New England Sun-Times

By CNN Staff   The youngest son of Pastor Rick Warren has committed suicide, according to a family statement released Saturday. Matthew Warren, 27, took his life following a lifelong battle with mental illness, Warren and his wife, Kay, said in the statement. "No words can express the anguished grief we feel right now," the statement said. In the statement, Rick Warren said his son struggled from birth with mental illness, "dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts." "In spite of America's best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided," he wrote. "Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his own life." As a pioneer of the megachurch movement, Warren looked to translate traditional evangelical messages for a wider audience. Rick Warren penned "The Purpose-Driven Life,...

 President Obama has been criticized for making his second-term Cabinet too much of a boys’ club, and a comment he made Thursday only served to resurrect the debate. After praising the legal abilities of California Attorney General Kamala Harris while at a fundraiser in the state, he added that she “also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.” To laughs, he continued, “It’s true! C’mon.” Social media and mainstream immediately hopped on the comment, with reactions running the gamut from “appalled to leave-the-guy-alone.” SOURCE: WASHINGTON POST

Students at Wilcox County High School in south Georgia share classrooms and sports fields, but they don’t share the same dances. Some students are aiming to change that. “We’re embarrassed, it’s embarrassing, yeah it’s kind of embarrassing,” said a group of students who want to change the policy. The group – Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, Quanesha Wallace and Keela Bloodworth – said they do everything together, except prom night. “We are all friends, that’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together,” Sinnot said. In a world full of color, Wilcox County High School still sees things in black and white. White and black students have different prom and homecoming dances. “There’s a white prom and then we have our integrated prom,” said Bloodworth. If any race other than Caucasian tries to attend the white prom, Bloodworth said they “would probably have the police come out there and escort them off the premises.” That was the case just last year a...

A Chesterfield County, Virginia minister of music who claimed he was the victim of a possible hate crime is now facing charges, after an investigation revealed he set two fires and painted a racial slur on his home. Authorities were called to a home on March 15 at about 4:30 a.m. A car and the porch of the home were on fire, and a racial slur was painted on the home. The homeowner, 41-year-old Olander Cuthrell, told 8News after the incident that he believed it was a hate crime. “It’s hard now sleeping… There’s no peace, there’s no sense of security,” he said. Now, police say they believe it was Cuthrell himself who set the fires and painted the racial slur on the home. Police say, “Allegations of Civil Rights violations, specifically claims of a Hate Crime, are serious matters, and the FBI assisted the Chesterfield County Police Department in its investigation of the incident.” Cuthrell has been arrested and faces two felony arson charges. He’s currently being h...

The FDA must make the morning-after pill available over-the-counter to women of all ages, a federal judge has ruled. It’s currently stocked behind the counter, and those under 17 need a prescription. The federal government has debated with itself over the morning-after pill in the past, with the FDA saying it should be available without restriction; but Kathleen Sebelius, head of Health and Human Services, overruled the FDA in 2011 and said it should be restricted for those under 17. SOURCE: USA TODAY

When asked by Steve Harvey what he hadn’t done that he wants to do. Tyler Perry said he wants to be a father more than anything. He also said he knows he’d be a great father.  “I don’t want to work this hard and have all this and not leave it to my children. I also know, that as hard as I’m working, doing 20 hours a day, now is not the time. Right now I’m enjoying what I’m doing, I’m enjoying   the work, I’m enjoying being a bachelor, so eventually, I’ll get there.” Steve Harvey put him on blast and said: “You ain’t got all this time you keep thinking you got. You ain’t Michael Douglas. You can’t wait ‘til you 70.” Tyler answered: “by 45, you’re really settled in, so maybe in two years when I’m 45.” When Steve Harvey told Tyler Perry he’d be 60 when his son is 15, Tyler Perry said: “I’ll hire someone to take him to the basketball court.” What do YOU say?

A Twitter apology was not enough to quiet the controversy surrounding Rick Ross‘ latest lyrics, for which he has been accused of promoting rape. Thursday, shortly after Ross tweeted a 69-character apology, a group of impassioned women and men gathered at Reebok’s flagship store in New York City to protest the sneaker company’s association with the rapper. Members of Ultra Violet, the event’s organizer, were holding boxes labeled with the number “72,000″ “These are 72,000 petitions signed by our members all over the country,” Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of Ultra Violet said. “They are also comments from people about why they feel Reebok needs to drop Rick Ross over his recent lyrics about drugging and raping a girl.” The crowd of approximately 40 people cheered on two speakers, including Wagatwe Wanjuki, who offered her testimonial as a rape victim; and Sonia Ossorio, president of NOW NYC, who slammed Ross for his whimsical take on the topic. “It is a hate cr...

Trayvon Martin’s parents have settled a wrongful death claim for an amount believed to be more than $1 million against the homeowners association of the Sanford subdivision where their teenage son was killed. Their attorney, Benjamin Crump, filed the paperwork at the Seminole County Courthouse, a portion of which was made public today. In the five pages of the settlement that were available for public review, the settlement amount had been marked out. Lower in the agreement, the parties specified that they would keep that amount confidential. When asked during an earlier interview whether the amount was higher than $1 million, Crump said: “I have no comment on that subject…I know you did not get that from me.” Trayvon was shot to death by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman at the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhomes in Sanford on Feb. 26, 2012. Zimmerman served as head of the Neighborhood Watch and called police that evening, de...

