When details of sexual abuse allegations against two prominent college assistant coaches — Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky and Syracuse’s Bernie Fine — became public last month, the news hit sports like a thunderbolt. But sports as an environment for sexual abuse is hardly new. Experts say it has all the significant ingredients that can lead to such abuse: coaches have close relationships with children and unsupervised access to them, while holding a position of trust and authority that can often keep children from reporting the problems to their parents or other authority figures.

Dreamcatchers for Abused Children has been accepted as a contestant in the PEPSI REFRESH CONTEST!!!! We are in the running for $50K for our child abuse advocacy program and we need YOUR help to see it through!!! Please help ~ Together we CAN make a difference!!!!

A 24-year-old Bensalem mother of six children was arrested today and charged with neglecting and abusing her 3-year-old daughter, severely burning her hand in one incident, police said. Andrea Amaya, of 3131 Knights Road, was jailed on $200,000 bail following her initial appearance, police said.

ST. PETERSBURG –A 21-year-old man was arrested today on charges he beat his live-in girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, who suffers from brain damage and is blind. Steve Slasinski Jr. was charged with one count of aggravated child abuse. He was being held without bail at the Pinellas County Jail. According to an arrest affidavit, the child suffers from hydrocephalus, a condition where fluid collects around the brain, as well as from agenesis of the cerebellum, which is the partial or complete absence of the cerebellum, at the base of the skull.

A Canton father accused of fracturing his 4-month-old son’s skull admitted he “messed up” as he was arraigned Friday afternoon in 35th District Court on a charge of first-degree child abuse. Anthony Lawrence Sewejkis, 25, broke into tears during his video arraignment by 35th District Judge James Plakas following allegations he pushed his son’s head against the floor of a residence on Michigan Avenue near Sheldon.

ORLANDO, FL — Two former basketball players have accused ex-Amateur Athletic Union president Robert “Bobby” Dodd of molesting them as children, according to an ESPN report. The AAU confirmed late Friday that it is investigating the claims, which reportedly date from the 1980s. One of the players, 43-year-old Ralph West, told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” he was assaulted in Memphis in 1984.

Spring, TX – Amanda Billiris, a 23-year-old Texas woman has been jailed after she was allegedly caught by relatives having sex with her 15-year-old nephew on Thanksgiving Day. According to Police, Billiris was attending a family gathering on Thanksgiving Day when relatives allegedly discovered Billiris and her 15-year-old nephew having sexual intercourse.

San Antonio, TX – On Tuesday, we reported a case in which a Laredo, Texas woman shot her two children and then herself after she was denied food stamps at a Texas Health and Human services office. The children were rushed to a local hospital where they were both treated for gunshot injuries.

SAN TAN VALLEY, AZ — A man is in custody after allegedly texting a naked photo of his girlfriend’s daughter to nearly 40 contacts in the girl’s cellphone. Eugene Foster, 31, was arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor, said Elias Johnson of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office. According to what 3TV’s Mike Watkiss learned, Foster found a photo the girl, who is a student at Poston Butte High School in San Tan Valley, had taken of herself, and decided to teach her a lesson by sending the photo to contacts in her phone.

BLACKBURG, VA — Police have identified the man responsible for shooting and killing a Virginia Tech police officer. Officials say 22-year-old Ross Truett Ashley killed the officer, then killed himself. Ashley was a part-time student at nearby Radford University, according to police. Police also say Ashley stole a car on Wednesday from a real estate office in Radford, which is about 15 miles from Virginia Tech.

GASTON COUNTY, NC– Court hearings Wednesday for a couple charged with killing a Gaston County toddler revealed sickening details about the child’s abuse. “She suffered,” a prosecutor told the judge. “Extremely.” Addison Lanham died from an untreated sepsis infection July 21. She was two years old.

Westland — A Westland couple has been charged with the death of their 2-month-old son, Kayden Brandon, according tothe Wayne County Prosecutor’s office. The father, 22-year-old Antonio Pepalonia Brandon, is charged with homicide/felony murder and first degree child abuse and could serve life in prison, if convicted. Nicole Susanne Roberts, the boy’s 18-year-old mother, has the same charges, and each has a $1 million bond.

Victims of child abuse may experience changes in their brains similar to those seen in soldiers, according to a new, small study. The findings, published in the December 6 issue of Current Biology, is the first to use functional brain scans to examine the effects of abuse on children’s emotional development. “This research…provides our first clues as to how regions in the child’s brain may adapt to early experiences of abuse,” lead author Eamon McCrory of Britain’s University College London told Reuters.

Having spent several earlier segments of his ABC interview baring his soul, Jesse James saved the strongest revelation for last. He admitted on Tuesday’s Nightline that he was the victim of abuse as a child, and that the shame of it drove him to cheat on wife Sandra Bullock and destroy his perfect marriage. “I was a terrorized kid,” James, 41, said about beatings he received from his father. “I was petrified of my dad … It wasn’t so much getting the sh– beat out of me or getting my arm broken or getting kicked or whatever or punched, it was the in-between time. It was the fear of that happening again.”