Hollywood icon James Cameron has made it to Earth's deepest point.

The director of "Titanic," ''Avatar" and other films used a specially designed submarine to dive nearly seven miles, completing his journey a little before 8 a.m. Monday local time, according to Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society.

He plans to spend about six hours exploring and filming the Mariana Trench, about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam.

"All systems OK," were Cameron's first words upon reaching the bottom, according to a statement. His arrival at a depth of 35,756 feet came early Sunday evening on the U.S. East Coast, after a descent that took more than two hours.

The scale of the trench is hard to grasp — it's 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

Cameron made the dive aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called "Deepsea Challenger." He planned to collect samples for biologists and geologists to study.

"It's really the first time that human eyes have had an opportunity to gaze upon what is a very alien landscape," said Terry Garcia, the National Geographic Society's executive VP for mission programs, via phone from Pitlochry, Scotland.

The first and only time anyone dove to these depths was in 1960. Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh took nearly five hours to reach the bottom and stayed just 20 minutes. They had little to report on what they saw, however, because their submarine kicked up so much sand from the ocean floor.

"He is going to be seeing something that none of us have ever seen before. He is going to be opening new worlds to scientists," Garcia said.

One of the risks of a dive so deep is extreme water pressure. At 6.8 miles below the surface, the pressure is the equivalent of three SUVs sitting on your toe.

Cameron told The Associated Press in an interview after a 5.1 mile-deep practice run near Papua New Guinea earlier this month that the pressure "is in the back of your mind." The submarine would implode in an instant if it leaked, he said.

President Barack Obama weighed into the controversial killing of a black teenager in Florida in very personal terms on Friday, comparing the boy to a son he doesn't have and calling for American "soul searching" over how the incident occurred.

Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin, dressed in a "hoodie" hooded sweatshirt, was shot dead a month ago in Sanford, Florida by a 28-year-old white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer who said he was acting in self-defense.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said in his first comments about the shooting, acknowledging the racial element in the case.

"Obviously, this is a tragedy," Obama told reporters. "I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."

The case has galvanized the nation and prompted rallies protesting the failure of police to arrest the shooter, George Zimmerman, and more broadly, a pattern of racial discrimination that black leaders cite in Sanford and elsewhere in the country.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, made his remarks at a White House event to announce his pick to lead the World Bank, waiting briefly after the announcement to take a reporter's question about the incident.

Martin's parents thanked the president for his words.

"The president's personal comments touched us deeply and made us wonder: If his son looked like Trayvon and wore a hoodie, would he be suspicious too?" they said in a statement.

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law allows people to use deadly force in self-defense.

Similar laws are in effect in at least 24 states including Florida, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Calls are mounting to repeal them. Earlier this week, a Florida state senator said he was drafting new legislation to drastically change the law in Florida.

A South Carolina state representative said on Friday he had introduced a bill to repeal his state's law.

RACIAL DIVIDES

Bakari Sellers, a black Democrat and gun owner, said he wanted to prevent an incident like the Trayvon Martin shooting happening in his state. "I'm six-five and a black guy," he said. "I just know that it could have been me."

Obama said the "Stand Your Ground" laws should be studied.

"I think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident," he said.

"Every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together - federal, state and local - to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened."

Obama, the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, does not comment frequently on race, a sensitive topic in the United States, which still grapples with a legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination.

Former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney is recovering from heart transplant surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Northern Virginia, a spokeswoman said Saturday evening.

In 2010, Cheney had a left ventricular assist device implanted for treatment of end-stage heart failure. The former vice president has been on the cardiac transplant list for more than 20 months.

Though he and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift, the spokeswoman also said.

Cheney, who is in intensive care, expressed his thanks to the teams of doctors and other medical professionals at Inova Fairfax and at George Washington University Hospital, where he also has been treated, for their "continued outstanding care.

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Newt Gingrich released the following statement offering his and wife Callista's well wishes.

"Vice President Cheney is in our thoughts and prayers tonight, as he recovers from surgery. Callista and I hope that his recovery is peaceful, and we wish him and his family all of the best. He has been a colleague and friend for many years, and we are glad that the surgery went well," the couple said.

Cheney, 71, served under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. He has a long history of cardio-vascular disease, having had five heart attacks since age 37.

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Neb., and served in the Nixon, then the Ford administration, for which he was chief of staff. He was elected to the House in 1978 as a Wyoming congressman and won reelected five times.

Cheney was secretary of Defense under much of George H.W. Bush’s administration, overseeing Operation Desert Storm. He was also chief executive officer for the Halliburton Co. from 1995 to 2000.

Cheney has remained a strong voice in the Republican party and has been an outspoken critic of President Obama.

He has undergone several bypass surgeries and other procedures, including the one two years ago. Cheney also had a mild heart attack in June 2010.

More than 3,100 Americans currently are on the national waiting list for a heart transplant. Just over 2,300 heart transplants were performed last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. And 330 people died while waiting.

The group also reports 332 people over age 65 received a heart transplant last year.

The majority of transplants occur in 50- to 64-year-olds.

More than 70 percent of heart transplant recipients live at least five years, although survival is a bit lower for people over age 65.

The news keeps getting better for dividend investors. But can it last?

The latest sign of a dividend renaissance is Apple's decision to begin sharing some of its profits with shareholders for the first time in nearly two decades. The world's most valuable company will start paying a dividend later this year, rather than continue to stockpile cash from iPhone and iPad sales.

That announcement came a week after major banks moved to restore their dividends, after cutting them during the financial crisis to conserve cash. At least nine top banks plan to raise their payouts or are considering doing so after the government conducted stress tests to ensure the banks can survive another crisis.

It adds up to better times ahead for dividend investors. Payouts by companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are expected to climb 15 percent from last year to $277 billion, according to S&P Indices. That amount would top the previous record of $248 billion, set in 2008. Three-quarters of the S&P 500's dividend-paying companies are making higher payouts than they did last year.

Interest is so intense that hedge funds and many other Wall Street pros who normally avoid dividend stocks have been rushing into them lately, and Apple's actions can only add to the frenzy, says analyst Howard Silverblatt of S&P Indices.

