Would-be thief knocked out by accomplice in bungled burglary attempt in China

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Two would-be burglars got into a spot of bother when one threw a brick in an attempt to break a window but managed to hit his partner instead.

The encounter was captured on CCTV footage outside a non-descript warehouse in Shanghai.

The two men are seen approaching the building before one man takes his first attempt at smashing the storefront open with a brick.

The brick appears to bounce off the building and onto the ground, sending one of the thieves scurrying over to fetch it.

Following his lead, within seconds, the other man hurls a brick in the same direction which hits his accomplice in the head.

The brick-throwing burglar can be seen hoisting his partner's limp body off the ground and dragging him away from the scene afterwards.

The video footage was posted to social media website Weibo by the Shanghai Police Department, and has since been viewed more than 15 million times on the site alone.

"If all thieves were like this, police wouldn't have to work overtime," the video was captioned.

The condition of the injured thief is unknown and police are yet to identify the men involved.

You've gotta watch this video!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-16/thief-knocked-out-accomplice-in-botched-burglary-attempt-china/9453712

Hilarious!

Kim Jong-un impersonator causes a stir at Winter Olympics ice hockey game

A group of North Korean cheerleaders were briefly wowed by the apparent, sudden arrival of their leader, Kim Jong-un, at a Winter Olympics ice hockey game on Wednesday.

Some cheerleaders immediately averted their gaze as the impersonator, who later only identified himself as Howard, smiled and waved to crowds who came to watch a unified Korean team play Japan at the Pyeongchang Games.

"They are playing a good game, they scored one goal. As a president, it's all I can ask for," Howard said, shortly after plain-clothed officials from South Korea's National Counterterrorism Centre moved him away from the cheerleaders, who he said had been doing a very good job.

"I mean I trained them by myself so, of course, they're the best in the world," he said.

Howard had caused a commotion during last Friday's opening ceremony when he and a person dressed as US President Donald Trump were swiftly shown out of the stadium by security staff.

He said he was briefly detained inside a police office during Wednesday's match, then "politely asked" to leave.

"My face is too political," the dejected impersonator said as he walked slowly out of the ice hockey stadium.

"I was born with this face, I've got to live with it."

In North Korea, anyone impersonating a member of the ruling Kim family would be considered blasphemous.

Images of the North Korean leadership are tightly choreographed and controlled by the reclusive nation's state propagandists.

Still, Howard's entrance was so spectacular that the North Korean cheerleaders struggled to stifle a quick laugh in between chants of "We are one!" and "Unify the motherland!".

"It shows you we're human after all," Howard said.

"Doesn't matter if they're South or North Koreans, a sense of humour and a bit of political satire is always needed."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-15/kim-jong-un-impersonator-causes-stir-at-winter-olympics/9449014?section=world

I didn't know The Onion had bought ABC.

It's Intermarche who's nuts.

Hah!! Punny!

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China cracks down on funeral strippers hired to entertain mourners

Chinese authorities are cracking down on the practice of hiring strippers as funeral entertainment, a technique some rural families use to increase the turnout at a loved one's final farewell.

The country's Ministry of Culture said late last month it would be targeting "striptease" and other "obscene, pornographic and vulgar performances" at funerals and other gatherings across Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces.

It has urged witnesses to call a special hotline to report any performances, with rewards on offer for informants, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.

"The crowd is pushed to climax, roaring with laughter, whistling, applauding and cursing," state media said.

"As the performers saunter into the audience to jiggle their breasts and rub men's crotches, a reminder of 'no photographs allowed' can occasionally be heard."

Hiring entertainment for funerals is a longstanding practice in rural China, as ensuring a high number of mourners attend the ceremony is a way of showing respect to the dead, the Global Times reported.

"Chinese rural households are more inclined to show off their disposable incomes by paying out several times their annual income for actors, singers, comedians, and — most recently, strippers — to comfort the bereaved and entertain the mourners," state media said.

This is also not the first time China has tried to stamp out the practice.

In 2015 two villages in the provinces of Hebei and Jiangsu made headlines with viral photos of strippers at funerals inviting "grieving" men to come on stage and undress them — seniors and children are seen standing nearby watching attentively.

The Ministry of Culture also released a similar statement to this report in 2015 describing the hiring of strippers at funerals as "uncivilised", Xinhua news agency reported at the time.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-21/china-cracks-down-on-rural-funeral-strippers/9470238

Models carry replicas of their own severed heads in 'creepy' Gucci runway show

Models have strutted the runway carrying replicas of their own severed heads in Gucci's operating room-themed show at Milan Fashion Week.

