Chinese Loan Sharks Are Asking Young Women for Nude Selfies as Collateral for Online Loans

Loans are notoriously hard to get for Chinese college students, and some of them will agree to almost anything for some much needed funds, even providing nude photos of themselves as collateral to unscrupulous loan sharks.

The disgusting practice was brought to national attention when a victim – a university student going by the pseudonym of Li Li – desperately sought help from the police after loan sharks requested that she send them a photo of herself in the nude, holding her ID card. The online loan shark group had granted her a 500 yuan ($76) loan in February with a weekly interest rate of 30%. Unable to pay it back in time, the debt inflated beyond 10,000 yuan in a very short while, and at one point the loan sharks threaten not to renew her loan unless she also provided a nude photo of herself holding her ID, which Li reluctantly agreed to. However, after four months, her debt had inflated to 55,000 yuan, at which point she went to the police asking for help.

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This Meat Lover’s Chocolate Is 50 Percent Beef

Red meat hardly seems like the perfect ingredient for delicious chocolate, but a New Zealand-based food scientist is willing to bet that his high-protein, 50% beef chocolate recipe is going to be a hit.

Mustafa Farouk, Senior Food Technologist at Ag Research has partnered with Auckland boutique chocolate maker Devonport Chocolates to bring meat chocolate to the masses. The quirky idea of combining the two very different ingredients came to Dr. Farouk one day, while looking at ways of adding value to beef and pondering ways the staple food might be consumed in the future. Mixing beef and chocolate seemed like the perfect way for people to get proteins and other nutrients in meat, because chocolate is such a popular dessert.

So Farouk took a very lean cut from the hind quarter of a Waikato-raised bovine, turned into what he calls “chocolate butter”, which I assume is a sort of fine paste, and handed it over to Devonport Chocolates to use in their confectionery. The resulting combination reportedly has a consistency similar to a Turkish delight, and while the food scientist admits you can tell that it’s not regular chocolate, the taste of meat is almost impossible to pick up. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Farouk described the taste of beef chocolate as “wonderful”, adding that although people are initially put off by the unique dessert when they here it is 50% beef, once they bite into it and taste the rich chocolate flavor, most agree that it is excellent.

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Man Takes Revenge on Cheating Wife by Selling Her Things on eBay

An angry husband recently made headlines for selling his “cheating wife’s belongings” on the internet, after she reportedly ran off with someone who “looks like Beppe from Eastenders”.

The anonymous man, who goes by the handle Calibristeve on eBay, listed piles of clothing, shoes and even a black Smart car on the popular online shopping site. Describing the collection as a “complete job lot of possessions belonging to my cheating ex w***e of a wife”, the scorned lover revealed that he plans to use the proceeds to commission the services of prostitutes in his marital home, and buy enough Scotch whisky to drink himself into a coma.

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Donald Trump Fans in India Hold Bizarre Birthday Party for Their Idol

On Tuesday, members of an Indian right-wing group in New Delhi held a bizarre party in honor of US Republican party candidate Donald Trump’s birthday.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is really popular among members of the Hindu Sena group, in India. So much so that on Tuesday, June 14th, many of them got together at one of Delhi’s most famous landmarks to celebrate his birthday. There was cake, balloons, birthday hats and even a life-size cardboard cutout of the American businessman. Everyone cheered, laughed and even tried giving cardboard Trump a slice of the colorful cake. The Indian press called the birthday bash one of the most hilarious events in recent history.

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Ingenious Fitness Bus Will Let You Work Out During Your Commute

London residents too busy to hit the gym every once in a while will soon get the chance to work out during their commute, thanks to a fleet of ingenious fitness buses packed full of stationary bikes.

“The Wheels on the Bus” children’s song is going to have a whole new meaning once British fitness company 1Rebel launches its new Ride2Rebel buses on the streets of London. The modified public transportation vehicles will feature stationary bikes instead of seats, allowing commuters to spin at their hearts’ content on their way to work. Buses will travel from four pick-up points in north, east, south and west London along the city’s most popular commute routes, all the way to the 1Ride studio where riders can come in for a shower and a smoothie before work.

