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Can you spell “soft bigotry of low expectations”?The never-ending battle over New York City’s advanced school programs continues. A top NYC school in June canceled plans to scrap accelerated math classes, following an outcry from enraged parents. Yet, after years of debate, city officials on Thursday announced they will eliminate an advanced program for four-year-olds before they enter kindergarten, claiming the program “further segregates students.”City officials say the new program will allow all kindergarteners to have access to accelerated learning.As reported by ABC7 in NYC, hapless Mayor Bill de Blasio claims the replacement program, named Brilliant NYC, will provide an...

Two years ago, Paul Potts, a chubby mobile phone salesman, wowed the British TV public with his performance of Puccini's "Nessum Dorma" to win "Brtiain's Got Talent", The British equivalent to "America's Got Talent". While good, I didn't think Potts to be that fantastic. However last weekend, the third season of "Britain's Got Talent" opened and another diamond in the rough emerged. This one is quite fantastic. Susan Boyle, a frumpy looking 47 year old Scottish spinster, who lives with her cat "Pebbles" and admits she's never been kissed, came out on stage and told the audience she wanted to...

You're gonna love this video - even if you're not into rap music. This guy has 10,000 times more talent than most of the gangsta rap punks who are making millions selling CD's with "fo-shizz" "smack ma-beetch" "shake yo booty" garbage. Click link for video.

Photo : AFP LONDON (AFP) - US pop star Madonna made a rare foray into politics, calling for her home country to withdraw its troops from Iraq during an interview with British radio."I just don't want American troops to be in Iraq, period," she said on BBC Radio."My feelings are 'can we just all get out?'," said the 46-year-old star, who lives mainly in London with British film director husband Guy Ritchie, who said she believes the US-led war will not help in the fight against terrorism.

Pop superstar Madonna's Re-Invention tour has been slammed by American critics - for overloading the show with "naive" political statements. The "American Life" singer, 45, kicked off the US leg of her tour in California on Monday but failed to impress critics with her attempts to "wipe the slate clean" by ditching her trademark raunchy routines. The Los Angeles Times sniped, "This promised to be Madonna's tour de force, a reappraisal that put her work in new and revealing contexts. But time and again she fell short of the challenge." Many critics were unimpressed by the images of the Iraq...

She did.Many fans of 'Saturday Night Live were wondering if singer Janet Jackson would duplicate her Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction last night-and she did.But the nature of the skit in which she bared her bosom was a surprise.Jackson was spoofing National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice testifying before the 9/11 commission. When the questioning got tough, Jackson-portraying Rice-opened her blouse and pretended to reveal her right breast-the same one seen by millions during her Super Bowl halftime appearance.This time her chest wes obscured by a gray blob superimposed by the network. As part of the skit, comedian Darrell Hammond-portraying Vice...

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is ruling out the prospect of returning to America to raise her child - because she deems her homeland too dangerous. The Oscar winning beauty - who is pregnant with her husband Chris Martin 's baby - has been living in London since settling down with the Coldplay star, and she has no intention of bringing up their child in a threatening environment. She says, "I worry about brining up a child in America. At the moment there's a weird, over-patriotic atmosphere over there, like, 'We're number one and the rest of the world doesn't matter.' And...

Former vice president Al Gore (news - web sites) may be supporting Howard Dean (news - web sites), but retired army general Wesley Clark (news - web sites) has support in his quest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination from ... Madonna (news - web sites). The Material Girl on Tuesday publicly threw her support behind the retired four-star general, one of nine Democrats seeking to replace George W. Bush in the November 2004 election. "I endorse him because I think he's a great guy," the pop superstar said on CNN Tuesday. "I think he's a natural born leader." Madonna...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 24 September, 2003, 11:09 GMT 12:09 UKMadonna book sells 8,000 copies This was Madonna's first attempt at children's fiction Madonna's children's book The English Roses has sold just over 8,000 copies in its first week in the UK. The book, launched amid a blaze of publicity, made it to number 17 in the national book chart, according to data company Nielsen Bookscan. It was the second bestselling children's book of the week, behind JK Rowling's fifth Harry Potter book. This week the top-selling book in the UK, David Beckham's autobiography My Side, sold 103,508 copies. Madonna's book,...

<p>The middle-aged serial slurper came to Midtown yesterday clad in an early Halloween costume - dowdy tweed suit and bushy hair - to role-play the part of an actual mom.</p> <p>We've seen this gal tied up, beaten down, with cones protruding from her bosom, and naked so frequently, it is to yawn. But Madonna's new, prissy act, unveiled on Fifth Avenue, was downright weird.</p>

Poor Madonna (news - web sites). In her new career as a writer of children's books, lightning has not struck twice. Her first effort, The English Roses, had skeptical critics baying with praise at how effectively she examines the subtle but cruel ways girls exclude those they envy or pity. The book has been translated into 37 languages, and it has been on the USA TODAY Best-Selling Books list since Sept. 22. Its highest rank was No. 7. In the second of Madonna's expected five books, Mr. Peabody's Apples, illustrated by Loren Long, the pop star and mother turns her...

LONDON: "Material Girl" Madonna is said to be gearing up for a fistfight with Warner Bros Records over differences about where her Maverick Records is heading. According to PeopleNews , a reason for the impending parting of the ways may be attributed to a rumour that Time Warner is lining up to sell off the Warner Music Group. Tension seems to be brewing, as renegotiations between the two warring parties is virtually non-existent, sources close to the disgruntled Warner executives, say. Others are even predicting "a nuclear lawsuit," with the big guns of parent company Time Warner lining up for...

Madonna's bestseller November 26, 2003 MADONNA'S second children's book Mr Peabody's Apples is on top of the New York Times best sellers list for children this week. The queen of pop has topped the book chart just eight weeks after her last number one with The English Roses. Children are loving Madonna's tales. As funny as it may sound, Madonna has kept The Cat In The Hat from going number one in the book world. The Cat In The Hat is being propelled by the movie starring Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin and Kelly Preston. Madonna's career as an author couldn't...

Nobody ever says, "Madonna who?" She's part of our culture, an American success story who's maintained a media presence for 20 years now, re-inventing herself with every prevailing wind, while never, ever giving the impression she's doing anything other than what she wants to do. We are by turns impressed, embarrassed, shocked and amazed by Madonna's antics, but we're rarely surprised anymore. Madonna, the dancer from Detroit, set out to become famous and succeeded beyond anybody's but her own wildest dreams. She's 45, and shows no signs of slowing down or relinquishing her place in the spotlight; in fact, she's...

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) --The Material Girl has stepped onto the political stage and endorsed Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark. "I think he has a good handle on foreign policy, I think he's good with people, and I think he has a heart and a consciousness," pop singer Madonna said. "He's interested in spirituality -- I mean, those things mean a lot to me." The singer and children's book author met Clark a few weeks ago for over an hour. In an interview recorded last week with CNN's Denise Quan, Madonna said they discussed his becoming president. The singer told...

BALTIMORE –– Maryland school districts and nonprofit groups are trying to address the under-representation of minority children in gifted programs. Officials want to correct biases in the ways children are determined to be gifted. They're trying to make sure precocious pupils from poor families don't lose out on gifted programs simply because their parents don't know about them. ... The program expanded the list of factors used to identify children as gifted beyond standardized test scores.