Mum left son, 10, locked in their home with just rice to eat for eight days

Little Mikhail’s father died two years ago and despite being hungry he feared asking neighbours for help as he didn’t want to get his mum in trouble and end up in care

Exorcist haunted by ‘headless ghosts and spirits cut in half’ after tsunami

Japan’s north east coast was devastated by the worst earthquake and tsunami in the country’s history – and people believe as well as the devastation the tragedy left behind some unwelcome guests

Coronavirus-infected minks spotted “rising” from their graves after mass burials

Images from a military base in Denmark show appears to show the culled minks “resurfacing”- but there is a scientific explanation for the ghoulish scene

Huge shark and 16ft crocodile caught in tense face-off metres from swimming kids

The footage, which was captured by a couple who were fishing off the coast of Australia, saw a bull shark and a saltwater crocodile in a tense encounter

More than 100 bodies found in secret mass grave within Mexico cartel stronghold

Jalisco state prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solis told a press conference at least 113 bodies had been found in a mass grave in El Salto – a stronghold for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel

North Koreans ‘will pay with their lives’ after forest fire that threatened base

Military insiders said the blaze broke out near Kim Jong-un’s “No. 2 Missile Launch site” close to the Chinese border – and officials could be executed even if they are blameless

Mum ‘drowns newborn baby in cesspit filled with human waste as she gives birth’

Hanna, 35, allegedly delivered the full-term boy in a pit toilet near her home in Seredyno-Budsky, Ukraine, and a neighbour claims he later retrieved the body and buried it in a woodland

Woman ‘whips boy, 2, across face as punishment for breaking her phone case’

WARNING – GRAPHIC IMAGES: The boy was pictured crying with cuts and marks across his face and back after he was beaten with a metal wire or a stick in Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Cigar-smoking man rescues puppy from jaws of alligator in dramatic footage

Retiree Richard Wilbanks, 74, chased his three-month-old puppy underwater after it was snatched by an alligator from his backyard pond in Fort Meyes, Florida, US

Two children killed in ‘traumatic’ circumstances after car plunged into dam

The family of six were driving home along Beaudesert Boonah Road, Brisbane, when their car veered off down a slope and int a dam, leaving two children trapped inside