London-based Botanique artisan shop recently sparked a bit of controversy online after it was revealed that it is selling small tree branch fragments for up to £18 each.

Botanique has apparently been selling these decorative sticks for a while now, but they were brought to the attention of the media a few days ago, when BBC presenter Jeremy Vine tweeted a picture of them to his 600,000 Twitter followers. The store, located in Stoke Newington, east London, sources the sticks from a professional woodworker and sells them for £12 to £18 ($15 to $22) depending on size and shape.

Made from birch or holly, the sticks are planed and sanded at the back and have holes drilled in them for easy mounting on the wall. Some of them have small notches that can be used to hang coats on.

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A hot-pot restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan, recently got a lot of attention online after photos of young bikini-clad waitresses serving and interacting with customers went viral.

The hot-pot restaurant business in Taiwan and mainland China is very competitive, and it’s very hard for newcomers to get an edge by relying solely on the quality of the food and impeccable service. So the owners of ‘Fresh Feast’, a new restaurant that opened in the Songshan district of Taipei, decided that they needed some extreme marketing in order to get the word out about their eatery and attract customers. For the grand opening, they hired five good-looking models and had them serve customers dressed only in skimpy bikinis.

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Bikini Beans Espresso is a coffee shop chain with branches in Arizona and Washington where patrons can have their favorite coffee prepared and served by beautiful women wearing bikinis, g-strings or just three strategically-placed stickers.

Thanks to its attractive dress code, Bikini Beans Espresso has become hugely popular, especially among its male clientele. Apparently, a simple visit to one of these coffee shops has a way of brightening up a man’s day, and it’s definitely not just the coffee. But despite encouraging sales, impressive 5-star ratings on Yelp and thousands of followers on social media, Bikini Beans Espresso has its fare share of critics, most of which claim that the mandatory dress code of the staff is degrading for women.

That’s definitely not how the owners of Bikini Beans Espresso shops see it, though. They claim that the girl’s skimpy “uniforms” actually empower women, helping them feel comfortable in their own skin.

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A reinterpreted article in Colombia’s Labor Code was recently approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, thus allowing people to show up for work drunk or under the influence of narcotics as long as their productivity is not affected.

As in most countries around the world, going to work under the influence of alcohol or narcotics was prohibited in Colombia, but the modified article now protects workers from contract termination or disciplinary action, as long as these substances don’t affect their performance on the job. The recent ruling on the Constitutional Court puts alcohol consumption and narcotic addiction at the same level as occupational illness and argues that “these substances don’t always hinder how one performs at work”.

It all started last year, when two students at the University of Uniciencia in Bucaramanga challenged the country’s labor law at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was in violation of two articles of the constitution: one which states that “all people are equal before the law and asserts that the state has an obligation to provide special protections for people who, owing to their economic circumstances or physical or mental condition, find themselves in a manifestly weak position,” and another that guarantees “equality of opportunity for all workers”.

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Two Muslim women in India have recently filed complaints against their husbands – who happen to be brothers – for divorcing them via WhatsApp.

The “triple talaq” is a controversial clause in Sharia Law that allows husbands to instantly divorce their wives by uttering the word “talaq” three times. This allows men to throw their wives out of the house for literally any reason, without fearing any legal repercussions. The practice is frowned upon by the vast majority of Muslims and banned in most of the Islamic world, but not in India. Here, triple talaq is still frequently used, keeping women in a perpetual state of fear that their husbands could “give them talaq” if they say or do anything that displeases them.

Ironically, more an more Indian Muslims are using modern technology to make the archaic triple talaq divorce even more effective. Data shows that a growing number of men are now sending the words to their wives via email or messaging apps, which is perfectly legit. ‘How can that be legal?’ you ask, well, according to the law, the woman doesn’t even have to be present when the words are spoken, she need not even be aware. If the guy says them, it’s done!

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Open relationships are not that uncommon nowadays, but they usually imply that both partners are allowed to see other people. That’s not the case of Adam Gillet and Beatrice Gibbs, from Milton Keynes, Britain. 27-year-old Adam has agreed to let his 22-year-old girlfriend sleep with other men, for fear that he would otherwise lose her. However, Beatrice is not ok with him seeing other women.

