The deranged leader of a South Korean cult was recently arrested for holding over 400 of her followers captive at a compound on Fiji Island and forcing them to take part in violent rituals under threat of incurring God’s punishment.

Shin Ok-ju, founder of the Grace Road Church, was detained along with three senior leaders of her cult in connection to allegations that she led hundreds of her followers to the island of Fiji by telling them that a “great famine” was imminent on the Korean peninsula. Once there, she reportedly confiscated their passports and refused to let them leave the 83-acre compound. Under the watchful eyes of handpicked guardians, worshippers were also forced to take part in brutal rituals that often left them bloodied.

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Love is a wonderful and strong bond to have with someone, especially if you’re bringing new life into the world. But what happens when the connection is so strong, you’d do anything to keep it?

Rosa Castellanos Diaz, a young woman from the village of El Coyolar, Honduras, was expecting twins with her boyfriend, Melvin Mendoza. Or at least that’s what everyone thought, including Melvin, as Rosa looked pregnant and had even showed everyone an ultrasound scan. Last Friday, as he big day approached, the mother-to-be boarded a bus to the capital of Tegucigalpa, so she could give birth to her babies at Escuela Hospital. However, later that night, she called Melvin with heartbreaking news: one of the their twins had died while she was in labor, and the other one would have to stay at the hospital in order to receive special care.

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She may not look like one, but 96-year-old Inge Gingsberg is a rock star. She is the songwriter and lead vocalist of death metal group TritoneKings and is known as “Death-Metal Grandma”.

Inge has had quite a remarkable life. She grew up in Austria, but was forced to flee to Switzerland in the early days of World War 2, to avoid persecution. She spent years in a refugee camp, and after the war, she and her husband relocated to Hollywood, where they had to start their new life from scratch. Inge was able to begin a career in the music industry, composing songs for some of the most popular singers at the time, such as Nat King Cole, Doris Day, and Dean Martin. After a while, Inge started to get tired of Hollywood life, and decided to reinvent herself. Today, she is the vocalist of a death metal band.

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When faced with hardships in their lives, many people find them too challenging and give up, especially on their life dreams. But not for Gabriel Heredia.

Gabriel is a 20-year-old Argentinian barber who was born without hands. Despite his handicap, he was able to grow up happy and independent. He also always had the support of friends and family, never feeling discriminated at all by his schoolmates. In fact, his inspiration for such a line of work was his mother, who is a hairdresser. At the tender age of 14, he started working as a barber, and learned all the techniques to perfecting both haircuts and beard trimmings. Although he first saw it as a hobby, Gabriel quickly determined that this was the profession he wanted to work in.

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When Sven Van de Wege lost his eyesight to cancer at age six, he was afraid he’d never play video games again.

Today, “Blind Warrior Sven” is a competitive gamer who trounces some of the world’s best players at his favorite game “Street Fighter.” Watching Sven use his razor sharp gaming instincts to punish his opponents is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

But what will really blow your mind, is how Sven turned his handicap into an advantage that made him a celebrated professional gamer.

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A two and a half year old girl from Changzhou, China’s Jiangsu Province, has been dubbed a “super girl” after falling from the 17th floor of an apartment building and sustaining only minor injuries.

The accidental fall took place on July 11, when the girl’s grandmother decided to leave her home alone while she went grocery shopping. The woman later said that the girl was sleeping and she didn’t have the heart to wake her up, so she just left by herself and locked the door, thinking that she would be back before her granddaughter awakened. She was wrong.

When the young girl woke up, she started looking for her grandmother, and, after checking the front door, she went to the window to see if the woman was downstairs. She climbed onto a chair, then on the computer desk and leaned out an open window. The girl lost her balance and plunged 17 floors onto a small garden outside the apartment building, just as her grandmother was making her way back upstairs.

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Driely Meanda, a 22-year-old woman from Sao Paolo, Brazil, recently learned that a photo of her face is being printed on women’s clothes sold in Asia.

Meanda, whose popular Instagram account has over 300,000 followers, is used to seeing photos of herself circulating online, but she never imagined that someone would go as far as to take one of her artistic selfies and use it as a printable design for commercial clothing. Last Sunday, after being tipped off by one of her fans, the young Instagrammer posted a photo of a mannequin in a Vietnamese women’s clothing store wearing a t-shirt with her face on it. Further research revealed that there was actually an entire line of blouses and shirts featuring her face available for purchase both online and in physical stores.

