Authorities say a New York police officer who went after a cat stuck in a tree got caught himself and needed a little help getting back down to the ground.

The Fire Department of New York says it happened Monday afternoon in Queens.

A call came in that a man attempting to get a cat out of a tree had gotten stuck. Fire department personnel used a bucket ladder to get the man and the cat down.

The fire department says the man is a police officer.

The New York Police Department has no comment.

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A Pakistani human rights activist who founded an all-girls school said the Taliban was "more afraid of the books than bombs" as he and his 15-year-old daughter, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban late last year, were honored Monday at the memorial for Oklahoma City bombing victims.

Ziauddin Yousafzai decried political violence during a ceremony held to honor him and his daughter, Malala Yousafzai, who has been recovering in Great Britain since the shooting that garnered international attention. The annual Reflections of Hope Award is given out by the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museums in honor of the 168 people who died in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

The elder Yousafzai said Pakistani citizens are all too familiar with the kind of political extremism that led to the Oklahoma attack, as well as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings last month.

"We share the pain. We share the suffering," he said. "We have tragedies like Boston every day."

He denounced the violence inflicted by Taliban insurgents that has taken the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers over the past 30 years. He said the Islamic fundamentalists advocate an "ideology of darkness" where truth is stifled and education is discouraged.

"My part of the world is bleeding. I'm here to bring my people out of terrorism," he said.

The award began in 2005, and past recipients include the Rev. Alex Reid of Dublin, Ireland, for his life's work in the peace process in Northern Ireland, and Durga Ghimire, who co-founded a community-based organization dedicated to improving the lives of marginalized people in Nepal. President Bill Clinton, who was president when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, also has been honored.

Yousafzai accepted the award on his daughter's behalf during his first trip to the United States since the Taliban's assassination attempt on Malala. In a recorded acceptance speech, she said the Oklahoma memorial's recognition served as encouragement to continue being an advocate for the right of girls worldwide to receive an education.

"It's more courage. It's more strength," said Malala, who returned to school in England in March.

Yousafzai founded the all-girls Khushal Public School 17 years ago to foster female leadership in an area where the Taliban has banned girls from attending school. His daughter also was an activist who attended the school until Oct. 9, when the Taliban shot her in the head and neck while she was riding the school bus home. The Taliban said it targeted her because she promoted girls' education and "Western thinking."

Prior to the shooting, Malala spoke out about having the right to speak and to an education. In a video clip played during the ceremony, she said: "I want every girl, every child, to be educated."

The shooting sparked outrage in Pakistan and other countries, and Malala's story captured global attention for the struggle for women's rights in her homeland. Malala was airlifted to Britain from Pakistan to receive specialized medical care and protection against further Taliban threats. She had surgery to reconstruct her skull in February.

Ziauddin Yousafzai said he was honored to be known largely as Malala's father in Pakistan's male-oriented society and dedicated the award to fathers, brothers, sons and husbands "who believe and who accept and who respect their daughters, their sisters, their mothers and their wives."

"They are individuals and they are equal to them," he said.

As he concluded, dozens of teenage girls from nearly three dozen Oklahoma communities entered the stage behind him holding signs that read: "I am Malala." He encouraged them: "We should defeat bad ideas with good ideas."

Two workers were injured Monday when highly flammable gas used in welding exploded at a West Virginia industrial site, officials say.

Fire crews were sent at about 3:20 p.m. to Airgas, a distributor of specialty gases in Poca, outside of Charleston. Putnam County emergency management director Frank Chapman said the explosion involved about 50 tanks of acetylene that were at Airgas waiting to be refilled. What caused the tanks to explode wasn't known.

Chad Jones, a firefighter with the Bancroft Volunteer Fire Department, said four cylinders continued to burn Monday evening and that crews were letting them "burn out." They were dousing other tanks with water to keep them from exploding, said Jones, whose station was one of several to respond to the scene.

The tanks were being stored in a bay behind the facility. Jones said after the first tank exploded, "it was like a chain reaction," with fireballs shooting 100 to 150 feet in the air. A nearby business evacuated, and windows were shattered in the back of the Airgas plant, Jones said.

Doug Barker, chief financial officer at nearby Clark Truck Parts, told The Associated Press over the phone that "we felt our building shake like it's never come close to shaking before from a storm or anything. It was enough to make us run."

Barker said he and another company official bolted from their offices, and he ran to the road and saw dark smoke in the air to the east. Soon afterward they heard several smaller explosions and saw fire, he said. Barker also saw three or four ambulances speed by and heard a lot of sirens.

Clark Truck Parts is about half-mile from Airgas, Barker said. He said there are some homes between the two industrial sites.

Dave Castro, manager of the TransWood trucking company about a quarter-mile from Airgas, said he also felt his building shake.

"It felt like a truck ran into the building," he said.

He said he drove toward Airgas to check on his wife, who works at another company nearby, and could see the back of the plant on fire. He said the burning area was about the size of a house, and every 15 seconds or so a black ball of smoke would rise from a tank or drum "and explode like a firework."

Acetylene is used in welding canisters. Airgas, which calls itself the largest U.S. supplier of industrial, medical and special gases, also lists on its website propane, often used in backyard grills; hydrogen, helium; and nitrous oxide, or the "laughing gas" used during certain dental procedures.

Company spokesman Doug Sherman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Jones said the company was sending a hazmat crew from Kentucky. A U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration crew was at the scene.

"It's a hazardous job they do every day," Jones said of the workers who handle the gases. "Something went wrong today."

Chapman said the explosion involved residue of the gas left in the tanks. He said the blast would have been much worse if the tanks were filled. He said both workers suffered second and third-degree burns.

Chapman said the cause of the explosion is being investigated and that the blasts and fire were the first problem he knows to be reported at Airgas.

The injured workers were taken to Cabell Huntington Hospital for treatment. A hospital official did not know their conditions.

Airgas Inc. is based in Radnor, Pa., and has more than 15,000 employees at 1,110 locations including retail stores, gas fill plants and distribution centers, according to Hoover's database on companies. It is the largest distributor of packaged gases in the US, with a 25 percent market share and with sales of nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2012.

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