A video of an altercation between a female police officer and a 15-year-old girl has gone viral, along with seemingly contradictory accounts of what happened. The video has prompted witnesses to accuse the officer of punching the girl to subdue her.

The incident occurred in Mesa, Arizona on Friday, and was uploaded that evening to Facebook by Luis Paul Puleo Santiago. From there it made its way to Youtube, and as of Saturday evening the video reportedly had over half a million views online. The attention comes amidst protests that erupted in cities across the country over the failure to indict officers in the deaths of either Eric Garner or Michael Brown, both of whom were unarmed when police shot them.

Santiago and another woman caught the incident on camera from a car across from the street corner where it occurred. The figures are in the distance, but the video clearly captures a struggle between the female officer and the girl, ending with the officer pinning the girl to the ground. At that point, the girl repeatedly screams "stop" and "I can't breathe." On the soundtrack, Santiago and the woman can be heard gasping and saying "she just punched her in the face."

Police told ABC News 15 in Arizona that the girl had run away in the past, and that her mother had called the police asking for help after the girl got out of the mother's car and walked away. Esteban Flores with the Mesa Police Department told the news outlet that "authorities tried three times to convince the girl to stop before a female officer reached for the girl's arm." According to the police, the girl then kicked the officer and "punched her in the face." After that, the female officer - a 12-year veteran on the force, according to Esteban - made the arrest, "which involved physical force by the officer."

On the video, another male witness and the girl's mother approach the struggle after the officer gets the girl to ground, and the mother proceeds to have an angry but indistinct exchange with the officer. When Santiago and the woman pull over and exit the car, the screen goes dark, but Santiago can be heard saying, "She punched her in the face, I have it on video." Another female voice, presumably the girl's mother, says "Please be a witness."

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Warsaw to protest recent election results. Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski says the ballots were falsified with almost 20 percent of the votes being declared invalid.

Kaczynski's supporters are marching under the slogan "in support of democracy."

The organizers of the rally claim that over 100,000 people have turned out to protest, which would be the largest demonstration in the history of post-war Poland. However, reports from the Polish newspaper, Wyborcza, say this figure has been significantly inflated. Other estimates have put the figure at around 60,000, the paper adds.

Did you know that 65 percent of all children in the United States live in a home that receives aid from the federal government? We live at a time when child poverty in America is exploding. Yes, the U.S. economy is experiencing a temporary bubble of false stability for the moment, but even during this period of false stability the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to rapidly expand and the middle class is being systematically destroyed. And sadly, this is having a disproportionate impact on children. This is happening for a couple of reasons. First of all, poorer households tend to have more children than wealthier households. Secondly, most people tend to have children when they are in their young adult years, and right now young adults are being absolutely hammered by this economy. As a result, things just continue to get even worse for children living in this country. Here are 14 facts that show that the number of children in America living in poverty this Christmas is at an all-time record high...

#1 The National Center for Children in Poverty says that 45 percent of all U.S. children belong to low income families.

#2 According to a Census Bureau report that was released just this week, 65 percent of all children in America are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government...

"Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of children," said the Census Bureau, "lived in households that participated in at least one or more of the following government aid programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Medicaid, and the National School Lunch Program."

#3 According to a report recently released by UNICEF, almost one-third of all children in this country "live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income".

#4 When it comes to child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 "wealthy nations" that UNICEF looked at.

#5 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in America live in areas of "concentrated poverty".

Parents, government officials, and tuition-paying students are all seeking solutions to the skyrocketing costs of higher education and the burden of student debt.

Currently, public universities in America are funded in a number of ways: government subsidies, research grants, donations, sponsorships, and, of course, tuition and fee payments. When debating cost-cutting measures, many propose lowering tuition. Typically, ancillary costs - such as the amount of fees students must pay on top of tuition - are ignored.

But according to the Center for College Affordability and Productivity these fees are increasing at rate 13% higher than tuition.

Often the breakdown of these fees (which, at public institutions, can run, on average, an extra $2,000-5,000 per year), is not specific or transparent to the student. Factor in future interest payments for students who are using loans to pay for college, and the costs of these fees to the student can be much higher.

