A Catawba woman was sentenced to a year in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to child abuse charges relating to her stepdaughter, officials said.

Meagan Rhea Shelley, 22, pleaded guilty Wednesday to unlawful neglect of a child in connection with a toddler who was taken to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte in March with a skull fracture and internal injuries, said 16th Circuit Asst. Solicitor Jennifer Colton.

There’s further controversy today as victims of sex abuse at the hands of a Fermanagh family are calling for a review of mental health legislation.

They said they want a different way of dealing with sex offenders who, they feel, have escaped justice – as they claim is the case with two brothers deemed mentally unfit to plead.

PORT ST. LUCIE — A 26-year-old man who said he shook his 8-month-old nephew before the child was found to have injuries consistent with shaken baby syndrome faces a felony charge, according to an arrest affidavit released Thursday.

Kareem Daniel Farrell, of the 800 block of Southwest Tulip Boulevard, was arrested Wednesday on an aggravated child abuse charge after tests on the boy determined he had a traumatic brain injury, “ventricular shift and massive retinal hemorrhaging.”

FORT LAUDERDALE —A Fort Lauderdale man accused of striking and shaking a year-old boy who later died was denied bail at his first court appearance Thursday.

Ian Arnold, 22, is charged with aggravated child abuse against Kamarie Bowles, who died Wednesday morning. Homicide charges are possible, pending the results of an autopsy, according to police.

Brussels – Police investigating cases of sexual abuse on minors raided Thursday the home of the former head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, a spokesman for the prelate said.

Danneels, 77, stepped down as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and head of Belgium’s bishop conference in January, after serving in that position for 31 years.

“In what is becoming a Father’s Day ritual for the Obama administration, the president on Monday will bring together children, famous dads and nonprofit groups that promote fatherhood to highlight the importance of fathers,” the Washington Post says. “The center of President Obama’s day-long celebration will be a speech at the ARC, an arts and recreation campus in Southeast Washington, where he is set to announce the creation of the President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. It will build on a theme that has been central to his family policy and a core part of the White House’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.”

BRUNSWICK — Ten days after his arrest by Troy police on multiple sex counts, a 25-year-old man from that city was arrested again Monday by State Police and charged with raping a 14-year-old girl on New Year’s Eve in 2008.

At the time of the first arrest, city police said Robert Simmons could face charges in other municipalities.

In the latest case, Simmons of 333 Congress St. was charged with first-degree rape, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. Simmons was arraigned and sent back to the Rensselaer County Jail.

NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor was prosecuted Wednesday by a suburban New York grand jury on charges of third-degree rape and patronizing a prostitute. He was arrested on May 6 at a Holiday Inn in Ramapo, N.Y. The prosecutors say he paid a 16-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him. He was released on $75,000 bail at a hearing on May 6. He was not asked to enter a plea.

MIDLAND,TX – A drastic spike in child abuse cases has one local advocacy group trying to find help. The abuse is happening all across the Basin, but the latest surge of cases are in Midland County. Most of the children being hurt are under the age of five.

This time last year our West Texas Court Appointed Special Advocates served 232 children and as of May of this year that number jumped to 344. CASA of West Texas says usually Howard County holds the most abuse reports but recently the cases have climbed in Midland County. CASA works with 7 counties in our West Texas area and about 1/3 of those cases are in Midland alone. They say, that’s most likely due to the growing population, domestic violence and the economy.

“If the most prosperous country in the world can afford to fight two wars, battle terrorism in far-off lands and bail out Wall Street, why can’t it offer its most vulnerable and voiceless citizens anything but bureaucratic red tape?”

That is the question asked by Seema Jilani in a recent article in McClatchy Newspapers about the growing problem of child abuse.

CALL FOR COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO CHILD ABUSE

Family First NZ says that the latest rates of CYF notifications are horrendous and shows a continuing failure to tackle the real causes.

“NZ’ers were completely opposed to the anti-smacking law because they knew that it was a smoke-screen for tackling the real causes of child abuse – the far harder issues of drug and alcohol abuse, family breakdown, violence in our media, mental illness and other key factors identified by UNICEF, CYF and Children’s Commissioner reports,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

One in six abused children suffers some new neglect or abuse after intervention by Iowa’s Department of Human Services – a statistic that has worsened since the last time the federal government reviewed Iowa’s child-welfare system, a report released by the state Tuesday shows.

The report, the first prepared by Iowa’s Department of Human Services for federal regulators since 2003, shows Iowa continues to lag tough federal benchmarks in child safety and other key areas. But it also shows social workers are doing a better job in some areas, such as visiting children in foster care, in spite of a spike in new abuse reported last year and significant budget cuts.

A Vincennes, Ind., man is in jail today charged with battery on a child while his infant son is being treated for life-threatening injuries at St. Mary’s Medical Center.

Vincennes police, fire and emergency medical personnel responded to a 911 call for a small child not breathing at around 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

LAS CRUCES – A five-year-old Anthony, N.M., girl is in critical condition in at Providence Hospital in El Paso and her 27-year-old mother is now behind bars, charged with child abuse and evidence tampering.

The Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office was called to Providence Hospital on Sunday after learning the child was brought there unconscious and with multiple injures, according to a DASO news release.