In fact, dividend stocks have been among the market's strongest performers the past 12 months, a fact that hasn't been lost on investors. Over that period, they have deposited a net $25 billion into mutual funds specializing in dividend stocks – usually labeled `equity income' funds – according to industry consultant Strategic Insight.

That number wouldn't normally be impressive, except that the cash came in as investors pulled out of nearly all other types of stock funds. A net total of $136 billion was withdrawn from all other stock fund categories, reflecting........More

Dawn Josephson could barely believe it when she found health insurance that would actually cover the cost of treating her young son’s eye condition.

Josephson, a freelance editor, wife and mother of two in Jacksonville, Fla., had been spending as much as $1,000 a month of her family’s budget on surgery, doctor visits, tests, and treatments in the seven months since 2-year-old Wesley awoke one morning with his eyes pointed toward each other, a condition called strabismus. That was on top of the $807 in monthly premiums the family spent on an insurance plan that excluded anything related to her son’s eyes.

A few weeks after President Barack Obama signed a sweeping health care reform law in March 2010, Josephson got a call from another insurance company telling her the family had been accepted into a new plan. “What about Wesley’s eye? If he needs another surgery, another test, another something, is it covered?” she asked the customer service representative. She pressed the point again: What’s the catch? “Nothing. Your family’s fully covered,” she was told.

Josephson's change in fortune was the result of the new law's provision that prohibits insurance companies from refusing to cover children with pre-existing medical conditions. The family's new insurer decided to change its rules before the law required it, giving Josephson, her husband Dave, Wesley, and his little sister Margo some relief. A few months later, Josephson got to meet Obama at a health care reform event in Falls Church, Va.

Even with that relief, Josephson can't rest easy. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments next week in a case challenging the constitutionality of health reform. The court, or a Republican president next year, could reverse the family's fortunes again, with Josephson's son, now 6, still struggling to gain control of his right eye. He sometimes wears an eye patch, and might need more surgery, Josephson said.

The fate of millions of other Americans also hangs on the Supreme Court's ruling. Repealing health care reform would squash the hopes of uninsured people struggling to pay for health care.

“I definitely think I’d have to worry about it,” Josephson said. “It’s scary because you see the before and after.”

Forbes' comprehensive list of the world's billionaires (there are 1226) came out recently, and we were curious -- are there women on the list?

Turns out, there are. Yes, men far outnumber the ladies. But starting at number 11, women help fill out the ranks of the fabulously wealthy.

Where do these fortunes come from? Uniformly, these top six women have shrewdly managed the companies and fortunes handed to them by husbands and fathers. But most of these women have put in their own hard work into these companies to grow them, especially the woman who is now president of Fidelity Investments. (Because women do make better investors!)

Of course, it took a few generations for these fortunes to build up, and many of the male billionaires on Fortunes' list are, well, advanced in age, having worked hard for their wealth over a lifetime. We're looking forward to a few years down the road when the list is populated by many more women and their own companies, instead of those founded by the the men in their lives.

After all, the founder of Spanx just broke into the billionaire list. Who knows what kind of riches she'll have by the time she retires?

Learn more about some of the richest women in the world:

6. Laurene Powell Jobs
Estimated net worth: $9 billion
Rank: 100th richest person in the world, 36th richest person in the U.S.
Age: 48
Why she's rich: She's the widow of Steve Jobs.
Lives in: Palo Alto, California

5. Abigail Johnson
Estimated net worth: $10.3 billion
Rank: 85th richest person in the world, 33rd richest in the U.S.
Age: 50
Why she's rich: She owns and runs Fidelity Investments with her father, Edward Johnson III.
Lives in: Milton, Massachusetts

Welcome to Fashionably Late, where we round up the style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened this week!
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Now that winter has begun to thaw, models are unpacking their tiniest bikinis and heading to the beach.

Any complaints? We didn't think so.

Anne V. and her fellow Sports Illustrated swimsuit girl, Irina Shayk, headed to Miami on Friday to celebrate Anne's 26th birthday, splashing in the waves and hanging out with girlfriends at Soho House. "We are booty shaking with miss Shaykie herself!" Anne tweeted exuberantly.

They also showed off their sexy swimsuits: Anne wore what looks like a Missoni knit bikini, and Irina paired a leopard bandeau top with neon green bottoms.

Also in Miami on Friday, Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes hit the shores in a teensy black two-piece with her husband, DJ Sunnery James, and their one-year-old son Phyllon. (Although Doutzen and the other girls unfortunately didn't seem to cross paths.)

And for what it's worth, Bar Refaeli seems to be enjoying some waterfront vacation time, too.

Who will be the next model to suit up for a spring vacation? Don't worry, we'll do the hard work of keeping an eye on all of them for you.

We've gone a little mad prepping for the Season 5 premiere of "Mad Men" ... but can you really blame us? It's been 525 days since the Season 4 finale, and those cliffhangers have kept our wheels turning ever since.

What year will it be when we see our Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce friends again? And what's Don Draper's personal life looking like these days: Did he marry Megan? Is he still living in that sad little apartment? How's his relationship with his kids?

We know we're not alone, which is why we've worked tirelessly to fill the gap for fans, getting some of the best interviews, with star Jon Hamm and the entire cast, as well as creator Matt Weiner; teasing as much as we can in our review; creating some fun video mash-ups, and gathering the coolest viral videos; and even shaking up a signature cocktail to toast the show's return.

To make it easier on you to find everything, it's all right here. Happy reading, watching, drinking and "Mad Men"-ing!

From pregnancies to rehab reveals, it's been another wild week in the celebrity world. In case you've been out of the loop -- or perhaps waiting in line for "The Hunger Games" movie tickets -- we've rounded up some stories you may have missed.

Reese Witherspoon is pregnant. Though the actress has not officially announced the happy news, several sources close to the actress spilled the beans to outlets including Us Weekly and People. This will be the first child for Witherspoon and her husband of one year, Jim Toth, though she has two children with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe.

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino is in rehab. The hard-partying "Jersey Shore" star revealed he voluntarily opted to get treatment for a prescription pill addiction.

Ashton Kutcher is headed to space. Yes, you read that right. It was announced this week that the "Two and a Half Men" actor is Virgin Galactic's 500th customer.

Whitney Houston's cause of death was revealed. The L.A. County Coroner's report ruled her official cause of death as accidental drowning.