By CNN Staff Wesley Snipes in 2010, the year he was convicted on tax charges. Actor Wesley Snipes has been released from a federal prison where he was serving a three-year sentence after being convicted on tax charges in February 2010. The release to a supervised residential location in New York occurred Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons told CNN. Snipes, 50, who starred in the "Blade" action movies and "White Men Can't Jump," had been serving time at a federal prison in Pennsylvania. A jury convicted him of willfully failing to file tax returns for 1999, 2000 and 2001. Snipes was acquitted of felony tax fraud and conspiracy charges. In June 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his sentence, which he had argued was too harsh for a misdemeanor conviction.

Shaeryll Hunter, the pregnant woman who is accused of pinning her pregnant rival with a car during an argument allegedly over a man, walked away and smiled after hearing charges against her read aloud in a Harris County courthouse Monday night. Hunter, 26, was arrested earlier that day after being on the run since allegedly crushing Alise Kelley’s legs with a car on March 28. Hunter has two children with Chris Chaney and is also five months pregnant with his third child. Kelley, Chaney’s new girlfriend, is also having his baby. She is four months pregnant. Police said that may be the main reason the two women were arguing . Chaney said the two women were arguing on the phone when Hunter got mad and drove to the house he shared with Kelley. “I was in my house asleep, and then one of my kids’ mothers came,” Chaney said the day the drama went down. “I mean, they been texting and talking over the phone saying they want to fight each other and meet up right here and...

A woman who is 8 months pregnant was tased by cops in Springfield, Illinois after she reported a car accident in the parking lot of Best Buy on Saturday. The woman in question is 29-year-old Lucinda White. Her boyfriend, 31-year-old Frederic Thomas was also tased and taken to jail for assaulting a police officer. Was it excessive force — tasing the pregnant woman — or did Springfield Police act accordingly? “I’m pulling on my daughter’s father. I did not touch a police officer. I know not to touch a police officer,” White said. Hell broke loose after the man she accuses of hitting her car at Best Buy denied it, and Springfield Police were called to resolve the situation. “I was face down in the pavement after being tased– that’s when I seen my daughter’s mother–knees in her back, stomach all in the concrete–face down,” Thomas said. Springfield Police say the couple’s behavior warranted officer restraint. “She was– her and her boyfriend were both actively fig...

New York police (NOT seen below) pepper-sprayed a woman and her family—including a five-month-old and two-year-old—after accusing her of trying to get on the subway without paying, a lawsuit picked up by the Courthouse News Service claims. Marilyn Taylor says she was getting on the subway with her four- and two-year-olds, five-month-old, and their father on Aug. 9; she took a stroller through a service entrance, which police took to mean she was skipping the fare, the complaint says. They stopped her, and then the “aggressiveness” began, according to the filing. After she knelt down to comfort her upset four-year-old, police pepper-sprayed her, hitting the whole family in the process, “The pepper-spray caused the children to scream out and choked the two-year old, who went into fits of vomiting.” Taylor was handcuffed and pushed hard enough to bruise. At her arraignment she was told the charges would be dismissed so long as she didn’t have another arrest wit...

New Orleans cops arrested a man accused of forcing a 10-year-old boy into a hot clothes dryer as punishment for forgetting to turn in school papers. An official at Lawrence Crocker College Preparatory School discovered the child’s burns on Oct. 29, the warrant says. The boy told the school official that he had been whipped with a belt and put into a hot clothes dryer by 34 year old Robert Smith. The boy’s mother had been admitted to a hospital, so the boy was left in Smith’s care. The school official reported the alleged abuse to the state Department of Children and Family Services. NOPD Child Abuse Detective Tyra Pruitt interviewed the child on Dec. 5. The boy told her that Smith hit him with a belt, kicked him in the chest and put him in the dryer along with some clothes. Pruitt wrote in the warrant that photographs of the child’s burns showed they were “circular and consistent in size with the air ventilation screen located inside the dryer.” Smith w...

A Florida man beat his girlfriend with his X-box and stabbed her to death as she slept because “she was the wrong star sign,” police have said. Darrius Johnson, 22, seen below, is accused of “sacrificing” his 23-year-old lover, Monica Gooden, on Sunday at the home they shared in Lauderhill after believing she was a Taurus. Cops say he initially planned to kill his grandfather, who was indeed born under the bull zodiac sign, but couldn’t carry out the crime as he lived too far away, in Florida City. Officers later revealed that Gooden, who was found in a back bedroom with stab wounds to her face, neck and stomach, was actually born in November. So the Broward College art student wasn’t even a Taurus, the sign of people born between April 20 and May 20. Lauderhill Police say Johnson allegedly killed Gooden, seen below, as she slept, then walked to a nearby apartment building and started to attack an elderly woman. He was stopped only when her nephew fought back ...