Tag Archives: Children

More Children in Poverty Now Than During Recession

A new report shows that more than one in five American children were living in poverty in 2013, the last year that complete data is available.

The number of children in poverty, 22%, is higher than in September 2010 when the New York Times said the Great Recession had brought poverty rates in the U.S. to their highest level in 15 years and greater than the 18% child poverty rate recorded in 2008.

The report also says that almost one-third of American children in 2013 lived in a home where no parent held a steady, full-time job.

The report says with only a “few exceptions”,  “nearly all of the measures that [it] track[s], African-American, American Indian and Latino children continued to experience negative outcomes at rates that were higher than the national average. Overall unemployment rates have fallen, but the unemployment rate for African-Americans is currently 11 percent — 2.4 percentage points higher than where it was prior to the economic crisis. Nearly 40 percent of African-American children live in poverty, compared to 14 percent of white children.”

“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 Casey Foundation, told USA Today. “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 U.S. by providing grants and advocating for policies that promote economic opportunity.”

Speer added their is hope for 2014 because the decline in the unemployment rate means more children in a home with at least one adult having stable employment.

Officer Buys Diapers, Shoes for Mom of 6 Caught Shoplifting

When Sarah Robinson of Kansas City, Kanasa was caught shoplifting at a Walmart store after running out of diapers for her 2-year-old daughter, she feared going to jail and the loss of her family.

“My heart just dropped. I didn’t know what to say or do. It was horrible. I thought I was going to jail,” said Robinson.

Instead, she ran into an angel wearing a badge.

Officer Mark Engravalle of the Roeland Park Police Department arrived at the Walmart after answering the shoplifting call.  As he spoke to Robinson, the officer noticed that some of her children were not wearing shoes.  It led him to ask about her situation rather than what she was doing inside the store.

“He noticed [what she stole] were necessities like diapers, shoes for the kids, some clothing,” John Demoss, Roeland Park public information officer, told ABC News. “He asked her what the situation was, and she broke down crying.”

Officer Engravalle had to do his job but instead of arresting and taking Robinson to the station, he gave her a citation for misdemeanor threat.  Then he walked back into the Walmart.  He bought diapers, baby wipes and clothes for the children.

“The officer had two children of his own, and he thought of his two kids,” Demoss said. “He thought it was the right thing to do.”

“He couldn’t have been nicer to my girls,” Robinson said. “And then I got a call the next day saying they wanted to help us further and help us get a place to live.”

Two local radio stations then stepped up to raise items for the family.  One station collected over $6,000 in items for the family.

New Polio-Like Virus Linked to Paralysis of Children

A new strain of a polio-like virus has been suggested as the cause of paralysis of more than 100 children 34 states in the last year.

LiveScience reported on a study from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) focused on a 6-year-old girl at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital that showed “acute onset of progressive right upper extremity weakness.”

“Within the 2 weeks before the patient’s presentation to the hospital, she and her family members had been ill with a mild cough and rhinorrhea; 4 days before presentation, the patient had experienced low-grade fever (100.4° F), frontal headache, fatigue, and intermittent pain in the right ear and right axilla. The fever lasted only 1 day; the cough, fatigue, and headache improved over the next 2 days, but the patient continued to report right arm pain. On the day before seeking care, her parents observed that she had a right shoulder droop and difficulty using her right hand. No associated visual or mental status changes; difficulty with speech, swallowing, or respiration; or bowel/bladder disturbance were noted,” the study reads.

Enterovirus C105 was found to have caused the girl’s condition. The virus was first detected in 2010 in Peru and the Republic of Congo.

Previously, children showing paralysis had been infected with Enterovirus D68.

“We probably shouldn’t be quite so fast to jump to enterovirus D68 as the [only] cause of these cases,” Professor Ronald Turner, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine told LiveScience.

Mother Who Lost Son to Terrorist Propaganda Fighting Back

A woman whose son died while fighting alongside Islamic terrorists has come out swinging against radicalization of westerners with a new organization called Mothers For Life.

Christianne Boudreau lost her 22-year-old son when Damien became radicalized by Islamist propaganda and then died while fighting with al-Nusrah, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.  Now she is working to help other parents spot the signs of radicalization in their children.

“If I knew back then what I know now, I may have seen it before my son left,” Boudreau told Fox News. “There are things that only a mother will notice. Maybe your child will disconnect and separate from their social group, or start saving money, whereas they never did before. It is only getting harder, as ISIS is encouraging recruits to hide their religion, so it is really important to pick up on other changes.”

Boudreau said her son was raised Christian but converted to Islam a few years before joining the terrorists.  She said he claimed he had been “wasting his life and had no direction” before the Islamists came along and provided him with a “purpose.”

She says the group is needed because of the stigma that can be placed on families if their children leave for the terrorist groups.

“How can families reach out for help if they are afraid people will come after them?” Boudreau said. “That’s why something like Mothers for Life was needed. To show that parents aren’t always to blame, but that we need to do whatever we can to stop this. We need the politicians to start to listen. We need them to help with outreach and with prevention.”

Boudreau hopes that by going public with other mothers who have lost their sons they can stop another mother from suffering in the way they’ve done in losing their child.

Cuba Eliminates Mother-To-Child HIV Transmission

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that Cuba is the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to child.  The country is also the first to eliminate the transfer of syphilis.

WHO officials say that the discovery means an end to the AIDS epidemic is possible and they expect more nations to seek to reach the status where transmission is eliminated in their country.

“Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said in a Tuesday press release. “This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation.”

The WHO defines elimination as reduction to a level that it no longer constitutes a public health problem.  In 2013, only two babies were born in Cuba with HIV and only five with syphilis.

