Melissa Barton, the mother of an autistic boy who was voted out of class by his fellow kindergartners, is still hopping mad despite winning a $350,000 settlement against the Palm Beach County school system. The kindergarten teacher, Wendy Portillo, had the bad manners to ask students to explain to 5-year-old Alex why they didn’t like…

Excerpt: Welfare has been extended by Congress this week, without any major changes, and is now on President Obama’s desk waiting to be signed into law. This is bad for two reasons. First, it doesn’t address some of the fundamental problems with the welfare program. TANF, or Temporary Aid for Needy Families, was changed in…

Straight from our “The world has gone mad” file, BV Blackspin is reporting that an 18-month-old Charleston, S.C., toddler is in critical condition after police investigators say he was beaten by three teens as he hung upside down by his ankles in a closet. The child’s mother, Shakera Wright, 18, told the Department of Social…

The Rev. Marcus Lamb is in the news again, this time for a lawsuit brought by a member of his staff at Daystar Television Network who claims she has been caused emotional distress by Lamb’s public acknowledgment of an extramarital affair. Jeanette Hawkins says that the out-of-wedlock tryst compromised the Christian values she expected in…

New York University photography professor Wafaa Bilal has surgically attached a camera to the back of his head to capture images for an art installation, which will be held at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. Bilal, an Iraqi who fled Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime, is known for provocative art installations. Recently,…

This foreclosure crisis is chock-full of complications. The Washington Post reports that the system of pooling and selling mortgages around the world has caused widespread confusion about who owns the loans, raising questions about whether banks in some cases have the legal standing to forclose on homes, a state judge and consumer attorneys testified before…

Will.i.am is on it. In addition to landing a deal exploring the “creative process” on the Oprah Winfrey Network, which will launch Jan. 1, 2011, the Black Eyed Peas lead singer has written and performed the song “Own It!” which will be used to promote OWN. The song, which is part of the company’s marketing…

Fresh from our “Are you kidding me?” file, the House passed a bill on Thursday that would prevent television advertisers from abruptly raising the volume to grab viewers’ attention. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), who was aggravated by her “earsplitting experiences” when watching television with her older parents, which was…

President Barack Obama’s debt commission will be voting today on recommendations on how “best” to attack the national deficit. CNN has pulled together a good synopsis of what’s on the table and outlined in the Bowles-Simpson plan. The four key “flash points” of the plan include Social Security, defense spending, the mortgage-interest deduction and the…

Leave it to the fashion world that is supposed to be so cutting edge and different to relegate dark-skinned models to the jungle. We’re talking about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which is the most watched runway show in the world. ColorLines’ Jorge Rivas was miffed that the show’s producers put the bulk of the…