A street artist performing on the streets of Fortaleza, in Brazil, has made quite a name for himself thanks to his adorable partner, a pet dog, who assists him when he does his realistic living statue routine.

Yorge Luís Ruiz is a young Venezuelan street artist who immigrated to Brazil in search of a better life. He settled in Fortaleza, in the northeastern state of  Ceará, and started performing his living statue routine to entertain passers by in the city’s busy Ferreira square. He’s not the only street artist working that area of the city, but he stands out thanks to his adorable partner, a cute canine named Jaspe. The pooch not only accompanies Yorge whenever he goes to work, but she actually assists him in his routine, resting on his bent arm and standing as still as she possibly can.

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For the average person, having a nice-looking signature is not that big of a deal, but for business people and public figures it’s apparently pretty important. A strong yet elegant signature expresses confidence and can help build trust between business partners, so it’s no wonder that some people actually pay for designer signatures.

Ivan Kuzin, a 20-year-old student from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, has created a lucrative online service offering business managers and entrepreneurs custom signatures. He came up with the idea last year, when he turned 20 and had to change his passport. He realized he didn’t like his signature at all, and since had already started his first business, which was already bringing in steady income, he decided to change it. Ivan turned to his friend, Anastasia Zdor, who had mastered oriental calligraphy while studying in China. She designed a beautiful signature for him and then patiently taught him how to write it himself. The whole process got Ivan thinking about offering designer signatures to others as a paid service.

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Valdir Segato, a Brazilian bodybuilder in his early 50s, has been injecting an oil-based substance into his upper body muscles for year. Despite looking like someone took an air pump and inflated his arms and chest like balloons, he continues to use the appearance-enhancing substance regularly.

As a teenager, Valdir became addicted to drugs and lost so much weight that his friends started calling him ‘Skinny Dog’. He managed to turn his life around though, and started going to the gym every day. Still, he wasn’t satisfied with the results his hard work lifting weights yielded, so when someone introduced him to the popular muscle-enhancement substance synthol, he became hooked on it. The Sao Paolo-based construction worker has been regularly injecting synthol into his biceps and pectoral muscles for years, and despite being warned that he risked having his limbs amputated if he continued to use the substance, he hasn’t been able to stop.

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A homeless artist in the Indian state of Kerala spends most of his days decorating concrete walls and buildings with beautiful murals he paints using only plant leaves, mud, charcoal and natural pigments.

Everyone knows him as Raju, but that’s not his real name. Judging by his dirty clothes and unkempt beard, you’d think he was just one of the many street dwellers in Kollam City, Kerala, but he’s actually an insanely talented artist. For at least 8 years now, Raju has been entertaining the people of Kollam by painting beautiful murals on whatever clean concrete walls he can find, using plant leaves as paint brushes, and plant saps, mud, charcoal and natural pigments as paint.

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If you thought the average balloon dog or rabbit you commonly see entertainers twist at children’s parties was impressive, get ready to have your mind blown. Japanese artist Masayoshi Matsumoto takes the art of balloon animals to a whole new level, creating insanely detailed sculptures that often look too good to be true.

The average balloon animal takes a skilled artist a few seconds to a couple of minutes to create, but Masayoshi Matsumoto spends between two and six hours on a single creation. It’s not that he’s not talented enough, quite the contrary, his works simply display a whole other degree of detail. From realistic-looking octopuses and iguanas, to large models of flies, centipedes and caterpillars, there’s literally no animal that Matsumoto can’t create using simple balloons if he really puts his mind to it.

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There’s no question that artificial intelligence has come a long way in the last few years, but apparently it’s not yet advanced enough to tell the difference between someone using a mobile phone and someone scratching their face.

Chinese media recently reported the case of a man in Jinan, eastern Shandong province, who received a notification that he had broken the law by talking on the phone while driving. The letter also had a surveillance picture of his so-called offence attached, which showed him holding his right hand to his cheek. Only the man didn’t remember using his phone behind the wheel that day, and the picture didn’t show a phone either, just his hand in an awkward position near his face. It turns out the motorist was just scratching his face when the picture was taken. Even so, he learned that he would receive two penalty points on his licence and be required to pay a 50 yuan ($7.25) fine.

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An independent candidate from the Indian state of Punjab managed to make himself known around the world after a video of him crying and telling a reporter that he only received 5 votes in the recent Indian general elections despite having 9 family members went viral on social media.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a resounding victory in India’s general elections, which ended last week after some 600 million people across the country cast their vote. But another important thing happened: Neetu Shutteran Wala, a relatively unknown politician who ran as independent in the city of Jalandhar, had a meteoric rise to meme status. In an interview with a local reporter, Shutteran Wala broke down in tears as he revealed that despite having nine family members, he had only received five votes. Asked if that meant that not even his family voted for him, the emotional politician said that he doesn’t blame his relatives, but election fraud.

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Whether you constantly fall victim to procrastination and just can’t seem to put down your smartphone for more than 10 minutes, or you’re putting on the pounds due to an insatiable sweet tooth, you may want to invest in this “anti-temptation” safe that allows you to lock away things you love for set periods of time.

