London police appear poised to make an arrest in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the girl who was 3 when she vanished while on a Portuguese vacation with her family nearly seven years ago. The arrests of a trio of alleged burglars who had been active in the neighborhood would be the result of Operation Grange, the reopening of the McCann investigation three years ago. “We can confirm that a second International Letter of Request has been sent to the Portuguese authorities by the Crown Prosecution Services this week… in connection with Operation Grange,” Scotland Yard told ABC News in a statement. The authorities would not discuss any further details.

A 4-year-old boy was found dead in a luxury New York apartment with “horrific” cigarette burns and cuts to his face and body, police said. Myls Dobson had been abused for several days before he was found dead in a bathtub of the Ritz Plaza building, in Midtown Manhattan, according to the NYPD on Thursday. The boy’s babysitter, 27-year-old Kryzie King, has been arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault and reckless endangerment of the first degree. She has not yet been charged, police said.

A 16-year-old girl was allegedly beaten by other girls before being held down to be raped in a horrifying attack that was filmed on a cellphone, it was revealed today. Patricia Montes, 15, and 16-year-old Erica Avery are accused of punching, kicking and pepper-spraying the girl before holding her down to be raped by Jayvon Woolfork, 19, police said. The barbaric attack was filmed on a cell phone by Lanel Singleton, 18, and shows the girl writhing half naked and weeping in the yard of a home in Hollywood, Florida while her attackers leer over her.

A 34-year-old Washington woman who sadistically and systematically tortured her 13-year-old brother-in-law by beating him with a baseball bat, slicing his skin with a heated knife and forcing him to remain tied naked to a dog house without food and water has been sentenced to 31-years in jail. Silverdale mother Viviana Gunn was sentenced on Monday after she pleaded guilty in August to hanging 13-year-old Jordan Gunn from the rafters of her house for gruesome hours long ‘sessions’ of abuse according to court proceedings. Torturing the teen over the course of last year, Gunn once clamped the boys hand in a bench vise, tightened the jaws and drove a nail through his hand with a hammer. The teen told the shocked court that he could see the nail coming out the other side of his hand.

A Philadelphia mother allowed her 3-year-old daughter to starve to death while she stole her disability checks to spend the money at casinos and nightclubs. Nathalyz Rivera, who suffered from an undiagnosed genetic condition that left her partially blind and unable to walk or talk, starved to death in September. The child died in her father’s bug-ridden home, as her mother, Carmen Ramirez, 27, abandoned her to spend more time with her new boyfriend.

Early in 2004, I was approached by a woman who knew I had been a reporter. She said she had a friend who thought I could help her solve a family mystery. I told her that wasn’t my sort of journalism; but she insisted and I went to the meeting. The woman’s friend was called Jane, a financial administrator from St Albans. She was in her late 30s and had been through an emotional experience. Just before Christmas, her mother Philomena, tipsy on festive sherry, had revealed a secret she’d kept for 50 years: she had a son that she had never spoken about to anyone. The reason for the secrecy was that he had been born illegitimate in Ireland at a time when such things were considered shameful and to be hushed up. Jane said her lost brother would be in his early 50s and probably living in the United States.

Twenty private schools are facing compensation claims from former pupils who say the Jimmy Savile scandal has made it ‘easier’ for victims of sex abuse to come forward. Among the institutions which are facing legal action are some of the country’s most expensive schools including those attended by Nick Clegg, Boris Johnson and Tony Blair. The allegations range from rape to fondling and date from the 1950s to 90s, the Sunday Times has revealed.

Harrowing family photographs have revealed how a Virginia father posed with his newborn son just weeks before he began the relentless abuse that led to the infant’s death four months later. Cory Daniel Walls, 24, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and felony child abuse Thursday after admitting there was enough evidence to prove he killed little Shane Daniel Walls. Little Shane was born prematurely and spent much of his 120 day-life in hospital, initially because he was so underweight and then from injuries his father inflicted.

Police are looking for a woman who attempted to snatch a newborn baby from a hospital. The woman in her early twenties reached towards a cot saying she “wanted to see” the three-week-old girl as she was wheeled between wards at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. The baby was wheeled in to a nearby lift and family members prevented the woman from entering before she left the hospital on Saturday. Police said the woman – described as “a light-skinned black woman”, around 5’2” tall and of slim build – did not touch the child.

PELICAN BAY – A 19-month-old baby was found in Pelican Bay on Monday, covered in cockroaches and feces and crawling across a busy street. Pelican Bay Assistant Chief of Police Stephen Combs says a resident was driving northbound in the 1400 block of Sheri Lane on Monday at 3 p.m. when she spotted something. “She spotted something in the roadway,” said Combs. “The closer she got to the object, she realized it was a 19-month-old baby crawling in the middle of the road.”

Parents who consider their children “safe” from sexual victimization live in false security and set a dangerous course for their families. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 67 percent of all sexual assault victims are children. Another study by the National Center for Victims of Crime (2000) shows that 33 percent of girls (1 out of 3) are sexually abused before the age of 18. Sixteen percent of boys (roughly 1 out of 6) are sexually abused before the age of 18. These alarming figures demonstrate why parents must work diligently to keep their children out of potential risky situations and teach them what to do if someone tries to exploit them sexually.

ISLAMABAD – People in Pakistan are praising a teenage boy who residents and police say died this week while trying to stop a suicide bomber who was targeting his school in the country’s violence-prone northwest. Local police official Raheem Khan said Thursday that 17-year-old Aitzaz Hasan died Monday in a remote village in Hangu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A teacher at the school told investigators that he saw Hasan chasing the attacker and then saw the attacker detonate the bomb that killed the teen, Khan said.

Think it’s not happening in your neighborhood? Think again. Get the facts on child sex trafficking, and let your voice be heard. There are fewer crimes in society that trigger greater public outrage than sex trafficking of children. Trafficking is a serious problem in the United States, yet many of the stereotypes surrounding the issue and the counter-productive approaches to fixing the problem, make it increasingly difficult to address the real dilemmas and oppression of those children in need of help. At present, the commercial sexual exploitation of children has become a staple of often scary tabloid and other media coverage. The sensationalist sex trafficking narrative commonly depicted in mass media by celebrities and activists doesn’t always reveal the full story of this complex and misunderstood phenomenon, which is often buffeted by data and themes that detract from potential remedies. Here are 10 child sex trafficking statistics that you most likely did NOT read….

SANFORD, N.C. — The Harnett County Sheriff’s Office has charged a Sanford man with one count of first-degree rape of a child under the age of 13. Thirty-three-year-old Bailey Joe Mills was jailed under $500,000 bond Deputies said the investigation began after the alleged victim’s parent spotted a disturbing Facebook message and called the sheriff’s office. Deputies and an SBI agent served a search warrant at Mills’ Nicole Drive home late Sunday night.