A wealthy couple from Gujarat, India, have decided to donate their entire Rs 200 crore fortune to charity and become Jain monks, relying solely on the generosity of others for survival.

Bhavesh Bhandari and his wife have built their wealth in the lucrative construction business, amassing an enviable fortune of over Rs 200 crore ($24 million). Like most other millionaires, they have enjoyed a life of luxury complete with opulent houses, expensive cars, and pretty much anything else their hearts desired. But the two recently decided to give it all up in order to become Jain ascetic monks, inspired by their two children – a 16-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter – who adopted the same path in 2022. On April 22, the Gujarat power couple will renounce all worldly possessions, sever ties with their families, and embark on a barefoot journey across India, surviving only on alms.

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A 42-year-old Brazilian woman was recently arrested for allegedly bringing a dead man to a bank and trying to obtain a bank loan in his name.

On April 16, Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes arrived at an Itau Unibanco branch in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro to assist 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga in obtaining a bank loan of R$17,000 ($3,200). The elderly man was in a wheelchair and she claimed to be his niece and primary caretaker. Bank employees soon noticed that there was something seriously wrong with Braga, as his alleged niece had to support his head with her hand. He literally showed no signs of life, but Vieira Nunes allegedly kept telling the staff that he was just quiet by nature. She even tried speaking to him although it was obvious he wasn’t capable of answering.

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Roughly the size of a studio apartment, the world’s largest passenger elevator weighs a whopping 16 tons, is supported by 9 steel cables, and can accommodate up to 235 people at a time.

In 2022, Finnish elevator company KONE installed the world’s largest passenger elevator inside the Jio World Center building in Mumbai, India. Designed to cater to large groups of people attending weddings or exhibitions at the state-of-the-art convention center, this marvel of design and engineering measures 25.78 square meters and offers all-round scenic views of the complex and its beautiful gardens. Due to its enormous size, the world’s largest passenger elevator relies on an innovative pulley beam system that consists of 18 large pulleys, 9 steel cables, and rails fixed over steel columns.

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Arshia Goswami, a 9-year-old girl from India’s Haryana state, has been dubbed the female version of Hercules after deadlifting a whopping 165 pounds (75 kg).

Arshia first started attracting attention a couple of years ago when she set a national record as India’s youngest deadlifter, with a personal best of 45 kilograms. She has been training ever since, though, and she recently went viral once again by deadlifting 75 kilograms, more than two times her own body weight. The impressive feat was captured on video and shared on the young weightlifter’s Instagram page, where it went viral. But although most of the feedback was positive, with people praising her strength and form, some comments also expressed concern for her wellbeing, claiming that lifting such heavy weights at her age could have serious health consequences.

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Chinese runner He Jie’s victory at last week’s Beijing Half-Marathon has been overshadowed by a scandal involving three Kenyan runners who appear to let the Chinese competitor win the race.

Sunday’s Beijing Half-Marathon saw 25-year-old He Jie crossed the finish line first, in 1:03:44, under a second ahead of an African trio of runners who collectively claimed second place. It was an impressive achievement for the Chinese runner, especially since one of the runners-up was former 5km world record-holder Robert Keter of Kenya, but his win was quickly called into question on social media after suspicious videos recorded during the race made their way online. The fact that He seemed to be the only one sprinting as he approached the finish line was bizarre enough, but one clip shows Kenya’s Willy Mnangat signaling his countryman Keter and Ethiopian runner Dejene Hailu Bikila to hang back and waving He Jie to overtake them.

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The simple mistake of a law firm clerk accidentally choosing the wrong file from a dropdown menu on an online portal led to the irrevocable divorce of the wrong couple.

A senior judge recently refused to overturn the divorce of a couple who had accidentally been chosen from a dropdown menu by solicitors at leading London law firm Vardags, headed by Ayesha Vardag. The couple, referred to as Mr and Mrs Williams by the court, had been married for 21 years until 2023 when they separated. The couple was still in the process of arranging financial agreements for their separation when a Vardags clerk accidentally selected them for a final divorce order on an online portal, which saw them legally divorced in just 21 minutes. All attempts to have the error overturned by the judge were denied because the public trust in a truly final divorce order was more important.

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A Quebec man suffering from body integrity identity disorder (BIID) asked a doctor to remove the fourth and fifth fingers on his left hand because he felt they didn’t belong on his body.

Dr. Nadia Nadeau from the Department of Psychiatry at Université Laval recently published a case report about an unnamed patient who had been experiencing traumatizing thoughts that the last two fingers on his left hand didn’t belong on his body since childhood. Throughout his life, these thoughts caused him pain, constant irritability, impaired dexterity, and vivid nightmares that the two fingers were rotting or burning. Although the patient did not share his distress about his fingers with his family out of embarrassment, he often fantasized about having them removed himself.

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The Russian Republic of Chechnya recently banned Russian dance music deemed either too fast or too slow, in a bizarre attempt to fight the Western “pollution” of its conservative values.

Musa Dadayev, Chechnya’s Minister of Culture, recently put out a statement that effectively criminalizes most modern dance music genres that are typically played in clubs all over the world, from house and techno to dubstep or drum’n’bass. Dadayev said that “all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80-116 beats per minute,” in order to conform to Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm. Russian media reports that Chechen artists have until June 1st to rewrite any music that does not conform with the new requirements.

