Detroit, Michigan - Four people were found shot to death in a Detroit home, authorities said Wednesday, padding the city's homicide total that already has surpassed last year's.

Officers discovered the bodies of a teenage boy, two men and woman Tuesday night at a home in an east-side neighborhood. Investigators believed the killings were drug-related, police spokeswoman Yvette Walker said.

The Wayne County medical examiner's office identified the victims Wednesday as Shawn Bender, 16; Janetta Harris, 22; Jason Koester, 28; and Dyrelle Davis, 34. Harris died of multiple gunshot wounds, while the other three were shot in the head, according to the office.

The block where the bodies were found has about two dozen two-story homes. Like many Detroit neighborhoods, several of the homes are vacant. On the front door of one vacant home, someone affixed a sign that reads: "This building is being watched."

Carla Collins, 49, said that in August, she and some of her neighbors formed the "Tacoma Street Block Club," a neighborhood watch, because suspicious activity in the area spiked when an abandoned building across the street from her home became a "dope house."

"This was a quiet neighborhood," said Collins, who moved there three years ago.

The killings were the latest in what has been a particularly violent year in Detroit. The city announced last week that homicides rose this year, reaching 354 through Thanksgiving after totaling 344 for all of 2011.

Kuala Lumpur - The family members of Aminulrasyid Amzah, the schoolboy shot dead two years ago by police corporal Jenain Subi, are distraught that his killer was set free today by a High Court here, calling the decision "unfair".

A sobbing Azura Amzah, Aminulrasyid's older sister, told The Malaysian Insider that her family was still reeling in shock that Jenain's earlier conviction was overturned, when they had fought tooth and nail for two years to seek justice for the 15-year-old boy's death.

"The court's decision is unfair. I really see it as unfair to us," she said when contacted here.

"We will discuss with our lawyers on further action," she added.

Justice Abdul Rahman Sebli overturned Jenain's conviction in a High Court today, saying that evidence did not support any suggestion that the policeman's intended to kill Aminulrasyid despite firing over 20 shots from a submachine gun at the teen.

"No prima facie case had in fact been established against the appellant and his defence should not have been called," he said in his ruling.

The judge also said the loss of life was unfortunate but that the police must not be blamed for the death.

Responding, PKR leaders Nurul Izzah Anwar and N. Surendran urged the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) to appeal the court's decision, pointing out that today's ruling ultimately meant that nobody will be held accountable for Aminulrasyid's death.

Bridgeport - A veteran state trooper denied stealing $3,700 from the mangled body of an Orange man on the Merritt Parkway, even after his superiors learned it was captured on the dashboard video camera of the trooper's car.

Trooper Aaron "AJ" Huntsman argued that he was asking about the "crash" -- not for the "cash" -- from 49-year-old John Scalesse, who was lying unconscious in the back of an ambulance, according to the arrest warrant affidavit released Tuesday.

Huntsman, 43, is charged with two counts of third-degree larceny, interfering with police and tampering with evidence. He is scheduled to be arraigned in state Superior Court in Bridgeport on Dec. 10.

Scalesse was killed Sept. 22 after his motorcycle crashed into a construction truck in the northbound section of exit 44 on the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield.

"The more we think about it, the more upset we get," said Scalesse's father, John Scalesse Sr. "It's just shocking that a police officer with 18 years would so something like this."

The affidavit states that Huntsman, who was the first trooper at the crash scene, walked to where Scalesse lay on the ground, and bent down and picked up Scalesse's gold chain from a pool of blood. Later, Huntsman told Scalesse's grieving father that he didn't see any money on the victim.

Police said a second trooper who was on the crash scene, Mark DiCocco, initially claimed he didn't see Huntsman take the money and was evasive when questioned about the incident.

The American Psychiatric Association has agreed to no longer classify people who are transgender and non-gender conforming as having mental illness.

The revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders mirrors similar moves to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness in the USA in 1973.

Until now "gender identity disorder" was used to label people who are trans and this has been used as a basis for anti-equality campaigners to argue against the rights of trans people.

The new edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will label trans people as having "Gender Dysphoria," a term to communicate the distress caused by "a marked incongruence between one's experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender." The aim is so that treatment can be offered without stigmatising trans people as having a mental disorder.

How much sicker can people get? It seems like our world is becoming more sadistic and more cruel with each passing day. If you doubt this, just keep reading. Sadly, I could have easily included hundreds more examples just like these. Changes are happening to our society at a very deep and very fundamental level. Everywhere you look, hearts are growing colder and it seems like we are completely surrounded by psychopaths and sociopaths.

But if all you do is listen to the mainstream media, you would be tempted to think that we are the smartest, most moral, most "enlightened" generation in all of human history. Unfortunately, that is most definitely not the case. Society is literally coming apart at the seams right in front of our eyes. "Normal" crimes are not enough for many criminals these days.

