Rape and sexual assault charges have been dropped against two teenagers accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom of a high school in Rockville, Maryland, prosecutors say. The reported crime horrified local parents and became national news after the White House called it an example of why President Donald Trump is cracking down on illegal immigration.

A Q&A with Bret Stephens, formerly of the Wall Street Journal. By Jeff Stein.

An 18-year-old Texas woman's claim that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted was all a hoax, police say. Breana Harmon Talbott ignited a sense of fear and outrage in the Denison community, as well as on social media, after she said three black men in ski masks were responsible for kidnapping her, taking her into the woods, and raping her. The investigation began when police received a call on the evening of March 8 from a man claiming to be Talbott's fiance, Denison Police Chief Jay Burch said in a release.

A pregnant woman in northeastern Alabama has been charged with rape after authorities said she wrote on a Medicaid application that a 14-year-old boy was the father of her unborn baby. Police and the state department of human resources launched an investigation after 19-year-old Mekenzie Leigh Guffey, of Hollywood, Ala., identified the boy on paperwork for Social Security benefits earlier this month, Hollywood Police Chief Jason Hepler told AL.com. Workers notified the state human resources agency, which then contacted police.

Rape victims will be spared the ordeal of giving evidence in court under reforms being brought forward by the Government. Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said that, from September, their cross-examination will be pre-recorded and then played to the jury during the trial. The roll-out of the scheme was originally not scheduled to start until the beginning of next year but has been brought forward following an agreement with senior judges.

In mid-January, when New Delhi police arrested Sunil Rastogi for sex crimes against underage girls, the 38-year-old father of five made a horrifying confession: He claimed to have assaulted, or tried to assault, as many as 500 girls over the course of more than a decade.It’s not clear how reliable that number is, but since 2004, authorities have arrested Rastogi at least 15 times on similar charges, and he hasn’t been convicted.

Some of the victims can't speak. They rely on walkers and wheelchairs to leave their beds. They have been robbed of their memories. They come to nursing homes to be cared for.

ABC7 News has learned that a man accused of raping a Falls Church teen allegedly entered the country illegally last year and was ordered to leave -- but never did. Ronald Fabricio Herrera Contreras, 18, is wanted by Fairfax County Police on charges of rape, abduction, assault and battery, and gang participation. Herrera Contreras allegedly dragged a 15-year-old girl into the woods off Lee Highway in Falls Church and raped her on July 13 of this year.

A man who raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Austria has had his conviction overturned after judges found he may have believed the child consented. Police said the 20-year-old Iraqi refugee, who has not been named, assaulted his victim in a toilet cubicle at the Theresienbad swimming pool in Vienna on 2 December last year.

A pregnant woman's husband will have the power to stop her from having an abortion, even in cases of spousal rape, under a new law introduced in the US state of Arkansas. Most second trimester abortions will also be banned by Act 45 - the Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Abortion Act - which will make it possible for husbands to sue doctors who carry out abortions for civil damages, or get an injunction to block the termination. The pro-life law, which was pushed through in just two months by the state's Republican government, prohibits all dilation and evacuation...

Writing About Trauma as a Subversive Act. By Melissa Febos.

19-year-old Emma Krenzer has brought awareness to sexual assault via an art project, which she made for the class at Wesleyan University in Nebraska.

Three young men were arrested for alleged ‘aggravated rape’ after they broadcasted a live video on Facebook, showing how they sexually assaulted a woman from Uppsala. Hundreds of people were able to watch the horrifying scene on Facebook. During the live stream, witnesses said that one of the suspects pulled out a gun and threatened the viewers. Police arrival on the crime scene was also filmed, according to Upsala Nya Tidning, a Swedish newspaper.

A Mexican man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003, records obtained by The Associated Press show.

From Trump’s ‘locker-room’ talk to the testimonies of survivors, 2016 has been a charged and conflicted year for how society perceives and punishes assault. By Lizzie Crocker.

Tallying the human cost of gold in one of the most remote places on Earth. By Richard Poplak.

Our preconceived notions about sexual assault have far-reaching, dangerous consequences. By Jade Blair. (Mar. 24, 2016)

An Iraqi refugee who was jailed after claiming it was a sexual emergency when he raped a boy in a swimming pool has had the sentence overturned. An appeal court accepted the defence lawyer’s claim that the lower court had not done enough to ascertain whether or not the rapist had realized the schoolboy was saying no. The attacker, identified as 20-year-old Iraqi migrant Amir A., had been treated to a trip to the Theresienbad pool in December 2015 as part of the integration process.

A 16-year-old Yazidi girl named Yasmin was sick of being raped by ISIS fighters. So she doused herself in gasoline and lit a match, knowing that if she survived that the militants would no longer find her desirable. “Now she looks like a zombie, and children cry when they see her,” said Dr. Jan Kizilhan, a psychology professor and trauma expert who has been working to bring women and children traumatized by ISIS to Germany for treatment. “It is so difficult to see what the fire did to her.”

A teenager was raped after being pinned to the ground and robbed by two women and a man in Manchester city centre. Detectives investigating the horrific early morning attack say the 18-year-old victim was grabbed, hurled to the floor and held down as her handbag was ransacked. She was then raped.