Encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin ‘avoidable,’ cops said in report  —  JACKSONVILLE - Newly released evidence in the case against George Zimmerman shows that Sanford Police believed the encounter between Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was “ultimately avoidable,” if Zimmerman had …

Rahm Emanuel ‘livid,’ not returning calls from Ricketts family  —  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not returning calls from the Ricketts family and is “livid” over a New York Times report that Joe Ricketts commissioned a proposal for a multimillion-dollar ad campaign linking President Obama …

THE VETTING - EXCLUSIVE - OBAMA'S LITERARY AGENT IN 1991 BOOKLET: ‘BORN IN KENYA AND RAISED IN INDONESIA AND HAWAII’  —  Note from Senior Management:  —  Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.”

Apocalypse Fairly Soon  —  Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams.  We're not talking about a distant prospect, either.  Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years.

TRENDING: Romney campaign touts day one initiatives in first general election ad  —  Washington (CNN) - Mitt Romney, the likely GOP presidential nominee, is using his first general election ad to highlight the policy priorities he would enact on his first day in office, asking voters, “What would a Romney Presidency be like?”

Inside J.P. Morgan's Blunder  —  CEO Dimon Blessed the Concept Behind Disastrous Trades; ‘Blood in the Water’  —  J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Dimon had just committed the most expensive blunder of his 30-year career, failing to detect the risk of trades …

Meet the Rubios  —  WEST MIAMI, Fla. — Marco and Jeanette Rubio, sitting side by side on their brown sofa in their sunny house, could be any young couple musing about life: juggling four kids, a job that separates them, aging parents, their faith and whether or not to move.  —  Only they're not just any couple.

Florida Tries to Clear Illegal Voters From Rolls  —  MIAMI — In an attempt to clear the voter rolls of noncitizens, a move that had set off criticism and a threatened lawsuit, Florida election officials decided on Thursday to use information from a federal database to check a list of 182,000 voters …

GOP struggles to banish ghost of Jeremiah Wright  —  In a statement, Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades repudiates the plan being hatched by GOP operatives for an ad campaign tying Obama to Reverend Wright: … And that's good.  The problem, though, is that it turns out that Romney himself attacked Obama …

Boehner: Keeping any parts of Obama health law ‘unacceptable’  —  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reiterated Thursday that he wants to repeal all of President Obama's healthcare law if the Supreme Court doesn't toss out the entire statute.  —  “We voted to fully repeal the president's healthcare law …

Campaign calls for Americans in Israel to vote  —  Poll released exclusively to ‘The Jerusalem Post’ finds twice as many eligible voters in Israel prefer Romney to Obama.  —  Uncle Sam wants you to vote in the November 6 American election.  Or at least a group of well-funded American immigrants to Israel do.

‘Princelings’ in China Use Family Ties to Gain Riches  —  SHANGHAI — The Hollywood studio DreamWorks Animation recently announced a bold move to crack China's tightly protected film industry: a $330 million deal to create a Shanghai animation studio that might one day rival the California shops …

New Sachs/Mason-Dixon Poll: Social Media Could Pave Path to Victory in 2012 Presidential Race  —  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -The most significant poll to date on the impact of social media in the 2012 presidential race reveals that almost 70 percent of likely voters believe the race will be heavily shaped by social media platforms.

For Dems, Bush is to blame — forever and ever  —  In the early days of the Obama administration, a lot of people, including some Republicans, weren't much bothered by the new president's tendency to blame his predecessor for the nation's problems.  After all, Barack Obama did inherit a mess from George W. Bush.

Romney begins vetting veep picks  —  Mitt Romney's campaign has begun vetting running mates, a process that will narrow his list of possible veep picks.  —  The team for Beth Myers, the Romney adviser leading the search for the GOP's vice presidential nominee, has already contacted potential running mates …