The African Union says it will send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony, a new mission that comes amid a wildly popular Internet campaign targeting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.

The mission is to be launched in South Sudan on Saturday and will last until Kony is caught, United Nations and African Union officials said at a news conference in Uganda.

"We need to stop Kony with hardware – with military hardware in this case," said Francisco Madeira, the African Union's special envoy on the LRA, on Friday. "We are on a mission to stop him."

Friday's announcement comes the same month an Internet movie campaign by the U.S.-based advocacy group Invisible Children sought to make Kony "famous" so that policymakers would make it a priority to remove him. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times.

Abou Moussa, head of the U.N.'s office in Central Africa, said soaring international interest in Kony had spurred regional efforts to eliminate the LRA.

"The awareness has been useful, very important," he said.

The hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda, who received a boost last year when President Barack Obama deployed 100 U.S. forces to help regional governments in the mission. American soldiers are now based in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Congo.

The LRA is responsible for 2,600 civilian deaths since 2008, according to the African Union.

The African Union mission, to be led by a Ugandan commander, will comprise troops from Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo, countries where Kony's reign of terror has been felt over the years.

The African Union's most prominent military mission is in Somalia, where 17,700 troops – primarily from Uganda, Kenya and Burundi – are fighting al-Shabab militants. The force has made strong gains over the last year, pushing insurgents out of Somalia's capital.

New Orleans Hornets forward Jason Smith looked like he should wearing a New Orleans Saints jersey when he took out Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin in with a brutal flagrant foul in the fourth quarter of Thursday night's game.

Chris Paul had stolen the ball and started a fast break, passing it to Griffin past half court. As Griffin was about to take flight, Smith charged directly at him. Appearing to lower his shoulder, Smith drilled the high-flying All-Star to the hardwood. Smith's momentum carried him behind the basket as Griffin's teammates followed. Former Hornets' star Chris Paul led the charge after Smith, pointing his finger while shouting at him. Clippers DeAndre Jordan and Randy Foye also went over to say something to Smith as Griffin remained on the floor in pain.

Despite the anger of Griffin's teammates, Smith managed to walk away toward the Hornets' bench. As Griffin got up and made it back his team's bench, the Los Angeles broadcasters began making football comparisons.

"It's like a linebacker taking out a tight end who doesn't see it coming," said Clippers announcer Mike Smith. "There's just no place in the NBA for a play like that."

After watching the replay, the referees ruled the foul a Flagrant 2 and ejected Smith. In somewhat of a disturbing turn, Hornets fans gave Smith a standing ovation as he walked toward the locker room. Perhaps just as unsettling, Smith raised up his hands in triumph.

According to Jim Eichenhofer of Hornets.com, Smith apologized to Griffin after the Hornets' 97-90 win saying, "I didn't want to give him an easy layup (but) there are a ton better ways to go about it."

"They should know better. Especially here in New Orleans where they're having all sorts of bounty problems with the football team," the Clippers announcer said regarding the fan reaction, citing the recent severe punishments handed down to the Saints by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for running a bounty program that was said to have targeted opponents with intent to injure.

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James were only a few miles away from Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, participating in the NBA All-Star Game on the night the unarmed black teenager wearing a hooded sweatshirt was shot to death by a neighborhood crime-watch volunteer.

They never knew the teenager, but on Friday they decided it was time to speak out.

Wade posted a photo of himself from a previous photo shoot wearing a hooded sweatshirt, otherwise known as a hoodie, to his Twitter and Facebook pages on Friday morning.

A couple hours later, James posted another photo -- this one of the Heat team, all wearing hoodies, their heads bowed, their hands stuffed into their pockets. The photo was taken at the team hotel, and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called it "a powerful move."

Among the hashtags James linked to the photo: "WeWantJustice."

"As a father, this hits home," said Wade, who has 10- and 4-year-old sons.

Martin was killed in Sanford, Fla., as he was returning to a gated community, carrying candy and iced tea. A neighborhood crime-watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, said he acted in self-defense and has not been arrested, though state and federal authorities are investigating.

"It really is a tragic story," Spoelstra said. "And the more you learn about it, the more confused you get."

The Heat released a statement, saying: "Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones of Trayvon Martin for their loss and for everyone involved in this terrible tragedy.

"We support our players and join them in hoping that their images and our logo can be part of the national dialogue and can help in our nation's healing."

