A Russian chess player is facing a lifetime ban from official competitions after allegedly trying to poison an opponent by spreading mercury compounds on her chess board.

Amina Abakarova, a 40-year-old chess player from the Russian Republic of Dagestan, stands accused of trying to poison another female player during a chess tournament in Makhachkala. Surveillance footage from the Dagestan Classical Chess Championship shows the 40-year-old woman spreading a substance later identified as mercury on the chess board and pieces that would later be used by another player, Umayganat Osmanova. CCTV footage clearly shows Abakarova walking to the table where Osmanova was about to play and tampering with the chess board and pieces before casually walking away so as not to draw attention. Her actions would have probably gone unnoticed had Umayganat Osmanova not begun to experience symptoms like nausea and dizziness just 30 minutes later.

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Antonio “El Diablo” Riano, a fugitive wanted by US authorities for almost two decades in connection to a fatal shooting in Cincinnati, was recently found working as a police officer in Mexico.

In December of 2004, four days before Christmas, Antonion Riano got into an argument with a 25-year-old man at a bar in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their bickering continued outside the watering hole where surveillance cameras caught Riano pulling out a gun and then shooting the other man in the face, killing him. The man nicknamed “El Diablo” (Spanish for ‘The Devil’) then went on the run and managed to escape authorities despite a nationwide manhunt. Riano went to visit his sister in New Jersey before disappearing again, this time for almost 20 years. He remained on the US’ most wanted criminals list, but investigators stopped actively looking for him after a few years, until recently when one detective found El Diablo through social media.

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Coca-Cola is consumed all around the world, but nowhere is it more popular than in the Mexican state of Chiapas, where the average person drinks 821.2 liters of Coca-Cola per year, roughly 32 times the global average.

The people of Chiapas consume more Coca-Cola than any other people on the planet, about 2.2 liters of it per day, which makes it more popular than drinking water. Coca-Cola is sold and advertised virtually everywhere in the state, and it’s almost as cheap as water, Most people don’t consume it as a treat, but as a way of keeping themselves hydrated throughout the day, and many have no clue that they are addicted to it. The iconic soft drink has been present in Chiapas for over half a century and is so deeply ingrained in the local culture and even in its religious practice, that people can’t imagine their lives without it.

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A Wuhan beauty clinic is being accused of tricking a mentally-challenged 19-year-old man into getting a boob job by claiming that he could then make money through live-streaming.

The 19-year-old young man, whose mother claims he has the mind of a 5-year-old boy, reportedly applied for a job at the unnamed beauty clinic, which provided “full board and a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan ($400)”. However, after asking about potential job opportunities for men, he was told that he should first undergo a breast enlargement surgery and then begin working after he recovered. The man’s mother surnamed Lu, recently unveiled chat archives between her son and beauty clinic staff in which he is assured that boob jobs are ok for men as well and that such procedures were very popular among live-streamers. Despite expressing doubt at first, the impressionable youth agreed to get the surgery and even pay for it.

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A dramatic surveillance camera video released by the Tulsa Fire Department shows the moment an unsupervised dog started a house fire by chewing on a lithium battery pack.

Reportedly captured in May of this year, the shocking footage shows a dog casually chewing on a portable lithium-ion battery power bank left within reach by their owner. At one point, the pierced battery starts sparking and then bursts into flames, causing the canine perpetrator as well as another dog and a cat that were napping nearby to run for their lives. Luckily, all the pets escaped through a dog door and were not harmed, but the fire caused significant fire to the house. Firefighters are now using the video as a warning against leaving lithium batteries within reach of children and pets.

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Made with 400 grams of solid gold and decorated with 152 sapphires, the Louis XIII Fleur de Parme is recognized as the world’s most expensive cigar lighter.

French luxury brand S.T. Dupont started working on the Louis XIII Fleur de Parme cigar lighter at the special request of Steven Hung, a Hong Kong billionaire with a passion for French history. The client had very specific requirements that made it obvious to Dupont that this project could only be carried out by a special designer with an intimate knowledge of French culture and history. Enter Princess Tania de Bourbon Parme, a direct descendant of Louis XIII, but also a renowned designer, who spent six months working with a team of 80 artisans to produce a unique art piece worthy of the title of ‘world’s most expensive cigar lighter’.

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40-year-old Yoshitaka has been happily married to 65-year-old Aki for over eleven years, despite only learning about the age gap between them on the day before their wedding.

Yoshitaka was only 29 when he met the love of his life. Aki was running a Japanese-style bar and after making some small talk, they realized they had very much in common. They had both gone through failed marriages and were raising children alone, and after visiting Aki’s bar a few times, Yoshitaka asked her out on a date. The Japanese man could tell she was a bit older than him, but he never guessed her real age and she didn’t reveal it either, fearing that it would just scare him away. She was 54 at the time, but told Yoshitaka that she was 44, and he never suspected anything. Aki was always cheerful and her smooth skin didn’t betray her age, so she was able to keep her secret for seven years, up until the day before their wedding.

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A 38-year-old woman in China has been living in a nursing home for the elderly after becoming ill due to overwork and looking for a way to slow things down in her life.

