A Utah couple have been charged with murder after the mother’s 13-day-old baby boy died after suffering severe abuse and neglect. The West Jordan Police Department confirmed Maria Elena Sullivan, 26, and Dylan James Kitzmiller, 21, were arrested Friday night and charged with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of child abuse. The negligent mother knowingly left her child under supervision of her violent boyfriend who reportedly ‘had thrown the baby around, slapped him in the face, bit his hands, swaddled him face down and once covered the baby’s mouth with his hand as he cried.’

RICHARDSON, Texas – The father of a missing 3-year-old Richardson girl who was later found dead has changed his story of what happened to her. Wesley Mathews was taken into custody on Monday night for injury to a child, a first-degree felony. His bond was set at $1 million. Mathews was previously charged with child endangerment. He told police his daughter Sherin disappeared after he left her by a tree around 3 a.m. on Oct. 7 because she wouldn’t drink her milk.

MICHIGAN – A Sanilac County Circuit judge has granted parenting time and joint legal custody of an 8-year-old boy to a convicted sex offender who allegedly raped the child’s mother nine years ago. Christopher Mirasolo, 27, of Brown City was awarded joint legal custody by Judge Gregory S. Ross after DNA testing established paternity of the child, according to the victim’s attorney, Rebecca Kiessling, who is seeking protection under the federal Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 25. The case, initially reported on “The Steve Gruber Show,” a Lansing-based radio program, is believed the first of its kind in Michigan and possibly the nation. According to the victim and Kiessling, it was prompted after the county surveyed the victim regarding child support she had received this past year.

Twelve more men have been charged as part of a huge investigation into historical child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. The men, aged between 33 and 38 and mostly from Rotherham, face accusations of rape and indecent assault and bring the number charged under the probe into sex gangs in the Yorkshire town to 21. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the most recent charges related to eight girls under the age of 16, over a five year period from 1998 to 2003. Senior investigating officer, Paul Williamson, said: ‘We have now charged 21 men with over 94 child sexual abuse offences and expect this number to increase as more victims come forward.

A Swedish man is being charged with raping 27 British and North American children after he allegedly forced them to perform sex acts – including bestiality – on camera. The man, in his 40s from Uppland county, allegedly told his victims – young girls from Scotland, the US and Canada – he would murder their families if they did not comply. Swedish prosecutors have charged him with rape despite the lack of physical interaction, due to the way the suspect used blackmail.

Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization. It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, or gathering information that may be used to threaten, embarrass or harass.

From fist fights at school to murder and sexual abuse, each year nearly three in four children worldwide experience some form of violence, which has long term health and economic costs, a report said on Tuesday. The study by India-based advocacy group Know Violence in Childhood found that an estimated 1.7 billion boys and girls across the globe suffer mental or physical abuse each year, with children in Africa bearing the heaviest burden. “Childhood violence damages individuals, families and communities in both rich countries and poor,” the group’s co-chair Shiva Kumar told a media briefing, warning of the long-term harmful social, health and economic consequences.

Preventing child abuse can be difficult, especially since we feel often helpless against widespread abuse. So we created this one-stop guide to promote child abuse prevention by compiling a complete list of resources as an information gateway. We have included tips to educate adults and children, information about the different causes and forms of abuse, and how to respond when you suspect child abuse.

SEATTLE – The Seattle Archdiocese has paid $1.3 million to settle a sex-abuse lawsuit involving a former member of a religious order who taught in its schools. A man sued the archdiocese in 2015, alleging the church knew Edward Courtney abused students at two archdiocesan schools in Seattle but later recommended him for a teaching job at a public school outside Tacoma. The man alleged Courtney abused him in 1981 and 1982 at the public school.

JASPER, Florida — A man faces child cruelty charges, after his 19-month-old daughter was reportedly left outside during Tropical Storm Irma. Police in Jasper, Florida arrested 36-year-old Angelo Mitchell Monday. The Hamilton County Sheriff says the toddler’s mother reported the child missing at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday from their Jasper home. Officers and deputies searched the area and used a tracking dog to try to find the child, but came up empty. Around 11:30 a.m. Monday, a passerby discovered the child, lying in the yard of a home nearby. The little girl was discovered about 400-500 yards from her house. The sheriff says the 19-month-old suffered the whole night through the storm, exposed to the wind and rain, and was purple in color.

Suicide attempts among young adults between the ages of 21 and 34 have risen alarmingly, a new study warns. Among people over 21, the rate of suicide attempts rose 21.5 percent, increasing ‘significantly’ from 2004 to 2013. Suicide attempts are up across the board in the US, but young adults with lower education levels are at especially high risk. Deaths from suicide are on the rise as well, but not as dramatically as suicide attempts. Researchers from Columbia University think that economic and career instability may be leading more young adults to attempt suicide than ever.

SEATTLE – The mayor of the US Pacific Northwest city of Seattle quit Tuesday after after his younger cousin became the fifth man to accuse the politician of sexual abuse. Ed Murray, 62, who had already confirmed he would not be seeking a second term, will step down effective of 5:00 pm Wednesday. Joseph Dyer, a 54-year-old dialysis technician, said Murray forced him into sex for about a year while the two shared a bedroom in the New York home of Dyer’s mother when the alleged victim was 13.

Victoria Michelle Cravitz and her common-law husband/partner, Leon Henry Shaw, are wanted for their alleged involvement in the sexual molestation of several children between the ages of six and seventeen in Klamath Falls, Oregon, beginning in approximately December of 1989 and continuing until approximately February of 1999.

ALBION, New York – 10-year-old girl who was beaten repeatedly, forced to run with heavy packs and dragged behind a car escaped her tormentors as they slept to ask a neighbor for help, police in central New York said Friday. Four adults were charged after the bruised and malnourished girl escaped on Wednesday from her home in rural Oswego County, north of Syracuse. Her treatment, which included beatings with a tightly rolled newspaper wrapped with electrical tape, had apparently been getting worse since April, Oswego County Undersheriff Gene Sullivan said.