For over a month now, the Gaîté Lyrique Theater in Paris, France, has been taken over by a group of homeless migrants who needed a roof over their heads during winter.

The occupation of Gaîté Lyrique began on 10 December when the cultural venue hosted a free conference titled “Reinventing the Welcome for Refugees in France”. Ironically, the 250 African migrants who attended the event refused to leave after it was over, and they were later joined by another 50 or so migrants who didn’t have anywhere else to hide from the cold Paris weather. It’s been over a month since the Gaîté Lyrique was occupied, and management admits that it was forced to cancel all performances until at least January 24, which threatens to bankrupt it, as the institution relies on such performances for 70% of its income, with the other 30% coming from the state as subsidies.

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An Arizona tattoo artist has come under fire for tattooing an American flag on a 9-year-old girl’s arm after she asked to get Trump’s portrait on her neck.

A video posted on social media by a tattoo artist at the Black Onyx Empire Tattoo parlor in Yuma, Arizona, has been getting a lot of attention online because it shows a nine-year-old girl getting her arm tattooed. Shared by the artist, who goes by ‘cutzsosa’ on Instagram, the video sparked a heated debate about inking minors, even with their parents’ consent. According to the artist the girl and her parents traveled to the tattoo parlor from out of state specifically to get a tattoo. She initially wanted a portrait of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa allegedly convinced her to get something more patriotic done, a US flag on her arm.

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Liu Liange, former Chairman of the Bank of China, allegedly convinced his son to break up with his fiancée just so he could court and marry her instead.

Liu Liange most recently made news headlines in November of last year when he was issued a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve for accepting 121 million yuan ($17 million) in bribes and issuing illegal loans of over 3.32 billion yuan ($450 million) during his tenure Chairman of the Bank of China, but he previously became known for his love of young women. After divorcing his first wife, Liange remarried three times, with people remarking that his wives got younger and more attractive each time, culminating in his controversial fourth marriage to his son’s ex-fiancée.

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An Indian devotee who accidentally dropped his iPhone into the collection box at a Hindu temple while making a donation was told that the phone was now the deity’s property and could not be returned.

Last month, a Chennai man who was visiting Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple in Thiruporur with his family to offer prayers, felt his iPhone slip out of his pocket and into the hundial – a metal donation box – just as he was making offerings to the temple’s patron deity. The man, referred to only as Dinesh, approached temple officials and explained the incident, demanding that his handheld be returned. To his surprise, they refused, claiming that rules did not permit them to return anything placed into the hundial, willingly or accidentally, because it is the deity’s property.

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Pet vending machines have been sparking heated online debates in China for months, but this controversial “unmanned economy” model seems to have an even darker side than meets the eye.

We first featured China’s live pet vending machines back in May of this year when they were spotted in busy cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Back then, people were furious about having cats displayed in transparent containers barely large enough for them to turn around in, but according to recent reports by several Chinese news outlets, this business model has an even darker side. It’s hard to resist an adorable kitten meowing at you from inside one of these vending machines like it’s begging you to take it home, but it’s even harder when doing so costs nothing. That’s right, the cats in these ‘adoption boxes’ are free, even specimens of coveted breeds that would otherwise cost a few hundred dollars. But there’s a catch!

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China’s Guangzhou Zoo Has come under fire after videos of a shockingly thin crocodile housed there went viral online.

Photos and videos of a crocodile so skinny that you can literally see its spine and count its ribs have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media and sparking a heated debate around the treatment of animals. Reportedly located at Guangzhou Zoo, the reptile looks more like a fossil than a living animal, but one clip shows it moving slowly in its enclosure. The person who shot the video and posted it online expressed concern for the crocodile and many have accused the zoo of animal cruelty for either starving it or just ignoring its condition.

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Death Clock is an innovative app that uses artificial intelligence to accurately predict a person’s life expectancy based on a number of factors like diet, exercise level and sleeping habits.

We’re all going to die someday, but wouldn’t it be nice to have an idea of when that will be? Many people would probably answer ‘no,’ but for those curious when their demise will occur, there’s Death Clock. Launched in July, this AI-powered app uses a dataset of over 1,200 life expectancy studies and 53 million participants to provide personalized death predictions to its users. It’s a dark premise, to be sure, but financial planners have been paying a lot of attention to Death Clock because of its potential to motivate people to more carefully plan their finances for retirement.

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A popular Chinese clothing store sparked controversy by showcasing its products on female models walking on treadmills rather than old-fashioned mannequins.

You could say the marketing team at Chinese designer brand store ITIB was thinking outside the box when it decided to replace plastic mannequins with live models walking on small treadmills. The official explanation was that the new way of displaying garments really allowed customers to see how they fit when moving rather than in a stationary position, but few doubted that it was just an ingenious gimmick meant to draw attention. The plan worked perfectly, as videos of the young models mounted on small pedestals outside ITIB flagship store in Hangzhou spread like wildfire on social media, while crowds of people gathered to watch them walk on their little treadmills. However, what the designer collective brand probably didn’t anticipate was the wave of criticism regarding the “dehumanization” and exploitation of the young models.

