Dr.Vorobev, a “medical jewelry” company based in Kostroma, Russia, has been getting a lot of attention for the sterling silver coronavirus-shaped pendants it has been selling since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sold online for 1,000 rubles ($13), the coronavirus pendant created by Dr. Vorobev has become a very controversial piece of jewelry on Russian social media. While some people buy it and post photos of themselves wearing it on their Instagram and VK accounts, other criticize the company for trying to make money off a global health crisis that has already killed tens of thousands around the world.  Pavel Vorobyov, the founder of Dr. Vorobev, insists that the pendant is a gesture of support for health professionals, not a way to exploit the current crisis.

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Although health experts around the world strongly advise people to isolate themselves in order to minimize the chances of getting infected with the novel coronavirus, one German mayor did just the opposite, deliberately contacting the virus so he could then be immune to it.

Berlin District Mayor Stephan von Dassel sparked controversy in German last week after admitting to consciously contacting the novel coronavirus from his partner in order to self-immunize and be able to work while others were off sick. Even though his decision went against the general consensus of public health experts, most of whom strongly recommend social-distancing to avoid catching the virus, von Dassel claims that he saw his deliberate infection as a “contribution” toward the long-term goal of flattening the curve of the infection. He did admit that he underestimated the virus, though.

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Japan’s “Class of Life” is a controversial school project that aims to teach students about valuing their food and the environment by having them raise and then eat animals like fish and chicken.

We first featured the Class of Life a couple of years ago, when a video showcasing its implementation at an agricultural high-school in Japan’s Shimano Prefecture went viral on Chinese social media, leaving most viewers in a state of shock. The footage showed students preparing chicken eggs for hatching, raising the chicks for several months, and finally killing, cooking and eating the chickens. The Class of Life has been a part of Japanese curriculum at certain schools for over six decades, so most Japanese people are familiar with it, but even they were stunned recently when they saw elementary school children taking part in the class.

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Héctor Aníbal Gimenez, better known as “Pastor Gimenez” in Argentina, was recently accused of trying to profit off of the global coronavirus pandemic by trying to sell “Blessed antibacterial gel” to his followers.

The Argentine evangelical pastor was denounced last Wednesday before prosecutor Matías Michienzi by a lawyer who said that the antibacterial gel was being offered at the Temple of Waves of Love and Peace, located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Almagro. The complaint mentioned that the bottles of of gel were also sold on the church’s Facebook page where they were being promoted as blessed by Pastor Gimenez to provide protection against the novel coronavirus.

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Men usually show off their affection to their better halves by buying them flowers, complimenting them or showering them with gifts, but one Vietnamese man decided to show off his love for his fiancee in a rather unusual way – by tattoing a large portrait of her on his back.

22-year-old Truong Van Lam allegedly spent nearly 24 hours having his girlfriend’s portrait inked on his back, in three separate sessions. The first one, which lasted eight hours, was in November of last year, and sine then he went under the needle two more times, one for over six hours, and the other nine hours. The result is a permanent portrait of his 20-year-old girlfriend, Luong Kha Tran, a tattooed version of a photograph of her.

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This is a somewhat older story that was originally reported by media primarily in Indonesia and other East-Asian countries back in 2018. It got a lot of attention because it touched on a very taboo topic – the romantic relationship between an adult male teacher and a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

Erwin Pangaila was 27 when he fell in love with a junior high school student at the SMP Negeri 2 Tenga school, in Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia. In fact, it was 13-year-old Vinda Virginia who first noticed and approached him. She happened to walk by his classroom saw him writing on the blackboard and immediately fell for his broad shoulders and athletic physique. She wasn’t the only girl in school to have a crush on Erwin, but she was determined to be the one that won his heart. She started staying behind after classes to ask him questions and eventually, their student-teacher relationship turned into a romantic one.

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Saudi Arabia state-owned oil company, Aramco, has been forced to apologize for using one of its employees as a human stand for a hand sanitizing gel dispenser.

The oil giant attracted severe criticism this week after photos of one of its employees wearing a body suit with a hand sanitizer attached and a medical mask on his face started circulating on social media. The foreign employee can be seen standing as a virtual stand, as other employees use the gel dispenser he’s carrying. Although the intention may have been to raise awareness of the importance of cleaning your hands using sanitizer during the current Covid-19 pandemic, the humiliating role was harshly criticized.

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A young Canadian man who tattooed most of his body, including his face, hands and legs bright blue, claims that the “whimsical element” has really helped him enjoy his life way more than before.

Donnie Snider, a former forklift driver from Scarborough, in Canada’s Ontario region, started permanently coloring his body blue three years ago, and is now almost completely Smurf-like in color. It all started when he asked his sister to tattoo a part of his leg and foot with the bright blue hue; he liked it so much that he kept on turning part of his body blue, partly because of the psychological impact he experienced. If before he felt  trapped by conformity and had a “lack of confidence”, the permanent makeover really gave him a big boost.

