Argentinian Town Struggles to Cope with Yearly Parrot Invasion

Every year, Hilario Ascasubi, a town in the south of Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, is invaded by tens of thousands of noisy cliff parrots that cause millions of dollars in damage.

The people of Hilario Ascasubi have been “under siege” by a giant colony of parrots for several years now, but many are complaining that things are getting worse every year. The parrot population is growing, and so is the level of property damage they cause. The green-feathered birds love nothing more than biting on electrical and internet wires, driving providers crazy in a neverending race to keep networks in working order. Bird droppings on sidewalks and streets are also a big problem, as is the constant noise the birds make night and day. Many of the 5,000 inhabitants of Hilario Ascasubi are at their wits’ end, claiming that they can’t go on living alongside the birds, but there isn’t much local authorities can do.

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Woman Becomes Police Officer to Catch Her Father’s Killer, Arrests Him 25 Years Later

A Brazilian woman who dedicated her life to catching her father; ‘s killer managed to finally bring her family peace by catching the runaway criminal to justice 25 years after the murder.

On February 16, 1999, Givaldo José Vicente de Deus was shot and killed after a heated argument at a bar in the Brazilian city of Boa Vista. He had gotten into an argument with one Raimundo Alves Gomes over a debt of 150 Brazilian reals (the equivalent of $29 in 1999) that Givaldo reportedly owed Gomes. At one point, the latter walked out of the bar for a few minutes, then came back in with a gun and shot the father-of-five in the head at point-blank range. Gomes fled the scene and although an arrest warrant was issued in his name, he was never caught. Givaldo’s grieving family never gave up hope of bringing his killer to justice, and his eldest daughter, who was only nine at the time of his death, dedicated her life to catching Gomes.

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Transformer Trucks – The Rise of China’s Mobile Banquet Vehicles

Transformer trucks that turn into large banquet halls at the press of a button have become popular in many rural areas around China in recent years.

Recently, a video showing what looks like a container truck capable of morphing into a banquet hall in just six minutes went viral on Chinese social media, but according to several news reports, the intriguing vehicles have been around for a while now. They first appeared in China’s Inner Mongolia region but proved so popular there that they quickly expanded to neighboring provinces like Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Gansu. In recent years, they have been spotted in rural areas of northern Shanxi, northern Hebei, and western Shandong. The trucks can transform in just six minutes and can accommodate up to 200 people.

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Museum Technician Unknowingly Throws Artwork in the Trash

A new lift technician at the Dutch art museum LAM assumed that a famous artwork that looks like two crushed beer cans was discarded trash so he threw it in the rubbish bin.

All The Good Times We Spent Together is a modern artwork created by French artist Alexandre Lavet, but anyone unfamiliar with it can easily mistake it for trash, especially in the LAM Museum, which prides itself on surprising visitors by installing exhibits in unconventional locations. At first glance, Lavet’s artwork looks like two discarded and dented beer cans, but a closer inspection reveals that they are meticulously hand-painted with acrylic paint. However, the artistic value of All The Good Times We Spent Together was lost on LAM Museum’s new lift technician who, upon seeing the two aluminum cans in the lift, mistook them for trash and treated them as such.

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German Teenager Snitches on Parking Offenders as a Hobby

18-year-old Niclas Matthei has become known as the “Reporting Master” in his home country of Germany after snitching on thousands of parking offenders to the police.

Not all heroes wear capes! Some wear neon green overalls and ride bicycles around busy streets hunting parking offenders and snitching on them to the police as a hobby, and because they consider it the right thing to do. Niclas Matthei, a young man from the town of Gräfenhainichen, in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt region, first made national news headlines earlier this year, when several prominent media outlets wrote about his unusual hobby -riding his bike around town, photographing illegally parked cars and sending the proof to the local police. He called himself “Anzeigenhauptmeister” or “Reporting Master” and he claimed that he only did his civic duty.

