grounds! Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox's home since 1912, gets a huge birthday on Friday, and what's more appropriate than celebrating it with an afternoon game against archrivals the New York Yankees? Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer—though the Sox will keep the focus on their friends, as they've invited every living ex-Boston player and manager to the game. "It's the Sistine Chapel of baseball," says Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy.

The lawyer for Trayvon Martin’s family announced Thursday that they turned down a personal meeting with George Zimmerman proposed by his lawyer, Mark O’Mara. Natalie Jackson, the lawyer, said that she received a phone call from Mr. O’Mara but the family opted out, deciding to only discuss the case with officials and the media. Zimmerman could be out of jail as early as Friday if Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. grants his bail request. Zimmerman’s attorneys are expected to argue that the shooter is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, even though he was arrested for assaulting an officer in 2005.

It's getting better all the time. According to a CNN/ORC International survey released Friday, 43 percent of Americans say things are going well in the country, 3 points higher from February but up a huge 19 points from August. But 57 percent say things are still going badly, though down 3 points from February and 16 point from August. Nearly a quarter say the economy is starting to recover; four in 10 say it has stabilized; one third say the downturn is getting worse.

As many as four U.S. service members may have died in a helicopter crash in southwestern Afghanistan Thursday. In the official announcement, the American military command in Kabul said that there were no confirmed reports of deaths “at this time,” but two U.S. defense officials said that the Black Hawk helicopter was carrying four U.S. troops and that they “don’t expect” that any of them survived. Weather may have played a role in the crash, though enemy action has not been ruled out.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow Burmese opposition lawmakers will boycott Monday's historic Parliament opening, her party, the National League for Democracy, announced Friday. The NLD is unhappy about the wording of the swearing-in oath and wanted it changed from "safeguard" to "respect" the constitution, which was drawn up by military rulers. But authorities rejected the request, and the NLD will write to the presidential office to appeal.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday the Obama administration has confidence in Mark Sullivan, the director of the Secret Service, even though 11 agents are under investigation for consorting with prostitutes while on official business in Colombia last week. Carney added that the president’s security was never in jeopardy in Cartagena. Three agents have left the service–one resigned, one was fired, and one retired–but the episode has been an embarrassing spell for the otherwise well-regarded Secret Service institution.

A group of Ugandan bloggers on Friday will launch an online project called UgandaSpeaks, which aims to “recapture the narrative about Joseph Kony and Northern Uganda from Invisible Children,” the company that produced the phenomenally successful Kony 2012 viral video that many say is simplistic and misleading. The bloggers plan to release their own YouTube video Friday, the same day Invisible Children is planning a series of “Cover the Night” rallies and events.

The Obama campaign has reacted to Mitt Romney's assertion that President Obama is to blame for the shuttering of an Ohio factory that closed down before he took office. Trying desperately to avoid calling the presidential candidate an outright liar, Obama's rapid response director issued a statement Thursday insisting that the president has, in fact, helped create jobs since in office and that Mitt's own gubernatorial record is a better example of job loss. "Mitt Romney is building quite a record of giving speeches filled with distortions and fabrications. Why does he have such an aversion to the truth?" 

Seven United Nations observers have been deployed in Syria to ensure compliance with a brokered ceasefire that the government has largely failed to uphold, a spokesman for U.N. envoy Kofi Annan said Friday. The rest of an advanced team of about 30 unarmed monitors is expected in the coming days. Meanwhile, shelling and gunfire resumed in some neighborhoods in the city of Homs, opposition activists said, as world leaders sought tough sanctions against the regime over its failure to fully implement the peace plan.

Confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik said he read case studies of al Qaeda attacks before he went on a shooting rampage that killed 77 last July, he told the court Friday during day five of his sensational public trial in Oslo. Breivik said he went on the Internet to read about terrorism attacks and went through more than 600 bomb-making guides. Breivik said he is a "nice person" who trained himself to stamp out all emotions so he could carry out the attacks.

