The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act requires states to “check any child abuse and neglect registry maintained by the State for information on any prospective foster or adoptive parent and on any other adult living in the home of such a prospective parent, and request any other State in which any such prospective parent or other adult has resided in the preceding 5 years, to enable the State to check any child abuse and neglect registry maintained by such other State for such information, before the prospective foster or adoptive parent may be finally approved for placement of a child” and to ‘‘comply with any request described…(above) that is received from another State.”

AUBURN, ALABAMA – Investigators with the Auburn Police Department have confirmed that 43-year-old Brandee Morgan, a middle school teacher in Chambers County, has been arrested and charged with second-degree rape and facilitating the travel of a child for an unlawful sex act. Morgan, who lives in Auburn, was arrested on June 30 at the police department.

TENNESSEE – The mother who allegedly stabbed four of her five young children to death has been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse and neglect, authorities said Saturday. Court documents say Shanynthia Gardner, 29, cut their throats open at her home in Memphis, Tennessee. Sheriff’s deputies found a large butchers knife with what appeared to be blood on it at the apartment were the killings took place. Gardner, of Memphis, was charged with four counts of first degree murder, aggravated child neglect and aggravated child abuse. Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham says the victims were a 4-year-old boy, a 3-year-old girl, a 2-year-old girl and a 6-month-old girl. Their names have not been released.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – When a 10-year-old girl ended up in the hospital with stomach pain, doctors learned she was pregnant. Fort Lauderdale police detectives from the special victims unit met the girl at Broward Health Medical Center earlier this year. The man accused of getting the child pregnant, police said, was Raymond Vincent, a youth pastor who used to live in Fort Lauderdale.

A man who almost killed a child in what a judge described as a “waterboarding” episode has been jailed. Earl Jason Romans, 29, forced his victim to consume “in excess of five pints of water in a short period of time”, medical reports showed. Romans, accused of grievous bodily harm with intent against an infant child, changed his plea to guilty during his trial at Nottingham Crown Court. Romans was jailed for 13 years and three months, by Judge Timothy Spencer.

FULSHEAR, Texas — A silence continues to hang over a Fort Bend County neighborhood after a shooting rocked the usually quiet street. Fort Bend County Sheriff’s deputies say Taylor Sheats, 22, and Madison Sheats, 17, were shot and killed by their mother Christy Sheats, 42, on Friday around 5pm. A Fulshear police officer shot and killed Christy at the home on Remson Hollow Lane when she refused to drop her weapon. Only the husband and father, Jason Sheats, was not harmed.

A Melbourne mother who helped her nephew rape her 12-year-old daughter by holding her legs may be out of jail in less than a year. The woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, was sentenced in the Victorian County Court on Friday to a maximum of four years jail, with a minimum of two years. The mother and nephew were in an incestuous sexual relationship when the offending started in 2011, the court heard.

A man in China has been sentenced to 11 years in jail after he was found guilty of beating his girlfriend’s son to death. The boy was just five years old when he was abused by his mother’s boyfriend in Jiangsu province. Hu is said to have hit the boy on multiple occasions in the lead up to the fatal beating. Chinese media reported that the 5-year-old boy’s parents were divorced and had been living with his father.

As more than half a dozen national television productions prepare to mark the nearly two decades that have passed since the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, a suspect in the notorious unsolved slaying is in the Boulder County Jail on charges of sexually exploiting a child. Gary Howard Oliva, 52, was booked without bond into the jail Friday on a case brought by the Boulder Police Department, the same agency that has labored for two decades to bring resolution to the notorious Christmas night 1996 slaying of the 6-year-old child beauty queen.

TULLYTOWN, Pennsylvania – A Bucks County couple was expected in court on charges of abusing their two-month-old twin daughters. They were due for their preliminary hearing in Levittown at 9:30am, but the case has been continued. The case has shocked many over the past month. The parents are Melissa Shales, 25, and her husband Michael, 30.

GOFFSTOWN, New Hampshire —The parents of a 4-month-old child were arrested following an investigation into allegations of abuse. Goffstown police said the infant was evaluated at Elliot Hospital, where it was determined that the child had sustained three broken ribs. Police arrested Brandon Perry, 23, of Goffstown, and charged him with first-degree assault, reckless conduct and two counts of endangering the welfare of the child.

An Arizona woman who is accused of murdering her three young boys while high on synthetic marijuana has pleaded not guilty to three charges of pre-meditated first-degree murder. Octavia Rogers, 29, could be seen visibly shaking and sobbing in court on Monday as the judge read the dates for her upcoming pretrial conferences. Rogers allegedly murdered sons Jaikare Rahaman, eight, Jeremiah Adams, five, and her two-month-old baby Avery Robinson. Jaikare and Jeremiah were found dead in a closet at their home. Avery was stuffed inside a suitcase.

ENGLAND – Child cruelty and neglect cases recorded by police have soared by 75 percent in just under a decade. Parents or carers were reported to officers in connection with 8,506 offences in England in 2014-15, compared with 4,855 in 2005-06. Adults contacted the authorities with fears about children who were beaten, starving, dirty or living in rat-plagued homes. Others reported parents who were drunk or leaving youngsters to fend for themselves.

MADISON COUNTY, Kentucky – A Madison County woman who was found guilty on multiple counts of criminal abuse against her 9-year-old daughter was sentenced to 70 years on Thursday. In 2014 officials say Linda Richmond and her boyfriend Julio Valladares spent a year torturing the child. Court documents say Richmond and Valladares would withhold food from the child for wetting the bed. The jury recommended Richmond serve a 90 year sentence, but the judge said that the max sentence for criminal abuse was 70 years. Valladares took a 20 year plea deal.