What do these fees fund? Generally, they're allocated to eight specific areas: health services, student social centers, debt service on student administration and social centers (such as a student union), student government and publications, recreation, cultural programs, and intercollegiate athletics.

By far, the largest student fee is the last - the intercollegiate athletic fee - which can be upwards of 80% of the total fee amount at many institutions not in Power Five conferences.

A newborn baby has survived being flushed down a toilet by his mother shortly after she gave birth in north-west China. A passerby heard the little boy's cries from a sewer in Suide County, in Shaanxi Province, and called emergency services who found him lying in a pool of filthy water.The boy, nicknamed Xiaoxiao, meaning 'teeny tiny', survived the ordeal with just a few scratches, and is now recovering in hospital while police attempt to find his mother.

Plainclothes California highway patrol officers have walked among demonstrators for weeks, report stated

An undercover California highway patrol officer who had infiltrated protests against police violence in Oakland pulled a gun on demonstrators after his and his partner's cover was blown.


According to accounts in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Berkeley Daily Planet, a few dozen protesters remaining from larger demonstrations yelled that two men in plainclothes were police.

"Just as we turned up 27th Street, the crowd started yelling at these two guys, saying they were undercover cops," the Chronicle's freelance photographer Michael Short told the newspaper on Thursday.

A shooting at a Portland, Oregon high school on Friday has left at least three people injured, according to the Associated Press.

Portland's KPTV-News reported on Friday afternoon that at least two people were shot by a gunman or gunmen outside the city's Rosemary Anderson High School. A third victim was also taken to an area hospital, the Fox affiliate reported, citing a Portland fire official. It's not clear if he was shot as well.

Despite initial reports, police say the shooting did not take place inside of the school, but rather just outside on Killingsworth Court, according to KOIN 6. Police also believe the shooting may be gang-related.

All three victims were breathing and conscious when they were transported to the hospital. Although these three were injured, they were able to run into the school while emergency teams arrived at the scene.

Three people were shot Friday afternoon near a high school in Portland, Oregon, Lt. Rich Tyler of the Portland Fire Department said.

Portland police Sgt. Pete Simpson said three student-age people, two males and a female, were shot near the Rosemary Anderson High School campus and ran inside a school building after being shot, reported CNN affiliate KOIN.

The victims were breathing and conscious as they were transported to a hospital, according to the police. Their condition was not immediately available.

Police said the shooter left the scene. No arrests were reported in the immediate aftermath.

Nearby Jefferson High School and Portland Community College were put on lockdown, authorities said.

Another school shooting occurred June 10 at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, about 12 miles east of Portland. One person was killed

Six former US detainees, who have never been charged, are beginning their new life as refugees in Uruguay. They arrived on Sunday and have given their first comments to the press to say they are happy to be there.

The six include four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian.

Although they were cleared for release in 2009, the US was not able to discharge them until Uruguayan President Jose Mujica offered to take them.

One of the Syrians, 32 year old Ali al-Shaaban, has been held for more than a decade in the Guantanamo prison in Cuba, after he was arrested in Pakistan following the 9/11 attacks.

"We are happy to be here," he has told the Guardian by phone in his first interview since arriving in Uruguay.

It was 11 years ago when we first argued that constitutional protections can be balanced against national security interests, and that racial profiling is bad policing practice because it's ineffective and hurts law enforcement's legitimacy in communities. Sadly, racial profiling is used in 2014 as much as it was in 2003, and too often with deadly consequences. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner reminded those who don't experience racial profiling that many police in America still regularly treat African Americans differently than white people.

So while we - and others - applaud US attorney general Eric Holder's plan to update the federal government's racial profiling guideline, the new rules announced this week won't do nearly enough to end pervasive, race-based policing practices.

The biggest problem is that the federal profiling guidelines don't address the profiling actions of local law enforcement: they only apply to federal law enforcement agencies and local officials working with them on federal projects. The new guidelines are merely supposed to inspire local police to design their own - but local police departments pride themselves on their autonomy and aren't interested in the federal government telling them how to operate.