At least six people, including several children, were killed during a shooting near Houston, Texas on Wednesday. The suspect surrendered after a three-hour standoff with police.

According toABC News, the gunman shot seven people in the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas. Six people were reportedly killed, including four children, though Harris County police originally reported that five children had died.

The incident began Wednesday afternoon, when an alleged domestic dispute escalated into a violent episode that left three children and two adults dead at the scene by the time police arrived. A child and mother both survived the initial attack and were airlifted to a local hospital. The child has since passed away, while the mother is still battling for her life.

Caitlin Owens Crime Pastor, two members of Corona church plead guilty to charges of beating a 13-year-old boyPastor,two church member drove 13-year-old boy to desert and forced him to dig his own grave

The pastor and two members of a Corona church pleaded guilty Monday to state charges of beating and threatening the life of a 13-year-old boy, who was forced to dig his own grave, authorities said.

Lonny Lee Remmers, 56, Nicholas James Craig, 24, and Darryll Duane Jeter Jr., 30, tortured the boy in the church-run group home where he lived, according to a witness report in affidavits for search warrants.

The UK government is pushing to pass an emergency law that would allow for storing and tracking the public's phone calls, text messages, and internet use.

The bill, which is set for inter-party reforms later this week and is expected to pass, was created as a response to alleged domestic terrorism threats - although the validity of these threats and the likeliness of an attack are uncertain.

Recruitment propaganda and videos of alleged war crimes by British citizens in Syria that surfaced on social media this year have helped fuel speculation and reports of radicalization on the home front. However, former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove said Tuesday that recent fears of extremism in the West have been overblown by governments and media, with most terrorist activity having been refocused into the Middle East.

The bill closely resembles a previous plan, proposed in 2012 by Home Secretary Theresa May, that would have required telecommunications companies to retain detailed information about their customers' phone calls and internet use for up to 12 months. The proposal, called the Communications Data Bill, was dropped in 2013 after its tactics were deemed invasive and disproportionate by opposing members, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Before being vetoed, the plan became known as the "Snooper's Charter."

Ministers from the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have promised not to let the new bill become an updated version of the old one. A Liberal source told the Guardian, "There is no question of a snooper's charter, watered down or otherwise, being introduced by this government."

A British woman who was shot dead alongside her family in the French Alps had a secret American ex-husband, who died on the same day as her, it has emerged.

Iqbal Al-Hilli died along with her husband, Saad, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf when a gunman opened fire on their car during a family holiday in September 2012.

A passing French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, also died, but the couple's two daughters, aged four and seven, both survived the attack.

French police have been baffled by the murders and have explored a wide range of possible motives.

But it has now emerged that Mrs Al-Hilli had previously been married to an American oil worker called Jim Thompson, who lived in the town of Natchez in Mississippi.

In an extraordinary and sinister twist, Mr Thompson died on the very same day that the Al-Hilli family were gunned down.

According to his death certificate he died of a massive heart-attack, but members of his family have cast doubt on the cause of death, with one relative even suggesting he may have been killed with a poison dart.

Mr Thompson's daughter Joy Martinloch said her aunt had always suspected foul play and said there had been speculation that he had been poisoned.

District Attorney Kenneth Thompson released a statement Tuesday saying that those busted in Brooklyn with little or no criminal record for small amounts of marijuana will have their arrests dismissed before even seeing a judge

The order came from on high. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson on Tuesday said he won't prosecute people with little or no criminal record who get caught with small amounts of weed.

While the majority of such cases already are eventually dismissed, those arrested from now on - with some exceptions - will be released before seeing a judge, according to a DA memo. The revised approach is not shared by cops and could even cause tension between the DA and the NYPD.

"This new policy is a reasonable response to the thousands of low-level marijuana arrests that weigh down the criminal justice system, require significant resources that could be redirected to more serious crimes and take an unnecessary toll on offenders," Thompson said in a statement.

Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. There are eleven of them who live in the family home, next to a mosquito-infested pond in a poor, rural community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She loves to read fairy tales but she frowns a lot and her eyes have a haunted gaze.

At the age of ten, she was locked in a guesthouse bedroom for days, at the mercy of a British paedophile. Her mother sold her for a week for $750.

Her virginity was part of the allure, but surely that is irrelevant. This was a child sold by her parents to be raped by a sex offender. Unfathomable.

Danet describes Michael Leach - her convicted abuser, a former government advisor - as "big and cruel looking". She says: "He didn't look nice, he looked strange."

The 54 year old is now serving a twelve year jail sentence, so she is less afraid to talk about him.

"I hope he stays put away forever," she says.

