Free Republic

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A Pinellas County woman was arrested on Tuesday after authorities say she punched the director of a St. Pete preschool while picking up her child. According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, on Tuesday at 12:10 p.m., a staff member at Celebrity Kids Club of Pinellas County contacted Xenishia Felton, 26, of Gulfport, to tell her to pick up her son. The boy had been acting out and having a bad morning, police said. When the preschool director opened the door, police say Felton was yelling profanities. Felton then took her child and handed him over...

Two South Carolina daycare teachers face multiple charges for allegedly directing 3 and 4-year-olds in their care to fight each other and "allow[ing] the violence to proceed without correction," police said. Kids Unlimited of Prosperity day care employees Ericka Jones, 27, and Serena Caldwell, 56, turned themselves in to authorities on Thursday after warrants were issued for their arrest, per the Newberry County Sheriff's Office. Both are charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and unlawful conduct to a child, according to the department's Friday press release. Jones faces 14 counts of each charge, while Caldwell faces 15....

NEWBERRY, S.C. - Two childcare workers have been arrested after the Newberry County Sheriff's Office said they allowed children to beat up other children at a daycare facility. Both employees have been fired from their jobs and turned themselves on multiple charges on Thursday morning at the Newberry County Detention Center. The allegations of child abuse and neglect happened at Kids Unlimited of Prosperity, where the two women worked. Sheriff Lee Foster said the daycare reported the issue to law enforcement and has been fully cooperating. “I have no idea what the two daycare workers were thinking of that was...

NEW YORK -- There has been another arrest in the fentanyl-related death of a baby at a Bronx day care. A fourth person was in custody Tuesday after being on the run for a week and a half. CBS New York has learned suspect Felix Herrera-Garcia was arrested in Mexico while on a bus to the city of Culiacan, which is a hub for the most powerful drug cartel in the world. Herrera-Garcia was last seen carrying bags out the back alley of Divino Nino Day Care on Sept. 15, after the babies inside were exposed to fentanyl.

A 2-year-old Canadian girl was found dead down a well after going missing from her daycare — with staff only realizing when the mom came to pick her up, according to reports. Little Vienna Rose Irwin was discovered missing Thursday afternoon when mom Claire arrived at Watch Me Grow Day Care in Cobourg, Ontario, according to the Toronto Sun. After a frantic search, she was found dead down an open well about an hour later, Global News said. A fundraiser called her the “most beautiful and sweetest little girl” who “gained her angel wings in a way parents only think...

A trans person suspected of child sex abuse was arrested at an in-home child daycare in Paulding County, Ga.Dion Blake Keaton, an 18-year-old transgender person who identifies as a woman, was first arrested by Dallas Police on Feb. 23 on suspicion of three felony counts of sexual exploitation of children, and felony purchase, possession, manufacture, distribution or sale of controlled substances. (Keaton was found with a white powder at the daycare believed to be meth, according to the police report.)Keaton’s iPhone and laptop were confiscated as part of the arrest. Following an investigation of those devices, Keaton was re-arrested on...

A city bus driver is facing first-degree murder charges after his vehicle rammed into a daycare center in a Montreal suburb on Wednesday, killing two children and injuring six others. Police did not give a cause for the crash but filed murder and assault charges against Pierre Ny St-Amand, 51. Authorities said the driver has worked for the transit system for 10 years and does not have a criminal record. The six children who were taken to hospital did not have life-threatening injuries, police said. The incident happened at about 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT), when kids are usually dropped off...

Employees at the Kochav Yam daycare center in Herzliya shared words of joy on social media following the massacre at a Jerusalem synagogue on Friday night, praising the terrorist who carried out the attack. The employees shared images from the scene of the attack as well as celebrations from the Arab street, adding PLO flags and a finger emoji of the victory sign to their posts. Frightened parents came across the words of praise for the attack, and turned to the daycare administrators demanding action against the employees. The kindergarten administrators told the parents that the workers would no longer...

Five daycare workers in Mississippi are charged with child abuse after a shocking video emerged of one of the workers wearing a frightening Halloween mask to terrify 'bad' children. The Lil' Blessings Childcare workers - Sierra McCandless, Oci-Anna Kilburn, Shyenne Shelton, Jennifer Newman and Traci Huston - were charged this week. The horrific video that went viral earlier this month showed several workers scaring multiple toddlers into behaving. One worker in the video can be heard telling the masked monster to avoid certain toddlers who have 'been good,' saying 'don't get her.' 'The County Prosecuting Attorney, and the District Attorney...

