The Shocking Story of an Italian Couple Who Had Their Baby Taken Away Because They Were Too Old

Are you ever too old to become a parent? Well, the Italian justice system seems to think so, and the tragic story of Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis, an elderly couple who had their natural daughter taken away and put up for adoption because they were deemed too old to take care of her is proof enough.

In 2009, 57-year-old Gabriella and 69-year-old Luigi, of Casale Monferrato, Italy, decided to have a baby, and traveled abroad to undergo an advanced in-vitro procedure. In May 2010, Gabriella gave birth to a healthy baby daughter, and the couple made national headlines. They became known as the “grandparent parents”, and faced discrimination from people deeming them too old to take care of a baby. The two recall that, while they were still in the hospital after their daughter’s birth, someone alerted child services about their age and their ability to properly tend to the infant.

Luckily for them, there was no Italian law that prevented people over a certain age from having and raising children, so they were able to take the baby home and live a normal life. However, the joy of parenthood was short-lived, as in 2011, just 15 months after their daughter was born, the De Ambrosis were accused of “abandonment” for leaving the baby unsupervised for only a few minutes. What followed was a nightmare that continues to this day.

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Confusing Photo Turns Michigan Man into Internet Sensation

When Andy Poineau of Boyne City, Michigan, posted a set of photos showing him seemingly levitating on the clear water of Lake Charlevoix, he had no idea he would soon become an overnight internet sensation. But looking at the photo below, it’s easy to see why people went crazy over it.

At first glance, this photo of Pointeau, a 63-year-old architect, sitting on what looks to be still water, looks like a classic case of botched Photoshop. It just looks like someone cropped him and his shovel out of another photo – probably of him shoveling snow – and just placed him in the middle of the lake. But as several photo-editing experts have already pointed out on social media, this image has not been altered in any way. It’s just a rare photo of a brave man sitting on the perfectly clear ice of a frozen lake.

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Scammer Makes Seven Figures Buying Luxury Bags Online and Returning Chinese Fakes for Full Refunds

A Thai woman living in Virgina was recently convicted for masterminding an elaborate designer purse scheme that involved buying hundreds of authentic accessories online and returning Chinese knock-offs for full refunds. She would then sell the originals on sites like eBay, for about $2,000 each.

Over a number of years, 41-year-old Praepitcha Smatsorabudh, a preschool teacher in Arlington County, used an ingenious scam to supplement her day-job paycheck. She would buy high end bags like Gucci, Burberry and Fendi online, and then return fake ones she had specially made in China and Hong Kong. Court documents revealed that in order to cover her trail, she traveled to over 60 T.J. Maxx stores in 12 states, to return the bags, and used 16 different credit cards when making new purchases. Smatsorabudh’s scheme was so incredibly successful that at one point she was T.J. Maxx’s number one online client in the world.

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These Cute Earbuds Will Turn You into a Real-Life Elf

If-you’re looking for a painless, non-invasive way to get pointy elf ears, you’re probably going to love these cool-looking earbuds.

The Spirit E666 earbuds are the perfect accessory for elf-loving audiophiles. While earbuds are generally used by people who don’t want to stand out too much, this particular pair will grab a lot of attention due to their unusual shape. These things go into your ears like regular earbuds, but they also act as pointy extensions for the ear lobes, giving you that coveted elf look.

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Baby Becomes Fourth Generation of Her Family to Inherit Striking Patch of White Hair

18-month-old MilliAnna Worthy, from Ridgeland, South Carolina, was born with a white patch of hair right above the forehead, a very rare trait caused by poliosis, which creates a lack of pigment in the patch of hair and the skin around it. But even more unusual than the striking trait is the fact that it has been in MilliAnna’s family for at least four generations.

The girl’s mother, 23-year-old Brianna Worthy, has the same patch of white hair, and so do her mother, Jennifer, (41), and her grandmother, Jaonne, 59. “We are unsure how far back the birthmark goes as my grandmother was adopted as a child and hasn’t met her biological family,” the young mother says. “I was hoping she did have it. My younger sister that my mother had a few years after me didn’t get it, so I didn’t know if MilliAnna was going to, but once I had her and they laid her on my chest and I saw she had it I was so happy.”

