Blog Posts by Claudine Zap

The family of Kendrick Johnson is demanding a federal investigation into his death.

The body of the 17-year-old was found in a rolled up mat in the gym of Lowndes High School, where he was a student.

While the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has ruled the death an accident, his family disagreed, believing that Johnson was murdered at the school.

According to a story on ABC local station WALB News 10, officials believe Johnson, who died in January, “was in the gym alone, reached into the mat to get something he dropped, and got stuck.”

The final autopsy report ruled the death accident as a result of “positional asphyxia.”

The family is not convinced. A Facebook page and organizations like Atlanta's National Action Network have brought attention to the case, claiming that it was bungled: The coroner's office wasn't notified until hours after Johnson's death, and the body was moved and his clothes misplaced.

The sheriff denies that the body or clothes were moved, but the coroner's office has

Malcolm Shabazz (AP)

Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of the late political activist Malcolm X, has died in Mexico, U.S. officials confirmed to the Associated Press. The cause of death has not been confirmed.

“Two U.S. officials say Shabazz was killed on Thursday morning in Mexico City. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case,” the Associated Press reported.

A family spokesperson, Terrie Williams, posted on Facebook, “I'm confirming, per US Embassy, on behalf of the family, the tragic death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X. Statement from family to come.”

Malcolm Shabazz was the the son of Qubilah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.

In 1997, Shabazz set a fire that killed his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. She died from the burns, and Shabazz served four years in juvenile detention.

According to the Amsterdam News, he was attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and was in the process of writing two books.

A landfill like this one is causing local residents lots of headaches (Thinkstock)

Residents unlucky enough to live near a foul-smelling landfill near Bridgeton, Mo., recently got some bad news and better news.

The bad: The landfill stench is likely to get worse as officials go to work to fix the problem.

The sort of good news: The owners of Bridgeton Sanitary Landfill in Missouri have offered residents within a one-mile radius of the waste site a temporary reprieve by moving them to hotels for the next month.

According to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “270 households in the Spanish Village subdivision, Terrisan Reste mobile home community and some residents of Carrollton Village condominiums” qualify for the relocation to extended-stay hotels three miles away, which also accept pets.

Those preferring to move in with family or friends will receive $125 a week.

The landfill, about 52 acres that goes 240 feet below ground, took in waste from 1985 to 2004.

But in 2010, landfill started to stink.

The website for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources

Houston, we have a problem.

A giant African land snail has been spotted in a Houston garden, and residents are being warned to stay away from it—and to watch out for others.

Texas station KPRC reports that the slow-moving menaces are sometimes carriers of a life-threatening meningitis. It "can cause a lot of harm to humans and sometimes even death," Autumn Smith-Herron, director of the Institute for the Study of Invasive Species at Sam Houston State University, told the NBC affiliate.

The monstrous mollusk is the first of its kind known to slime its way into Texas, and no one is sure how it got there.

A woman in the Briar Forest neighborhood of Houston found the snail and “notified workers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center who deal with invasive plants,” according to the station.

The disease-carrying, freakishly big hermaphroditic snails—they can grow up to almost 8 inches in length and up to 4 inches in diameter—can each lay some 100 eggs per month.

In other words, where there’s

Barbara Knight, mother of Michelle Knight, one of the women believed to have been held captive for nearly a decade, said on the "Today" show that she had questioned whether her daughter would ever be found.

"I had my doubts, but then I’d look on the bright side; I’d go to God and prayed for some kind of thing to tell me if she’s alive or not," she said.

Barbara, then 20-year-old Michelle and Michelle's son were living together when Michelle lost custody of her son. Michelle disappeared a short time later, in 2002, and police and social workers did not think it was an abduction.

"Because she was 20, they figured she left because she was upset, because of the baby and everything," said Barbara Knight. She added she was told by police that if Michelle broke any laws or if they spotted her, they would let Barbara know. They never did.

"Certain people told me she wanted nothing to do with me," she said. "But still in my heart, I thought, no, because I know my Michelle."

Barbara Knight now

President Obama received 12 stitches when he was elbowed in the lip during a basketball game in 2010. Ouch! (Atlantic Wire)

It’s probably not what he hoped to be known for. But the man responsible for busting President Obama’s lip with his elbow during a basketball game back in 2010 has finally spoken out.

“I had no desire to bring attention to myself in an accident that caused somebody pain. I didn’t want to disrespect the President of the United States,” Reynaldo Decerega, owner of the offending elbow, told the Boston Globe.

The sharp-elbowed player, who also happens to be basketball trainer and coach, hasn't been asked back to play since.

On November 26, 2010, the programs director for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute found himself in a pickup game with the president when the elbow incident occurred.

The president took an elbow to the lip and got 12 stitches. Decerega got four stitches on his elbow.

“I felt horrible,” Decerega told the Globe. “I’ve played basketball a million times in my life and I’ve never elbowed anybody. So the first time I do this, it’s to the President of the United

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were found alive in Cleveland (ABC 5).

When three Ohio women missing for some 10 years were found on Monday, two of their stories, those of Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, were familiar to a city that had been gripped by their disappearance for a decade. But little had been written or said about the third missing person, Michelle Knight.

A story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer explains that Knight was believed to have departed on her own accord in 2002 when she disappeared. (Adding to the mystery: Sources conflict as to her age at the time. The Plain Dealer says she was 18; police say she was 20.)

Now it's known she was the first kidnap victim of the three. (Berry, 27, was last seen in 2003. DeJesus, 23, went missing in 2004.)

Knight was last seen at her cousin’s house on Aug. 23, 2002. Her grandmother, Deborah Knight, told the paper that based on police and social worker assessments, the family had concluded she had simply left home, angry she had lost custody of her son.

But Michelle Knight’s mother, Barbara, wasn’t so

President Obama announcing the proposed rule change in 2011. Karen Kulp, in brown, is behind the president (Home Care Associates)

When Charlene Hess got sick with a digestive illness, she went to the hospital as an independent 67-year-old who lived alone in her gated community in Sacramento, Calif. When she left, she needed help -- doing everything.

With help from her daughter, Jennifer Gunn, the two discovered there are people -- in this case two neighbors -- willing to help with everything from bathing to vacuuming to changing kitty litter: home health care workers.

These essential employees, who work in the privacy of people’s homes for a short time such as with Hess -- or long-term for the disabled or chronically ill -- don’t always make minimum wage or overtime pay because of a loophole in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

A change to the rule proposed back in 2011 could end this, but the Obama administration has yet to approve it. Workers are still waiting to hear if they will be entitled to receive minimum wage.

When contacted by Yahoo News about the proposed rule change, the White House Office of