Steve Penny resigned as president of USA Gymnastics on Thursday following intensified pressure on the organization for its handling of sex abuse cases. The resignation came a week after the United States Olympic Committee’s board recommended to USA Gymnastics chairman Paul Parilla that Penny should step down. Penny offered his resignation during a previously scheduled board meeting on Thursday. “My decision to step aside as CEO is solely to support the best interests of USA Gymnastics at this time,” Penny said in a statement. READ MORE HERE

A 42-year-old Australia man who allegedly pretended to be Justin Bieber on social media in order to lure children into sex has been charged with 931 child sex offenses after detectives allegedly uncovered evidence on his computer. Queensland police appealed for “extra vigilance” among young fans of pop star Justin Bieber, best known for his 2010 hit son “Baby,” after laying hundreds of charges against a man pretending to be the star online. Specifically, the man is accused of tricking young victims from overseas into sending him explicit images. READ MORE HERE

PENNSYLVANIA – Former Life University wrestling coach Ron Gorman faces 261 child sex charges, including 36 counts of child rape. Gorman, 51, is from Pennsylvania. He once worked there as a youth wrestling coach. The alleged incidents date to 2006 and involve multiple children, records show. One, a former athlete who is now 20 years old, told police he was 10 when the alleged abuse began. He said he was 15 when it ended. READ MORE HERE

British police are warning parents about the dangers of a sick social media ‘game’ that’s said to be responsible for hundreds of teenage suicides in Russia. The ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ encourages at-risk participants to take part in a series of tasks like cutting themselves every day for 50 days. They are then instructed to kill themselves on the final day of the sick ‘challenge’. READ MORE HERE

FLORIDA – A couple have been charged with more than 300 counts each of child sex abuse involving 11 biological, adopted and foster children, some younger than 12. Daniel Spurgeon, 47, and his 52-year-old wife, Jenise Spurgeon, were arrested in Cape Coral, Florida, on outstanding warrants stemming from an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in Florence, Alabama, where the couple had lived years earlier. According to the Florence Police Department, in July 2016, detectives in Alabama were contacted by their counterparts in Florida about abuse allegation involving the Spurgeons and 10 of their children, which sparked an investigation into their past conduct. READ MORE HERE

The man had previously been convicted of sexually abusing children in Switzerland

A Swiss man will go on trial this month on allegations he sexually abused more than 80 boys — some as young as nine — in Thailand. The unnamed man is accused of taking thousands of pornographic pictures of the boys, molesting some of them and pushing some into prostitution, prosecutors in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg said in a statement. The abuse is alleged to have taken place since 2001. The man will go before the Gruyere criminal court on charges of human trafficking, encouraging prostitution, sexual acts with children and child pornography, prosecutors said. READ MORE HERE

Remains of young children and babies found

• Human remains found at site of Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Ireland
• They were discovered in what appears to be some type of sewage container, disused in 1937
• Scientific analysis puts the age of death between 35 fetal weeks up to 3- years old
• Radiocarbon dating confirms the remains are from the time the home was in operation – many are likely to be from the 1950s.
• There could be as many as 800 dead
• In the 1970s, local boys found a pile of bones in an underground chamber

A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic home for unmarried mothers and their children in Ireland, an official report revealed today. The remains were found in a disused sewer during excavations at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway. The ages of the dead ranged from 35 foetal weeks to three years old and were mostly buried in the 1950s. READ MORE HERE

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes has discovered a significant number of human remains in what appears to be a decommissioned sewage chamber in Tuam. The Commission has completed two test excavations of the Galway site and today confirmed that “significant quantities of human remains have been discovered” in a structure which appears to be “related to the treatment/containment of sewerage and/or wastewater”. READ MORE HERE