Hilary Duff is a mom! The actress and singer gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, named Luca Cruz, on March 20.

Nine suspected gang members and associates were charged Friday in a sexual attack on a 14-year-old girl who was forced back inside an abandoned St. Paul house and raped after trying to leave a party last November, authorities said.

The girl and her friend were picked up at school by one of the men and lured to a party with suspected members of the TB22, or True Blood 22, street gang, prosecutors said.

"This crime was every parent's nightmare," Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a statement. "Crimes like these shock the conscience of our community."

According to a criminal complaint, the girl wanted to leave the Nov. 17 party at the abandoned St. Paul house but was pulled from a car and carried back inside.

"The victim reported grabbing whatever she could, including door frames, to stop them from bringing her into the bedroom," the complaint said. The girl told a nurse that once she was forced onto a mattress on the floor inside the bedroom, a group of men held her down while she struggled and yelled for help.

One of the defendants told police at least two men raped the girl, according to the complaint.

Citing complaints and petitions filed in Ramsey County District Court, the St. Paul Star Tribune reported the alleged victim heard one suspect say, "Are you in? I call second."

Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich slammed Barack Obama on Friday, saying the president's remarks about the fatal February shooting of Trayvon Martin were "disgraceful."

President Barack Obama addressed Martin's death during a Rose Garden appearance earlier Friday, framing the tragedy in personal terms by saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Gingrich responded to Obama's remarks during a "Hannity Radio" interview:

What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.

Gingrich's comments came amid boiling public outrage over the death of Martin -- an unarmed, 17-year-old African American shot by a volunteer neighborhood watchman. The former House speaker commented on the shooting Thursday during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, calling it a "tragedy."

If you're traveling 80 miles per hour, how long does it take you to go 80 miles?

That's the relatively simple math question Travis Chambers posed to wife Chelsea on a road trip from Logan, Utah, to Boise, Idaho, to visit her family while his camera was rolling.

Her husband posted the video on YouTube, titling it, "The real meaning of MPH," where her muddled math has unexpectedly racked up more than 3.5 million views.

"I don't know. Because if I run the mile in like 9 minutes, then, I mean but that's when I'm out of shape," she says in the video. "When I'm really in shape it's like 7 minutes … and that takes me a mile. And we're going 80 miles. And I'm running 10 mph, if that."

Using her own running speed as a basis, and taking into account the tire speed, weight of the car, and whether it's a stick or an automatic, she uses roundabout logic to come up with an educated guess.

"It's got to take like 58 minutes or something," she says, not too far off from the correct answer of 60 minutes.

"Think about 80 miles per hour," her husband says, teasing her as he keeps making faces to the camera. "So how long does it take me to go 80 miles if I'm going 80 miles per hour."

"You are driving faster than a minute a mile," she says to him. "I would whack 80 in half and that's 40."

His teasing continues: "Think about the term MPH. So if I say I'm driving 80 MPH."

"I make sense, you do not make sense," she tells him. "You don't even know the answer."

There's a moment toward the end of the video where she asks him to stop filming. Finally, he relents and tells her the answer: "The answer is 1 hour. Your guess was close."

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!

Paris Hilton was spotted in Miami on Wednesday sporting a rather interesting-looking ensemble. Her summery dress was peculiar, to say the least! What do you think of Paris' boho-style cover-up? Plus, AnnaSophia Robb has some big shoes to fill playing the young Carrie Bradshaw in the new CW show "The Carrie Diaries." We've got a first look at her on set and the scoop on who from the original show reached out to the young actress. Also on this episode, talk about fresh to death, "Jersey Shore's" Deena Nicole steps out in Las Vegas looking very different!

Pakistan snatched a two-run victory over Bangladesh in the final to win the Asia Cup cricket tournament at the Shere Bangla National Stadium here tonight.

Bangladesh did well to restrict Pakistan to 236 for nine in their allotted 50 overs, but
Scoreboard of Asia Cup final but fell short of the trget by two runs, ending up with 234 for eight.

Opener Tamim Iqbal (60) and Shakib Al Hasan (68) batted well to bring the hosts within hand-shaking distance of the title, but they failed to make it in the end.
Pakistan win Asia Cup 2012

Pakistan win Asia Cup 2012 (Photo Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Aizaz Cheema was Pakistan’s most successful bowler today with three for 46, while Saeed Ajmal and Umar Gul picked up two wickets apiece.

Earlier, the Bangladesh bowlers put up a spirited performance to restrict Pakistan to 236 for nine.

Wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed, who replaced fast bowler Wahab Riaz in the match, was the top scorer for Pakistan with an unbeaten 46 while opening batsman Mohammed Hafeez made 40. Shahid Afridi made a quickfire 32 while Umar Akmal and Hammad Azam made 30 each.

Have you ever dreamed of a place where the warm sun dries Iker Casillas' tears before they reach his cheek, the Persian Gulf breeze blows through Xabi Alonso's beard and Pepe stomps someone to death on the beach? Then welcome to Real Madrid Resort Island -- a holiday resort on an artificial island in the United Arab Emirates scheduled to open in January 2015.
A presentation at the Bernabeu on Thursday showed plans for sports facilities, a marina, luxury hotels and villas, an amusement park, a club museum and a 10,000-seat stadium with one side open to the sea.

"It is a decisive and strategic step that will strengthen our institution in the Middle East and Asia," said Real president Florentino Perez.

The 4.6 million-square-foot venture is in partnership with the government of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah and is expected to attract a million visitors in its first year of operation. But since that's a whole three years away, Jose Mourinho probably won't be one of them.

Hopefully Barcelona will build its own island right next to Real Madrid's, but make it so everything is miniature and inhabited by Ewoks.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday said Republicans should give President Barack Obama another term if Santorum isn’t the GOP nominee and for a second day compared rival Mitt Romney to an Etch A Sketch toy.

Santorum reiterated an argument he has made before: The former Massachusetts governor is not conservative enough to offer voters a clear choice in the fall election and that only he can provide that contrast.

“You win by giving people a choice,” Santorum said during a campaign stop in Texas. “You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there.”

Santorum added: “If they’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.”

Santorum was referencing Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom’s comment Wednesday that “everything changes” for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said on CNN. “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

The remark reignited criticism of Romney as the type of politician who will say or do anything to win.