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Chinese “Monkey Village” Becomes Living Hell for Locals

A picturesque Chinese village where humans live alongside hundreds of macaques sounds like a great vacation destination, but for the local population it’s apparently a daily living hell.

A little over a decade ago, authorities in Xianfeng village, in southwestern Sichuan Province came up with an ingenious plan to boost tourism and turn their quaint settlement in one of China’s most popular destinations – attracting wild macaques from the surrounding mountains to their village. Locals spent 48 days drawing in 73 monkeys using food, and their plan worked like a charm. The animals started settling in, and as word about a real-life monkey village spread throughout the region, businessman interested in investing in the novel tourist attraction arrived in Xianfeng.

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Dubai-Based Company Creates World’s Most Expensive Set of Tires

A high-end tire company in Dubai has recently secured the Guinness World Record for the most expensive set of tires, after creating four tires encrusted with 24-carat gold and diamonds.

In keeping with the luxury and glamour Dubai is so well-known for, Z Tyres has gone to great lengths to create a unique set of tires that could make some of the world’s most expensive cars seem cheap. Designed and fabricated at the Z Tyres factory, the Z1 tires were shipped to Italy to be encrusted with diamonds by Italian artisan jewelers before being returned to the rich Arab country for the application of gold leafing by the very same craftsmen who have worked on the new presidential palace in Abu Dhabi. The four bespoke tires were individually inspected by Guinness experts and recognized as the most expensive in the world.

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Custodian Graduates from College He Has Cleaned for the Last 8 Years

54-year-old Michael Vaudreuil is used to picking up things at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He has been working as custodian there for the last eight years, vacuuming the carpets, cleaning the floors, wiping the blackboards and picking up the trash. But last month, Vaudreuil picked up something he’ll actually want to hang on to – a degree in mechanical engineering.

In 2008, Vaudreuil, a self-employed plastering contractor, with two decades of successful entrepreneurship under his belt, felt his world crashing down on him. As recession hit, less phone calls were coming in, but he tried not to panic. Soon, clients stopped calling completely and he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. Soon, his home was foreclosed, his car repossessed and without his income to support his wife’s vending machine business, that eventually went under as well. He and his family moved into a tiny apartment and Michael started looking for jobs with construction companies, but no one was hiring.

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Winecream Makes It Possible to Get Drunk by Eating Ice-Cream

If you’re all alone on your couch watching TV and can’t decide between drinking a glass of wine or stuffing yourself with ice-cream, you’ll be happy to know you can now have both, thanks to Winecream, an ingenious dessert that combines wine and gourmet ice-cream.

Created by Crossroads Company, a family-owned business in Baltimore, Winecream is a mashup of craft-made fruit wines and super-premium, gourmet ice-cream. Customers get to choose a wine from various house-made options including pineapple, mixed berry, peach, or strawberry, which is then mixed in to a cream and sugar base and flash frozen using liquid nitrogen, a food-safe cryogenic liquid that’s nearly -320 degrees Fahrenheit. First announced back in 2014, Winecream has so far only been available at wine festivals and private events, but Crossroads Company has recently made the adult dessert available for online orders and plans to launch it in liquor stores in Baltimore and Washington D.C. later this summer.

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Japanese Artist Hand-Carves Blocks of Wood into Seemingly Edible Delicacies

You couldn’t tell by simply looking at them, but the fish, toast and various other foods depicted below are actually just blocks of wood expertly hand-carved and painted by Japanese artist Seiji Kawasaki.

Unsurprisingly, Kawasaki’s masterpieces have been getting a lot of attention online, ever since he started posting them on his Twitter and Instagram accounts. His creations are regularly featured on Japanese television and in various other media outlets, as well as art exhibitions around the country. Now, the internet has given the talented wood artist access to an international audience and they are just eating up his delicacies; not literally, of course, but I can understand being tempted to bite into one of his realistic-looking wooden croissants or chocolate bars.

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Tattoo Artist Gets World’s First Tattoo Machine Prosthesis

After French tattoo artist JC Sheitan Tenet lost his right hand 22 years ago, he never thought he would ever be able to use it again. He trained himself to use his left hand to do tattoos, but after recently receiving the world’s first tattoo machine prosthesis, he can proudly call himself ambidextrous.

