Variety

A seasoned criminal serving a 73-year sentence in a Brazilian jail donned his teenage daughter’s clothes, a long wig, and a silicon mask in a startling makeover, which, however, failed to fool the guards into letting him out. Clauvino da Silva, 42, was stopped by the guards of Gericino Penitentiary …

It all started with a single tweet: “8÷2(2+2).” A simple challenge, right? Well, apparently not judging by the bitter flame wars currently ongoing across the Twitter-sphere. The ostensibly simple equation went viral this week as budding mathematicians and physicists from around the world torched each other’s ‘flawed’ methods and extolled …

Media reports revealed the death of a British girl after the mysterious fall of a small plane, while flying over the Republic of Madagascar in Africa. The British Foreign Office confirmed the death of the young woman, Alana Kotland, 19, famed for her love of wildlife, while Madagascar authorities have …

Mutanabbi Street, in the heart of downtown Baghdad, has been home to booksellers for centuries. Through years of war, censorship, and dictatorship it has served as a cultural hub for the city. “Cario writes, Beirut prints and Baghdad reads,” goes the proverb, and this is where they come to do …

The owner of an Australian crocodile farm has told of his shock after finding a surgical plate in the stomach of a 4.7-meter (15-foot) reptile. The saltwater crocodile, named M.J., died in June at the Koorana Crocodile Farm near Rockhampton, Queensland, in the country’s northeast. The orthopedic plate was discovered …

A child has died after a man pushed him and his mother in front of an oncoming high-speed train at Frankfurt’s main station, police said. Witnesses reportedly saw a man dressed in dark clothes shove the pair onto the tracks as an InterCity Express train pulled into the station in …

The Lion King’s strong circle of life has reached into a second weekend. According to studio estimates Sunday, Disney’s photorealistic remake brought in $75 million to again finish at the top of the North American box office. Its domestic total of $350 million makes it the year’s fourth highest-grossing film …

The finals of the Fortnite World Cup are taking place in a stadium in New York, with the winner set to earn more prize money than Simona Halep and Novak Djokovic won as Wimbledon champions. Forty million players attempted to qualify over 10 weeks of online competition but only 100 …

A six-year-old South Korean YouTube star with 30 million subscribers has purchased a multimillion-dollar, five-story property in Seoul. Boram bought the 9.5 billion Korean won ($8 million) building in the trendy Seoul suburb of Gangnam earlier this year, through the Boram Family company, which was set up by the YouTuber’s …

Three massive asteroids are expected to pass by Earth today, with one of the approaching space rocks flying closer to our planet than the Moon, NASA has warned. Estimated at 360 feet wide, asteroid 2015 HM10 is expected to fly past our planet on Wednesday, according to NASA’s Center for …

Singapore said on Tuesday it had seized 8.8 tonnes of elephant ivory, a record haul by authorities in the city-state, which conservation groups say is a transit point for the illegal wildlife trade. The elephant ivory, estimated to be worth $12.9 million, came from nearly 300 African elephants and was …

Avatar’s 10-year reign as the world’s highest-grossing film has ended. On Sunday, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame crossed $2.7902bn (£2.23bn) at the box office, pushing it over the $2.7897bn earned by James Cameron’s sci-fi epic. Marvel chief Kevin Feige hailed the achievement at Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, although it was …

Police in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina have raided a clandestine factory manufacturing bootleg luxury vehicles. Officials from the Santa Catarina Civil Police’s Investigative Unit seized eight semi-assembled replicas of Ferraris and Lamborghinis in Monday’s raid, according to a police press release. Police said the replicas were being …

Egypt opened to visitors on Saturday the “Bent” Pyramid built for pharaoh Sneferu, a 101-meter structure just south of Cairo that marks a key step in the evolution of pyramid construction. Tourists will now be able to clamber down a 79-meter (86 yards) narrow tunnel from a raised entrance on …

More than 1,600 visitors and 350 staff were evacuated after a fire broke out at Europe’s largest aquarium in Valencia, Spain. A column of dense black smoke rose from the building. The blaze was reported at about 11.00 Am local time, as visitors reportedly noticed smoke near a shark enclosure. …

Fashion designer Stella McCartney said this in an interview with the Observer this weekend, adding that she picked up the tip while working for bespoke tailors on London’s prestigious Savile Row. Instead, she says, the “rule” is to “let the dirt dry and you brush it off”. It may have …

Ancient artifacts that have been looted from Iraq and Afghanistan after recent conflicts and illegally exported to the UK will be returned to their country of origin. The British Museum is working with the UK Border Force and other Government law enforcement agencies to help to return the seized items, …

Four tigers have mauled their trainer to death during a rehearsal at a circus in southern Italy. One tiger set upon Ettore Weber, 61, on Thursday evening in Triggiano, near Bari, before the other three joined in. They then played with his body in their cage until paramedics and circus …

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee voted on Friday to list the sprawling Mesopotamian metropolis of Babylon as a World Heritage Site after three decades of efforts by Iraq. Iraq had been trying since 1983 to have the site — a massive 10-square-kilometer complex of which just 18 percent has been excavated …

A tornado swept through the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning, killing six and injuring 190, the state broadcaster said, amid a series of “extreme” weather events that government forecasters have linked to climate change. The tornado damaged nearly 3,600 homes and affected more than 9,900 residents in Kaiyuan, a city …