Japanese police recently arrested a group of unlikely criminals, three grandpas in their late sixties, seventies, and eighties accused of breaking into at least two homes and suspected of ten other burglaries.

Hideo Umino, 88, Hidemi Matsuda, 70, and Kenichi Watanabe, 69 allegedly met behind bars and decided to team up after being released in order to commit crimes more efficiently. The trio, dubbed “G3S” by police (homophonous for ‘grandpas’ in Japanese), stand accused of breaking into an empty house in Sapporo, the main city on the island of Hokkaido in May and stealing 200 yen ($1.3) and three bottles of whisky worth about 10,000 yen ($65). the following month, they allegedly robbed another empty house and stole jewelry worth approximately one million yen (US$6,400). Police is currently investigating the group’s involvement in 10 other burglaries in the cities of Sapporo and Ebetsu.

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An Indian man who had wrongfully been pronounced dead by the government turned to crime as a desperate way of proving that he was very much alive.

Baburam Bhil a 40-year-old man from Rajasthan’s Mithora village, had long been trying to convince authorities that he was still alive after they issued a death certificate in his name. He tried to correct the error, appealing to his village elders and state authorities, but to no avail, so he decided to go for a more extreme option. Afraid that all his properties would be confiscated by the government after his “death”, Baburam came to the conclusion that becoming a serious criminal was the best way of attracting attention to his problem. On July 19, he grabbed a knife and a petrol bottle and began terrorizing a local school.

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The Pirangi Cashew Tree in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte is considered the world’s largest cashew tree. It has a circumference of around 500 meters and covers an area of 8,400 square meters.

Legend has it that the Pirangi Cashew Tree was planted in 1888 by a local fisherman who later died at the age of 93 under the shade of the humongous tree. However, experts believe that, based on its growth characteristics, “the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old”. One thing is for sure, though, this is no ordinary cashew tree. It is the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees and actually has to be seen from a special lookout point high above to be truly appreciated. It produces over 60,000 cashew fruits per year and also attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Brazil.

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A UK woman recently admitted to exaggerating her physical disability claims in order to receive bigger benefits, all the while competing in over 70 running events.

Sara Morris was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2005, but four years ago she applied for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) by exaggerating the extent of her symptoms in order to claim £20,000 ($25,800) that she was not entitled to. According to the evidence presented in court, the 49-year-old woman from Stoke on Trent claimed that she experienced difficulties getting out of the bath unassisted, lacked proper balance and didn’t have the power to stand in front of the gas cooker. Morris also said that she felt so anxious when leaving the house that even a short trip to the pharmacy put her on edge. She was thus able to receive £2,292.63 in benefits per month, while also participating in dozens of 5K and 10K running competitions.

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A Russian man who had experienced pain and discomfort under his ribs for the last nine years was shocked to discover that he had a 9 cm glass shard embedded in his liver.

The 53-year-old unnamed man told doctors at the Kirov Regional Clinical Hospital, in Russia, that he had long experienced sharp pain and discomfort on the right side of his body, under his ribs, but he never bothered getting it checked out. After finally deciding to seek medical help for his problem, he underwent a CT scan which revealed a sharp object stuck in the right lobe of his liver. When doctors asked what the object might be, the patient told them that he had no idea, as he had no history of trauma, nor could he remember an incident where a sharp object could have entered his body. After operating on the man laparoscopically, surgeons removed a 9-cm-long glass shard from his liver.

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Pan Xiaoting, a 24-year-old Chinese streamer specializing in mukbang (eating large quantities of food for viewers’ enjoyment) recently died during her livestream due to consuming too much food.

China cracked down on mukbang streams and videos in 2020, in a bid to reduce overeating and ‘shameful’ food waste, with offenders risking fines of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400). However, mukbang streams are still incredibly popular in the Asian country, with thousands of people putting their lives at risk by stuffing their faces with insane amounts of food for views. One such streamer was Pan Xiaoting, a former waitress turned professional mukbanger, who lost her life earlier this month during one of her streams after her body just gave out due to overeating. The autopsy showed that her stomach was filled with undigested food and her abdomen was severely deformed.

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A 36-year-old man has become known as “China’s most stubborn man” after taking the national college admission exam 16 consecutive years in an attempt to get accepted to the prestigious Tsinghua University.

Tang Shangjun took the gaokao, China’s notoriously difficult college admission exam, in 2009. He scored a mediocre 372 points out of 750, much too low to get into his dream school, Tsinghua University. He was unwilling to compromise, so he spent the next few years studying harder and taking the gaokao. By 2016, his score had improved to a respectable 625 points, more than enough to secure admission to several universities in his home province of Guanxi, but still not good enough for his chosen majors at Tsinghua. So he kept at it, year after year, ignoring all other universities, but never quite reaching the level required to get into his desired faculties at Tsinghua University.

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Fourteen high school students in Tokyo, Japan were recently hospitalized with stomach aches, nausea, and mouth pain after sharing a bag of potato chips infused with Bhut Jolokia peppers.