Adam, a warehouse worker, and Beatrice, who works as a makeup artist, met in 2014, on a pub crawl. They had a one night stand, but didn’t officially become a couple until April 2015. However, their romantic relationship appeared to be short-lived,as Beatrice, who wasn’t ready to commit to just one man full-time, decided to end it after just one month. Adam was devastated, but upon hearing that she loved him, but didn’t think she could resist other men, he did what any other men in his shoes would have done – he agreed to let Beatrice have her one nigh-stands, as long as she gave their relationship another chance. They’ve been together ever since.

Beatrice is free to sleep with whoever she wants, whenever she wants, as long as she’s honest with Adam about it. He doesn’t have the same privileges, though, as his girlfriend claims that she couldn’t handle the thought of him being with another woman. Luckily, she apparently has nothing to worry about, as Adam insists he’s not interested in chasing other women.

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Labs To Go, a paternity testing laboratory in Virginia Beach, has come under fire for its use of a couple of controversial billboards that they claim were just intended to be funny. People didn’t see them that way, though, and it’s easy to see why.

The billboard that got the most attention in the media is located off Armistead Ave. near Downtown Hampton, and shows a male U.S. soldier standing next to a smiling postman, with the catchphrase “Who’s the Daddy” taking up most of the advertising space. While the fact that they chose an African-American man as the postman and a Caucasian soldier makes the joke extremely obvious, that didn’t prevent folks from expressing their disapproval of the advert.

The second Labs To Go Billboard is on display in Norfolk, and shows a blonde woman with a Pinocchio-like nose next to the catchphrase “Is the Mother a Liar?” and phone number of the paternity testing lab. This one didn’t sit too well with the local community either.

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It’s hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily infect themselves with one of the deadliest viruses in human existence, but for “Los Frikis” – a Cuban punk community living under the regime of Fidel Castro during the 80s and 90s – injecting themselves with HIV-infected syringes was the easiest way to escape persecution and police harassment.

Los Frikis, the name than became synonymous with punks, metalheads and pretty much anyone who didn’t fit in with mainstream Cuban society, came together during the late 1980’s. Their music, dressing style and culture were influenced by that of similar communities in the United States and other European countries, something that didn’t sit well with Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Most of the bands also sang in English, which only made things worse for Frikis in general. Although the language was purely an aesthetic choice, speaking English in those days was considered a huge no-no.

Breaking social norms was a risky affair in 1980s Cuba, and the Frikis paid a high price for it. Many of them were rejected by their families, harassed, arrested and forced to do manual labor for their “crimes”. Los Frikis would meet in safehouses located in run-down areas, but other than that they didn’t have many places where they felt accepted. Tired of the constant persecution, many of them  took up a form of protest that can only be described as extreme – infecting themselves with HIV by injecting the blood of their sick friends into their veins.

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The authors of a Class IV textbook in India recently came under fire, after it was revealed that in a lesson on the importance of breathing they were literally encouraging the kids to do an experiment involving suffocating a cat.

It sounds hard to believe that a school textbook for environmental studies could teach children as young as 9 years old to kill an animal as an experiment, but it’s sadly true. Twitter user Lola Kuttiamma shared photos of the book passages concerning the absurd experiment, and people understandably were outraged about it. “Living things breathe”, the textbook explains. “No living thing can live without air for more than a few minutes. “You can do an experiment. Take two wooden boxes. Make holes on lid of one box. Put a small kitten in each box. Close the Boxes. After some time open the boxes. What do you see? The kitten in the box with no holes has died.”

Wow, is that educational or what? And they’re not even suggesting using adult cats, but cute little kittens. Not that grown cats would have made it any more acceptable, but kittens just make it sound even crueler. And if you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, you were wrong. The textbook, entitled “Our Green World: Environment Studies”, also features a couple of pictograms, with one kitten alive and well in the box with holes in it, and the other, well, dead.

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You probably already know about bullfighting and the controversy surrounding this ancient tradition, but there’s another less known tradition that claims the lives of tens of thousands of Spanish hunting dogs every year. And worst of all, nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

Galgos, or Spanish greyhounds, are an ancient breed of hunting dog that was once raised only by Spanish noble families. Today, these beautiful animals have been reduced to tools that modern-day hunters dispose of in a variety of gruesome ways as soon as the hunting season ends. The traditional explanation for their cruelty is that if the dogs have shamed their master by not performing to their expectations, this dishonor must be washed away by torturing and killing the animals, but in reality, it’s all about cutting costs. It makes more sense to them to buy new Galgos from a breeder for about 10 euros a piece, than spend money on feeding the ones they already own until the next hunting season. So they just get rid of them in the most appalling ways imaginable.

