This handout image shows a frame grab of a Beijing Tianqiao Police video taken on August 2, 2015 that shows a Chinese policeman holding an abandoned newborn baby in a public toilet in Beijing.
A newborn baby girl was abandoned in a Beijing public toilet and fell head-first down the pipe, after her mother apparently gave birth in the facility, reports said on August 3, 2015.
AFP PHOTO / Beijing Tianqiao Police
Iranian fireman Barekat Jowzari (seen) gave his life to rescue people trapped in a fire.
People in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas have honored a heroic firefighter who gave his life to rescue people trapped in a fire.
Barekat Jowzari, 42, was buried Saturday amid emotional scenes in the port city’s main cemetery, local sources said.
The father of four reportedly died Friday after he gave his oxygen mask to people trapped in a huge blaze in the five-star Hormuz Hotel. The hours-long operation saw around 60 guests rescued, including 40 foreign nationals, but Jowzari suffered brain death and passed away.
On Thursday, Jowzari had saved lives in another fire gutting a major mall in Bandar Abbas. Three people died in the blaze, which raged through the Setare Jonub shopping center.
Reports said officials have opened an investigation into the causes of the two fire incidents, which also left 35 people injured. Sadeq Akbari, the head of the local Judiciary Department, said two suspects have been arrested in relation to the case.
Jowzari’s death came more than two years after another Iranian fireman made a similar sacrifice by giving his oxygen mask to a little girl during a devastating blaze in western Tehran. Omid Abbasi, who saved the girl, died of serious damage to his brain.
Nearly one in four children are living in poverty in the United States, a higher percentage compared to the poverty rate during the Great Recession in the late 2000s, according to a new report by a child advocacy group.
About 22 percent of Americans kids, 18.7 million, lived in low-income households in 2013, a four percent increase since 2008, the Annie E. Casey Foundation said in a report released on Tuesday.
Data for 2014 are not yet available, but the report anticipates that the child poverty rate remains at an “unacceptably high level.”
"Although we are several years past the end of the recession, millions of families still have not benefited from the economic recovery," said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation.
"While we've seen an increase in employment in recent years, many of these jobs are low-wage and cannot support even basic family expenses. Far too many families are still struggling to provide for the day-to-day needs of their children, notably for the 18.7 million kids who are living in poverty. We can and must do better: we can make policy choices to lift more families into economic stability," McCarthy said.
African American, American Indian and Hispanic children were more than twice as likely to live in poverty as white children, the report said.
Nearly a third of children are living in families where no parent has full-time employment, the foundation's 2015 Kids Count Data Book reported.
Poverty rates were the most severe in Nevada, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi.
“The fact that it’s happening is disturbing on lots of levels,” said Laura Speer, the associate director for policy reform and advocacy at the foundation. “Those kids often don’t have the access to the things they need to thrive.”
The foundation says its mission is to help low-income children in the US by providing grants and advocating for policies that promote economic opportunity.
AFP PHOTO / JOSH EDELSON
A firefighter sprays water on a flare up during an operation to head off the Rocky Fire in California on August 2, 2015.
Hot-air balloons fly near Chambley-Bussieres airbase, eastern France, on July 26, 2015, on the first day of the international air-balloon meeting "Lorraine Mondial Air Ballons".
AFP PHOTO / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE
A boy rides on his father's shoulders through a field of sunflowers during a three-day sunflower festival in the town of Nogi, Tochigi prefecture, some 70 kms north of Tokyo on July 26, 2015.
AFP PHOTO / KAZUHIRO NOGI
This NASA artist's concept obtained July 23, 2015 compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter. Astronomers hunting for another Earth have found what may be the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun, NASA said July 23, 2015.
AFP PHOTO HANDOUT-NASA/JPL-CALTECH/T.PYLE