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92-Year-Old ‘Superpolygamist’ Who Married 107 Women Says God Told Him to Do It

Mohammed Bello Abubakar is one of the most controversial figures in Nigeria. Despite having no discernible income, the 92-year-old man somehow convinced 107 women to marry him throughout his life, 97 of which are still his wives. He claims that marrying as many women as possible is a divine assignment he has received from God.

Mr Bello first shot to fame in 2008, when a series of articles revealed that he had 86 wives and around 150 children, either living with him on his compound in Bida, Niger state, or in his house in Lagos. Muslim clerics accused him of breaking religious rules, which most scholars agree allow a man to marry up to four women, as long as he can provide for all of them and treat them equally. He was given a very simple choice, either divorce 82 of his wives or face the consequences. He refused, arguing that there was no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives, and that every man should be free to marry as many women as he can support. He was arrested at the request of the local Shariah Court, but subsequently released, on the condition that he only keep four of his wives.

Not only did the ‘superpolygamist’ ignore this requirement, but he has since married other women as well. In total, he married 107 women so far, divorced 10 of them, which brings the total wife count to a whopping 97. And despite his ripe old age, Abubakar says he plans on marrying even more. “What I am doing is divine. It is an assignment and I will keep doing it till the end,” he told Nigerian  newspaper Vanguard.

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Japan’s “Poop Man” Teaches People How to Not Give a Crap

For the past five years, Akihiko Koseki, has been putting on his bright yellow spandex suit and trademark poo-shaped hat, and going out on the streets of Tokyo to put a smile on people’s faces and teach them to be happier by not giving a crap.

In the beginning, Poop Man was merely a cheap marketing tool. Akihiko Koseki is an experienced mobile game developer who a few years ago came up with an idea for a game called Poo Pride. He had no money to promote it and decided that turning himself into a walking billboard for his game was the cheapest and at the same time most effective way of raising awareness about his game. So he had a yellow spandex suit and poop-shaped hat made, plastered the Poo Pride logo on his chest and started walking around as Poop Man. He’s been doing it for the last five years.

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48-Year-Old Korean Dentist Stuns the Internet with Her Unusually-Youthful Appearance

Lee Su Jin, a female dentist from South Korea, is a very strong contender for the title of world’s youngest-looking 48-year-old. Judging by the photos posted on her online social media accounts, you’d think she was a beautiful college girl, but the woman recently revealed that she was born in 1969 and has been practicing dentistry for 16 years.

Lee became an overnight celebrity after appearing on a Korean TV show called ‘Same Bed, Different Dreams’, alongside her daughter. The girls claimed that her mother had become addicted to taking selfies and posting them on Instagram, where she had amassed thousands of loyal followers. It was later revealed that the 48-year-old dentist had turned to the popular social network in her need for social interaction, because her daughter had stopped talking to her after starting middle school. She enjoyed all the attention she got from other people online, and kept posting more and more photos of herself.

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Chinese Man Gets Breast Implants to Improve Chances of Finding a Job

Convinced that women have more job opportunities than men, a 30-year-old Chinese man decided to get breast implants to increase his odds of finding employment.

The man, surnamed Ho, had been struggling to find a job for months, when he became convinced that looking more like a woman would make things a lot easier for him. News reports kept mentioning that women had better career opportunities than men, so he somehow got it in his head that getting breast implants that would make him appear more feminine would convince employers to give him a chance, despite his limited work experience.

Unable to afford the breast enlargement surgery, Ho borrowed over 39,000 Yuan ($5,850) in August and traveled from his home city of Zhuzhou to the Ruilan Medical Cosmetic Hospital, in Changsha, for the operation. Everything went according to plan until he came back home with his new pair of perky breasts. He hadn’t told his family about his intentions, and when they laid eyes on his chest for the first time, they got the shock of their lives. Read More »

Senegalese “Melanin Goddess” Conquers the Internet with Her Incredibly Dark, Beautiful Skin Tone

Khoudia Diop is a young Senegalese fashion model who recently rose to internet stardom after her unusually dark skin tone was captured in a photo for the Colored campaign, a platform that celebrates different skin shades.

Khoudia’s melanin-rich skin has taken the internet by storm, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, especially on Instagram, where she regularly posts photos of herself using the handle @melaniin.goddess. People seem crazy about her stunning  natural beauty and unique skin tone, showering her with compliments about her look and declaring themselves impressed by her positive attitude and confidence.