Sold as a “Kitchen Safe” on Amazon Japan, this ingenious gadget was originally designed to keep users away from stuffing their face with calorie-rich treats, but people have found it to be very effective at curbing their procrastination habits as well. One Twitter user recently posted some photos of his smartphone and Nintendo Switch controllers locked away in this thing, which apparently allowed him to focus on productive tasks.

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Cape Vyatlina, one of the most picturesque places in the Russian Far East, has come to be known as the Russian Stonehenge in recent years, after people started building stone towers on its rocky beach. Today, there are hundreds of them, and new ones are erected almost every day.

The tradition of building towers at Cape Vyatlina by stacking stones of various sizes on top of each other started in 2015, when a group of activists from Vladivostok built 155 such monuments in celebration of the city’s 155th anniversary. Many of these original towers, some up to 3.5-meters-tall, were destroyed by the collapse of a nearby grotto, but other locals and tourists took it upon themselves to restore them and even add to their number. Today, there are several hundreds of these hand-stacked stone towers covering the beach at Cape Vyatlina and building them has become somewhat of a superstition.

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Poppy Johnson, a 23-year-old woman from the UK, claims she has been suffering from an irrational fear of pop legend Michael Jackson for 18 years, ever since she saw the Thriller music video for the first time.

The London-based bar tender was only five when she saw Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller music video. She recalls being freaked out by it, especially the artist’s face change from the wolf. Ever since then, every time she sees or hears anything related to Michael Jackson – a song, an interview or even a poster – she has flashbacks of that traumatic experience and an unexplainable fear sets in. Poppy says she experiences sweaty palms and starts to feel shaky. To make matters worse, Poppy’s parents are big Michael Jackson fans and have lost of memorabilia around their house, but she never told them about her phobia.

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Armed robberies have become so common in Mexico City that people have started buying fake smartphones to hand over to trigger-happy criminals who would rather shoot them than leave empty-handed.

Walking on the street or getting on public transportation in Mexico City have become increasingly risky affairs. According to recently released data, there were an average of 70 violent reported muggings in the Mexican capital in the first four months of 2019. Around two thirds of these crimes targeted pedestrians, while the rest were evenly committed against public transportation passengers and motorists stuck in traffic jams or waiting at traffic lights. The incidence of such crimes has been steadily increasing in the city, but it has gotten so bad that people are now buying fake smartphones to hand over to muggers instead of their real ones.

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A family in Granada, Spain was shocked to discover that the constant buzzing coming from behind their bedroom wall turned out to be a massive bee colony numbering over 80,000 honey bees.

Spanish social media has been buzzing with the news of a couple in Pinos Puente, Granada, who recently asked a local beekeeper to investigate the increasingly loud buzz sound coming from behind their bedroom wall. They had been hearing it for a while and had long come to the conclusion that it must be caused by bees, but it wasn’t until the buzzing got so loud that they couldn’t sleep at night that they decided to get professional help. Beekeeper Sergio Guerrero had helped remove bee colonies from their properties before, but what he found behind the wall of this particular house left him speechless – a hive of over 80,000 bees and honey combs over a meter long.

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A Florida man who was spotted standing through his sunroof while driving on a busy expressway told police that he would rather get locked up than go home to his wife.

70-year-old Leonard Olsen was detained last week after being spotted by an off-duty policeman while standing through the sunroof of his car with his arms spread out. The witness, who actually managed to film the bizarre stunt, said that at one point Olsen was just sitting on his sunroof while the car was still moving. After being stopped by troopers alerted by the off-duty officer, Olen initially denied that he had ever stood out the sunroof while driving, saying that he didn’t “know about that”. However, after being told that someone had seen and recorded him doing just that, the man changed his story, telling the troopers that he planned to turn himself in because he didn’t want to go back to his wife.

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A young dog breeder in eastern China was recently arrested and sentenced to ten days in a detention center after giving two of his canines controversial names that refer to Chinese government and civil service workers.

The 30-year-old man, surnamed Ban, was summoned by police on Monday, after posting on Chinese social network WeChat that he had named two of his dogs Chengguan and Xieguan. The first refers to officials tasked with tackling low-level crime, while the second is a name used to describe informal community workers, such as traffic assistants. Ban said that he didn’t know using the two words as names for his dogs was illegal, and that he had done it as a joke, but police failed to see the humor and launched an investigation after the man’s post went viral online.

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A 63-year-old man recently made news headlines in China for reportedly throwing up a tumor after a drinking session, then getting scared and swallowing it back.

The unnamed man from Hunchun County, in China’s Hubei Province, had allegedly been feeling discomfort in his throat for some time, but since it didn’t hinder his breathing or swallowing too much, he never sought medical attention. However, last week, after having one too many drinks, the man started feeling nauseous. That was hardly unusual after a long drinking session, only this time, as he was getting ready to throw up, the 63-year-old felt a sharp pain in his lower throat followed by the disturbing presence of a large piece of meat in his mouth. Strangely enough, the fleshy mass seemed to be attached to something, so the drunk man couldn’t just cough it out, so he did the next best thing –  he chugged a glass of water and swallowed it back.

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