At this point, I'm not sure how hard up for work one has to be in order to accept employment with known-abuser Naomi Campbell. On the other hand, going to work for her might be part of some elaborate plot to get horribly mistreated — both physically and verbally — and then retire with a nice settlement from the notoriously furious model. Ex-housekeeper Ivona Lovas hit pay dirt after Campbell made her life "a living hell" during the four months she worked for her. They've settled out of court.

Perhaps they came to a nice agreement after playing a late night trust game together. I've heard Naomi likes to do that.

• Shaquille O'Neal wants to buy your mortgage and save you from home foreclosure. Really. [EUR]

• Mark Wahlberg says he won't be reuniting with the Funky Bunch because he's too old to rap. It never stopped LL Cool J. [SP]

• A boxer/personal injury lawyer is suing Jay-Z for biting his style. [AHH]

• A new website from the brain behind What About Our Daughters, keeps a close eye Michelle Obama attacks from the media. [MOW]

• See some stills from Spike Lee's putting-his-money-where-his-mouth-is movie. [BV]

Say what you will about NYC's radio personalities and their exhausting egos, but none of them deserve to die. A sexual harassment lawsuit — which made waves when a few details of it were leaked in March — filed against Wendy Williams' husband, Kevin Hunter, includes some interesting information about Wendy Williams competitor Miss Jones of Hot 97. Nicole Spence, the plaintiff and former Wendy Williams employee, alleged that Hunter was plotting to have Miss Jones killed over some comments she made about Williams on the air. Problematic to say the very least. [NYDN]

So NASCAR might not provide the most comfortable work atmosphere for black female employees? Would you have ever guessed that?

According to a former NASCAR official, Mauricia Grant, the organization pretty much fulfills that stereotype. Grant says she was fired after she complained to superiors about racial and sexual harassment she was experiencing on the job. In a lawsuit, Grant "allege[d] that she was called a series of degrading names (such as "Nappy Headed Mo," "Queen Sheba," and "Simpleton") and subjected to racist stereotypes, such as being told she worked "on Colored People Time" if she arrived late." At the time she was hired, she was the only black female official at NASCAR. She's suing for $225 million. [TSG]

Early this morning, a house in Dix Hills, NY, owned by 50 Cent — the house, in case you were wondering, that 50 Cent is trying to kick the mother of his child out of, prompting her to sue him — burned down. Shaniqua Thompkins, their son Marquise, and four other people were in the house when it caught fire. They were all transported to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. Something about the "intensity" of the fire aroused suspicion among fire officials, who said some sort of chemical might have been used to start the fire.

Interestingly, sources tell TMZ that earlier this week, a meeting between the two parties got so heated that a member of 50 Cent's entourage "went nuts" and trashed Thompkin's lawyer's office. A police report was later filed.

CONTINUED »

Based on the professionalism of the court filing, in which bottles of something called "Veuve Clicquot Chapaign" are referenced, there is a possibility that none of the following is true, although it doesn't sound particularly far fetched.

The production manager on the set of an Eddie Griffin pilot has sued to comedian for beating him up after he booked a subpar hotel for his mother. The production manager, Vince Beane, said that Griffin — who was drunk off of "chapaign" — accused him of treating his mother like a "slave nigga" and punched him, saying, "that was for my Momma…she ain't no nappy headed ho….boy."

Griffin's camp called the charges absurd. Absurd, maybe, but this is the most publicity this guy has gotten since he got his mic cut off at the Black Enterprise Golf and Tennis Challenge last year. [EUR]

APARTHEID AFTERSHOCKS Hampered by conflicts of interest, the U.S. Supreme Court had no choice but rule to allow a multibillion-dollar federal lawsuit from South African blacks and others against U.S. and foriegn companies to proceed. The plaintiffs say that the companies should be held liable for assisting South Africa's former apartheid government. Since Justices John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito held stock in some of the companies named in the suit, and Justice Anthony Kennedy's son is a top manager at Credit Suisse, the four of them had to recluse themselves from the hearing. Without a quorum, they let a lower-court ruling allowing the suit to go forward stand. [CNN]

If Kwame Kilpatrick taught us anything, it's that one really should not use government-owned communication lines to conduct personal, possibly inflammatory business. Some top Secret Service agents are in trouble over some racist and sexist emails they sent to each other on their government e-mail accounts.