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Indian Couple Scam Victims of $4 Million with “Israel-Made Time Machine” Capable of Reversing Aging

An Indian couple is wanted by police for scamming dozens of unsuspecting victims by promising to make them look young again with the help of an Israeli time machine.

Rajeev Kumar Dubey and his wife Rashmi Dubey pulled off one of the most incredible scams in the history of mankind. The Indian couple owned a therapy center in Kanpur, India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where they allegedly convinced people that they were aging rapidly due to excessively polluted air and claimed that they could reverse the process with the help of an “Israel-made time machine” and oxygen therapy. The Dubeys are suspected of having deceived many elderly people looking for a way of regaining their youth and filling their pockets with 35 crore Indian rupees ($4.1 million).

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World’s Smallest Rubik’s Cube Is Just 0.19 Inches Wide, Costs Over $5,000

Japanese toymaker MegaHouse recently unveiled the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube, an aluminum cube measuring only 0.19 inches per side and weighing just 0.33 grams, but with a price tag of $5,320.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Rubik’s Cube invented by Hungarian sculptor Erno Rubik, Japanese toymaker MegaHouse set out to create the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube. The company came up with the idea for the project about four years ago and started working on it in 2022. Although making a metal square only 0.5 cm in width doesn’t seem that difficult in this day and age, making a functional Rubik’s Cube with rotating faces was a big challenge. MegaHouse had to team up with a precision-cutting company to ensure that all the tiny parts worked as intended.

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Summer Heat Turns Adorable Store Sign into Nightmare-Inducing Horror

A small Japanese clothing store has gone viral after its sign featuring a cute baby turned into a horror attraction due to the intense heat and sunlight over the last couple of years.

Hangai, a clothing and miscellaneous goods store in Nagahama City, Japan’s Shiga Prefecture, has had the same sign board for 10 years – an adorable baby with a speech bubble that reads “We have lots of good, cheap things”. However, last year, after a particularly hot summer, the sign changed into an eerie sight, with the baby’s eyes and mouth becoming pitch black. Due to the intense heat and direct sunlight, the dark colors of the sign became charred, creating a terrifying sight. Things got even worse this year, after another scorching summer. The heat made the once-adorable store sign even scarier, with the baby’s entire face now strangely dark, as if it had come out of a fire.

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Restaurant Sparks Controversy with Bubble Tea Beef Noodles

A Vietnamese restaurant recently went viral for launching a new dish – bubble tea beef noodles – in a bid to take advantage of the popularity of tapioca pearl milk tea.

There is no questioning the crazy popularity of bubble tea not only in Asia, but around the world. There is just something about the tapioca pearl-infused milk tea that has most people coming back for more, so it’s easy to understand why many businesses try to tap into this popularity to attract new business. The latest example is Yu Tang, a Vietnamese restaurant based in Hanoi that recently launched a new dish that combines milk tea, tapioca pearls, thick noodles and slices of cooked beef. Inspired by Taiwan’s popular milk hot pot, the new dish has been drawing a lot of attention online.

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Republican Candidate “Borrows” Family for Campaign Video

Derrick Anderson, a Republican candidate running for Congress in the U.S. state of Virginia, landed in hot water after allegedly borrowing a friend’s family for a campaign video.

Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret running for an open seat in Virginia’s 7th District, was recently accused of trying to mislead voters by posing with the wife and three daughters of a “longtime friend” and trying to pass them off as his own family. Anderson is not married, doesn’t have any children and his campaign website states that he lives with his dog. There is obviously nothing wrong with the retired Green Beret not having a family, but experts would tell you that families have long been a staple of U.S. election campaigns, and with reproductive rights being a key issue this election cycle, posing as a happy husband and father is that much more important for the Republican candidate.

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Man Plants 40,000 Trees Over Two Decades to Create Sao Paolo Park

Helio da Silva, a retired business executive from Brazil, single-handedly planted over 41,000 trees in his hometown of Sao Paolo over the last two decades.