The WHO says that without treatment, a woman has up to a 45% risk of transmitting the virus to her child.  The WHO is currently undergoing a worldwide program to eliminate transmission but are struggling to meet their goal of only 40,000 infections in 2015.  The last reported total was 240,000 in 2013, a decrease of 160,000 from 2009.

ISIS Slaughters Kobani Families In Their Homes

Islamic terrorist group ISIS launched a surprise attack on the Kurdish held city of Kobani Thursday night, slaughtering entire families inside their homes.

Survivors of the assault told the Christian Science Monitor of the devastation of the assault.

Silva Sheikh, 7, talked to CSM outside of a hospital with her T-shirt covered in the blood of her mother, father, grandfather and grandmother who were gunned down by the terrorists.

“I took my brothers and sisters by the hand and we escaped, but I forgot the pram with baby Linda inside,” she cries as her other siblings sit silently with her.

“My neighbors told me IS entered the house and killed everyone but the children” explains their aunt, Aida Sheikh, who collected them after an ambulance brought them across the border. “Everyone we’ve called in Kobane is too scared to go rescue the baby. Look at these innocent children. How will I care for them? What will I tell them?”

Witnesses say the terrorists were disguised as allied militia.

“I assume that the main purpose of the attack was almost certainly not to take and hold Kobane, but to throw the Kurds off balance and force them to divert forces to protect Kobane and other rear areas, so as to ease the threat they pose to Isis’s ‘capital’ in Raqqa,” said Yezid Sayegh, an expert at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut. “Consequently, Isis didn’t need to use large numbers of fighters, just enough to do something dramatic – easily done by attacking a ‘soft’ target such as civilians.”

ISIS Crucifies Two Children For Eating During Ramadan

Islamic terrorist group ISIS has crucified two children because they ate food before sunset during Ramadan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the murders Monday.  Muslims are prohibited from taking food or water between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan.

It is the latest in a long string of abuses against children by the Islamic extremists.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child expert Renate Winter said in February about ISIS. “There was a video placed [online] that showed children at a very young age, approximately 8 years of age and younger, being trained to become child soldiers.”

ISIS has also been reported to have kidnapped over a thousand children to be forced into jihadi training camps.

Iraq’s al-Sumaria TV network aired a Kurdish Democratic Party spokesman in Mosul that said ISIS kidnapped 1,227 from various Mosul neighborhoods.  The children have been labeled “Cubs of the Caliphate” and are being educated in the extremist ISIS ideology.

Two Boys Save Children From Burning Home

Two young boys in Orange County, Florida are being hailed as heroes after running into a burning mobile home to save the lives of two other children.

Isiah Francis, 10, called 911 when he saw the fire.  He then ran into the home with his friend, 11-year-old Jeremiah Grimes saw his friend rushing into the building and joined him.  The two saved two young children who had been trapped by the flames.

Firefighters then arrived and rescued two other children.

“I was in the place first trying to get those little kids out to save their lives,” Francis said. “I was nervous because there was so much smoke. It was hard for me to see and all that.”

Isiah said that Jeremiah stood at the door and directed him through the heavy smoke until they found the youngest children.

“I took the infant, he took the older one and we ran back to his house,” Grimes said.

“Although we never advise entering a building on fire,” said Fire Chief Otto Drozd III, “we must recognize the courage it took for those kids to risk their own lives to save the lives of others.”

The children rescued by firefighters are in critical but stable condition at Arnold Palmer Hospital.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Girl Builds Homes For The Homeless

A 9-year-old Washington girl believes “everyone should have a place to live.”

For Hailey Ford, it’s more than something she says.  It’s something that she lives out every day.

Hailey is building 8 foot by 4 foot wooden structures designed to give one homeless person a place to sleep.

“It just doesn’t seem right that there are homeless people,” Hailey told the King 5 News. “I think everyone should have a place to live.”

But a home is not where Hailey started…it was with a garden.

Hailey met a homeless man named Edward who found himself on the street after losing his job at a grocery store.  Hailey’s mother provided Edward with a sandwich on the day they met but Hailey wanted to do more.  So she started a garden, Hailey’s Harvest, which donated 128 pounds of produce to feed the homeless in 2014.

Hailey teamed with Together Rising, a non profit who gave Hailey a $3,000 grant toward her project.

“We can’t think of a better example than our Hailey — she’s proof that no person – or act of kindness — is too small to change the world,” Together Rising founder Glennon Doyle Melton said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post.

Hailey says the first completed shelter will go to Edward.

Pastor Who Lost Both Sons In Car Wreck Forgives Driver Who Caused Wreck

A North Carolina pastor who lost both of his baby sons in a car accident said that he and his wife have forgiven the man who caused the accident.

Pastor Gentry Eddings of Forest Hill Church in Charlotte was driving home in a car separate from his pregnant wife Hadley and his two year old son Dobbs.  The car driven by Hadley was struck from behind by a box truck driven by 28-year-old Matthew Deans.

Dobbs died in the accident.  Their other son, Reed, was delivered via emergency C-section but died two days later.

Deans has been charged with two counts of misdemeanor death by vehicle and a count of failure to reduce speed.

“We have, in our hearts, forgiven the man who did this,” Eddings proclaimed at the funeral for his sons. “It was not the easiest thing to do, but in some ways it was because we know — Hadley and I — that Jesus Christ has forgiven us our debt. … So in some ways, it was very easy to forgive a man who made an accident.”

Members of the congregation set up a fund to pay for the funeral expenses and raised almost $200,000 in nine days to help the family.

The pastor and his wife’s choosing to forgive and show Christ to the driver has also made waves in the secular world, with magazines such as People featuring the couple and their hard choice.