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Chinese University Students Sit in on Extra Classes Just to See the Beautiful Teachers

Students at the Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu, south-west China, are apparently studying harder and sitting in on extra classes just to see their ‘impossibly beautiful’ female educators.

Photos of 16 attractive female teachers from Sichuan Normal University have become a hot topic on Chinese social media websites, after they were uploaded online by their school. The good-looking teachers, who specialize in a variety of majors, including singing, dancing, artistic design, theater and English, were apparently selected to pose for the photos in a bid to change Chinese people’s views on successful female teachers, who are often perceived as old, ruthless and cold. The campaign was a big hit, and after the success of the first batch of photos posted in May, the university published a second series of photos on September 19.

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Russian Driver Turns Dented Car Door into an Artistic Map

True to the saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, a Russian driver turned a badly dented car door into a beautiful map of the Altai mountains.

The details of the accident are unclear, but by the looks of things, the artistically-gifted driver got a bit to close to a parked BMW SUV and dented one of the car doors pretty badly. According to Slavorum, Russia doesn’t have mandatory car insurance, so in most cases, drivers have to pay for repairs themselves. But instead of getting a fresh paint job, our man went for a much cooler alternative – turning the car car door into an artistic map of the Altai Mountains. As you can see in the photos below, the dent actually blend into the artwork perfectly, either enhancing the shading effect of the mountains or acting as lines in the map.

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Meet Saya, the Japanese Schoolgirl Who Doesn’t Exist

Last year, a couple of Japanese digital artists shocked the world when they revealed that their daughter Saya, a young beautiful Japanese schoolgirl, wasn’t actually a real person, but an ultra-realistic computer generated model. The two have been working on making Saya look even more life-like ever since, and a recently revealed photo of their “daughter” has once again blown people’ minds.

Saya 2016 takes computer-generated realism to new heights. Everything about her, from the strands of her dark hair and the reflection in her eyes, to the life-like look of her skin is almost perfect, and I find it difficult to believe that most people could tell that she wasn’t a real person if they didn’t know her story beforehand.

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The Hide-and-Seek World Championship is an Actual Event

The game of hide-and-seek may not yet be an Olympic sport – although efforts are being made in that regard – but it’s apparently popular enough to have its own world championship.

What started out as a fun one-time event thought up by small Italian publication CTRL Magazine, in 2010, eventually turned into an annual event that grew with every edition. This year, the 6th Nascodino World Championship – “nascondino” is Italian for hide-and-seek – will take place on the the 3rd and 4th of September, in the beautiful village of Consonno, once a bustling tourist attraction complete with its own zoo, sightseeing train and several eclectic buildings. It has since become a ghost town, but event organizers consider the settlement perfect for a grand hide-and-seek competition.

The rules of the tournament are a bit more complex than the childhood game we all used to play growing up, but then again, this is a contest for grownups (18-year-olds and above). Participants may register to take part in the World Nascondino Championship in teams of five, after paying a €125 fee per team. The teams are then divided into four groups and one person per group hides while a “neutral searching team” counts 60 seconds. The hidden player then has 10 minutes to come out of their hiding spot and reach a soft mattress (for diving purposes) placed in the middle of a field without being found or at least before a member of the searching team. If they fail to reach their target within the time limit, players are not awarded any points. The game goes on for two days until the ultimate winner is declared.

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The Walmart Diet – Man Loses Hundreds of Pounds by Walking to Walmart for Food

A formerly-obese man from Arizona managed to shed 300 pounds of excess weight in three years after he challenged himself to walk to the nearest Wallmart every day to collect his food.

31-year-old Pasquale “Pat” Brocco used to weigh a whopping 605 pounds, but after his doctor warned him that his high blood pressure and high cholesterol were putting his life in serious danger, the Avondale man decided it was time to do something about his weight. He went home from his doctor’s appointment and took a photo of himself in the mirror. “My stomach was down to my thighs. My chest was hanging down here,” he told ABC News. “I was disgusted”.

Pat knew he needed to start exercising, but the gym was not an option. “I mean, at 600 pounds, I couldn’t even go to the gym,” he said. “I didn’t fit on the machines.” So instead, he decided that every time he was hungry, he would walk 1 mile to his closest Walmart to buy his food, then back home to eat the meal.

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