ASTORIA, QUEENS —Police are searching for the mother who stuffed her newborn inside a shoebox and abandoned her outside a Queens home Friday morning. According to authorities, the baby girl was discovered wrapped in a purple towel some time after 7 a.m. outside a residence on 28th Street in the Astoria section.

A Newport News man has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for the death of a baby girl. Stoffa, 26, was charged with one count of murder in the commission of child abuse and two counts of felony child abuse. Investigators say Lillian Callender and Stoffa brought 17-month-old Angeli to Mary Immaculate Hospital in March 2010 suffering from what doctors believed was child abuse. The child was transported to Portsmouth Naval Medical Center where she died of her injuries three days later.

(REEDSBURG, WI)– The Reedsburg Police Department was notified of a pulseless, non-breathing infant on Thursday at 2:20am. The infant’s babysitter called police to the 100 block of N. Preston Avenue reporting the infant had stopped breathing. Reedsburg Paramedics responded and began CPR.

A Fort Lauderdale man was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and causing great bodily harm against his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son. Robert Mack Jr. was arrested Thursday. Fort Lauderdale police say he grabbed the boy on Aug. 6 and intentionally threw him to the ground. The child underwent surgery at Broward General Medical Center for a dislocated and broken right elbow, which had two pins placed in the joint, according to a police report.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Remember hot sauce mom, aka Anchorage mom Jessica Beagley? Jurors on Wednesday watched video of a woman squirting hot sauce in the mouth of her adopted son and then making him stand in a cold shower in a case that caused a public uproar in Russia after it aired on the “Dr. Phil” show. Jessica Beagley, of Anchorage, is charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Beagley’s lawyer said she was punishing the 7-year-old boy from Russia because he misbehaved in school and then lied about it.

Victor Barahona, whose twin sister was killed after allegedly enduring years of horrific abuse, will return to Texas to live with an uncle who wants to adopt and raise him. On Friday morning, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia signed an order returning the boy to Texas, where he spent most of the summer with his extended family. Victor told authorities he did not wish to live in Florida, but Sampedro-Iglesia ordered his return anyway, for a custody hearing requested by Miami prosecutors who will try his adoptive parents, Carmen and Jorge Barahona, for murder.

HARDIN COUNTY – A judge has set bail at more than $1 million each for a mother and boyfriend charged with Injury to a Child in connection with the death of the woman’s 4-year-old daughter. State District Court Judge Steve Thomas arraigned Amanda Nichole Guidry, 30, and her boyfriend, Jason Wade Delacerda, 34, Friday afternoon on 1st Degree Felony Charges of Injury to a Child.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are 705,000 registered sex offenders (as of April, 2010) in the United States. That number is up from 603,000 three years ago. The center, which tracks missing children and helps apprehend those who may have taken them, considers state sex offender registries “our best resource” to tracking down fugitives, says Kristen Anderson, director of case analysis.

The National Sex Offender Public Website—coordinated by the Department of Justice—enables every citizen to search the latest information from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and numerous Indian tribes for the identity and location of known sex offenders. You can also search registry websites maintained by individual jurisdictions by following the links below. Note: the information contained in the national registry and the state and tribal registries is identical; the national registry simply enables a search across multiple jurisdictions.

(CNN) — A former Peace Corps volunteer from Connecticut is charged with sexual abuse of several preschool children in South Africa last year. Jesse Osmun, 31, worked at an AIDS center in Greytown, South Africa, that provided education, food and other services to children between the ages of 3 and 15, a criminal complaint says.

After serving 17 years behind bars for the brutal murder of three children in eastern Arkansas, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin — dubbed the “West Memphis Three” — have been released from prison. “They are currently being processed out,” prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington told reporters during a Friday press conference. “They will be free men … on suspended sentence.”

You’re shopping at the mall with your children when one of them suddenly disappears. A quick search of the nearby area is unsuccessful. What do you do?

Now there’s a free new tool from the FBI that can help. Our just launched Child ID app—the first mobile application created by the FBI—provides a convenient place to electronically store photos and vital information about your children so that it’s literally right at hand if you need it. You can show the pictures and provide physical identifiers such as height and weight to security or police officers on the spot. Using a special tab on the app, you can also quickly and easily e-mail the information to authorities with a few clicks.

It’s nearly unthinkable, but every year thousands of children become victims of crime—whether it’s through kidnappings, violent attacks, or sexual abuse.

The mission of our Crimes Against Children program is threefold: first, to decrease the vulnerability of children to sexual exploitation; second, to develop a nationwide capacity to provide a rapid, effective, and measured investigative response to crimes against children; and third, to enhance the capabilities of state and local law enforcement investigators through programs, investigative assistance, and task force operations.

APD says a man driving a van kidnapped a 6-year old girl on the city’s Southwest side Monday and was only stopped because a quick-thinking neighbor followed the van and called the police. Police said at about 4:45 p.m. Monday, Phillip Garcia pulled the little girl into his blue van near Javier Way SW, near Unser and Gibson.