Protests have popped up nationwide in recent days, with thousands of people -- many of them wearing hoodies -- calling for action.

James told confidants that when Wade's girlfriend, Gabrielle Union, called Wade's and James' attention to the issue, the two NBA stars spent several days talking about the case, gathering information and deciding how to make a statement.

According to his confidants, James and Wade decided a team-wide message would make a stronger statement and organized the photo taken at the team's hotel in Detroit. Mike Miller, the team's only white player, was not in the photo because he was not with the team on its road trip because of injury.

"This situation hit home for me because last Christmas, all my oldest son wanted as a gift was hoodies," Wade told The Associated Press Friday from Auburn Hills, Mich., where the Heat were to play the Detroit Pistons. "So when I heard about this a week ago, I thought of my sons. I'm speaking up because I feel it's necessary that we get past the stereotype of young, black men and especially with our youth."

Several Heat players, including Wade and James, took the floor Friday night with messages such as "RIP Trayvon Martin" and "We want justice" scrawled on their sneakers.

"I couldn't imagine if my son went to a store just to get some Skittles and a pop or iced tea and they didn't come home," Heat forward Udonis Haslem said. "We've been following the story, individually, very closely. It's just unfortunate. We just feel like something needed to be done about it. It's only right. It's only fair. ... I think it's at least a start in the right direction."

How many times today have you texted or emailed while talking to someone else? How often do you sit with someone and engage with your phone rather than the human being across from you? How frequently does a glance at your inbox inject you with a fresh dose of anxiety?

At our recent panel at SXSW Interactive on women's online "performance anxiety," we talked about the pressure women feel to present their ideal selves online, but the conversation ultimately turned to the enormous amount of time the Internet occupies. While author Susan Orlean said she feels like she can be herself on Twitter, she admitted that social media "occupies mental space. It's on your ongoing mental to-do-list." The other panelists echoed this sentiment.

Bianca Bosker, HuffPost's senior tech editor, said she addressed this issue in her own life by making a 2012 New Year's resolution to not "check in" digitally when she could be making eye contact with the person across from her and not to tweet when doing so would interrupt a conversation. (Read more of her tech resolutions here.) Then filmmaker Tiffany Shlain shared why and how she and her family actually take a technology Sabbath every week -- and yes, she really does it.

We were impressed. What would it be like to go a day without the Internet? Would we wither under the force of our own tech-induced ADD? Would we be oblivious to major events elsewhere in the world? How would we let everyone know what we were doing at every moment?

We think those are questions worth answering -- and we hope you'll join us (well, those of us not running this website). If you're not ready to spend a day every week away from the Internet, why not start with one day? Just one. Saturday, March 24 is the National Day of Unplugging. In what the site Sabbath Manifesto describes as a day of "tech detox," you spend a whole 24 hours without screens of any kind -- including TV. (You can take the pledge here.)

If that still feels a little extreme, here's a modified Unplugging Day plan we've devised just for you:

Step 1. On Friday night, put an auto-response on your email saying you'll be out of contact Saturday, March 24. READ MORE

Katniss Everdeen is deep in the woods, surrounded by greenery that in any other circumstance would be considered beautiful, but in the novel and new film "The Hunger Games" is only menacing. She's just watched her only ally die and has subsequently shot an arrow straight through the killer's chest. She sits on the ground in a pile of leaves, holds her head in her hands and sobs. It's a devastating moment, but as I sat in the theater screening the film, which premieres March 23rd, all I could think was: "This isn't the Katniss I know."

From the minute I flipped open the novel "The Hunger Games," the first installment in Suzanne Collins best selling three-book young adult series, I was absorbed into its post-apocalyptic world. The setting is the totalitarian state of Panem (what was once North America), where 24 boys and girls compete to the death on national television each year, and between the poverty-stricken Districts, the anxiety-filled battle scenes, the stirrings of adolescent love -- it's not surprising that the book was hard to put down. But more than the dystopian landscape or any of the plot points, what hooked me was the series' protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

Reading "The Hunger Games" I kept wishing it had been around when I was 12. Katniss is someone I hope I would have admired and related to, a diversion from the almost uniformly bubbly, bland female characters I encountered in "The Babysitters Club," "Sweet Valley High" and "The Saddle Club." Katniss Everdeen is an imperfect heroine, which makes her all the more compelling to me now. She's conflicted and often selfish; she loves but resents her mother; she has reservations about marriage and children due to the harsh reality of the world around her; she has complicated feelings for the men in her life; she makes rash decisions and sometimes they're the wrong ones. In short, she's a human being. And thus, as Katie Roiphe put it in her review of the novel in The New York Times, this character who is "both murderer and victim, somehow representing female strength and female vulnerability all mingled and entwined," is "mesmerizing" and "sweepingly sympathetic."