Romney, who made no public appearances Thursday, issued a statement expressing disappointment “that Rick Santorum would rather have Barack Obama as president than a Republican.”

“This election is more important than any one person. It is about the future of America,” he said. “Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure.”

Rival Newt Gingrich tweeted: “Rick Santorum is dead wrong. Any GOP nominee will be better than Obama.”

During his speech to employees of USAA, a San Antonio-based insurance and financial services firm, Santorum briefly held up an Etch A Sketch and said his positions don’t change like etchings on the toy, which are erased with a shake. He could be seen fiddling with the toy’s knobs in the intervals between questions from audience members.

Addressing reporters afterward, Santorum lit into Romney for saying “I’m going to run as a conservative.”

“He didn’t say ‘I am a conservative.’ He said ‘I’m going to run as a conservative.’ So what do you do, you just sort of decide what you’re going to be for the elections?” Santorum asked. “No one can accuse me of that. People say, ‘Well, you can’t win because of that.’ No, I will win because of it.”

It looks like someone won't be invited to the White House any time soon. While hosting a benefit for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign in New York City on Monday night, Robert De Niro made a racial joke while introducing First Lady Michelle Obama. "Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney," the Oscar-winning actor began in front of an audience that included Beyonce, Whoopi Goldberg, and Harvey Weinstein. "Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?"

Almost immediately, White House aides scrambled to make it clear that De Niro's comment "was inappropriate," said the First Lady's Campaign Press Secretary, Olivia Alair. Realizing his gaffe, the 68-year-old also publicly vetoed his "joke." In a statement to E! News on Tuesday, De Niro apologized, saying, "My remarks, although spoken with satirical jest, were not meant to offend or embarrass anyone, especially the first lady."

But the damage was already done. As expected, Obama's Republican rivals came out swinging in defense of their better halves — and for the "Meet the Fockers" star's racial remarks. "I do want to say one thing, both on behalf of my wife and on behalf of Karen Santorum and on behalf of Ann Romney, I think that Robert De Niro's wrong," said Newt Gingrich from the campaign trail. "I think the country is ready for a new first lady, and he doesn't have to describe it in racial terms." As for Rick Santorum, he merely dismissed De Niro's joke as nonsense coming from a Hollywood actor "spouting off as they do. The idea of looking at politics through eyes of race should be over … I don't know where he thinks he's coming from."

The budget proposes sweeping changes to the popular government-run Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, a politically risky gambit for Republicans who faced a voter backlash last year when they offered a similar plan.

It also seeks to cap discretionary federal spending on education, transportation and other government programs at $1.029 trillion, roughly $18 billion less than Democrats want. That sets up a battle over spending that, if unresolved, could lead to a government shutdown later this year.

While its proposals have little chance of becoming law due to opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate, Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking for the plan from Congressman Paul Ryan to provide a lift to their re-election fortunes in November.

After a string of debacles ranging from last summer's debt-limit standoff to a near-revolt over extending a payroll tax cut, Republicans want to get back to their core message of shrinking the size of government. They claim an advantage over Obama on spending, debt and taxation and intend to use Ryan's budget plan to exploit it.

Where Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and boost near-term spending on infrastructure and education, the Republicans want to cut taxes and spending on healthcare and social safety net programs - benefits used more by the poor and middle classes.

The Republican budget plan would produce deficits totaling $3.13 trillion in the next 10 years - less than half the $6.39 trillion in deficits the Congressional Budget Office says Obama's fiscal 2013 budget plan would rack up.

The Republican plan claims to put U.S. debt on a downward path, to 62.3 percent of U.S. economic output by 2022, versus Obama's 76.3 percent, which is slightly above current levels.

Ryan said in the document that U.S. debt growth, if left unchecked, would spark a debilitating European-style debt crisis.

"The growing possibility of such a crisis is creating debilitating uncertainty about the future, hurting job creation and economic growth today," he wrote.

DISMANTLING HEALTHCARE REFORM

The Republican budget achieves much of its deficit-reduction goals through savings gained by dismantling Obama's 2010 healthcare reform law and by turning social safety net programs like food stamps and the Medicaid program for the poor into block grants for states.

After proposing last year to convert Medicare into a voucher-like program to allow seniors to purchase private health insurance, Ryan has modified his reforms in a bid to blunt criticism that it would shift too many costs onto the elderly.

Marlins President David Samson says using aquariums as a backstop "screams Miami," but animal rights activists think it screams animal abuse. Experts on fish wellbeing are undecided on the matter.

First, despite their position in the line of fire, the stadium aquariums won't bust. According to Mat Roy, president of Living Color Aquariums, which manufactured the tanks, Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez helped test their extra-sturdy front panels by hurling baseballs at them. They didn't crack.

But even if the 100 fish inside the tanks are sure to stay wet, activists have another concern. "I can tell you even if the glass doesn't shatter, [stadium noise is] going to cause a tremendous vibration and disturb and upset the fish," Animal Rights Foundation of Florida spokesman Don Anthony told the local press.

To minimize vibrations from a stadium full of rowdy fans, the temperature-controlled aquariums are suspended on a flexible material called neoprene, but activists think that isn't sufficient. "No matter how many shock absorbers they build into the system, if there are thousands of fans screaming and jumping during a sporting event it's going to affect the fish in there," Anthony said.

So, will noise and stadium vibrations actually upset the fish?

Amrit Bart, professor of aquaculture and director of the Asian Institute of Technology in Vietnam, has studied the effects of vibrations and ambient noise on fish health and reproduction. "Our preliminary study showed that chronic exposure to low-frequency, high-amplitude sound may affect reproduction," Bart told Life's Little Mysteries.

Police in India say 15 people were killed when a train collided with an overcrowded taxi minivan at an unmanned railroad crossing in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Police spokesman Surendra Srivastava says the taxi driver is suspected of ignoring a signal that the train was approaching and crossing the rail tracks.

The minivan had capacity for 10 people but was carrying 19 when the train slammed into its rear Tuesday morning and threw it off the track near Hathras, about 200 miles (350 kilometers) southwest of the state capital, Lucknow.

The driver and 14 passengers were killed on the spot. The four others are being treated at a hospital for injuries.

