When Pat Robertson claimed that Haiti's tumultuous history was the result of "a pact with the Devil" long ago, he was right in a way. Following history's only slave revolt that resulted in the liberation of a nation, Haiti accepted a deal with France to pay "an odious" tax in exchange for her continued "freedom." Was France the "Devil" Robertson was speaking of?

More than two decades after rebellious former slaves vanquished troops from Napoleon's army here in 1803, France's King Charles X made the fledgling republic of Haiti an offer it couldn't refuse.

In 1825, as the king's warships cruised just over the horizon from the Haitian capital, a French emissary demanded 150 million gold francs in exchange for recognizing the new republic.

All except one of the Haitian children whisked away from their parents by American Baptist missionaries, have now been reunited with their families. Although the Idaho based group initially told officials that all of the children they had gathered were orphans, it soon came to light that 33 of the children had parents who voluntarily gave up their children to the Americans. The Americans had promised a healthy, safe life for the children in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. That orphanage did not exist.

Joyful parents on Wednesday recovered the children that they gave to American missionaries about six weeks ago.

The 33 children had been living at the SOS Orphanage on Port-au-Prince's outskirts since police stopped a group of 10 U.S. Baptist missionaries from taking them across the Dominican border Jan. 29 following Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Former New Orleans detective Jeffrey Lehrmann has been charged with taking part in a conspiracy to cover up a lethal police shooting of unarmed residents just after Hurricane Katrina. Lehrmann, who is now a special agent at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Phoenix, is expected to plead guilty, according to a person familiar with the Danziger Bridge case.

A federal court filing Tuesday charges former detective Jeffrey Lehrmann with misprision of a felony, which meant he had knowledge of a crime and didn't report it. It said he "knew of a conspiracy among police officers to obstruct justice," helped conceal the conspiracy, helped create false reports and provided false information to federal investigators.

Coulter's father said his daughter arrived in Miami late Monday and went straight to a hotel.

Mel Coulter said her release brought a mix of joy and sorrow, because the leader of the Idaho-based missionary group, Silsby, was left spending the night alone in a Haitian jail.

"It is good news, but it's tempered," Coulter said.

Once again a politician who votes against gay rights and opposes gay marriage in public, appears to have been exposed as a hypocrite. State Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Calif.) is now in a hairy situation (following in the tradition of former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and former evangelical leader Ted Haggard), after being arrested for driving away from a gay bar while allegedly intoxicated with an unidentified young man in his passenger seat.

A state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, early Wednesday morning.

The California Highway Patrol pulled over Senator Roy Ashburn at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday, after an officer noticed a black Chevy Tahoe swerving at 13th and L Streets.

In Los Angeles, three white male teachers are accused of involving their young students in a stunt to mock Black History Month. If this is true, it's a new low, even for California, in the midst of all its current race-fueled campus drama at UC San Diego .

Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino. Source: Teachers Accused Of Using O.J. Simpson, Rupaul To Mock Black History, AP/Huffington Post

UPDATE: As expected, Charlie Rangel announced that he will temporarily step aside from his post as chairman of the Committee for Ways and Means. In a press conference, Rangel discussed that he had sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting a leave of absence from his post while the Ethics Committee continues its investigation and announces its full findings.

It seems that everyone on Capitol Hill agrees that New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, must relinquish his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Everyone, except perhaps, Charles Rangel.

Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel is still clinging to his gavel, but it is no longer a question of if – but when, how and to whom – he will give it up, according to Democratic insiders.

With his ethics problems becoming an albatross around the necks of his party's most politically vulnerable members, the venerable New York Democrat was pushed deep in to a corner Tuesday night – meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a covey of aides in her ceremonial office in the southeast corner of the Capitol.