News Story of the Day

By REESE DUNKLIN and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, AP News, March 15, 2018

The three military fathers sat at the commander’s conference table on the U.S. Army base in Germany, pleading for help.

They told the commander that their daughters were among a half-dozen girls sexually assaulted by a boy in their first-grade class at the base school. The principal had known about the boy’s behavior for months, they said, but the abuse continued.

The girls’ parents had already turned to Army police, military child-abuse authorities and sex-assault specialists. The response throughout the U.S. military’s vast support structure was always the same, they said: Sorry this has happened; there’s nothing we can do.

By Terry Camp, March 12, 2018, ABC 12

SAGINAW (WJRT) (3/12/2018) - Sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw may extend beyond the Rev. Robert DeLand.

By Justin Pritchard and Reese Dunklin, March 14, 2018, ABC News

A decade after the Pentagon began confronting rape in the ranks, the U.S. military frequently fails to protect or provide justice to the children of service members when they are sexually assaulted by other children on base, an Associated Press investigation has found.

By BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, 03.13.18, Daily Beast

On the fifth anniversary of his election, Pope Francis continues to be an inspiration to non-Catholics—and a source of confusion to his own flock.

By Jay Tokasz, March 11, 2018, Buffalo News

Bishop Richard J. Malone is reconsidering a longstanding Catholic Diocese of Buffalo policy that withholds the names of priests who have been accused of sexual abuse.

Publicizing the names of clergy alleged to have molested children would reverse a tradition that's been in place for more than 15 years.

"We're looking at it anew," Malone said following his recent announcement that the diocese has established a new fund to compensate victims of clergy sex abuse.

BY RYAN SIT,  3/8/18, Newsweek

Updated | Independent investigators in the United Kingdom are weighing whether to launch a new investigation into the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the U.K. after receiving a “considerable number” of abuse allegations.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, or IICSA, a government-sanctioned investigative panel in England and Wales, told Newsweek that it had gotten a “considerable number” of reports from both the public and elected officials about the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the U.K. A spokesperson told the newspaper the panel would “consider calls for a Jehovah’s Witnesses–specific investigation carefully.” 

Lauren Hernandez and Capi Lynn, Statesman Journal, March 8, 2018

Warning: Some of the testimonies found in this story contain graphic details that some may find triggering or disturbing.

"Sexual immorality" was the reason cited when longtime Pastor Ken Engelking resigned in January from Morning Star Community Church in Salem.

Four women had come forward the previous spring with allegations against Engelking, two other former church staff members and a member of an affiliated church.

By Luke Jones, March 7, 2018, News Channel 3

ATOKA, Tenn. – A Tipton County pastor was booked into jail Tuesday afternoon, one day after a grand jury indicted him on 47 charges related to sexually abusing minors.

By Denise Koch, March 5, 2018, CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — For some time now, WJZ has been investigating a dirty secret: child sex abuse at the hands of priests, police and a teacher back in the 1960s and 1970s. Many asked how it was possible that no one noticed.

By Meagan Flynn, March 5, 2018, Washington Post

Benjamin Lawrence Petty was a cook at the church camp where a 13-year-old girl reported that he tied her up and raped her.