Selling her virginity - her innocence - was a way to feed nine children and pay their debts. Danet's father earns $5 a day as a motorbike taxi driver and fruit seller.

Her mother was approached and coaxed into the deal by a "broker", a local driver, who worked for Leach to appease his urge to abuse minors.

"My mother took me there on the first day. The next, my father drove me there. I didn't want to go but I had to, for my family."

A mother and a father escorted their child to be raped.

Donating blood is anything but a charitable act in the United States. Oftentimes, blood given for free by Americans gets turned into profitable deals by companies specializing in blood sales to hospitals. These days, a pint of blood can go for $180 to $300, depending on demand.

One business, General Blood based in Minnesota, serves as a middleman between blood donation centers and medical centers and research laboratories. Given that blood is such big business, it's not unusual for some of it to be spilled in the midst of legal battles.

Indeed, General Blood is currently caught up in a lawsuit with the nonprofit Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI), which sells donated blood. OBI sued General Blood, claiming it is owed money, and General Blood counter-sued OBI for $14 million over alleged confidentiality issues.

The sale of people's donated blood for hundreds of dollars per pint explains how a nonprofit like OBI can make $86 million a year, according to The Oklahoman.

These earnings get passed down to the institute's top executives, who make six-figure salaries. Leading the team is OBI's CEO, John Armitage, whose annual salary is $421,561. General Blood founder Ben Bowman claims that non-profits like OBI are profiting on blood. But Armitage denies that OBI is doing so.

"We are providing a drug," Armitage explained to the newspaper. "On the business side of what we do, the comparison is to a pharmaceutical company. Technically, we like to say the blood is free, but they [hospitals] pay a service charge. It's arranged, so it's a service fee."

"We have a charitable side," he added, "which is trying to motivate people to do an amazing thing [donate blood] to help their fellow man or woman."

A Utah police officer who killed his family before taking his own life had drugged and raped his wife on videotape repeatedly, according to an investigation into the January murder-suicide.

Spanish Fork police completed its 145-page investigation Monday into the deaths of 32-year-old Kelly Boren, 7-year-old Joshua "Jaden" Boren, 5-year-old Haley Boren, 55-year-old Marie King, and 34-year-old Joshua Boren, reported the Deseret News.

Police believe Joshua Boren, a Linden police officer who previously worked as a Utah County sheriff's deputy, used his department-issued handgun to kill his wife, children, and mother-in-law Jan. 16 in their home and then turned the gun on himself.

Investigators said Boren was a well-respected law enforcement officer considered a "teddy bear" by those who knew him, but they said the officer had a dark side he had apparently battled since childhood.

A California pastor and two members of his congregation admitted in court that they physically abused a 13-year-old boy and made him dig his own grave.

According to affidavits published by The Los Angeles Times, 56-year-old Heart of Worship Community Church Pastor Lonny Lee Remmers, 24-year-old Nicholas James Craig and 30-year-old Darryll Duane Jeter Jr. said that they were following instructions to "scare" the victim. All three of the men had worked at a group home where the boy lived.

In March of 2012, the men reportedly took the victim to the desert where he was forced to dig a grave. After he got in the grave, the men threw dirt on him.

The men also rubbed salt into his wounds while he was showering, tied him to a chair with zip ties, and sprayed mace on his face until he bled.

At one point, the boy was made to sit in the middle of a Bible study group and pinch his own nipples with pliers, investigators said.

Sixteen Palestinians have been killed and 106 injured in a massive Israeli air and naval assault against the besieged Gaza Strip Tuesday, bombing dozens of targets, including homes.

"The casualty toll from the [Israeli] aggression has reached 16 dead and 106 injured," health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra wrote on Twitter.The casualties are "mostly children, women and the elderly," he added.In the deadliest of the attacks, eight people were killed when Israel bombed the Kaware family home in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, Qudra announced, writing on Twitter that three children aged eight, 13 and 14 were among the dead. Another 25 people were injured in that bombing.

Witnesses told AFP a drone launched a warning flare, prompting relatives and neighbors to gather at the house as a human shield, but shortly afterwards an F-16 fired a missile which leveled the building.That attack came after four bodies had arrived to Shifa Hospital after Israel bombed a car transporting them in Gaza City, Qudra said.

Israel claims its offensive is meant to end Palestinian rocket fire into Israeli occupied territories, urging Israelis within a 40 kilometer radius of the southern coastal territory to stay within reach of protected areas. The military said it targeted about 50 sites in aerial and naval assaults by morning. Palestinian officials said more than 30 of them were bombed in little more than an hour before dawn, including two homes in southern Gaza, one of which was identified by a neighbor as belonging to a Hamas member.