10 things you need to know today: March 25, 2012

(Image credit: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao)

last updated 8 January 2015

1. OBAMA URGES CHINA TO STOP NORTH KOREAN NUKES

President Obama, in Seoul for a nuclear security summit, urged China to do its part in preventing North Korea from furthering its nuclear ambitions. "I believe that China is very sincere that it does not want to see North Korea with a nuclear weapon," Obama said. "But it is going to have to act on that interest in a sustained way." The statement came shortly after Obama visited the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, where the president got his first look at the highly isolated North, and reinforced U.S. support of South Korea. [Telegraph, ABC News]

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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum handily won the Republican primary in Louisiana on Saturday, with 49 percent of the vote, but analysts say that it "does little to change the delegate math that has rival Mitt Romney with a more than 2-to-1 lead," and that Santorum has a long way to go. "Rick Santorum is like a football team celebrating a field goal when they are losing by seven touchdowns with less than a minute left in the game," Ryan Williams, a Romney campaign spokesman, said in a statement. [CNN]

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has suffered five heart attacks since his late 30s, underwent a heart transplant Saturday after more than 20 months on a transplant list. Cheney, 71, is recovering in the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. Last year, Cheney revealed that while he was in office he kept a secret resignation letter in a safe because of his ongoing medical problems. [Washington Post]

Craig Sonner, the lawyer for George Zimmerman, a Florida man accused of wrongfully killing black teen Trayvon Martin, spoke out for the first time, and maintained that his client, who is half-white, is not racist. Sonner contends that Zimmerman acted in self defense when he shot and killed Martin in February, while the unarmed teen was visiting his father in the gated community of Sanford. Zimmerman remains free and uncharged by police. [Reuters]

French investigators opened a judicial inquiry into Abdelkader Merah, the older brother of Mohamed Merah, a gunman who allegedly shot and killed seven people in a series of attacks in Toulouse, and a neighboring city in southern France. The Paris prosecutors office says it has reason to believe that Abdelkader was complicit in planning the shootings that Mohamed — who was shot and killed by police in a standoff last week — allegedly carried out. [Associated Press]

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether employers who ask for Facebook passwords during job interviews are violating federal law. Recent reports have revealed that some private and public agencies around the country are asking job seekers for their social media credentials, a practice that prompted Facebook to release a statement warning employers not to ask for passwords. [Associated Press]

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