A man has been arrested for trying to smother his infant son at the hospital, Chattanooga police say. Dakota Eldridge, 19, has been charged with attempted first degree murder and aggravated child abuse after Erlanger authorities alerted police to an assault on a 12-week-old boy last night, police say.

A former clown and child abuse activist is now calling for background checks for the smiling goofballs. The real concern behind the movement is the proximity that clowns have with children. Most of the hired clowns are strangers and with no background check people have no idea of who is entertaining their children. In an interview with AOL Weird News Linda Beaudoin said, “I’m leading the way on a multinational effort to have children’s entertainers licensed,” she said. “It should be a law.”

DORAVILLE, Ga. – The son of a former metro Atlanta area mayor is facing child abuse and animal cruelty charges. Investigators say John David Norman, who is the son of former Doraville Mayor Jesse Norman, was arrested Thursday, but few details were given about what they found inside his home that led to the arrest. John David Norman is charged with cruelty to animals, bestiality, and sexual exploitation of children. He was being held Friday on $110,000 cash bond.

GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. — Deputies say a 26-year-old man suffocated a 1-year-old, but friends and relatives of the man who is charged say that he could not have done it.James Allen Johnson, 26, of Travelers Rest, is charged with homicide by child abuse.

HOUSTON– A Houston mom is accused of burning her young daughter’s face with an iron after the girl was reading words incorrectly in a book.Hope Adele Askew, 42, is charged with injury to a child. According to a probable cause document, Askew was ironing clothes at her northeast Harris County residence on April 11 when she became angry with her 10-year-old daughter because she was not reading words correctly in a book.

PLACERVILLE, CA — Phillip Garrido used a stun gun to kidnap 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and kept her locked inside a room with an iron door and gate during her 18-years in captivity, which included sexual “runs,” according to Grand Jury transcripts. Dugard said that Garrido used a stun gun while his wife Nancy grabbed her off a South Lake Tahoe street as she walked to school on June 10, 1991.

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The former First Lady of Arkansas and of the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote the book “It Takes a Village,” based on an old African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child. This is never more true than when it comes to protecting children from what seems to be a growing number of sexual predators, those who work in law enforcement say. Authorities want it known that sexual predators in Greene County should know they are being watched, they are being reported and investigated and they will be prosecuted by a team of experts dedicated to protecting children. And, “the villagers” need to know their role in protecting children from becoming victims of sexual predators.

Let right people know we’re sick of nightmare; time to provide better protection I am 64 and a survivor of severe child abuse. I pay close attention to all articles on child abuse. An article May 12 took my breath away and touched my heart. It was written very well by Tyler Treadway.

Madison, NC — Police are searching for a man wanted on child abuse charges. Madison Police said they were called after a 2-year-old arrived at Morehead Hospital with face and head injuries. The child had several bruises on the face and head, as well as swelling and bleeding from the ear. About a month later, Ricky Shane Bailey was indicted for Felony Child Abuse Inflicting Serious Injury. Detectives said Bailey has been hiding since the indictments.

A New Zealand foster couple and their daughter are facing charges of child abuse after allegedly scrubbing the bodies and teeth of boys in their care with wire brushes, making them run around a racecourse until they vomited, chaining them together and forcing them to sleep outside without blankets. Andrew John Hemara, 53, Jenny-Lee Hemara, 49, and daughter Tamara Lee Hemara, 21, together face 38 charges relating to the abuse of four children between the ages of seven and 14, the New Zealand Herald reports.

A couple from New York are being held in Marion County on charges of abusing their 10-week-oldtwins, the Sheriff’s Office said. The infants suffered “acute factures are too many to list,” a statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said. Priscilla Melina Martinez, 20, and Brian Juelz Joseph, 22, both of Brooklyn, were charged with two counts each of child abuse and/or neglect. They are being held without bond. The couple were visiting with infants’ grandmother before their arrests.

An accusation of child abuse against a former French minister has sparked a major row in the wake of the charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape. Luc Ferry, a philosopher and former education minister, told a TV chat show that a former French minister had previously been caught at an orgy with young boys in Marrakech in Morocco. He said senior government sources, including a former prime minister, had told him about the incident, but would not name the ex-minister involved for fear of libel laws.

(CNN) — Under intense questioning by police, Casey Anthony admitted she had purposely misled investigators attempting to find her missing 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, but maintained the little girl was kidnapped by her nanny, according to a tape of the hour-long interview played for jurors in her capital murder trial Thursday. The interview with an Orange County, Florida, sheriff’s sergeant and two detectives was conducted July 16, 2008, in a conference room at Universal Studios.