The Connecticut mom who strangled her three children before hanging herself left a suicide note for her husband that read, “Sorry, Pedro, I take my kids with me,” his cousin told The Post on Friday. Sonia Loja, 36, had long battled depression and had been crying for days over the shuttering of her illegal child-care business before Wednesday’s horrific murder-suicide in Danbury, said relative Digna Naulaguari, 47. Loja’s devastated husband, Pedro Panjon, saw no signs of the coming violence and only realized that something might be amiss when he got home from work that day — and none of the...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A dozen children and two adults were served floor sealant instead of milk at a day care summer program at an Alaska elementary school after containers were apparently mixed up, the school district superintendent said Wednesday. Several students complained of burning sensations in their mouth and throats, and at least one child was treated at a hospital after the Tuesday morning incident in Juneau, Superintendent Bridget Weiss said.

Sadly, the childcare plan currently under consideration copies another of Obamacare’s design flaws, at least in its rollout: Many families will be ineligible for subsidies entirely before 2025. This means many families could face a $13,000 increase in childcare costs under this plan.

Kids over the age of 2 will now be required to wear face masks while at day care and day camps, according to new guidance put out by New York state. This announcement came the same day that fully vaccinated New Yorkers were allowed to ditch their masks while indoors, causing confusion across the board. Throughout the entire pandemic, toddlers have not been required to wear a mask, but the state said it is now following federal guidance put out earlier this month. “We tend to follow the federal guidelines,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a press conference on Thursday....

Biden's American Family Plan would dole out free college, free child care, free meals, and more. But does the math add up? Nope.President Biden released the provisions of his American Family Plan last week, and just like with his American Jobs Plan, the details are scant and the price tag is high.Even given the limited details, the plans ought to give everyone pause — and by “everyone” I don’t just mean conservatives who oppose massive welfare state expansions, but also those who agree with the objective of an increase in the social insurance system in America. There are some serious...

What really predicted fertility, the authors find, are attitudes about work and family.The world’s richest countries typically have the world’s lowest birth rates. The highest-income people in those wealthy countries on average have the smallest family sizes. Those two facts conflict with the broad perception, especially among lawmakers, that Americans aren’t having babies because they’re worried about how expensive kids are. So may the results of a new study out today, which finds that the more career-oriented individuals and wealthy societies become, the more their fertility declines. “Highly work-focused values and social attitudes among both men and women are strongly...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) administration announced Tuesday it would create a commission to study “systemic racism” in foster care. The task force is a response to the “overrepresentation of children of color in the child protection system” which reflects a need for “fundamental system change.” According to a press release issued by MDHHS (Michigan Department of Health and Human Services), Black children make up 29% of the state’s foster care population, despite being only 16% of the state’s total population. The disparity is evident among children of other minority races as well.

A mother in Russellville, Ark., claimed that her six-year-old daughter was banned from a daycare because she wore a shirt that said, “Black Lives Matter.” Journei Brockman has attended daycare at “His Kids Preschool” for six months, according to area outlet FOX 16. She was told last Friday she could not return. Brockman’s mother, Deval Brockman, told the outlet her daughter’s school called her last Thursday, and an employee told her that she didn’t “like” or “agree” with the shirt. The employee also asked that that Brockman not send her daughter to the school wearing it again. Brockman said she...

The question is: What makes you think things are any better during the rest of the school year you don't see? Governors’ decisions to shut down schools may be the least science-informed of all the coronavirus impositions we’ve had to endure nationally over the past few months. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted: A recent study from Australia identified only 18 cases (nine children and nine staff) across 15 schools, and only two of the infected children’s 863 close contacts at the schools became ill. Another review last month, published by the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health,...

(CNN)A Colorado day care used a "false wall" to hide 26 children under the age of 3 in a basement, police said, concealing the fact it had too many children in its care. Officers went to Play Mountain Place in Colorado Springs Wednesday after complaints about overcrowding there when they found the children along with two adults behind the false wall. The day care had a licensed capacity of six children, according to May 2019 data on the Colorado Department of Human Services website. MORE AT LINK

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) announced a new bill on Wednesday, the Family Friendly Schools Act, to make school days longer by a total of three hours. The presidential candidate wants to start the school day by at least 8 a.m. and end it at 6 p.m. in order to, among other things, align with working parents’ schedules more sufficiently.