KIDNAPPED INFANT BELIEVED TO BE IN DANGER

MICHIGAN— Police in Ludington, Mich., have issued an amber alert for a 4-month-old child. The child was last seen Wednesday afternoon at 922 E. Tinkham Road in Ludington, police said.Police described the child, Katherine Phillips, as 2 feet 2 inches tall with blue eyes and no hair. She was last seen wearing pink shorts with a matching pink top with black and pink flowers. On Thursday, police said Sean Phillips had been charged with kidnapping. Katherine was with Phillips when she went missing, police said. He is being held at the Mason County Jail on a $500,000 bond.

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http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/28402764/detail.html

Sexual abuse of children by children was a hot topic at a recent education conference held by the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation. It’s time to take back our children, say experts. The daycare centre seemed like a safe and fun environment for three young friends, a three-year-old boy and two girls aged three and four. That was until the boy allegedly tried to stick an object into the girls’ private parts.

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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/when-kids-are-prey-in-child-s-play-1.1091584

A Chicago man charged with killing the 18-month-old son of his live-in girlfriend admitted that he repeatedly punched the toddler in the face and chest because he was angry, prosecutors said today. When doctors at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital examined the body of Adonis Bright, they found multiple “healing” fractures of the ribs in leg, indicating prior abuse, according to prosecutors.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-prosecutors-man-said-anger-caused-him-to-fatally-beat-toddler-20110630,0,2543866.story

The second of two boys accused of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl in an Omaha park last week will also be back in court next month. Channel 6 News first reported about the alleged June 14th attack that led to the arrest of the suspects, ages 12 and 13.

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http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/Boys_124043594.html

LOS ANGELES — Police have arrested local soccer coach on multiple charges of child molestation. Jose Duarte, 42, was taken into custody on Monday in the mid-city area. Police began investigating Duarte after a 13-year-old victim came forward and said he had been sexually assaulted by his soccer coach, the LAPD said.

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http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-soccer-coach-arrested,0,6556282.story

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A Memphis man was found guilty of sexually abusing his step-granddaughter for nearly eight years. 51-year old Michael McVay was found guilty of rape of a child, rape, aggravated sexual battery, and sexual battery by an authority figure. Prosecutors with the Shelby County District Attorney’s office stated that McVay started sexually abusing the child in the year 2000, when she came to live in his home at age 8. The sexual abuse continued and escalated until the child was 15 years old.

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http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/crime/memphis-man-found-guilty-of-child-rape-mfo-20110627

MI–A Hillsdale County man is charged with first-degree murder, torture and first-degree child abuse in the death of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. James David Campbell, 29, was arraigned today in Hillsdale County District Court. Beautiful Skyla Villanueva was pronounced dead June 10 at Hillsdale Community Health Center. Police, called to her home in the 7600 block of Hudson Road in Pittsford, were told Beautiful had fallen down the stairs, but further investigation showed signs of abuse, Michigan State Police earlier reported.

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http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2011/06/boyfriend_to_be_arraigned_on_f.html

TRENTON — The manager of the state’s child abuse hotline was fired Monday, making her the first casualty in the scandal surrounding a mishandled hotline call about an 8-year-old Irvington girl found dead in her home nine days later. A spokeswoman for the commissioner of the state Department of Children and Families confirmed that Margarita Marriaga, the administrator of the statewide central registry, “was relieved from service’’ in connection with the May 13 call from an anonymous tipster.

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http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/06/manager_of_nj_child_abuse_hotl.html

With the start of a new law Friday requiring applicants for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to test for drugs, a new rule will also require that anyone who fails be reported to the state’s child abuse hotline. The Tampa Tribune reported Tuesday on a June 24 memo in which the Department of Children and Families directs staff to refer applicants to test positive to the abuse hotline for possible offer of services, or a possible investigation into the welfare of the child.

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http://www.northescambia.com/?p=59521

The dispute over shaken baby syndrome is a bitter civil war. On one side, doctors, lawyers and other experts say the diagnosis is key to winning convictions of people accused of the most horrible acts of child abuse. Opponents say the diagnosis is used too freely and that sometimes, innocent people go to prison. Norman Guthkelch, the pediatric neurosurgeon who is credited with first observing the condition in young children, is speaking out for the first time about his concerns regarding how that diagnosis is used. He worries that it is too often applied by medical examiners and doctors without considering other possible causes for a child’s death or injury.

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http://www.npr.org/2011/06/29/137471992/rethinking-shaken-baby-syndrome

BOOK INFO:

Go the Fuck To Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Honest, profane, and affectionate, Adam Mansbach’s verses and Ricardo Cortés’ illustrations perfectly capture the familiar–and unspoken–tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night, and open up a conversation about parenting in the process. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the Fuck to Sleep is a perfect gift for parents new, old, or expectant.

Here is a sample verse:

The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You’re cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the fuck to sleep.

****************************************

OPINION:

We’ve detailed the viral sensation that is Adam Mansbach’s Go the F**k to Sleep, including its pirate-ship ride into the national consciousness and its eventual explosion as an actual printed book (with attendant movie deal). And everyone who has a kid, or has had a kid, can see the humor behind the good-natured f-bombs and recognizes the frustration inherent in getting a child to, well, follow the title’s advice. Oh, wait. I was wrong. Apparently, not everyone can see the humor in a foul-mouthed “children’s book”. They just have to look really long and hard to find something to be offended about. Not only that, but they actually have to make a bunch of stuff up in order to turn this viral sensation into the worst thing since the last moral panic.

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110628/17362614895/reading-go-fk-to-sleep-may-lead-to-child-abuse-racism.shtml

Roswell Grandmother Charged with Child Abuse

A Roswell grandmother, Lorraine Grant, turned herself into Roswell Police yesterday, Monday, June 27, after charges of child abuse, including sexual battery, were leveled at her. The alleged abuse goes back to April when Grant visited California and agreed to bring her three-year-old granddaughter back to Roswell with her for several weeks. However, the child’s mother, Mariah Williams, told police that Grant refused to return the girl to her. In attempt to take back her child, Williams flew out to Atlanta last Friday, June 24.

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http://roswell.patch.com/articles/roswell-grandmother-charged-with-child-abuse

GARY, Indiana — By the time 13-year-old Christian Choate was allegedly beaten to death and buried in a shallow grave in a Gary, Ind., trailer park in 2009, his family had been getting semiregular visits from child welfare authorities for more than 10 years. The Indiana Department of Child Services’ inch-thick case file on the Choate family details more than a dozen investigations of allegations of abuse or neglect dating to 1999. In 2009, Indiana prosecutors say, Christian died after years of abuse, finally succumbing to head injuries caused by blows from his father and older sister.

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http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-christian-choate-boy-in-cage,0,3895741.story