A Kentucky child welfare worker is facing criminal charges after two young girls were sent home from school and, investigators say, beaten again before deputies arrived.

According to WCPO, 24-year-old Alan Zhang, a worker with Kentucky's Department for Community Based Services, is charged in Gallatin County with official misconduct, wanton endangerment, two counts of failing to report child abuse and two counts of fourth-degree assault by complicity. WKRC reports all of the charges are misdemeanors.

On August 28, staff at Gallatin County Lower Elementary School reported suspected abuse involving two sisters, ages 6 and 8. A criminal complaint alleges Zhang interviewed the girls and had a nurse photograph their injuries. According to the complaint, Zhang was aware of an allegation that the girls' mother's boyfriend had choked one of them.

WKRC reports the girls told him the boyfriend caused their injuries. After speaking with his supervisor, Zhang told the school to send the girls home. The complaint says he never contacted law enforcement.

The school later called 911. Investigators say both girls were beaten again before deputies reached the home. A forensic exam documented 32 visible injuries on one child and 23 on the other. The complaint also alleges Zhang told an EMS worker he had places to be.

County Attorney Grant Axon told WCPO the assault-by-complicity charges stem from that second round of abuse, which happened after the girls returned home at Zhang's direction.

Criminal charges against child welfare workers over how they handled a case are rare, though there's no national count, so it's impossible to say exactly how rare. Axon told WKRC his office's research suggests Kentucky may not have seen a similar case in as long as 50 years. He told WCPO he could not independently verify when the last one occurred.

Nationally, the precedents are few enough to name individually. They include caseworkers charged in New York after a 2010 child death, four Los Angeles social workers charged in 2016 over the death of Gabriel Fernandez, and a Detroit caseworker and supervisor charged with manslaughter. Most past cases followed a child's death, and many centered on falsified records rather than the decision itself.

Charges that do target a worker's failure to protect a child have often failed in court. The Los Angeles charges were dismissed after an appeals court ruled the workers had no duty to control the abusers, and a Pennsylvania appeals court barred child endangerment charges against caseworkers while allowing prosecution for failure to report. The Zhang case stands apart because no child died, the charges are misdemeanors, and he was arrested about a month after the girls were sent home.

The mother's boyfriend, Kyle Reynolds, faces charges including attempted murder. His girlfriend, Phyllis Culp, is also charged. Zhang was arrested September 29, posted a $5,000 bond the same day and is due in court October 20. The county attorney says other state employees may also face charges.

A Birmingham man who posed as a police officer will spend 35 years in prison for rape and sodomy.

Eric Murphy, 44, pleaded guilty Thursday, days before his trial was set to begin, according to AL.com.

One conviction is for raping a 21-year-old woman on September 5, 2025. He drove her to a dark alley, raped her, then dropped her off at home.

The other is for sodomy of a 20-year-old man on July 28, 2025. The man and a woman were in a parked car at Highlands Park when Murphy approached. Murphy's DNA was found on the male victim.

Most of the attacks happened between July 26 and July 28, 2025.

Murphy wore a sheriff-style star and a polo marked "sergeant," and carried a pistol. He drove a white BMW with blue lights flashing on the dashboard.

At another park, he told a couple in a car they were committing a felony.

One man he let go secretly followed him home. The man then found him on Facebook and reported him to the sheriff's office.

Birmingham police arrested Murphy on September 15, 2025. He was charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and impersonating a police officer.

Authorities believe he was responsible for four more incidents. He was never charged in those.

After his arrest, he claimed a brain injury made him unfit for trial. Prosecutors reviewed his jail calls, texts and medical records. They concluded he was faking.

Prosecutor Tiffany Ould called it "one of the most horrifying cases we have encountered."

Judge Shanta Owens gave him 35 years on each count. The sentences will run at the same time.

More than 150 million North American driver's licenses were offered for sale on the dark web, says independent cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs.

Krebs traced the records to IDScan.net, a Louisiana company that scans and verifies IDs for businesses. It says it performs more than 21 million verifications a month at over 20,000 locations. Krebs reports its clients include Hertz, Target and FedEx.

A source alerted Krebs to a sales post on a Russian cybercrime forum, which offered his own Virginia license as a free sample. Krebs also reported that the database included the license of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, "one of several high-ranking U.S. government officials whose drivers licenses can be found for sale."

The records were being sold through a new identity-theft service called Nexus. It went offline within hours of Krebs' report.

IDScan.net says “unauthorized third party may have accessed and/or copied certain customer information stored within their accounts on the IDScan.net cloud”. The company says its investigation is ongoing and it is offering affected people free credit monitoring.