While Gary Ross' film was a highly enjoyable distillation of detail-packed source material -- and one that I believe won't disappoint even the most hardcore fans -- some of Katniss' complexity gets lost here. She's warmer, more overtly emotional, even a bit maternal -- all in all more conventionally likeable, but it made me like her less. I kept wishing that she would be a little more manipulative, a little more callous with others' feelings, a little more unsure of what the right and "good" decisions were. In the novels, you're forced to wonder -- along with Katniss herself -- what her motivations are for an act of apparent compassion in the end, and for a split second you wonder whether she'll go through with it. The film doesn't raise those questions.

When I was discussing the movie with a colleague, she mentioned that at the end of the film, you feel that Katniss won the games because of her innate goodness;in the book, she won because her will to live in the face of systemic terror and cruelty had pushed her to become a ruthless warrior. Though Jennifer Lawrence still delivers on the promise of an on-screen woman who trades on her skills more than her looks, ranks romance below other concerns in her life, and pushes the boundaries of traditional femininity, she falls short of really challenging the audience. This isn't her fault -- she didn't write the screenplay and did a generally fabulous job in the role -- but rather a byproduct of turning a beloved series into a mega-franchise, which requires a lead character the masses will love.

Questionably likeable on-screen protagonists are few and far between in Hollywood -- especially if they're female. Three recent examples that spring to mind are Charlize Theron's character in 2011's "Young Adult," the women of Leslye Headland's upcoming "Bachelorette," and Lisbeth Salander of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." Neither "Bachelorette" nor "Young Adult" were intended to have the widespread appeal that "The Hunger Games" trilogy does, while "Dragon Tattoo" was a financial disappointment. This film is expected to make over $100 million at the box office in one weekend, potentially outpacing "Twilight: Breaking Dawn." And to do that, Katniss has to be universally palatable -- you don't take chances with a 100 million-dollar payday. After all, she's following in the footsteps of Hermione Granger, who's annoying know-it-all personality and conventionally unattractive buck teeth were considerably toned down in Emma Watson's on-screen embodiment of the character.

Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi attacked and slapped a fan at Karachi airport after he returned home from Dhaka where Pakistan won the Asia Cup final against Bangaldesh on Thursday.

Pakistan television channels showed Afridi, wearing a pink T-shirt, first push a youth to the ground and then slap him before his brother intervened and pulled him away in a melee on Friday night.

The incident took place shortly after Afridi had spoken to the media and praised Bangladesh for their outstanding performance in the Asia Cup final.

The footage showed Afridi heading for a waiting car when he turned around and attacked the youth and then pointed his finger at another man before his brother stepped in.

Afridi told reporters he had lost his temper because his young daughter Ajwa had been pushed to the ground.

“I know what I did was wrong, I should have controlled my temper,” he said. “But when I saw my little daughter pushed to the ground I couldn’t take it and lost my cool.”

Afridi, 32, has been banned and fined twice by th

According to Palermo, you too could be a ball-jointed doll (or BJD as she calls it) with the right over-sized pupil contacts, plastic-sheen-effect powder and pure white eye shadow. Based on her 5 million viewers and the legions of lookalike fans on her Facebook page, people are taking her advice.

Video: father's extreme parenting goes viral

The modern ball-jointed doll is widely popular in Japan, a country both she and her mother are obsessed with. "Mommy cooks Japanese, thinks Japanese, goes to Japan with me," writes Palermo on her blog. "Because we like it. Liking something, is soooooo GREAT!" Palermo is actually Austrian, Swiss and Hungarian but she's been studying Japanese along with several other languages. Her multilingual background is how she explains her accent, which sounds close to the Midwestern Harajuku-obsessed college kids satirized on Saturday Night Live.

Palermo's obsession, however, isn't taken as lightly. Her videos have been labeled "bizarre" and "disturbing" in the media. Her uncanny appearance is sounding off alarm bells for concerned critics. Modern Asian ball joint dolls have become increasingly more life-like, with a line of human-sized, physically mature dolls recently released for the kind of consumer you don't want anywhere near your teenager.

