Briefly

UNITED STATES

Children hit hardest as poverty rate soars

The poverty rate in the United States rose to 12.4 percent in 2022, with child poverty more than doubling from 2021, according to the US Census Bureau report released on Tuesday. The Supplemental Poverty Measure, which measures whether people have enough resources to cover their needs, increased 4.6 percentage points in 2022 from a year earlier. The data also showed that the child poverty rate climbed from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022. It was the largest change in child poverty since the agency began tracking the index in 2009, the report said. The rise in poverty amounted to an increase of 15.3 million US people living in poverty.

33 looted artifacts to return to Cambodia

The family of late pipeline billionaire George Lindemann has agreed to return 33 looted artifacts to Cambodia, according to the US Attorney's Office, a decision described as "momentous" by the Southeast Asian country. The collection includes statues of deities, angels and demons from the 10th and 12th centuries from Koh Ker, the ancient capital of the Khmer kingdom, and from the famous Angkor Wat temple, the office said. In a statement, it said the family's decision to return the artifacts was voluntary. Cambodia's archaeological sites suffered widespread looting during civil conflicts from the 1960s to 1990s and its government has spent years pursuing the return of the antiquities, some of which it says are on display in US museums.

MOROCCO

Nation shows solidarity after strong earthquake

Morocco's King Mohammed VI showed solidarity with his suffering nation on Tuesday as it counts the dead from a powerful earthquake, visiting some of the injured at a hospital not far from the epicenter and rolling up a sleeve to donate his blood. Blood donations have become a national gesture of solidarity, with Moroccans lining up in Marrakech and other cities to donate blood for the injured. But hopes dimmed on Wednesday in Morocco's search for survivors, five days after the earthquake killed more than 2,900 people, most of them in remote villages of the High Atlas Mountains.

Xinhua - Agencies