The show space was ready for a fashion emergency — complete with surgical tables, overhead LED lamps, PVC-coated walls and floors, and panic bars on fire doors.

Audience members, including Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, were seated on replica waiting room plastic chairs.

"The concept of the operating room reflects the work of a designer — the act of cutting, splicing and reconstructing materials and fabrics to create a new personality and identity with them," Gucci said in a Facebook post.

The show, called "sensational — in a disturbing and creepy way" by Vogue, also featured a model wearing a third eye, one carrying a sleeping baby dragon and another cradling a snake that was perfectly colour-coordinated with her outfit.

The full show is here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-22/gucci-models-carry-replicas-of-their-own-severed-heads/9476184

I only saw ONE thing less awful than the severed heads.  A plain white hoodie.

Massive 'babushka' egg laid on far north Queensland farm

A gigantic chicken egg laid with a smaller egg inside it has baffled a poultry expert, who says he has never seen the phenomenon before.

The babushka egg was laid by a free-range chicken at the Stockman's Eggs on the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns, in far north Queensland.

The farm said the egg weighed 176 grams, more than three times the size of an average egg.

When it was cracked, they discovered a second smaller egg sitting inside.

Associate Professor Raf Freire from Charles Sturt University's veterinary sciences school said he had never seen anything like it before.

"To be honest, I don't really know how it's come about," he said. Professor Freire said it looked like the chicken had produced an egg as normal, but for some reason it was never laid.

"Then the next day, rather than that egg being laid, like it usually is, what's happened is that there's been another ovum released."

"That's come down and then the chicken has somehow decided to make its shell around both the previous day's egg and the new ovum that's come down.

The farmers have not revealed how the chicken is faring.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/massive-egg-with-another-inside-it-laid-free-range-chicken-farm/9517854

Not well, I would imagine.

Drunk driver manages to get hit by his own car in Virginia police chase

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Watch the video here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-07/man-gets-hit-by-own-car-in-police-chase/9522866

A Virginia man has given an example of how not to run from the police.

Police released dashcam footage of the drunk driver getting hit by his own car as he got out and tried to escape.

Fairfax County Police said the incident happened at about 1:00am Sunday morning (local time) as they tried pulling the man over for an equipment violation.

In the video, 30-year-old Isaac Bonsu is seen jumping out of his car and starting to run off.

He is then immediately run over by his own car as it continues to drive around a corner.

Police said Bonsu neglected to put the car in park in his haste.

Officers said the man was unharmed and is charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of marijuana, among other violations.

Message in a bottle found on WA beach 132 years after being tossed overboard

A Perth family has made an extraordinary historical discovery after becoming bogged on a West Australian beach.

Tonya Illman was walking across sand dunes just north of Wedge Island, 180 kilometres north of Perth, when she noticed something sticking out of the sand.

"It just looked like a lovely old bottle, so I picked it up thinking it might look good in my bookcase," she said.

But Mrs Illman realised she had likely uncovered something far more special when out fell a damp, rolled up piece of paper tied with string.

Between 1864 until 1933, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard from German ships, each containing a form on which the captain would write the date, the ship's coordinates and details about its route.

It was part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory to better understand global ocean currents.

On the back, the messages asked the finder to write when and where the bottle had been found and return it, either to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg or the nearest German Consulate.

The Illmans took their find to the Western Australian Museum, where assistant curator of maritime archaeology Ross Anderson conducted a series of investigations.

He determined it was a mid-to-late 19th-century Dutch gin bottle, and the form inside was written on cheaply-made 19th-century paper.

The colleagues compared handwriting samples from the form and the captain's entries in Paula's meteorological journal.

"Extraordinary finds need extraordinary evidence to support them," Dr Anderson said.

"Incredibly, there was an entry for June 12, 1886, made by the captain, recording a drift bottle having been thrown overboard.

"The date and the coordinates correspond exactly with those on the bottle message.

"The handwriting is identical in terms of cursive style, slant, font, spacing, stroke emphasis, capitalisation and numbering style."

Discovered 132 years after it was tossed overboard, it is the oldest-known message in a bottle in the world.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/oldest-known-message-in-a-bottle-found-on-wa-beach/9518632