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Indonesian cinema chain CGV has been forced to shut down their Velvet Class venue in the city of Palembang because the ultra-comfortable seats made local authorities uncomfortable.

CGV Velvet Class cinemas are awesome! Instead of regular seats, or even reclining ones, they feature leather beds complete with pillows and blankets, for a ridiculously comfortable movie experience. They have been operating in Jakarta and around Indonesia for years now, with no problems, but recently a deputy mayor South Sumatran capital of Palembang decided that switching regular movie theater seats with comfortable beds was a very a bad idea.

Deputy mayor Fitrianti Agustinda visited the CGV Velvet Class cinema in Palembang, last week, after reportedly receiving complaints about it from the public. The local official was apparently scandalized upon seeing the beds, arguing that they could promote adultery and sexual misconduct.

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A young tattoo artist in Yekaterinburg, Russia, has been getting a lot of criticism on social media after a video of him inking his pet Sphynx cat recently went viral. To make matters worse, the owner admitted that this was not the animal’s first tattoo, and probably not the last.

The owner of the hairless cat admits that he is basically forcing the animal to share his passion for tattoos. “Of course, I feel sorry for tattooing her, because it’s not something she wants,” he says in the video. But apparently the temptation to turn the Sphynx into a walking, meowing work of art is too great. Bes already sports a large tattoo on her back, featuring a woman, a deck of cards, a prison tower and a cigarette, and in this video her owner adds a star as well.

The Yekaterinburg artist said that tattoos are a bit harder to do because the cat’s skin is a bit different than a human’s, but added that he doesn’t believe the procedure is harmful for the cat. “This isn’t her first tattoo,” he says. “She just goes under and doesn’t feel a thing. She always wakes up fine from the anesthesia and behave normally after that.”

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Prophet Bongani Maseko of the Breath of Christ Ministries, in Daveyton, South Africa, has come under fire recently for asking congregates to drink motor oil if they want to be “saved, healed and delivered.” Many of them actually took him up on the bizarre offer.

Photos posted on the Facebook page of the Breath of Christ Ministries show Maseko serving mouthfuls of Havoline motor oil to parishioners who seem more than happy to drink the toxic concoction. People were obviously outraged by the bizarre practice, but some argued that it was probably a poorly chosen container for anointed water or wine. After all, who in their right mind would ask people to drink engine oil to be cured? Well, apparently Prophet Maseko would, and actually did. Contacted by various news outlets, he confirmed that the bottle in the photos did actually contain motor oil, but said that it was perfectly safe for consumption because he had prayed over it…

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Mike Eze-Nwalie Nwogu, co-owner of a nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria, was recently arrested for dehumanizing young girls by putting collars around their necks and parading them on a leash in public.

Nwogu, who is known as “Pretty Mike” among the socialites of the African metropolis, has apparently been turning young girls into “human puppies” for at least a year. His first appearance as a human puppy handler was recorded last year, while attending a wedding, but the photos snapped at the event didn’t attract much attention. He must have gotten quite a lot of attention for his stunt, because he has been pulling it regularly ever since. But as his controversial appearances became more frequent, they started causing a stir on the internet, with many users complaining that nothing was being done about his degrading treatment of women. The last straw was a photo of Pretty Mike holding two girls on a leash under the eyes of five police officers who seemed to be laughing at the bizarre sight.

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A 6-months-pregnant Florida student has found a very simple yet highly controversial way of paying her college fees – selling positive pregnancy tests online for $30 a piece.

“Very self explanatory: I am 6 months and I am providing a product in which the consumer is able to purchase positive pregnancy tests or urine for your own use,” the woman’s Craiglist ad states. “Whether you are using it for your own amusement such as a prank, or to blackmail the CEO of Apple who you are having an affair with I DON’T CARE AT ALL.” As if it wasn’t clear enough already, the woman assures potential clients that this is an “absolutely no questions asked type of deal”.

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