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Tatyana Dvazhdova, a 22-year-old female boxer from Russia doesn’t consider herself weaker than a man, and to prove this point she spent years hiding her gender and fighting male boxers under the fake name “Vladimir”.

During a conference called “International Women’s Day – Feminism, Socialism, Sexism”, Tatyana Dvazhdova revealed that a few years ago she posed as a male boxer in order to fight against other men and prove that she was their equal. The muscular woman cut her hair short, let her body hair grow and did everything she could to conceal her female traits. She even got a fake ID and fought under the name Vladimir Ermolaev , winning 9 out of her 17 boxing matches. Tatyana proved her point, that women can compete against men in boxing, but as soon as she revealed her true identity, she was banned from competing against men.

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A popular televangelist was recently issued a cease and desist order by the New York attorney general to stop promoting his cure-all product as a cure for the highly-contagious Covid-19 coronavirus strain.

The last thing you would expect a holy man to do is promote a fake cure against a potentially deadly disease to desperate people for profit, and yet, that’s allegedly exactly what Rev. Jim Bakker has been doing. To be fair, Bakker had long been peddling his “Silver Solution” – a scientifically unproven medication made from the precious metal – as a cure for all sorts of ailments, but when he included the rapidly-spreading Covid-19 coronavirus strain to the list of curable diseases, authorities stepped in.

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Since late last month, Indonesian social media has been buzzing with news of a controversial wedding in South Sulawesi, where a 103-year-old Dutch colonial war veteran recently married a 27-year-old woman.

Photos and videos of the unlikely couple on their wedding day have been doing the rounds online for over a week now, sparking both outrage and humorous comments. There are also those who can’t believe the wedding was for real, but several Indonesian news outlets have confirmed that 103-year-old Puang Katte married a 27-year-old woman named Indo Alang in the District of Siwa, South Sulawesi. The groom, who is reportedly a widower, fought in the Dutch colonial war (1945 – 1949).

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A group of developers have created a controversial cryptocurrency that tracks the spread of the Covid-19 virus and goes up in value as the number of infections goes up and more fatalities are registered as a result.

CoronaCoin (NCOV), a new token built on the Etherium blockchain, was created by a team of programmers and activists on 4Chan, the controversial online forum that gave the world the hacker collective Anonymous, among other things. The original supply of CoronaCoin was based on the total human population at the time of the token’s inception, 7,604,953,650, but every 48 hours the token is burned to reduce supply according to the official number of coronavirus infections and fatalities. The more people succumb to the virus, the more supply gets burned and the more valuable the remaining tokens become.

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A nutritionist who claims to not have consumed any water for a year has sparked controversy online by suggesting that her long-term dry fast has greatly improved her health and well-being.

35-year-old Sophie Partik used to suffer aching joints, puffy eyes, food allergies, bad skin and digestive issues, but claims that all these problems went away when she started dry-fasting. She doesn’t touch any liquids for 13-14 hours a day, and when she does it’s only living water, like the juice of fruits and vegetables. The most she has gone without any liquids was 52 hours, but she dreams of the day when she will be able to dry fast for 10 days. Sophie hasn’t drunk bottled or faucet water in a year, and claims that the need for water is only in our heads.

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Peter Dawe, English multi-millionaire and political candidate for the Brexit Party, recently sparked controversy for unveiling a bizarre sleep pod for homeless people out of two plastic trash cans.

Mr Dawe, who showcased his new invention in a now-viral video, said that he came up with the idea for the plastic sleep pods after building a prototype for a single seat vehicle out of a plastic trash can. In the process of building his plastic ca he got inside the trash can and was surprised by how comfortable it felt. It wasn’t a bed, but it definitely beat sleeping on the street, so the multi-millionaire, who runs several businesses and projects, set out to create a viable sleeping solution for the homeless out of the humble trash can.

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A 55-year-old Ottawa businessman recently shocked a court of law by claiming that he literally burned one million Canadian dollars in cash just to avoid paying his ex-wife child support, as part of their divorce settlement.

Bruce McConville told a judge that he withdrew about 1 million Canadian dollars – roughly $750,000 – in 25 separate withdrawals from six separate bank accounts, and burned it all in two separate bonfires, CA$743,000 on Sept. 23 and CA$296,000 on Dec. 15. He claimed to have receipts to prove he withdrew the money, but that no one had seen him actually burn the money, and that the bonfires had not been video taped. McConville told the judge that he burned the money out of frustration with the divorce proceedings, even though he knew that he was undermining the interest of his children.

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