Here's the fix. Edit your portal.inc.php file. Line 69 has this:

Code
and t3.POST_IS_APPROVED = '1' 
order by TOPIC_CREATED_TIME desc limit {$config['NEWS_ITEMS']}

change that, to this:

Code
and t3.POST_IS_APPROVED = '1'
and t1.TOPIC_STATUS <> 'M'  
order by TOPIC_CREATED_TIME desc limit {$config['NEWS_ITEMS']}