According to prosecutors, Karen Stewart, 21, of Prospect Park allegedly beat the boy to death because he would not stop crying.

Stewart initially faced aggravated assault and child endangerment charges after the alleged beating occurred.

MORE: Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office Statement (pdf)

But Passaic County prosecutors recently added the aggravated manslaughter charge after reviewing the results of the boy’s autopsy, though they wouldn’t provide further details on what led them to file the new count.

Stewart faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all three counts. Her bail was raised from $200,000 to $550,000 when the aggravated manslaughter charge was filed.

It was not clear Tuesday if Stewart has retained a lawyer.

(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Police say officers went to the home of 19-year-old Veronica Miller around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday after receiving reports of possible child neglect.

Police say, once inside the home, they saw a chair wedged between a closet door and a bathroom door in the hallway.

Authorities report that when they opened the closet door they found twins sleeping on the floor with blankets and pillows. Police say the children woke up in good health and spirits.

Investigators say Miller had been leaving the twins in the closet while she went to pick up other children from a bus stop in New Castle since the middle of February.

When Miller returned to her home around 4:08 p.m., she was taken into custody and charged with 12 counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

The twins were returned to their mother.

The Division of Family Services is assisting in the investigation.

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According to the complaint filed in Anoka County, Misty Rose Briese of Little Canada, Minn. was driving early last August when she crashed near the 15200 block of Prairie Road in Andover.

The vehicle rolled into a ditch with Briese, an adult male and a 5-year-old girl inside. The girl, who was determined to be Briese’s daughter, was in a car seat.

Emergency crews said the girl had to have a finger amputated as a result of the crash. The adult male also sustained injuries that required surgery.

The charges state that Briese’s blood alcohol level measured 0.14.

Witnesses said they saw her vehicle out of control that night, traveling at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, blowing stop signs and passing cars in a no passing zone.

Other witnesses said they saw Briese and the adult male in the vehicle drinking in a bar while Briese’s daughter was left alone inside the car.

If convicted of the four felony counts, Briese faces up to 5 years in prison on two of the counts, and 3 years in prison on the other two counts.

Santa Clara County District Attorney office on Thursday charged 59-year-old Deborah Gratz with five misdemeanor counts of attempted child endangerment and five misdemeanor counts of assault.

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Gratz was fired from the Kiddie Academy childcare facility in Morgan Hill on Friday after a witness reported seeing her put something into the cups of several children right before their nap time.

Police said Gratz told administrators she put an over-the-counter sleeping aid “Sominex” into the kids’ drinks. The cups were confiscated before any child took a drink.

Gratz worked at the facility since 2007. She is scheduled to enter a plea on March 26.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

BENSALEM, Pa. (CBS) — A Bucks County judge has sentenced a Bensalem woman to five years’ probation as part of a plea deal.  She admitted assaulting a four-month-old boy in her care last year after he suffered a near-fatal brain injury.

Cindy Berdick said nothing in court and offered no explanation for why she harmed the child.  The 41-year-old, married mother of three pleaded guilty to simple assault and child endangerment and was sentenced to probation, and banned from babysitting.

Bucks County prosecutor Monica Furber says the child’s parents agreed to the deal, sparing them from what could have been a difficult trial.

“Luckily the child is recovering quite well, so they are thankful,” Furber told KYW Newsradio today, “and they just wanted to make sure that she would never be able to have that type of supervisory capacity with children so that this would never happen to any other child.”

Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia say the child showed signs of shaken-baby syndrome.

Berdick told detectives the infant was crying hysterically for 90 minutes before his arms and legs went stiff and his eyes rolled back in his head.

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Storm Lake police say 30-year-old Kaylyn Khamtan put a rubber band with a piece of tissue around her daughter’s finger to cover up a hang nail and left it there for at least six days.

By the time the child was taken to the Buena Vista Regional Medical Center, doctors reported the rubber band constricted blood flow and caused the finger to become mummified. A small portion of the finger had to be amputated.

Khamtan entered a plea of not guilty, she’ll appear in court again later this month.

Lorraine Cwalina, 32, was reportedly in the roadway in the 4200 block of Norwood Avenue with two young kids at around 10:45 Friday night, say Sacramento police. Callers said they feared for the kids’ safety.

Police were able to locate Cwalina and the kids and say they were unharmed. Cwalina was taken into custody and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail. The kids were taken into protective custody.

John Oliver, 39, and his girlfriend, 40-year-old Angelica Madrigal, were found by police illegally living with a 3-year-old child in the abandoned home in the 700 block of West Union in Modesto.

Complaints began several weeks ago of squatters moving into the abandoned home after the previous owner passed away, officials say.

John Oliver and Angelica Madrigal were arrested for illegally living with a 3-year-old child in an abandoned home. (Credit: Modesto Police Department)

Thursday, officers went to the home with a contractor and city officials to board up the home. After a security check, police discovered the couple and child in the home.

“There were uncapped needles all around the home,” Officer John Wohler said. “There was human waste all over the residence and it appears they lit a fire in a fireplace that was unsafe and could have caused a structure fire.”