Tenet got the idea for the unique steampunk-inspired prosthesis after seeing the work of Jean Louis Gonzales, a.k.a. Gonzal, an artist and engineer known for his mechanised taxidermies and skulls. After meeting Gonzal at various tattoo conventions, Tenet asked him if he could somehow mechanise an old prosthesis he had lying around the house, and the two started working on a prototype.

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Canadian Axe-Throwing Bar Proves Big Hit

Combining razor-sharp axes and alcohol sounds like a very bad idea, but it seems to be working for the Timber Lounge, a popular axe-throwing bar in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Timber Lounge offers patrons sick of urban sports like bowling, darts or pool a new way to unwind. Axe-throwing has long been a popular pastime among lumberjacks in Nova Scotia, and Darren Hudson, a fifth-generation sawmill operator from Shelburne County, decided to bring it to the masses. He partnered with fellow axe-throwing enthusiast Marc Chisholm and together they founded the city’s first axe-throwing lounge. Adrenalin junkies can get their fix by balancing sharp hatchets and double-edged axes over their heads before hurling them at painted wooden bullseyes. Between sessions, they can step into the lounge area to enjoy Nova Scotia food and craft beers.

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Inspiring Wheelchair-Bound Woman Teaches People How to Dance

Chelsie Hill knew she wanted to become a dancer ever since she was 3 years old, and not even a life-altering accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down was going to wreck her dream. She learned to use her wheelchair as part of her body and started to dance again. Today she is an acclaimed hip-hop dancer, motivational speaker and a fine example that when life gives you lemons, you can indeed make lemonade.

“Dance is the only thing my daughter has ever wanted to do,” Chelsie’s mother Wendy Hill says. She won her first competition at age five and kept turning in stellar performances all through her school years. She made the high-school varsity dance team as a freshman and everything seem to point to a successful career as a professional dancer. But then, tragedy struck. After a party, Chelsie got in a car with a drunk driver who hit a tree head-on at 40mph. She survived the ordeal, but was diagnosed as a T10 paraplegic. The aspiring dancer retained full control of her upper body, but doctors told her that she would never walk again. She was just 17 at the time.

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Mexico’s Butterfly Forest – A Unique Natural Wonder under Threat

Every year, hundreds of millions of Monarch Butterflies from Canada and the United States journey as far as 2,500 miles to the forests of Michoacan, Mexico in what is known as the world’s largest insect migration. Countless butterflies cluster together both on the trees and on the ground, covering large areas into carpets of orange and black. It’s a breathtaking sight to behold, but as always, human greed is threatening to destroy it.

The great monarch migration is one of nature’s most fascinating mysteries. Tiny butterflies from places like Toronto, Winnipeg or Detroit embark on this epic transcontinental journey and somehow make it all the way to central Mexico. Nobody knows exactly how they do it, but some experts believe they are guided by celestial navigation and magnetic fields.

The Monarch butterflies start to arrive in Michoacan in late October to make their winter home in the trees high up in the mountains of the natural reserve. Once here, they will spend the next five months clustering together in large masses made up of thousands of tiny bodies that often look like colorful beehives. Often times, these clusters become so heavy that they cause tree branches to bend or even snap. But there’s a purpose to all these clustering – it allows the monarchs to survive in the low nighttime temperatures at these high altitudes.

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Turkish Man Creates Glasses That Conceal Phone Screen from Anyone but the Wearer

Don’t you hate it when you’re using your smartphone on public transportation and notice strangers looking at it over your shoulder? Those people are the worst! But thanks to Celal Göger special glasses, you won’t have to deal with them ever again.

Göger, a 42-year-old mobile phone repairman from the Turkish town of Bismil, Diyarbakır province, has invented special glasses that interact with a smartphone’s screen so that only the wearer can see it. He said he came up with the idea for the glasses four months ago, when, while checking his emails on the local tram, he noticed people on the packed vehicle were staring at the screen of his phone. He realized it was a serious privacy issue that surely other people were facing on a daily basis. So he went back to his phone repair shop and started working on a solution.

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