According to a document filed in court last week as part of a lawsuit brought against the Secret Service by 10 black agents, the man who is now head of the presidential protective detail sent racially and sexually charged jokes to head of the Cincinnati office. The government filed the incriminating document a month late, which is par for the course in this lawsuit, says a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "The government's delay follows a pattern of the Secret Service stonewalling plaintiffs and ignoring court orders, depriving African-American agents of the fundamental evidence of race discrimination that is key to their claims," the lawyer told UPI.

Ever heard of Romona Moore? I hadn't either. She was a 21-year-old Hunter College student who lived in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn with her parents, who are immigrants from Guyana. When she left the house to go to Burger King one night five years ago and didn't return by the next morning, her mother, Elle Carmichael, called the police. The police told her she shouldn't even be calling for a 21-year-old missing woman. They didn't help and closed the complaint that an officer had drafted out of pity. In the four days that followed, as the police refused to help Carmichael by opening an investigation, Romona Moore was being raped and tortured by two men in a house a few blocks from her home. They beat her death on the day that police reluctantly launched an investigation. Carmichael had to help the police find her daughter's body by conducting her own amateur investigation.

CONTINUED »

Richard J Peltz, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, is suing two students in the school's Black Law Student Association, the association itself and one other person affiliated with the group. Peltz is alleging defamation after several of his pupils took to the law school's dean and demanded Peltz face punishment for his so-called "hateful and inciting speech" regarding affirmative action.

According to a memo sent to the dean, Peltz is accused of "ranting" about affirmative action; saying affirmative action helps "unqualified black people"; passing out a form on which he asked students to specify their race, claiming their answers would affect their grades; and "denigrating" black students in a debate about affirmative action. The memo then asked that the dean publicly reprimand Peltz, bar him from teaching any course black students would be required to take and to mark on Peltz's personnel file that he is "unable to deal fairly with black students."

CONTINUED »

RING THE ALARM New York-based rapper Papoose is in big trouble, and not just because he has agreed to join Remy Ma in holy matrimony. James "Rocky" Robinson, the leader of the Bed-Stuy Volunteer Ambulance Corps, was approached by Papoose's people, who asked him if they could shoot footage of the corps while they went about their daily business. Robinson complied, only to find that the footage was actually used in a video for Papoose's song "Ambulance," about murdering a rival. "We figured he was gonna show us doing our patient care on a shooting victim," says Robinson, who plans to take legal action. "We got tricked." You don't dupe a bunch of do-gooders and expect to get away with it! [NEWS12]

ON DRIVING WHILE BLACK Six black motorists are receiving a $300,000 settlement from the state of Maryland after accusing state troopers of racial profiling. The state is ponying up another $100,000 to hire a consultant to examine racial profiling in the state. Umm, pay me the $100,000. I can tell you right now. You do it. A lot. But maybe not as badly as they do in South Carolina, where a newspaper report found that state troopers there, in addition to over-tasering blacks and hitting them with their squad cars, disproportionately stop and warn black drivers. South Carolina cops have some major race issues, but it's not like this doesn't happen everywhere.

• Gabby gets work! Gabrielle Union has joined Beyonce and Adrien Brody in Cadillac Records. [IESB]

• A judge just okayed a $24 million settlement to 10,000 black Walgreens employees who were discriminated against. [KCS]

• I think I'm going to have to see this non-racist tea "advert." [UKP]

• Here's some bright, sunshiny listening material to get your morning going. [NPR]

• The "who are the candidates distantly related to?" game has gotten really old. Does knowing that Barack Obama is related to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is related to Hillary Clinton do anything for you? [AP]

Threatening to smack flames out of another man's ass is, in my opinion, the very definition of bitchassness. But Mr. Sean Combs admits that no one, not even himself, is immune to the disease. This is probably why he went ahead and settled the lawsuit, which was brought on by the smackee — instead of fighting it in court. Also, it probably doesn't help that the altercation, during which Combs and his bodyguards allegedly brutalized an LA man, was caught on video. Neither side is spilling the details of the settlement, but I'm going to hazard a guess that Diddy's victim came out of it all convinced that the humiliation was well worth it.