Blog Posts by Claudine Zap

Could hand sanitizer light a T-shirt on fire?

Officials in Oregon are researching a possible link between the cleanser and a mysterious blaze that ignited an 11-year-old girl’s T-shirt during a hospital stay. The girl is now scheduled for skin grafts to treat her injuries.

First reported by Oregon Live, Ireland Lane, a cancer survivor, was staying at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital for an unrelated head injury. While playing in her bed on the day she was to leave the hospital, she suddenly ran screaming from the room, her T-shirt ablaze.

Her dad, Stephen Lane, who had dozed off nearby, ran after his daughter and smothered the flames himself. According to the Oregon Live story, Ireland suffered from third-degree burns.

According to Oregon Live, investigators have speculated that the freak occurrence might have happened as the girl was using the wall-mounted hand sanitizer to clean her art project, a painting. The 3M product, supplied by the hospital, contains 61 percent alcohol, and

A homeless man who hit the jackpot in his change cup—a diamond ring—showed he had a heart of gold by returning it.

The woman who accidentally dumped her engagement ring along with all the spare change in her wallet into the cup noticed the mistake long after she had given the pricey item to the Kansas City man, Billy Ray Harris.

Sarah Darling, who hadn't meant to be quite that generous to the man on the street, explained to Kansas City, Mo.'s KCTV that "my rings were bothering me, so I put them in my coin purse."

Darling said she didn't realize what she'd done until the next day.

"I was so incredibly upset because, more than just the value of the ring, it had sentimental value," she said.

Needless to say, Darling returned to the scene the next day.

Harris told the station, "The ring was so big that I knew if it was real, it was expensive."

He recalled, "She squatted down like you did like right there and says, ‘Do you remember me?' And I was like, ‘I don't know. I see a lot of faces.'

Sarah Palin (ABC News)

Fake news fools again.

Another journalist fell prey to a fake story on a satirical website, and reported it as news. This time, a blogger for the Washington Post reported—wrongly—that Sarah Palin, the former Republican candidate for vice president who recently parted way with Fox News, had moved on to the Al-Jazeera network to reach millions of "devoutly religious people."

Oops.

As surfaced by Politico, Washington Post blogger Suzi Parker cited the Daily Currant as her source for a “She the People” column under the headline “Sarah Palin tries to stay relevant.”

Parker even pulled a quote from the story supposedly from the maverick herself:

“As you all know, I’m not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general,” Palin said. “But I met with the folks at Al-JaJizzraa (sic) and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don’t have a liberal bias.”

Al-Jazeera recently made news when it

One lucky man's best friend is a dog named Buddy.

The homeless man, who's from a remote area in Washington state, suffered a medical emergency and had no way to call for help. He did, however, have his plucky pooch.

The Australian shepherd mix was found by a woman walking her dog on train tracks in the town of Tumwater, with a note attached to its harness. The desperate letter read: “Help. Send help. No joke, cannot walk. Medicine not working. Need doctor.”

The woman called 911 and handed over the plea to the police. The note wasn’t signed so officers were unsure where to look, but they had heard a man and a dog lived in a camp in the woods and were eventually able to find him.

Detective Jen Kolb told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News, “He was absolutely immobile. He was in his camp and couldn’t move from his location. He didn’t have a phone to call anybody. No way to reach out to anybody for help, and he was afraid he was going to die.”

Attaching a note to his trusty friend? A last-ditch effort

Could an actor playing the White Rabbit be racist?

Disneyland is being sued by Jason and Annelia Black, who say their African-American children were treated differently than white kids who approached the “Alice in Wonderland” character for hugs and pictures at the Anaheim, Calif., amusement park.

According to Fox5SanDiego.com, 6-year-old Jason Black Jr. approached his favorite character at the park, but was rebuffed. Jason told the station, “I went to hug him, but he turned his back. It’s made me feel sad because I wanted to really hug him.”

Older brother Elijah reportedly then tried to hold the rabbit’s hand, but was pushed away. At first, Jason Black Sr. thought perhaps a new “no touch” policy had been implemented in the park, until he observed the same character hugging the white children who approached him around the same time.

Black told local news station CBS2 Los Angeles that the White Rabbit had behaved warmly with the white children: “The rabbit ... hugged them, kissed them,

Kevin James, move over, a new mall cop's in town.

Darien Long, a shopping mall security guard, has received a rush of donations after posting a video that showed him applying a Taser to an abusive woman outside an Atlanta mall.

After telling the woman to leave for disorderly conduct, Long is heard on the video saying, “Back it up,” and shows her the Taser. The woman begins hitting him on the head anyway, and Long uses the Taser on the woman, who drops to the ground near the children she is with, who appear understandably upset.

The shocking video, filmed last May, went viral, and a crowdsourced campaign to raise money to get the mall guard even better equipment has already brought in some $20,000.

Long, who has been the property manager for a year, told local Atlanta news station WSB-TV, “I feel like the Taser and the camera are the two most effective tools that I have. Do what you're supposed to do, or you get what's coming to you.”

The local TV network also reports that the woman

Usually, when a waiter refuses to serve someone at a restaurant, customers complain. In this case, customers cheered.

The waiter in question, Michael Garcia, has been receiving goodwill and friend requests on the restaurant’s Facebook page since word spread that he stood up for a child with special needs.

Garcia, who works at the Houston restaurant Laurenzo's, was waiting on a family, regulars with a 5-year-old child, Milo, who has Down syndrome. The server said that another family at the restaurant commented on Milo’s behavior, which Garcia described as “talking and making little noises." Garcia moved the complaining family to another table, but they were still unhappy. "Special needs children need to be special somewhere else," the father reportedly said.

The waiter then took a stand. He told FoxNews.com that such talk is ignorant and is due to people's fear of the unknown. "My personal feelings took over," he said, leading him to tell the father, "Sir, I won't be able to serve

Blacked out FBI document (ACLU)

The FBI and the American Civil Liberties Union seem to have very different interpretations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

As surfaced by the website Arstechnica, the FBI recently complied with a request from the civil rights organization—sort of.

The ACLU had filed the FOIA request back in July. (It had first heard of the memos when they were mentioned publicly by an FBI official during a panel discussion at the University of San Francisco earlier in the year.) The request asked for two memos that outline how the FBI interprets the Supreme Court decision blocking law enforcement from using GPS to track a suspect’s car without a warrant.

As the ACLU reported, the organization has just received a response—almost all of it blacked out.

One memo apparently outlines GPS tracking on things other than cars, and the other how the FBI interprets the Supreme Court case on other forms of tech besides GPS. The documents can be seen here and here in PDF format, along with the ACLU's