On July 16, around 12:40 pm, an emergency call was made after several first-year students at Rokugo Koka High School in Tokyo’s Ota Ward started complaining of nausea, as well as stomach and mouth pain. The thirteen girls and one boy had apparently been among 33 students at the high school who had shared a bag of super-spicy potato chips infused with “Bhut Jolokia,” which was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “world’s hottest pepper.” The students ended up at the emergency room, treated for their mild symptoms, and released later that day. Jiji Press reported that some of the students collapsed in the school infirmary because of the pain. The incident is being promoted as a cautionary tale for young students considering trying such spicy snacks.

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A Chinese man reportedly caught his wife cheating with her boss during work hours by using a remote-controlled drone to spy on them from afar.

The resourceful man known only as Jing began suspecting that his wife was having an affair after she became increasingly distant and changed her routine significantly, including visiting her parents more frequently than ever and coming up with excuses whenever he offered to accompany her, and spending more time at work. Eager to get to the bottom of things, but afraid of having to explain himself to his wife in case his suspicions ended up being unfounded, Jing decided to use a commercially available drone to spy on his spouse from a distance. He would drive to her workplace and then fly the drone to survey the area without risking to be spotted by his wife or her colleagues.

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Chinese prosecutors recently filed lawsuits against at least 16 companies accused of requiring female jobseekers to undergo pregnancy testing.

Chinese law explicitly prohibits employers from carrying out pregnancy tests as part of pre-employment examinations, but some companies are so worried about the costs of maternity leave and benefits that they prefer to make sure the women they hire are not pregnant. Earlier this month, prosecutors in the Tongzhou district of Nantong, China’s Jiangsu Province, announced that it had sued 16 companies for illegally testing female job applicants for pregnancy without even formally informing them about it. Their investigation revealed that companies violated women’s right to equal employment opportunities, as at least one candidate was rejected after it was revealed that she was pregnant.

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A Chinese influencer specializing in dishing out dating and relationship advice for women has come under fire for encouraging her followers to choose wealthy partners for financial gain.

Qu Qu, real name ‘Le Chuanqu’, is one of the most controversial social media influencers in China. A former singer, she quickly transitioned to the status of online love guru, offering her followers dating and relationship advice with the main goal of elevating themselves financially. What differentiated Qu Qu from the many other dating gurus on the internet is her open view of relationships as ‘benefit exchanges’ to be exploited for one’s financial gains. Often referring to herself as the “McKinsey of relationships,” Qu Qu tells her fans that romantic relationships and marriages are steps to climbing on the social and financial ladder, so they have to be managed very carefully to achieve the desired results.

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A series of thefts involving the use of ultra-realistic silicone face masks in China has ignited a debate about the legality of these widely available products.

In March of this year, four homes in Shanghai were broken into, and over 100,000 yuan ($13,760) in valuables were stolen. When the police identified the main suspect, they discovered that the 40-year-old man had a silicone mask that he had used to disguise himself as an elderly man when committing the crimes. Last month, police investigating a series of burglaries in Jiangsu Province identified a man who disguised himself as an electrical worker using a realistic mask in order to minimize the risk of being identified. These are only two examples of a growing trend in China that experts warn could lead to a crime spree unless the sale of realistic silicone masks is regulated.

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An Iowa woman was recently arrested for falsely reporting the man she was supposed to go on a date with to the police just because she “got cold feet” and didn’t know how to tell him.

18-year-old Sumaya Thomas was supposed to go on a romantic date with a man she had met through an online dating app, but when her date showed up on her doorstep on June 16, the young woman reportedly “got cold feet” and decided she didn’t want anything to do with her online match. Instead of simply ignoring him, making up some sort of excuse to cancel their date, or flat out telling the guy that she didn’t want to go out with him anymore, Thomas picked up the phone and called 911, making up a ridiculous story about the man at her door being her abusive ex with whom she was 7 months pregnant and asking police to have him removed from her property.

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Xiao Mai, a beautiful 25-year-old woman from China’s Heilongjiang province, has been having trouble finding a suitable boyfriend because of her height. She is 2.26 meters tall.

A few months ago, Xiao Mai introduced herself to the world in a short clip that quickly went viral on social media mainly because of the young woman’s impressive height. At 2.26 meters (7 ft 5 in), the 25-year-old dwarfs even the tallest of men, and that apparently makes her very intimidating to the opposite sex. Posting the first video of herself was Mai’s mother’s idea. She had watched a clip of a girl from Shanghai proposing to her boyfriend online and was inspired to use the same technique to find her daughter a boyfriend. Apart from showing off Xiao Mai’s impressive physical features, it also showed moments from her daily life as well as an appeal from her mother to everyone watching to suggest suitable boyfriends for her. The video went viral and before long, strangers started showing up at the family’s door in Heilongjiang asking to meet the girl.

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A young Chinese woman who weighs only 25 kilograms (55 lbs) has been getting a lot of attention after showcasing her shockingly thin body online and claiming she wants to be even skinnier.

The young woman who goes by ‘Baby Tingzi’ (婷子宝宝) is 160 cm tall but weighs only about 25 kg and apparently aims to lose even more weight. She has more than 42,000 fans on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, most of whom constantly express concern about her health. Baby Tingzi always brushes off such concerns, claiming that she prefers to be super skinny and adding that her skeleton-like silhouette has no negative impact on her life. The up-and-coming social media influencer, who reportedly hails from Guangzhou, China’s Guangdong Province, constantly posts clips of herself in skimpy outfits to show off her slender physique and apparently doesn’t care about criticism.

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