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10 Things You Need to Know as you start your Friday

Published: Friday, April 27, 2012

By The Associated Press

Here are 10 Things You Need to Know as you start your Friday:

1. Seeking trademark protection for the term "GI Bill." At 12:35 p.m., Obama aims for wider protections for veterans and military families swindled or misled by schools seeking their federal education benefits.

2. Student-loan relief facing a pass-fail vote. At noon, Republican leaders are ready to try pushing legislation through the House holding down interest rates on federal loans to millions of college students.

3. U.S. economy forecast to have grown. At 8:30 a.m., the consensus is that GDP — the output of all goods and services, from cars to electricity to manicures — grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first quarter.

4. Look up in the sky ... Sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., New Yorkers will see the space shuttle Enterprise riding on top of a modified jumbo jet over city landmarks.

5. "And Then They Came Home." An ex-Marine filmmaker whose unit carried pocket digital cameras into some of the worst fighting in Iraq is using that footage, and post-war interviews, to open viewers' eyes about combat.

6. Packing heat at the conventions. The thousands of protesters expected at the Democratic and Republican national conventions can come armed with more than signs and slogans: Florida and North Carolina allow concealed weapons, including guns.

7. Study of Southern tornadoes finds shelters didn't protect. Nearly half of the 250 people who died had been advised to take shelter, and most of them did. But many of the tornadoes were so fierce that few structures were able to withstand them.

8. Israeli officials now believe Assad should step down. The surprising shift risks backfiring and potentially strengthens the embattled Syrian leader.

9. George Zimmerman's defense fund raised $200,000. The attorney for the defendant in the murder of Trayvon Martin will disclose the website at 9 a.m., but says the site has since been shut down. Continued...

10. Luck, RG3 go 1-2 as expected, deal-a-thon follows. The Stanford quarterback goes No. 1 in NFL draft to Indianapolis, followed by Baylor QB Robert Griffin III to Redskins and then there were eight trades involving 12 of the league's 32 teams.