A Florida judge removed herself on Wednesday from presiding over the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, according to a court news release. Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler’s order removing herself was expected due to an acknowledged conflict of interest between her husband and the racially charged case, which captured national attention and prompted demonstrations across the United States when Zimmerman remained free and without charge for more than six weeks. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. will take over the case and it will proceed as scheduled with Zimmerman’s bond hearing scheduled for Friday at 9am.

A private US company is on track to become the first commercial visitor to the International Space Station. Nasa said there is a good chance that Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX, will make its April 30 date to launch a cargo ship to the space station. The Dragon spacecraft will be hoisted aboard the company’s Falcon rocket from Cape Canaveral. The company’s chief executive officer and chief designer, Paypal co-founder Elon Musk, said the Falcon and Dragon are proven vehicles.In order for space station to be successful, these systems have to be there for us,’ space station program manager Mike Suffredini said at a news conference following a NASA review of the upcoming SpaceX mission. ‘We’re really rooting for the teams to come through,’ added NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. So far, NASA has invested $381 million in the SpaceX rocket and cargo capsule, with the company and investors contributing about another $700 million, SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said. The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule also are in the running to serve as a space taxi for astronauts. The United States hopes to break Russia’s monopoly on flying crews to the station, a service that cost more than $60 million per person, by 2016 under a related NASA program.

A ‘smart watch’ which pairs with smartphones to display messages on screen has become an internet phenomenon – raising $4,319,959 in just five days. The Pebble E Ink watch was launched via the KickStarter ‘crowdfunding’ website – and aimed to raise just $100,000 in funding for the techno-timepiece, which has a screen similar to the E Ink screens of devices such as Amazon’s Kindle. The watch has broken all records for the investing site. The ‘smart watch’ will pair with iPhone and Android handsets to display messages such as texts or data from fitness apps on screen. The KickStarter website is often used to raise money for hi-tech ventures such as videogames, and the sums involved have risen rapidly during 2012.

Millions of Gmail users across the globe could not access their emails yesterday after a widespread outage of the webmail service. Google reported that less than two per cent of their customers were affected by the service shut down which translates to approximately 5.25 million people. The company have not explained why the service was disrupted for over an hour yesterday.  Some customers were unable to read, send or receive emails between 12.42pm and 1.46pm EST on Tuesday. Thousands of Gmail users from countries including the U.S., France, Canada, Spain, and the U.K. took to Facebook and Twitter to vent their fury at the inconvenience.  Even pop sensation Justin Bieber was put out by Gmail’s outage, as he tweeted: ‘#CantSayNo to fans ‘I #makeapromise to talk to them and my #Gmail is down so add me on Facebook.’ The glitch appeared to be fixed shortly after an hour after it went down. ‘The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better,’ Google said in a statement.

Your plans to celebrate 4/20 this Friday could actually make the government some money, if only such activities were legal. That’s according to a bunch of economists, and some prominent ones too. More than 300 economists, including three nobel laureates, have signed a petition calling attention to the findings of a paper by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, which suggests that if the government legalized marijuana it would save $7.7 billion annually by not having to enforce the current prohibition on the drug. The report added that legalization would save an additional $6 billion per year if the government taxed marijuana at rates similar to alcohol and tobacco. That’s as much as $13.7 billion per year, but it’s still minimal when compared to the federal deficit, which hit $1.5 trillion last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. HuffPost

There was no protest and just one heckler. The only boos were directed toward the plate umpire, and by the eighth inning Ozzie Guillen’s Miami Marlins had the crowd in such a happy frenzy that the roar shook the clubhouse. Guillen made a victorious return to the dugout Tuesday night, and pitchers Josh Johnson and Heath Bell snapped out of early-season slumps to help beat the Chicago Cubs 5-2. When the dugout emptied and Guillen joined his players on the field for the postgame celebration, there were only cheers from the crowd.

Warren Buffett has been diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer, according to an announcement made to Berkshire Hathaway investors Tuesday. “The good news is that I’ve been told by my doctors that my condition is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way,” the 81-year-old business magnate wrote. “I feel great — as if I were in my normal excellent health — and my energy level is 100 percent.” He added that he will begin a two-month daily-radiation regimen in mid-July and would keep investors informed if his health changes. Buffett told CNBC in February that he had selected his successor, though he hasn’t disclosed who it is. He told CNBC Tuesday that his succession plans had not changed. NBC

Demi Moore made her first public appearance tonight since her recent spell in rehab. The 49-year-old actress has had a troubling few months, following the breakdown of her marriage to Ashton Kutcher. But last night – a day after she made her Twitter comeback – the Ghost star attended soiree in Beverly Hills to support her best friend Amanda de Cadenet. Demi made a brief turn in front of the cameras and certainly looked healthier and like she had put on some much needed weight. Last year the star’s drastically shrinking frame sparked alarm and she looked a shadow of her former self as she stepped out to the premiere of her movie Margin Call in New York back in October. But last night was a different story. She looked relaxed and happy, wearing a black ensemble, beige blouse and chic jewellery. Moore also found time to tweet her fans, revealing she is finally ready to change her Twitter name @MrsKutcher.

A tired Air Canada pilot mistakenly thought the planet Venus was an aircraft and then sent the airliner into a nosedive toward the Atlantic to avoid an imaginary collision with another plane. An official report released this week revealed that the incident in January last year occurred when the first officer rammed the control stick forward to avoid a U.S. plane he wrongly thought was heading straight toward him. Sixteen passengers and crew were hurt during the ordeal.