Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, US says
CNN
Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the US repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, alleging a shocking litany of offenses that took place as the company amassed billions of dollars in government contracts.
Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the US repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, alleging a shocking litany of offenses that took place as the company amassed billions of dollars in government contracts. Southwest Key Programs Inc. employees, including supervisors, raped, touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed this week. At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020. It was not immediately clear how many children are currently in Southwest Key’s vast network of shelters across three states, which have room for more than 6,300 children. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment beyond the lawsuit announcement when asked whether the department recommended that children be removed from the shelters or that the the nonprofit’s contracts be terminated. “In some cases, Southwest Key employees threatened children to maintain their silence,” the lawsuit states. “In harassing these children, these Southwest Key employees exploited the children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers, and distance from family and loved ones.” In a statement, Southwest Key said it was reviewing the complaint and disputed the portrayal of its care for children. The nonprofit organization is the largest provider of housing for unaccompanied migrant children, operating under grants from the US Department of Health and Human Services. It has 29 child migrant shelters – 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California. The company’s largest shelter in Brownsville, Texas, is at a converted Walmart with a capacity for 1,200.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.
The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.
Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office are expected to appear in federal court in Albany on Thursday to try to disqualify a US attorney from investigating the state’s civil case against President Donald Trump.