The FBI's New Orleans field office has opened an investigation, and Canada's privacy commissioner has launched one of its own this week. The RCMP, Canada’s FBI equivalent, says it is “monitoring the situation.”

A judge said he loved an AI video of a dead man forgiving his killer. Now the killer's sentence has been thrown out because of it.

According to FOX 10 Phoenix, the Arizona Court of Appeals vacated Gabriel Horcasitas' 10½-year sentence on September 30.

Horcasitas shot and killed Christopher Pelkey at a red light in Chandler in 2021. Pelkey had gotten out of his truck. A jury convicted Horcasitas of manslaughter and rejected his self-defense claim.

The AI video was never used at trial. It came after the verdict, at the May 2025 sentencing hearing.

Pelkey's sister, Stacey Wales, wrote the script. She made the video with her husband and a friend, using a photo of her brother. AP reported that the avatar told Horcasitas, "I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives."

Judge Todd Lang responded: "I love that AI. Thank you for that." He said the avatar's "obvious forgiveness" reflected Pelkey's character. Then he imposed 10½ years. KTAR reports that was more than prosecutors had recommended.

The video was allowed because Arizona gives victims' families the right to speak at sentencing, and no Arizona case had ever addressed an AI version of a victim. Prosecutors argued it reflected what Pelkey's sister believed he would have said.

The appeals court disagreed. It said the video presented a depiction of Pelkey created from his sister's imaginings, as if he were speaking himself. It ruled the judge's reliance on it made the hearing "fundamentally unfair." According to KTAR, the court wrote that "no disclaimer could cure that error."

The trial judge used his discretion to allow it. The higher court reviewed that call and ruled it crossed a line.

The conviction stands. Horcasitas will be resentenced without the video. No date has been set.

Kentucky womb abduction: A Michigan woman and her husband lured her 38-weeks-pregnant daughter into the woods, stabbed her and cut the baby from her womb, prosecutors say.

Long Island “hug” thieves: Suspects allegedly pretended to be lost, then slipped jewelry off victims while hugging them, before Nassau County police arrested them. The practice is known as distraction theft.

Trucker tried to pay drug debt in chicken, police say: A truck driver allegedly tried to settle a drug debt by handing over his entire $110,000 load of Koch Foods chicken behind a Memphis motel, and police happened onto the handoff while hunting an unrelated fugitive.

Naked woman asked kids if they wanted to be kidnapped: A naked Sioux Falls woman asked children outside an apartment complex whether they’d like to be kidnapped, then tried to walk off with a 2-year-old before a neighbor stepped in.

Wrestling referee death: A Mexican wrestler was arrested on a manslaughter charge after a referee was killed in a stunt that went wrong.

Gun-safety argument turns fatal: Dawn Freeman allegedly shot her husband fatally in the chest during an argument about gun safety.

AWS facial-recognition lawsuit: A St. Louis County man is suing police and Amazon Web Services, saying AWS-supplied facial-recognition software wrongly identified him and led to an arrest that ended with his release 17 months later.

Suspect drives off cliff with abducted teen: A Texas man groomed a 17-year-old girl online, drove to California to take her, then sent his car off a cliff in a police chase with her inside.

Montreal fake-police scam: A Montreal widow, who believed she was helping police and bank employees catch fraudsters, was kept on the phone for 3 days and scammed out of about $20,000.

Man pulls gun over $11.97 in candy, faces up to life: A Houston man flashed a handgun at a Lufkin convenience store clerk who confronted him over three stolen candy bars worth $11.97, and he now faces five to 99 years or life on an aggravated robbery charge.

Teen hacker now helping FBI hunt his own crew: A Jordanian teenager linked to the hacking group that exposed the home addresses and Social Security numbers of nearly every FBI agent is reportedly cooperating with the bureau to track down his fellow hackers.

Flowers, then a balcony push: A Bronx man who police believe brought flowers to reconcile with his ex is charged with murder after allegedly pushing her and their 8-month-old daughter off an apartment’s 15^th floor balcony, killing the 23-year-old mother and leaving the baby in critical condition.

Couple blamed the dog for infant’s injuries: A New York woman who fled a motel claiming she had to find her dog, then blamed the dog for an 11-month-old’s broken bones and brain injury, was sentenced to life in prison for raping and abusing her boyfriend’s baby.

“Runaway bride”: A Las Vegas woman racked up 14 marriage certificates, then vanished with the men’s money to feed her gambling.

Temple cook killed in place of a cargo thief: A father of newborn triplets was kidnapped from a California Sikh temple and killed in a case of mistaken identity, because the men’s real target was a man in Canada accused of stealing a trailer of cargo.