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A California teen became the subject of a recent medical paper after getting a metal coin vertically stuck between his vocal cords like in a slot machine.

In a medical report published in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine, a team of doctors detailed the bizarre case of a 14-year-old boy who showed up at the emergency room of a hospital with a hoarse throat and swallowing difficulties. He told the staff that he had accidentally swallowed a quarter, but reported no difficulties breathing and no drooling. However, after performing an X-ray scan of his chest and neck, doctors immediately recognized the severity of the situation, as the metal coin had become stuck in a vertical position between his vocal cords and could damage them if left there for too long.

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A former University of Iowa Hospital employee admitted to stealing another man’s identity and using it for the last 35 years, thus causing that person to be arrested and committed to a mental hospital.

On April 1st, 58-year-old Matthew David Keirans pleaded guilty to federal charges that he had stolen another man’s identity and used it for the last 35 years. At the time of his arrest, Keirans was working at the University of Iowa Hospital under the name William Donald Woods, an alias he had adopted in 1988, after working with the real Woods at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s unclear how the 58-year-old man was able to use Woods’ identity in every aspect of his life, but court documents revealed that in 1990 he was able to a fraudulent Colorado identification card with Woods’ name and birthday, and in 1991 he bought a car in Woods’ name with two checks that eventually bounced.

After driving the stolen car to Idaho, Keirans abandoned it and used all his money from the Colorado bank using an ATM to leave the state. An arrest was issued in Woods’ name for the car theft, but court documents don’t show whether it was actually enforced. Keirans went on with his adopted life, marrying a woman in 1994 and even fathering a child whose last name is Woods.

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Iran’s Shazdeh Garden, also known as the Prince’s Garden, is a surprisingly lush garden full of greenery and water fountains surrounded by arid desert.

Located 6 kilometers from the city of Mahan, in Kerman Province, Shazdeh Garden is a historical Persian garden built by the Qajar Dynasty, at the end of the 19th century. The rectangular complex is surrounded by stone walls that shield the green paradise inside from the harsh desert surrounding it. Seen from the air, Shazdeh Garden looks like a welcoming oasis in the middle of an arid sea, and it’s photos like the ones below that attract thousands of people to this place every year. It features five impressive water fountains supplied through the Qanat technique of transporting water from a well through an underground aqueduct.

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An employee of the Pinakothek der Moderne art museum in Munich, Germany, reportedly hung up his own paintings next to works by Pablo Picasso or Franz Marc without asking anyone for permission.

The 51-year-old unnamed man was reportedly working in the museum technical department, which gave him access to the premises outside of visiting hours. He was thus able to casually drill holes into an empty wall and hang up his own paintings next to those of acclaimed painters from all over the world. It is unclear how long the paintings were up for between someone noticed that they weren’t supposed to be there, but according to a museum spokesperson, they couldn’t have been up for too long because “supervisors usually notice something like that immediately”. As for the man’s motivation, one can only assume that he believed showing his work in the museum would lead to future opportunities.

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Osama Vinladen is a 22-year-old football player from the Peruvian first division who has been making more headlines because of his controversial name than his professional career.

Osama Vinladen Jimenez Lopez’s name first raised eyebrows in his home country of Peru in 2017, when he was called up to be a part of the South American country’s U-15 (Under 15) team. He made his debut for a professional football club in 2018, when he was signed by second-division club Union Comercio. Last year, the club made it into Peru’s first division, and Osama once again found himself in the news because of his name. Despite his namesake’s terrible reputation, the young football player has always said that he doesn’t have a problem with it, adding that his brother is named Saddam Hussien and that his father wanted to name his third son George Bush. He didn’t get the chance, because his third child turned out to be a girl.

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A Kentucky man is facing several years behind bars for illegally accessing the online death registry system and faking his own death to avoid having to pay over $100,000 in child support to his ex-partner.

39-year-old Jesse Kipf admitted to accessing the death registry system in Hawaii using login details he had stolen from a doctor in the same state in January of last year. According to investigators, he created and assigned a file to himself in the system and impersonated the doctor to certify that he had died. Court documents show that Kipf also admitted to illegally accessing various websites run by the States of Arizona and Vermont, along with GuestTek Interactive Entertainment and Milestone, Inc., which led to him being listed as dead in several government databases. In a plea agreement, the defendant claimed that he committed these crimes, in part, to avoid paying outstanding child support to his former wife.

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On Easter Sunday, someone managed to access the GardaWorld cash storage facility in Sylmar and steal a whopping $30 million in what is considered the largest heist in Lost Angeles history.

Canadian security company GardaWorld offers cash storage and transportation services, ensuring that clients’ money is kept safe until it can be used or deposited in a bank. Such storage facilities are among the best-guarded places in the world, featuring dozens of guards, alarms, seismic motion detectors, and state-of-the-art surveillance, making would-be thieves think twice before attempting a heist. And yet, in what can only be described as a perfect script for an Ocean’s Eleven-style blockbuster, someone recently managed to breach a cash storage facility in Sylmar and disappear with up to $30 million in cash without anyone even noticing until a day later.

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