Murders and rapes have become so common that often they barely get noticed by the newspapers, and so now many criminals seem to have the desire to make their crimes "twisted enough" to get noticed. In other instances, people are doing really twisted things because they are high on drugs or they are into the occult. Darkness is spreading, and we can see the evidence all around us. But until we admit how bad things have really gotten and that what we are doing right now is clearly not working, then we won't be ready for a solution.

Posted below are 20 examples of how sadistic and cruel people have become. Please don't read this list if you have a weak stomach, and please don't let your young children read it. I am trying to make it very clear that our society has become very sick, very twisted and very evil and so I have included a number of very graphic examples. Believe me, the list below could have been even worse. I decided to leave out some really wicked things that some degenerate parents have done to their own children. But hopefully the list below will suffice to prove to you that we have a major problem on our hands. Normal people don't do these kinds of things...

Have today's anti-smoking activists abandoned science in favour of prejudice? Rich White traces the history of tobacco bans - and the snobbery that went with them - back to Columbus

Tobacco smoking is currently seen by many as the scourge of society, an action of those wanting slowly to kill themselves. It is common perception that this idea is based solely on scientific evidence that has accumulated over the past sixty years.

Yet the truth is smoking has always attracted the wrath of puritans. In the past 'public health' measures were not enacted because of scientific evidence, but a sense of morality.

Alcohol was condemned and labelled a sinful activity because of moral sensitivity, and the same was true of tobacco. So the question is, is the attack on smoking today once again borne of ethical reasoning, or scientific rigour?

When Christopher Columbus reached Cuba in 1492 with Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, his two men experimented with smoking the tobacco pipe. Columbus himself not only refrained but spoke against it, referring to Rodrigo and Luis as sinking to the level of "savages" for smoking. When they packed tobacco on their boat and returned to Europe, there was an immediate divide between those who loved it and those who hated it, even inspiring King James I of England to write 'A Counter Blaste to Tobacco'.

New York - Authorities said a suspect has implicated himself in the death of a New York man who was pushed onto the tracks and photographed just before a train struck him - an image that set off an ethical debate after it appeared on the front page of the New York Post.

The suspect was taken into custody on Tuesday after investigators recovered security video that showed a man fitting the description of the suspect working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne on Tuesday.

"The individual we talked to made statements implicating himself in the incident," Browne said.

No charges were immediately announced.

Witnesses told investigators they saw the suspect talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Ki-Suck Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train's path.

Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform's edge.

The Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded.

Abbasi said in an audio clip on the Post's website that he used the flash on his camera to try to warn the train driver that someone was on the tracks. He said he wasn't strong enough to lift Han.

"I wanted to help the man, but I couldn't figure out how to help," Abbasi said. "It all happened so fast."

Kinky sex has been admitted to Harvard.

The nation's oldest university has formally recognized Harvard College Munch, a group promoting discussions and safe practices of kinky and alternative sex.

The Committee on Student Life recognized Munch on Friday, making it one of 400 independent student organizations on campus. It occurred more than a year after members began meeting informally over meals.

Founders say Munch "meets an otherwise unaddressed need on campus."

The Harvard Crimson quotes one founder as saying that recognition "comes with the fact of legitimacy" and shows members are being taken seriously.

Munch has created a safety team to enable victims of abuse or trauma get suitable help.

Organizers say the group started with seven people and now boasts about 30 members.

Source: The Associated Press

Tehran, Iran - An imprisoned human rights lawyer serving a sentence for "acting against national security" ended a 49-day hunger strike on Tuesday after judicial authorities acceded to her demand to lift a travel ban imposed on her 12-year-old daughter, her husband said.

The lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, 49, who until her imprisonment in 2010 was one of the last lawyers taking on high-profile human rights and political cases in Iran, decided in October to go on the hunger strike out of fear of increasing limitations imposed on her family. She fell into fragile health during the hunger strike, in which she would drink only water mixed with salts and sugar. Her weight dropped to 95 pounds.

It was the second time that Ms. Sotoudeh felt compelled to quit eating. She declared her first hunger strike in 2010, after her family was forbidden to visit or make phone calls. In that case, the authorities capitulated after four weeks, allowing her husband and two children to visit weekly.

Ms. Sotoudeh has also written several public letters from prison, one of which thanked the head of the judiciary for putting her in jail, saying she was horrified by the thought of being free while her former clients were still in prison.

In recent years, several lawyers representing people suspected of security crimes have been arrested while others, like Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, have left the country. Tuesday's ruling, which had not been officially confirmed by the authorities here, seemed to show that Iranian officials are receptive to pressure in human rights cases - something that Ms. Sotoudeh has argued consistently.

Iranian officials deny there are any political prisoners in Iran, saying that all those behind bars have been tried according to the country's laws. Ms. Sotoudeh is serving a six-year prison term since her conviction last year on the national security charge and over "misusing her profession as a lawyer."

A Ukrainian man is offering the living the chance to sit in a coffin to get themselves used to the afterlife.

Stepan Piryanyk is from the Ukrainian town of Truskavets and has been working in the coffin business for over a decade.

He has now launched a new service called "coffin therapy".

The therapy offers people the chance to lie inside a casket for approximately 15 minutes - putting the lid on is optional.