Madrigal and Oliver were arrested and booked for child endangerment and illegal lodging. The 3-year-old was turned over to Child Protective Services.

The home is now boarded up, police say.

According to an investigation by the Morgan Hill Police Department, a witness saw Deborah Gratz, 59, place a substance into the drinking cups of some children. When confronted by a school official, Gratz allegedly admitted that the substance was Sominex, an over the counter sleep aid.

She was fired by the school last Friday.

“As a parent you give this trust that you not only drop off your kids, which is difficult enough, but then that trust to be just crumpled is very disheartening,” said Morgan Hill Police Spokesman Sgt. Troy Hoefling.

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Greg Pyle’s three-year-old daughter attends Kiddie Academy. He was disturbed to hear the news.

“No parent wants to hear that. That’s not good,” he said.

[cbs-audio url="http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/nyc.podcast.play.it/media/d0/d0/d1/d2/dC/dL/dV/12CLV_3.MP3" size="" download="" name="South Bay Teacher Arrested, Charged with Child Endangerment" artist="Mike Colgan"]

Police have said the motive remains under investigation; authorities have apparently seized evidence pertaining to their investigation at Gratz’s home.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the children ingested any tainted beverages. Police said the alleged Sominex incident only happened once and that all the children are okay.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – How young is too young, legally, to leave a kid home alone?

Basketball player Allen Iverson was famous for not going to practice when he was on the Sixers – “It’s practice. It’s not a game. It’s practice”. But at a custody hearing for his kids, who range in age from 2-14, the Judge informed him quite clearly that parenting isn’t a game, and that leaving the kids home alone, is unacceptable.

What does the law say about what age can you leave a child home alone? There is no federal law that governs the age at which a child can be left home alone, and even most states are silent on the matter. Among the states that do have a minimum age at which you can leave your kid home alone, Maryland has the lowest age of 8 and Illinois the highest at age 14.

The National Safe Kids Campaign recommends children not be left home alone until age 12, but urges parents to consider both age and maturity because while children ages 7 to 10 generally can’t self regulate for an extended period, they may be able to be alone in a predictable routine and environment like home after school.

In any event, it is quite clear to anyone with kids that good parenting takes a lot of practice.

Everyone’s favorite tan train wreck  Patricia Krentcil opens up about the project to In Touch  — telling the weekly magazine that she will be playing herself in the movie about her life. (Guess Meryl Streep wasn’t available!)

PHOTOS: Tanning Mom Falls Over And Flashes Panties During Drunken Drag Bar Appearance

“I’ll star — It’s going to portray everything that’s happened,” the Nutley, New Jersey native boasts.

In addition to having a movie in the works,  Krentcil claims she’s also been inundated with international modeling offers!

“Everybody wants me,” she brags.

PHOTOS: Tanning Mom Patricia Krentcil Falls On Her Face And Flashes Her Panties

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Krentcil shot to infamy after her April 24 arrest last year on a second-degree child endangerment charge after she took her then-6-year-old daughter into a stand-up tanning booth — resulting in the child being burned.

“What they did to me was not right,” she moans. “I have a lot of other opportunities, so I’m just trying to figure out where to move my family.”

The mother-of-five, who was famously parodied on Saturday Night Live , said her upcoming movie will reflect the issues her family has dealt with since her arrest.

PHOTOS: 10 Celebrities With Really Bad Tan Lines

“We were all mentally abused for no reason,” claims Krentcil, who ultimately was not indicted over the incident, but is seeking to get the money back she poured into lawyers defending herself.

“I have to rectify that,” she says. “It’s not even near being over.”

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A father faced a judge Tuesday for allegedly beating and binding his mentally disabled daughter, and it’s not the first time he’s been in trouble for putting her in danger.

“It’s one more kid who has been hurt in Sacramento County,” said Ed Howard of Children’s Advocacy Institute.

Next month Brett Holdaway goes to trial on child endangerment charges for allegedly leaving his 16-year-old daughter in what officers called a filthy home last year.

Child Protective Services took his daughter away; but, according to neighbors, she was reunited with her father a few months ago. Children advocacy experts say it never should have happened.

“The idea that a child was returned to the custody of the dad who was accused so severely of abusing and neglecting her, it’s preposterous,” said Howard.

CPS says it cannot talk about the specifics of a case but told CBS13 it is possible for a parent to regain custody of a child even with an ongoing criminal case.

“So what I can tell you that with the utmost sincerity is that safety for our agency is paramount. It is one of our key priorities; it always has been,” said Michelle Callejas, CPS.

According to CPS, it’s up to a judge to decide whether the child goes back to their parents.

“Once they come into our care and custody, we have to get the judges permission to reunify the child with their family after presenting all the information,” said Callejas.

Holdaway did not enter a plea in court Tuesday. He was appointed an attorney and will be back in court later this week.

Police believe John Davis, Jr. and Laurie Davis of Nanticoke knew a young man was abusing the girl but did not intervene.

John Davis is free on bail. Laurie Davis remains locked up.

The young man is facing indecent assault charges.