Instagram is so yesterday’s news. The software company Splunk’s shares doubled upon its opening on the stock market Thursday and its share price was up 96 percent by the afternoon, but a market glitch caused some trades to be canceled. By the afternoon, Splunk’s shares were up 96 percent, having nearly doubled at its opening alone. The San Francisco–based firm creates software that aggregates and analyzes data from applications, servers, mobile devices, websites, and more. Splunk has not yet recorded a profit, but the company is valued at $3.28 billion after having an initial public offering of $225 million.

This libertarian and his orthopedic shoes just won’t quit, at least when it comes to fundraising. Republican candidate Ron Paul, who has no debt, raised $2.6 million in March, and a total of $10.4 million in the first three months of 2012, according to campaign filings released on Friday. That figure does not include a money bomb, Paul’s signature fundraising technique, held April 15, that drew in $1.4 million. He is set to report Friday that his campaign has $1.8 million in its coffers at the end of the quarter.

China’s Supreme People’s court overturned a death sentence and announced a retrial for Wu Ying, a 31-year-old self-made billionaire convicted of “fundraising fraud” three years ago, according to the report by China’s state news agency, Wu Ying’s case has triggered an outcry in china, particularly on the internet, over death sentences for nonviolent crimes. Ms. Wu,  the founder of Bense Holding Group, was sentenced to death in 2009 for cheating investors out of roughly $60.2 million, but her supporters said her dealings with the investors weren’t fraudulent. Wu is renowned in China for her rags-to-riches story of opening a hair salon at age 15 and that expanded into a huge business empire.

Photos of the alleged Colombian prostitute reported at the center of the Secret Service call-girl scandal has surfaced, but some media are blurring her face and withholding her name barring independent confirmation. People have accessed photos from the Facebook page of the reportedly busty single mom who apparently got only a fraction of the fee she wanted. The names of Greg Stokes and David Randall Chaney, two ousted agents, were also revealed, and Chaney had also posted photos on Facebook, including one of him standing behind Sarah Palin. He included the comment, "I was really checking her out, if you know what I mean?" Palin said on Fox News Thursday night: "Well, check this out, buddy—you're fired!"

The expansion of consciousness suffers a cruel blow today as the University of Colorado at Boulder shuts down its campus to curb consumption of the happy herb. April 20, or 4/20, is celebrated as a day of recreational marijuana use by advocates and other users of the drug, and the campus’s annual gathering has attracted up to 10,000 people in the past. Activists have sought an emergency injunction to stop the administration’s plan to close the campus to nonstudents on Friday, saying the closure stifles free speech. School administrators plan to spread a fish-based fertilizer in the quad to keep stoners away.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has created a 17-member task force to review the controversial Stand Your Ground law that many feel played a role in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Martin was shot and killed by self-appointed neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman on Feb. 26, and Zimmerman has said he acted in self-defense under the Stand Your Ground law. Similar defenses have been used successfully by Floridians 130 times since the law was passed in 2005. The task force includes elected officials and community leaders—but there is no representation from the NRA, which has been a major supporter of the law.

Tens of thousands of protesters packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday in the largest demonstration since the uprising last February that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The rally was organized by liberals calling for an antimilitary candidate in Egypt’s upcoming presidential vote, but protesters were divided, with the parliamentary Muslim Brotherhood angry that the ruling military has prevented them from wielding any real political power and and calling for a “second revolution.” Tensions mounted as liberals accused the Brotherhood of being laissez-faire regarding military rule over the past year.

Another rocky week for Rupert Murdoch’s News International publishing group. After The Sun’s royal editor was arrested on Thursday, Murdoch’s News of the World now faces nearly 50 new civil claims of phone hacking, including one from model and actress Emma Moble, Sir John Major’s former daughter-in-law. Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Blencathra and Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson are among others seeking damages for hacking. A legal representative of the claimants said in a previous court hearing that an expected 200 new claims will be filed over the next few months.