At least 26 explosions struck cities and towns across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 49 people and wounding more than 200, despite a massive security clampdown ahead of next week's Arab League summit in Baghdad.

It was Iraq's bloodiest day in nearly a month, and the breadth of coordinated bombs in more than a dozen cities showed an apparent determination by insurgents to prove that the government cannot keep the country safe ahead of the summit.

Iraq is due to host the meeting for the first time in 20 years and the government is anxious to show it can maintain security following the withdrawal of U.S. troops in December.

"The goal of today's attacks was to present a negative image of the security situation in Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.

"Security efforts will be escalated to counteract terrorist groups' attacks and to fill loopholes used by them to infiltrate security, whether in Baghdad or other provinces."

Tuesday's deadliest incident occurred in the southern Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Kerbala, where twin explosions killed 13 people and wounded 48 during the morning rush hour, according to Jamal Mahdi, a Kerbala health department spokesman.

"The second explosion caused the biggest destruction. I saw body parts, fingers, hands thrown on the road," 23-year-old shop owner Murtadha Ali Kadhim told Reuters.

"The security forces are stupid because they always gather at the site of an explosion and then a second explosion occurs. They become a target."

Blasts also struck in the capital, in Baiji, Baquba, Daquq, Dibis, Dhuluiya, Kirkuk, Mosul, Samarra and Tuz Khurmato to the north, in Falluja and Ramadi to the west, and Hilla, Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Mussayab to the south. Police defused bombs in Baquba, Falluja and Mosul.

Most of the blasts targeted police checkpoints and patrols.

"This latest spate of attacks is very likely to have been co-ordinated by a large and well-organised group. It is likely an attempt to show the authorities that their security measures are insignificant," said John Drake, a senior risk consultant at AKE Group, which studies security in Iraq for corporate clients.

Army and police forces are frequently targeted in Iraq, where bombings and shootings still occur on a daily basis. Sunni Muslim insurgent groups say that despite the withdrawal of U.S. forces, they will not lay down arms and will continue to battle the Shi'ite-led government.

Although overall violence has declined since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, Iraqis worry whether their government has the wherewithal to impose security nine years after the U.S.-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Making a hit movie on a budget is as hard as Hollywood makes it look. "We're in a business where the solution is almost always to write a check," said Joe Drake, the departing co-chief operating officer of Lionsgate, the studio behind "The Hunger Games."

"The Hunger Games" opens Friday, tracking toward an opening weekend ticket take of perhaps more than $100 million. The movie, about a future dystopia that pits teens in televised fights to the death, cost around $80 million to make. That amount probably wouldn't cover the loin-cloth budget alone of the recent $250 million flop "John Carter."

So how did "The Hunger Games" fool the movie gods of profligacy? The Huffington Post chatted with Drake last week to recount the beans and shed light on a little-known fact -- that movies the masses want to see can be made for less than the GNP of a small nation.

"The absolute last resort is solving something with money," Drake said. "Very often, that turns out to be the best creative solution. It requires you to deal with it in the storytelling."

It should be pointed out that Lionsgate, home to the "Saw" horror franchise, has seen rough times lately. It weathered a takeover bid by Carl Icahn and its stock price dropped 45 percent in a four-year period, according to Bloomberg. But it recently gained muscle when it bought Summit, the studio mother of the "Twilight" movies. Those films, based, like "The Hunger Games, on a popular trilogy of books, earned $2.3 billion, a figure "Games" hopes to match or even surpass.

Financial burdens never stopped a studio from ripping open its wallet, but Lionsgate resisted.

Here are the steps that paved the film's road to profit.

The Source Material: Lionsgate secured the rights to Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" in 2009 before it became a household name. At that point, Drake said the studio determined it would work in part to increase book sales, thereby raising the visibility of the movie.

"The Hunger Games," the first of a trilogy, had sold about 250,000 copies when Lionsgate acquired it, Drake said. By the time the film went into production last May, the three novels had sold a combined 8 million. When production wrapped in September, the total had climbed to 12 million. The New York Times reported Sunday that there are now 24 million copies in print. "The velocity of sales is exponential," Drake said.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Collins received hundreds of thousands of dollars for the option on her three books, but will make millions if the movie and at least one planned sequel strike gold. For comparison's sake, Warner Bros. paid "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling $1 million in 1999 for the first four of her novels, and the first film, released in 2001, cost $125 million to make.

A renewed effort to determine what happened to aviator Amelia Earhart's plane when it disappeared over the Pacific 75 years ago is expected to be announced today as a recently discovered photo taken months after she vanished is believed to show her plane's landing gear.

The privately funded half-million dollar effort, which is anticipated to begin in July, is expected to be announced by a historical group and the U.S. government.

Analysis of a photo uncovered in 2010 of a plane wreck off the Kiribati islands has led specialists to believe there is a "possibility" that the wheel in the grainy photo could be from the airplane the Electra, the plane Earhart flew, a senior State Department official said late Monday night.

The official added that it was enough to warrant exploration but "a very healthy dose of skepticism must be in play."

"We're not making any bets," the official said, adding that Earhart's disappearance remains one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries. "It's not what you find, but what you're searching for."

The actual picture is not expected to be unveiled until the event and presentation set to take place this morning, which will be attended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, famed undersea explorer Dr. Robert Ballard and the foreign minister of Kirabati. All three are expected to speak at the event in Washington, D.C.

The "event will underscore America's spirit of adventure and courage, as embodied by Amelia Earhart, and our commitment to seizing new opportunities for cooperation with Pacific neighbors founded on the United States' long history of engagement in the Asia-Pacific region," the State Department said in a statement.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, also known as Tighar www.tighar.org, which works on the Kiribati islands, has launched a mission to try and search the area where the picture was taken, and use sophisticated Sonar capabilities to see what might be there.

The State Department and Tighar are also working with undersea explorer Ballard, of Titanic fame, on the project.

The search will focus on the remote Pacific atoll called Nikumaroro, which is approximately half way between Australia and Hawaii, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The deserted island of Nikumaroro, which lies 1,800 miles south of Hawaii, was in the line of Earhart's flight path as she flew from New Guinea to Howland Island in July of 1937, when she and navigator Fred Noonan might have gone down during an attempted around-the-world flight.

"John Carter" is now officially a flop of galactic proportions.