Ms. Yang had been working as a screenwriter in the film and television industry for 11 years when the hectic schedule and extreme work volume started taking a toll on her health. Earlier this year, she became sick and needed to be hospitalized. Doctors told her that she needed to take it easy on herself or she would experience even more serious health problems, so the 38-year-old woman decided to find a way to slow things down. Both her parents had passed away and she had no other close family, so she started looking for a place where she could both relax and recuperate. While browsing the internet for answers, she read about a retirement home and about how calm and slow life was there, so she decided to try it for herself.

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A regional beauty pageant in Altamira, Brazil ended in tragedy after the father of one of the contestants started shooting at the judges because his daughter had only gotten fourth place.

The bizarre incident took place on July 28, after the end of the “II Baile da Escolha da Rainha” beauty pageant in the city of Altamira. About a couple of hours after the contest ended, the father of one of the participants, a local rancher identified as Sebastiao Francisco, began voicing his dissatisfaction regarding his daughter’s fourth-place finish in the competition, questioning the judges’ decision and the evaluation criteria. The venue where the beauty pageant had taken place was staffed by private security and military police, but the angry father didn’t seem to care, and at one point took out a gun and attempted to shoot at one of the judges, only to be shot at by police.

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Zhang Sixuan, a 9-year-old girl from China’s Henan province, bested some of the world’s most elite kung fu masters to earn the title of “Shaolin Kung Fu Star” at this year’s World Shaolin Games.

There are millions of Shaolin Kung fu practitioners around the world, and every year tens of thousands of them compete for a chance to be invited to participate in the World Shaolin Games Finals. This year, an international cast of 124 kung fu practitioners was invited to show off their skills at a Shaolin temple in central China’s Henan Province, in front of respected kung fu masters and an audience of kung fu enthusiasts. Among them was a 9-year-old girl whose incredible flexibility and mastery of tong zi gong (a form of Shaolin kung fu) stunned both the judges and the crowd, earning her the coveted title of Shaolin Kung Fu Star.

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A Chinese company has come under fire for posting a job ad and asking potential candidates born in the year of the dog not to bother applying because they would automatically be rejected.

The unnamed company in Guangzhou, China’s Guangdong province, recently posted an ad for a job on its administrative staff. It required work experience, and familiarity with office software, and was compensated with a monthly salary of up to 4,000 yuan. However, what really caught people’s attention was a short line asking people not to submit their resumes if they happened to be born in the year of the dog. The post sparked controversy on Chinese social media, with many accusing the company of discrimination, but a source from inside the organization revealed that the boss was born in the year of the dragon and believes that he is not compatible with people born in the year of the dog.

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A 24-year-old Chinese man who spent the last five months of his life living in the mountains after a painful breakup now looks at least twice his age and is called “uncle” by people older than him.

Remember Brandon Miles May, the 35-year-old man who looks half his age? Well, today we’re featuring his exact opposite, a young man who looks twice his age, not because of some rare genetic disorder, but simply because he has been exposed to the elements in the mountains of northern and western China. The unidentified man rose to fame in his native country after a video in which he showed his ID to the camera to prove he was in his early 20s went viral on social media. When referred to as ‘uncle’ by the person shooting the video, the balding, rugged-looking trekker says that he is only 24, and proceeds to hold up his ID card to the camera to show that he was born in December of 2000.

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Enzo, a 4-year-old boy from Aubervilliers, France, miraculously survived a 43-meter fall from his 16th-floor apartment with only a scratch and no fractures, and no one understands how.

The unusual incident took place on May 26, in a high-rise apartment complex in Aubervilliers, central France. Enzo, a 4-year-old boy diagnosed with autism was in his room when his father, Ji, heard him crying. As usual, he hurried to check on his son and calm him down, but as he tried to enter Enzo’s room, he realized that the door was locked. This had never happened before, and the parents suspect that the boy accidentally locked himself inside which caused him to panic. By the time Ji managed to break down the door, Enzo’s crying had stopped and the room seemed empty. Seeing the window open, the man horrifyingly realized that he was too late.

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Two chefs at a restaurant in Jiangsu, China, have been sentenced to prison for lacing thousands of dishes with antidiarrheal drugs to ensure stale ingredients didn’t upset people’s stomachs.

On July 30th, the Market Management Bureau of Chongzhou District, Nantong City, issued a statement announcing that two chefs who had worked at a local hotel restaurant had been sentenced to prison and forced to pay a fine of 160,000 yuan ($22,000) for serving “toxic and harmful food” laced with gentamicin sulfate, an antibiotic used to treat diarrhea. The two perpetrators had reportedly been using expired ingredients in their dishes and laced them with gentamicin to minimize the risk of patrons suffering from upset stomachs. According to a police investigation, the chefs sold at least 1,612 servings of gentamicin sulfate-laced food.

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Doctors at Hanoi’s Viet Duc Hospital recently saved a young man’s life by performing emergency surgery to remove a live eel that had bitten through his intestines and entered his abdominal cavity.

On July 27, a 31-year-old Indian national was brought to the emergency room of Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi with severe abdominal pain. Through moans and screams of agony, the unnamed man told hospital staff that he had inserted a live eel into his body through his backside shortly before he began experiencing excruciating abdominal pain. The Vietnamese doctors on duty had seen a lot of things in people’s bodies, but a live eel was new, even for them, so they didn’t believe the patient at first. However, X-ray imaging and ultrasound exams showed a horizontal radiopaque skeleton in the man’s abdominal cavity which turned out to be an actual live eel.

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