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 A 20-year-old Australian man has caught the internet's attention after he proclaimed himself president of the self-declared Free Republic of Verdis, a tiny nation nestled in a disputed 125-acre forest along the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia. According to The New York Post, this micronation boasts its flag, cabinet, currency, and nearly 400 citizens, all established after Daniel Jackson discovered the land was unclaimed due to an ongoing border dispute between the two countries. "Verdis was an idea I had when I was 14. It was just a bit of an experiment at first with a few mates. We have all dreamed of creating something crazy," said Mr Jackson. Mr Jackson, a digital...

Adult pacifiers which claim to relieve anxiety and improve sleep have become a trending product in China, sparking concerns from doctors and internet users. Some online shops claim they sell more than 2,000 such items a month. They are described as being bigger than the baby version and sell for between 10 and 500 yuan (US$1.4 and US$70), the news outlet The Cover reported. Many shops say that adult pacifiers offer stress relief and help with sleep. (Online shops claim the adult-sized dummies can help relieve stress and aid sleep. Photo: Handout) Some say the products can also help people quit smoking and assist with proper breathing. The nipple part is transparent and the shield...

In a significant breakthrough, an Ohio couple welcomed a baby developed from an embryo that had been frozen for over 30 years. A baby boy born last week to an Ohio couple developed from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 30 years (Representational image) Lindsey Pierce (35) and Tim Pierce (34) of London, Ohio, who were trying to conceive for the last seven years, finally welcomed Thaddeus Daniel Pierce into the world last week on Saturday. The embryo was one of the four produced by Linda Archerd, now 62, using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in 1994. Among the four embryos, one was transferred to Archerd and resulted in the birth of a daughter, who is now 30 and mother to a...

Mainland social media has taken delight in an act of revenge meted out to the staff of a luxury brand store by a wealthy woman in China. Describing it as the “most spleen-venting incident of the year”, the woman, who felt she had been snubbed by staff at a Louis Vuitton (LV) outlet, returned to the store with 600,000 yuan (US$84,000) in cash two months later to get her own back. The woman, who uses the alias xiaomayouren on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, shared her “infuriating” experience at the StarLight Place shopping centre in Chongqing, southwestern China, in June, Sohu news outlet reported. In the initial exchange, the woman, carrying a Hermes...

Estonia showed off some of the many empty cells in its Tartus prison on Wednesday as officials outlined how they would implement a proposed agreement for Sweden to send up to 600 inmates to the facility from late next year. The inter-governmental deal, which has yet to be approved by either country's parliament, is one of many plans worldwide to tackle prison overcrowding - a critical challenge in a third of European countries according to a report published this month. (A general view of the cell in prison in Tartu, Estonia July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins) With around 600 of 933 places in Tartu Prison vacant, officers showed journalists around the facility, completed in 2002, as...

When villagers brought him food, he refused to touch it until his ‘boys’ returned to share it with him. He even cooked their rice for them. One later recalled that ‘we not only loved and trusted him, but almost worshipped him’. And even if it was now impossible to confront the enemy in battle, they could still spy on them. Each day, Seagrim’s scouts would disappear off into the jungle and return with a torrent of information about troop movements and potential targets, all of which was transmitted to British high command in India by radio. He pleaded for weapons to be dropped. The Japanese, affronted by their continuing resistance, were closing in. They...

In a shocking incident, two young men were caught on camera attacking the passengers on board a moving train in Bihar allegedly to make a video and grab attention online. The attack was allegedly staged to make a reel for social media, as per the Railway Protection Force (RPF). (X) The video of the incident, which occurred near Nagri Halt in Bhojpur district, went viral on social media platforms. The video, shared by Railway Protection Force (RPF), showed the duo, dressed in vests and jeans, standing beside the railway tracks and armed with sticks. As the train passes by, one of them hit passengers sitting on the footboards near the door. The latter part of the video shared by the RPF...

Robin Hood is a compelling English legend. We love a man of principle, hiding out and harassing an unscrupulous enemy, a self-sacrificing hero, standing up for what’s right. Major Hugh Seagrim was just such a figure in World War II, except that his battleground was not Sherwood Forest, but the tropical jungles of Burma.   (Major Hugh Seagrim (aged 27 at a wedding before the war) headed a private army of local hill people in Burma that for two years resisted the ruthless Japanese occupiers of their country) There, this outstanding soldier and exceptional human being — whose little-known story has surfaced in a new book, Lost Warriors. The local Karen tribes he...

Patchalarwaree "Jasmine" DamrongtampraseortOne of the more incongruous covers of Passenger's worldwide hit Let Her Go, external is likely to be the one performed by a 13-year-old child of Burmese migrants while strumming her guitar deep in Thailand's Kanchanaburi province. Jasmin is the daughter of ethnic Karen migrants who left Myanmar, also called Burma, in the 1980s to seek a better life across the border. She has become well known in Thailand for her musical talent. People started to notice her when the video of her playing the guitar and singing a song called "Cocktail" in Thai got more than a million hits. Since then, she has been contacted by national television stations in...

About 50 million years ago, continental drift sent the Indian subcontinent crashing into the Asian continent causing the rise of the Himalayan mountain range. The colossal collision also created a geological environment of heat and pressure perfect for the formation of precious stones, such as rubies, sapphires, jade, spinel, and the rarest of all gemstones, kyawthuite. Kyawthuite is so rare that only one specimen exists in the whole world. (A pedestal at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, displaying the only known piece of kyawthuite (the smallest of the set), as well as various other gemstones. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.) Kyawthuite is so rare that only one specimen...