The Walt Disney Co. said Monday that it expects to book a loss of $200 million on the movie in the quarter through March. That ranks it among Hollywood's all-time biggest money-losers.

Directed by Pixar's Andrew Stanton, the 3-D effects-laden movie about a Civil War veteran transplanted to Mars was already headed to the "Red Ink Planet," according to Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz. Yet he expected a write-down of about half that size.

Disney said "John Carter" has brought in about $184 million in ticket sales worldwide so far. But ticket sales are split roughly in half with theater owners. The movie's production budget is estimated to be about $250 million with about $100 million more spent on marketing.

The movie was based on a series of books written by the late Edgar Rice Burroughs, starting with "A Princess of Mars" in 1912 and ending with "John Carter of Mars," published posthumously in 1964.

There was plenty of material for sequels and prequels but they seem highly unlikely now.

With a 51 percent "Tomatometer" rating on movie site Rotten Tomatoes, the film got average reviews, though AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire called it "massively confusing" and "deadly dull."

The poor reception was a shock given Stanton's directing success with movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E," each of which won an Oscar for best animated feature.

Disney said the loss on "John Carter" will cause its studio to lose $80 million to $120 million for the quarter. Profits from other movies and home video disc sales will be more than wiped out.

Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce said the studio's projected loss is more than double what he had expected, and that will cause him to trim his estimate for Disney's earnings. The hefty spending on production and marketing is causing the Burbank, Calif., company to book the loss sooner than might be the case for a smaller-budget film.

Marilyn Manson and Johnny Depp have teamed up to cover Carly Simon's 1972 hit "You're So Vain," HuffPost Entertainment exclusively reports.

The controversial singer and eccentric actor have long been friends. Depp invited Manson to be his guest at a "Pirates Of The Caribbean" premiere, and now, it seems, they've sung a duet.

Their cover of "You're So Vain" will be included on Manson's upcoming album, Born Villain, due out May 1. (Listen to "No Reflection," the first single off the album, below.)

The collaboration is not the first between the two pop culture icons, as a remix of Manson's song "The Nobodies" was featured in Depp's 2001 film, "From Hell."

Manson has been busy prepping the album, which is his eighth studio release. Though he's known as a prince of the alternative scene, Manson has enjoyed a great deal of commercial success, including three platinum and two Billboard number one albums.

"The Beautiful People," perhaps Manson's best known song, caused a sensation when it was released in 1996. The track features a Trent Reznor-assisted, industrial style

Listen up Guy Ritchie. Madonna doesn't really care that your marriage failed. In fact, if her newly-leaked single says anything, it's that she "Don't Give A."

With lyrics like, "You were so mad at me / who's got custody / lawyers / suck it up / didn't have a prenup," followed by "I tried to be a good girl / tried to be your wife / diminish myself / swallowed my life," it's pretty clear that Madge's "I Don't Give A," the latest track off her upcoming MDNA album, is a response to Madonna's ill-fated marriage to Ritchie.

Madonna's Super Bowl collaborator Nicki Minaj -- no, not the one who flashed her middle finger during the halftime show -- is also featured on the track, lending her rhymes to throw a few jabs and volvos, Aldo shoes and yes, Ritchie. "I was cutting him checks / I was his boss," raps Minaj.

This isn't the first song from Madonna's MDNA to leak online. "Superstar," a sweet follow-up to 1998's ode to new motherhood "Little Star," features her daughter Lourdes Leon, 15, singing backup on the track.

"I'm Addicted," Madge's techno love song, was leaked in early March, and blogger Perez Hilton has reportedly nabbed the entire album (and will be leaking the tracks up until the album's release on March 26).

In the final moments of his life, Trayvon Martin was being hounded by a strange man on a cellphone who ran after him, cornered him and confronted him, according to the teenage girl whose call logs show she was on the phone with the 17-year-old boy in the moments before neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot him dead.

Martin's death Feb. 26 has stirred national outrage and protests, partly prompting the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the FBI to open an investigation into the case.

ABC News was there exclusively as the 16-year-old girl told Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump about the last moments of the teenager's life.

"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," Martin's friend said. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run."

Eventually he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin.

"Trayvon said, 'What, are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone."

The line went dead. Besides screams heard on 911 calls that night as Martin and Zimmerman scuffled, those were the last words he said.

Trayvon's phone logs, also obtained exclusively by ABC News, show the conversation occurred five minutes before police first arrived on scene. The young woman's parents asked that her name not be used, and that only an attorney could ask her questions.

Martin's father, Tracey Martin, and mother, Sybrina Fulton, listened to the call along with ABC News, ashen-faced.

Chris Mullin didn't think he'd see his No. 17 Golden State jersey hanging from the rafters at Oracle Arena, not after a bitter parting with the Warriors three years ago.

But Mullin has found a way to overcome a lot during his life and Hall of Fame basketball career, including a contentious halftime ceremony Monday night.

Mullin was honored at the half of Golden State's 97-93 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and while fans celebrated Mullin's career, they also took time to voice their displeasure with new co-owner Joe Lacob.

Lacob talked about "embracing history and respect" as he prepared to unveil Mullin's No. 17 hanging in the rafters at Oracle Arena, but angry fans showed little respect for the owner on Mullin's special night. A chorus of boos rained down on the new co-owner who, along with Peter Guber, took over the franchise in 2010. Last week the franchise traded star Monta Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Mullin and fellow Warriors great Rick Barry separately interrupted Lacob -- taking the microphone to come to the owner's defense during the ceremony.

"As the greatest fans in the NBA ... sometimes change is inevitable, and it's going to work out just fine," Mullin said. "With your support and patience, and use that passion in the right direction ... this thing is going in the right way. I've got great confidence in Joe, [coach] Mark Jackson and everything will work out just fine. Just a little bit of patience."

When the boos restarted for Lacob, Barry took the opportunity to chastise the crowd.

"This is crazy. Seriously. Come on, you're doing yourself a disservice," Barry said. "All of the wonderful accolades being sent to you [the fans], for you to treat this man [Lacob] who is spending his money to do the best that he can to turn this franchise around -- and I know he's going to do it. So give him the respect he deserves."

Lacob eventually finished the presentation for the former St. John's star and current ESPN analyst who went on to become a five-time All-Star after entering the NBA as a first-round pick in 1985.