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Popular Douyin streamer Kong Yufeng recently sparked controversy in China by eating pig feed on camera as part of a challenge to live on the cheapest food she could find.

On October 30, Kong Yufeng, aka ‘King Kong Liuke’, posted a controversial video on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, in which she announced a self-imposed challenge to live on the cheapest food she could find for at least one week. The popular streamer told her fans that she had browsed Zhihu, a Chinese forum known for sharing budget-friendly tips, and found pig feed to be the best option. A large bag of pig feed cost only 100 yuan (US$14) and was allegedly high in protein, low in fat, and “healthier than takeaway food,” so she decided to try it in front of her fans. According to Kong, the pig feed contained natural ingredients like soybeans, peanuts, sesame, corn, and added vitamins, but the taste was an acquired one.

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A young Chinese woman had the happiest day of her life turned into a nightmare after her husband asked for a paternity test because of their newborn baby’s suspiciously dark skin.

Chinese newspaper China Times recently reported the bizarre case of a 30-year-old Shanghai woman desperate to save her marriage after giving birth to a dark-skinned baby by C-section. The woman took to social media to tell her sad story and ask other mothers for advice on how to handle the situation. She claims that after delivering the baby, when it came time for her husband to meet his son for the first time, he just stared at him with bewildered eyes and refused to hold him. The woman admitted that she too found the baby’s dark skin odd and felt embarrassed when holding it, feeling the need to clarify that she “had never been to Africa and didn’t know any black people”.

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A severely sick Chinese man was pushed to a local bank branch on a hospital bed by his family in order to confirm his identity for a money transfer.

A video that has been doing the rounds on Chinese social media shows a woman struggling to push a man on a hospital bed in a Shandong Province bank after being told that the only way to access his account was to confirm his identity in person. Despite explaining to the bank manager that the account holder was hospitalized because of severe health problems, the family was told that the only way to access their account was to bring them there in person. The man was so sick that he could not move on his own, but even evidence of his hospitalization failed to convince the bank staff, so they had no choice but to figure out a way to bring him in for identity confirmation.

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American start-up Heliospect Genomics is charging wealthy parents-to-be up to $50,000 to screen their embryos for IQ and other desirable traits.

Wish you could ensure your unborn child has a higher-than-average IQ? Well, apparently now you can, with the help of genetic enhancement technology. This is controversial territory, as it tends to normalize the idea of superior” and “inferior” humans,, but according to undercover video footage obtained by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, at least one genomic prediction company has begun selling its services to parents who can afford them. Heliospect Genomics has apparently already offered its services to over a dozen parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization, charging them up to $50,000 to screen 100 embryos for IQ and other traits and boasting that their technology could help select children with IQ scores six points higher than those conceived naturally.

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The owners Ricco, a Bantam rooster from Bourgoin-Jallieu in France’s Isère department, are scheduled to show up in Court following a neighbor’s complaint regarding the bird’s loud crowing.

“Difficulty concentrating, sleep deprivation, hearing fatigue,” these are just some of the symptoms cited by the plaintiff who summoned Ricco’s owners to Court in January of next year. The person, who prefers to remain anonymous, is one of the owners’ neighbors and they claim that the rooster’s crowing is unbearable both at night and during the day. However, the owners of the 5-year-old bird have always disputed these claims, insisting that the door to Ricco’s chicken coup is operated by an automated system programmed to open the door only at 8:30 am during the winter and at 9:00 am in summer. They insist that the rooster crows about fifteen times in a quarter of an hour in the morning, and then a few more times during the day.

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A Malaysian woman who took care of her bedridden husband for six years following a car accident recently announced that her husband divorced her and married another woman following his recovery.

For years, Nurul Syazwani documented her daily life as her husband’s caretaker on social media, showcasing her busy routine which included feeding the man through a nasogastric tube, changing his diapers and helping him bathe. Nurul’s husband was injured in a car accident and needed six years in order to walk again, during which time she was by his side. Her dedication and dutiful service to her husband attracted 32,000 fans on Facebook alone, many of whom were shocked to learn that Nurul Syazwani’s husband hadn’t only divorced her after recovering but had also married another woman. They learned of the crazy development from Nurul who congratulated her ex-husband and his new bride in a Facebook post.

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A Chinese aquarium has attracted a lot of criticism by replacing its real whale shark with a life-size robotic version that emulates both the look and the movements of the marine animal.

On October 1st, Xiaomeisha Sea World in Shenzhen, China, reopened its gates to visitors after a five-year hiatus for renovations. The 60,000-square-meter marine park managed to attract around 100,000 paying visitors in its first week, but that financial success was overshadowed by the controversy around one of the new attractions, a robotic whale shark. According to several Chinese news sources, many visitors were disappointed to see that the whale shark swimming in the large aquarium around them was man-made, and not the real deal, especially since Xiaomeisha Sea World made no effort to inform them beforehand that it had no real sharks.

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