Flying over the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo, it’s tough to miss the 3.2-kilometers-long and 100-meter-wide green strip of trees wedged between two of the city’s busiest roads. It is known as Tiquatira Linear Park, and it is the work of a single man who worked tirelessly for over 20 years in order to transform a previously dilapidated area into an actual jungle within the urban jungle that is Sao Paolo. Originally from the town of Promissao, about 500km from Sao Paulo, Helio da Silva was a successful business executive for many years, but after retiring, he took it upon himself to transform the degraded banks of the Tiquatira River into a green oasis for his community. He started planting trees there in 20023 and hasn’t stopped since.

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Boy Who Complained of Bad Smell for Two Years Had Screw Stuck in His Nose

A 7-year-old Chinese boy who had been complaining about a mysterious bad smell for two years had a metal screw stuck in his left nostril.

The unnamed boy from Jiaozuo, China’s Henan Province, had been telling his parents that he smelled something bad for at least a couple of years, but they could never figure out what it was. They certainly couldn’t smell what it was, and the 7-year-old child couldn’t really describe the smell, so for a long time, they ignored his claims as make-believe. However, his complaints became more frequent in recent weeks, so they decided to take him to a doctor. An examination of the boy’s nostrils revealed a mysterious black mass in his nose, a find later confirmed by a CT scan of his head.

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The Petroleum Fley Is the Only Known Insect Species That Develops in Crude Oil

Diasemocera petrolei, aka the petroleum fly, is a fascinating insect that not only survives in petroleum, a highly toxic substance to other animals, but actually thrives in it.

For tens of thousands of years, the La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles, California, have been a death trap to millions of animals, some extinct, some still around today. Insects, birds, mammals, and even dinosaurs, all found their end in these gooey pits at some point in time, but one tiny insect species managed to adapt to this incredibly toxic environment and actually use it to its advantage. The petroleum fly, a flying insect about the size of a fruit fly, is the only known insect species that can not only survive in the natural asphalt of the La Brea Tar Pits but actually calls it home. Its larvae develop in the viscous petroleum while the mature flies spend most of their lives strolling on the surface of the tar pits in search of food.

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Teen Boy Faces Lifetime Disability After Being Forced to Do 1,000 Squats by Teacher

A 13-year-old Chinese boy was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition, after being asked to do 1,000 squats as punishment during summer camp.

Ms. Lu, a mother-of-one from Jining, in China’s Shandong Province, recently revealed the tragic story of how her teenage son suffered a corporeal punishment that threatened to leave him disabled for life. It all happened last summer when the boy was enrolled in a 7-day camp where he could interact with other kids and engage in physical activities. Everything was fine until graduation day when the parents received pictures from the ceremony in which their son had visibly red eyes and a sad expression. His father noticed that one of the boy’s legs appeared limp, but when they asked the camp organizers about him, they were told everything was alright. It was only when they went to pick him up that they realized the seriousness of the situation. Their 13-year-old boy was waiting for them on a stool because he could barely stand up.

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Tree Cut in Half in Neighborly Dispute Becomes Unlikely Tourist Attraction

A bizarre-looking fir tree sliced in half during a neighborly dispute over bird droppings has become a popular tourist attraction with its own Google reviews in the Waterthorpe suburb of Sheffield, England.

Three years ago, the now-famous half-cut fir tree of Waterhope made international news headlines for the first time. Located on the edge of Bharat Mistry’s property, it extended its evergreen crown on the driveway of Irene and Graham Lee. The birds nesting in the 25-year-old fir tree had become a nuisance to the Lee’s as they constantly had to clean their driveway of droppings. At first, the two parties involved tried to find an amicable solution, like trimming the branches or installing nets to prevent birds from nesting in it, but since no compromise was reached, the Lees took matters into their own hands and hired an arborist to cut the tree in half and remove its branches from their property. Photos of the odd-looking tree quickly went viral and the tree became a local tourist attraction.

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