After the game, Lacob expressed his feelings to the media.

"Look, fans are upset, I guess, that we traded one of their favorites (Ellis) and that's all I can attribute that to," Lacob said, as quoted by the San Jose Mercury News. "What I feel bad about is it kind of ruined a night that was very special, that the organization really tried to do the right thing for with Chris. And I feel good that we did that. I feel bad for Chris, more than anything else."

Lacob said the uncomfortable situation also got to Mullin as he spoke quietly to the owner before addressing the fans. Lacob summarized Mullin's thoughts, saying, as quoted by the Mercury News, "He (Mullin) was upset. He was upset with the situation."

Earlier in the evening, Mullin was having too much fun remembering his playing days and joking with former teammates to get caught up in a discussion about any lingering resentment he might have toward his former employers. READ MORE

Last week, Samsung started rolling out the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Galaxy S2 in some regions of the world. Sammy’s version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the S2 barely brought any of the UI changes introduced by Google in Android 4.0, and things mostly looked similar to how Android 2.3 Gingerbread looked on the handset.

Thankfully, the CM team has already released the CM9 for the SGS2 since quite a few weeks ago. However, the ROM is in alpha and contains some bugs, including poor battery life and no video recording. This is because of the lack of Ice Cream Sandwich sources from Samsung. Nevertheless, just a few days after releasing the official ICS update, Samsung has also released the sources of the update.

What does this mean, you ask? This will help the developers in fixing, hopefully, all the bugs current present in AOSP Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs for the S2. It will also allow them to compile custom kernels with overclocking support, better performance and tweaked for battery life.READ THIS

Earlier today, Apple announced that it will offer a $45 billion dividend and share repurchase program. In addition, during the call, one analyst asked if Apple would be issuing a press release about last weekend’s launch sales numbers for the iPad. Apple said they had a “record weekend” and were “thrilled with it.”

Later this afternoon, Apple announced that it has 3 million new iPads in less the four days of availability, calling it the “strongest iPad launch yet.” 3 million sold of something that nobody wanted and is just an “incremental upgrade”. Pretty amazing if you ask me.

CUPERTINO, California―March 19, 2012―Apple® today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad®, since its launch on Friday, March 16. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.**

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”READ MORE DETAIL

Robert Bales, the staff sergeant accused of massacring Afghan civilians, enlisted in the U.S. Army at the same time he was trying to avoid answering allegations he defrauded an elderly Ohio couple of their life savings in a stock fraud, according to federal documents reviewed by ABC News.

"He robbed me of my life savings," Gary Liebschner of Carroll, Ohio told ABC News.

Financial regulators found that Bales "engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, churning, unauthorized trading and unsuitable investments," according to a report on Bales filed in 2003. Bales and his associates were ordered to pay Liebschner $1,274,000 in compensatory and punitive damages but have yet to do so, according to Liebschner.

"We didn't know where he was," Liebschner told ABC News. "We heard the Bahamas, and all kinds of places."

Liebschner says he recognized Bales after news reports named him as the American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a shooting rampage.

Liebschner filed a complaint against Bales in May 2000, claiming Bales took his life savings of $852,000 in AT&T stock and through a series of trades reduced its value to nothing.

The Ohio retiree recalled Bales as a "smooth talker." Asked if he regarded Bales as a con man, Liebschner said, "You've hit the nail on the head."

The State Department plans to join a new effort to find the plane of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, 75 years after she mysteriously disappeared over the South Pacific.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will take part in a ceremony Tuesday morning announcing the joint public-private search at the State Department, The Wall Street Journal reports. The event, "Amelia Earhart, a Pacific Legacy," which is pitched as a celebration of the U.S.'s pan-Pacific ties, will be streamed live at 9 a.m. on the State Department's website, a spokesman for the agency said.

Earhart's twin-engine Lockheed vanished July 2, 1937, as she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, left New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea) on their way to Howland Island in the South Pacific as part of an attempt to circle the Earth.

The half-million-dollar search, financed with private funds, will begin in July. The key area is the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro between Hawaii and Australia, The Journal reports:

A search team will concentrate on the deep waters near Nikumaroro, which was the site of a 2010 search that focused on coral reefs and nearby shallow waters, these people said.

Did Ayers’ mother believe Obama was a foreign student?

And was the young Obama convinced at the time – long before he even entered politics – that he was going to become president of the United States?

A retired U.S. Postal Service carrier who delivered mail to Tom and Mary Ayers in a Chicago suburb in the late 1980s and early 1990s and claims to have met Obama in front of the Ayers home emphatically says yes to all three questions.

Allen Hulton, who was commended for 39 years of honorable service with the USPS, has given a sworn affidavit to investigators commissioned by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio to determine whether Obama is eligible for Arizona’s 2012 election ballot. Hulton has recorded about three hours of video interviews with WND.

Hulton says that in conversations with Mary Ayers while on his route he learned of the couple’s enthusiasm and support for a black foreign student. One bright, warm Chicagoland day, he recounts, he met the student who fit Mary Ayers’ description in front of the Ayers home in Glen Ellyn, Ill. That young man, Hulton is convinced, was Barack Obama.

Hulton delivered mail to the Ayers, who are both deceased, when he was stationed at the post office in Glen Ellyn, an upper-middle class suburb 25 miles west of downtown Chicago, from late 1986 to 1997. He was a USPS employee from March 28, 1962, through March 30, 2001. (Editor’s note: Although the Ayers family no longer lives there, WND is withholding the Glen Ellyn street address for the sake of the current residents’ privacy.)

“It was a beautiful neighborhood – one of the nicer routes any of the letter carriers would have liked to have had,” Hulton recalls. “It had some large and very beautiful homes.”

As WND reported yesterday, Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers – whom he dismissed in a 2008 debate as “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood” – plagued him in the 2008 presidential campaign and could resurface in this year’s election, as many questions remain.

Over a period of years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hulton estimates he spoke with Mary Ayers about 18 to 20 times and once to Tom Ayers, who died in 2007. Mary Ayers died in 2000.

“Sometimes Mary would be out when I delivered the mail, and we would exchange a few words on occasion,” he says, recalling that she liked to talk about her family.