Related: when parents turn their kids into online superstars


The perverse comments on the 15-year-old's videos is proof she's attracting some unsavory fans. So is the occasional grown man dappling the list of Palermo's Facebook fans. But the 15-year-old's mom doesn't appear to be intervening in her daughter's risky hobby. Mom serves as host of Q&A chats between teenager and fans. In one video posted last year, she sat by while the teenager had an uncomfortable conversation with a 24-year-old male caller who professed his love and then proceeded to belittle her.

In text under that video, posted to VenusAngelic's channel, Palermo refers to her fans as "lovers." The title of the video is "Insane Guy in Love."

"The case of Venus Angelic is uncomfortably exploitative, as there is clearly a sexual undertone to what she is doing," says Hilary Levey Friedman, PhD, a Harvard sociologist whose written extensively about child exploitation in media.

"In general, young girls on YouTube is a disturbing, growing trend," she says noting the recent trend of pre-teen girls asking viewers if they're pretty.

In many cases, parents are unaware of their child's webcam usage, until their uploads go viral. But in other instances, the parents are facilitators.

"Remember, Justin Bieber got his start on YouTube with the help of his mother," says Levey Friedman.

Levey Friedman wonders whether Palermo's mom has similar aspirations for her daughter. The YouTube stage parent is relatively new concept. Most kids have risen to viral fame for just being kids, and when a parent profits off of that they're immediately criticized. The rare performing prodigy, like Bieber, is an exception. But Palermo doesn't fall into either category. She may be bringing a Japanese trend to Western teenagers, but she's also attracting a largely unsavory fan-base.

Sarah Jessica Parker has given AnnaSophia Robb her blessing to play the young Carrie Bradshaw, but now, you can weigh in.

Warner Bros. has released the first image of Robb dressed in full-on '80s fashion as the young Carrie Bradshaw for The CW's pilot of "The Carrie Diaries."

"Having been a part of the 'Sex and the City' series, I felt such an honor and responsibility to the fans of the show to find someone who embodied the spirit of Manhattan’s favorite 'It' girl," Amy B. Harris, writer/executive producer of "The Carrie Diaries." "When AnnaSophia Robb walked into the room, we knew we had found her. Her grace, intelligence, sense of fun and her empathetic nature make her the perfect girl to bring our young Carrie to life. The fact that she loves a gorgeous pair of heels doesn’t hurt either."

Sarah Jessica Parker played fictional fashion icon Carrie Bradshaw for six seasons on HBO and in two "Sex and the City" feature films.

“It's a rare invitation to dress a character whose reputation truly precedes her," Emmy-winning costume designer Eric Daman said in statement of the young Carrie. "Having played a hand in designing for the Carrie we know and love, I am honored to be chosen to carry the torch -- to illuminate the woman we know by discovering the young lady she was.”

Robb said Parker sent her a letter after the young actress got the role in The CW pilot, which is based on Candace Bushnell's young adult novel series about Carrie Bradshaw in high school.

"She sent me a letter! I wrote her one back, too," Robb told Us Weekly. "She was just very encouraging about it all. It was really cool!"

Check out the full photo below.

Embattled pop princess Lana Del Rey's performance of "Video Games," a track off her debut album, Born to Die, was featured on Thursday's "American Idol".

While it remains to see if Del Rey will ever be mentioned without the words "widely panned 'Saturday Night Live' performance" in the same breath, the singer did seem a bit more at ease (was that a smile at the beginning?) than during the ill-fated "SNL" gig. Thursday's performance was pre-taped before a live audience.

Though it makes sense, for ratings' sake, to have Del Rey perform on the singing competition, the performance was a jarring break from the rest of the program. As USA Today's Brian Mansfield noted, Del Rey is the anti-"Idol," a performer who charms through an unbroken commitment to brooding, almost plaintive vocals. On a show that prizes theatrical, athletic singing, Del Rey can seem underwhelming.

Earlier this week, Del Rey released a new video for "Blue Jeans" which depicts the attractive singer's tryst with a tattooed lover. A leaked version of the monochromatic visuals made its way to the web but was quickly replaced by the official edit.

Haley Reinhart, last year's third-place finisher, also performed on Thursday's program. Reinhart sang "Free," the first single off her debut album, Listen Up!