“One day, Mary came to the door when I came up to the house with the mail,” he remembers. “After a greeting, she started enthusiastically talking to me about this young black student they were helping out, and she referred to him as a foreign student.”

In what is likely the most heartwarming video you'll see all day, a Canada-based lesbian couple took to the ice of a hockey game during intermission for a crowd-thrilling marriage proposal.

As Yahoo Sports is reporting, a Toronto Maple Leafs fan named Alicia was escorted onto the ice wearing a blindfold. When the blindfold was removed, she looked up at the video scoreboard and read a message from her girlfriend, an Ottawa Senators fan named Christina.

The pair embraced before Christina got down on one knee and slid the engagement ring onto Alicia's hand. After the couple shared a kiss, the Senators mascot raised a sign that declared: "SHE SAID YES."

Feeling romantic? Check out some of our favorite same-sex kisses below:
U.S Navy Petty Officers Share Same-Sex Kiss

A Navy tradition caught up with the 2011 repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule when Marissa Gaeta And Citlalic Snell, two U.S. naval petty officers, became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the pier after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.

Two-year-old Makena is the newest pint-sized, pop-song-covering Internet super star thanks to her heart-filled rendition of Adele's "Someone Like You."

Making the Internet rounds over the weekend, the video sees the adorable Makena singing along with the hit song, occasionally missing a word here and there, but bringing it home during the chorus. Her parents' barely contained laughter behind the camera adds an additional layer to the cuteness.
READ MORE

President Obama's signature on an executive order that updates presidential authority to take control over national defense resources in time of emergency has legal minds arguing over whether the White House is trying to expand power or merely organize rules 18 years in the making.

The executive order, signed late Friday, revokes an earlier order put in place by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and says any other previously issued orders or rulings by previous presidents shall remain in effect unless they are inconsistent with the new order.

The purpose of the order, according to its contents, is to make sure the U.S. is prepared to mobilize technological and industrial resources "capable of meeting national defense requirements" and ensure "technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency."

It orders Cabinet agencies to determine military and civilian staffing and evaluate access to resources like suppliers, materials, skilled labor and professional and technical personnel. It also is intended to ensure the U.S. government is prepared "in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States."

The executive order gives the homeland security secretary authority to issue guidance to other department heads to establish and activate a National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) composed of experts in the private and public sector -- though not full-time federal employees -- to fill executive positions in the federal government in the event of a national defense emergency.

That includes employing consultants or other experts without compensation. The labor secretary can also begin training workers to help address national defense requirements.

The order scopes out the different roles of the National Security Council, Homeland Security Council and National Economic Council in advising the president -- giving the secretary of homeland security authority to provide for the central coordination of the plans and programs delegated under the order.

It also gives authority to the secretary of Commerce to determine how to get the industrial base to support the national defense and meet defense program needs. The Agriculture Department will take care of food resources while the Defense Department will handle water resources in addition to its military role. The heads of the Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation departments also are responsible for their jurisdictions.

The order notes that unless determined otherwise by the president or his national security adviser, the authority "may be used only to support programs that have been determined in writing as necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense."

This order came on the heals of another presidential order a few days prior that reiterated the United States' "national emergency" stance toward Iran -- a rather routine measure that has been repeated every year since 1995 but that might have caused some confusion.

Several legal eagle bloggers say there's nothing to fear.

"There is enough that Obama actually does wrong without creating claims which do not hold up to scrutiny," wrote William Jacobson, associate clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and blogger for the Legal Insurrection blog.

Britain's Got Talent is back on the road with the judges trawling the length and breadth of the UK in search of Britain's best talent.

Hosted by award-winning TV favourites Ant & Dec, the show sees the return of Simon Cowell, joined on the exciting new panel by actor and comedian David Walliams, singer, songwriter and dancer Alesha Dixon, and returning judge, Amanda Holden.

This year the winner will not only have the opportunity to perform at the 2012 Royal Variety Performance, they will also receive £500,000 - £250,000 of which will come from Simon Cowell's own pocket.

Judging by the pictures below, we can expect the unexpected on Britain's Got Talent, where anything goes, from dance troupes to acrobats, magicians to comedians and dancing dogs to mind-blowing contortionists. The show is open to any performer of any age, from any background, with any talent - all they need is a skill and star quality which they think will impress the Judges.

The FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida will investigate the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old Florida high school student, who was shot by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman.

"The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation," a statement released by the Justice Department this evening said. "The department also is providing assistance to and cooperating with the state officials in their investigation into the incident."

George Zimmerman, who claimed self-defense in shooting Martin, has not been charged with any crime in the fatal shooting of the teenager on Feb. 26.

Outrage over the incident has only grown, as irregularities in the police investigation have been uncovered and 911 tapes released last week showed Zimmerman ignored a dispatcher's directive not to pursue the teen.

Zimmerman also blatantly violated major principles of the Neighborhood Watch manual, ABC News has learned.

The manual, from the National Neighborhood Watch Program, states: "It should be emphasized to members that they do not possess police powers, and they shall not carry weapons or pursue vehicles. They should also be cautioned to alert police or deputies when encountering strange activity. Members should never confront suspicious persons who could be armed and dangerous."

Yet Zimmerman made a nonemergency call to police and pursued him anyway, even though 911 dispatcher told him not to, before fatally shooting the teenager.

The Sanford, Fla., Police Department, relenting to massive public pressure, released parts of these 911 tapes pertaining to the shooting.

On the tapes, Zimmerman, claiming Martin looked intoxicated, says he saw the teenager cut through from the main street in the tidy Retreat at Twin Lakes, onto a path between two blocks of townhouses, and decided to gave chase. Zimmerman told a police dispatcher, "These a**holes, they always get away"

Dispatcher: "Are you following him?"

Dispatcher: "OK, we don't need you to do that."

Zimmerman didn't stop and ultimately confronted Martin, who was carrying a package of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea. The two allegedly scuffled. In a series of seven 911 calls, eyewitnesses reported that they heard a sort of howling. One caller said, "they're wrestling right in the back of my porch, one man is yelling help."

Then a gun shot rang out. The howling and yelling stopped.

Zimmerman wasn't arrested at the time, and ABC News has learned he was not given a drug or alcohol test that night -- standard in most homicide investigations.