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The term “stalker” first came into use in the 20th century, to describe the harassment of celebrities by obsessed strangers. The problem continues to this day, with public figures such as Queen Elizabeth II and Miley Cyrus suffering from stalking campaigns from captivated individuals. These stalkers are generally mentally unstable, yet highly resourceful.

With these high profile cases, the victims can take comfort in the fact that they have dedicated security who will work tirelessly to protect them from these volatile obsessives. But what if you’re just a normal person who becomes the target of a manic stalking?

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There’s an abundance of health tips going around on social media these days, but as this story shows, some of them can actually have fatal consequences.

Zhou Xin, a 58-year-old man from Harbin China, recently became the victim of online fake news shared on the internet. The viral news snippet claimed that his home city was about to experience the three hottest days of the year, with extreme temperatures not only rendering heart medication completely ineffective, but, in some cases, actually making their effect harmful on health. After seeing the post widely shared on social media, Zhou, who suffered from chronic heart disease, decided to stop taking his daily medication for the three day period starting on July 17.

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A Malaysian company has recently come under fire for selling simple cotton caps as miraculous healing accessories for up to 1,200 ringgit ($295) a piece.

Called “Brain Synchronization Caps” the controversial accessories are supposed to cure wearers of various health conditions, like insomnia, migraines and even cirrhosis, as well as treat mystical conditions like spells and curses. Johor-based company Sihulk is currently selling the caps for 1,200 ringgit ($295) or 1,000 ringgit ($246) for registered members. Considering that they are basically simple cotton caps with the Sihulk logo on them, many have accused the company of taking advantage of gullible people for a profit.

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Online entrepreneurs in China have found an ingenious way of profiting off of couples paranoia – renting out ‘love testers’ who do their best to try and seduce one of the partners in order to check how faithful they really are.

China is well-known for its bizarre online services, which range from renting fake girlfriends/boyfriends to trick one’s family that they are in a relationship, to hiring mistress dispellers that teach scorned wives how to get rid of problematic mistresses, and even renting professional bridesmaids to endure all sorts of humiliation during traditional Chinese wedding. And entrepreneurs are constantly on the look out for new ways of profiting off of human relationships – case in point, an increasingly popular service that allows couples to rent ‘love testers’ to check their partners’ fidelity.

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A woman who has been trying to divorce her husband for three years was recently denied the right to do that by the UK’s highest court, which ruled that an unhappy marriage that had broken down for years was not grounds for divorce.

68-year-old Tini Owens had been hoping to finally end her 40-year marriage to Hugh Owens, 80, but the five judges at the UK’s highest court unanimously upheld rulings by a family court and the court of appeal that the two must stay married at least until 2020, when they will have been separated for five years and Tini will be eligible for a divorce without consent or evidence of fault. The decision has been met with criticism from divorce lawyers who believe it makes people more likely to falsely blame their partners and come up with embellished and inflammatory causes for divorce, to make sure they don’t suffer the same fate as Tini.

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A Canadian man who claims he identifies as 100% male legally changed the gender on his identification documents to female in order to save over $1,000 on car insurance.

The Alberta man, identified only as David to protect him against possible legal consequences, wanted to buy a brand new car and knew that his insurance costs would be high, due to his age (early 20s) as well as a collision and a ticket or two he had on his record. Still, the $4,500 a year quotation he got from an insurance company was even higher than he had anticipated, so he started thinking of ways of bringing the costs down. At one point, he asked the insurer what the cost would be for a woman in his exact situation and learned that his annual bill would be about $1,100 lower. That got him thinking…

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A motel in Bucaramanga, Colombia, has come under fire for helping an unfaithful husband hide from his wife who was waiting outside for him, and later using the story to promote itself on social media.

Motel Palmeiras has been facing a lot of criticism online for encouraging adultery by going out of its way to help a client who had spent the night there with a mistress hide from his wife, who was waiting outside to confront him. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, the motel later put together a promotional video detailing how they worked with the unfaithful man to figure out the best way to get him out of trouble.

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A Thai man recently incurred the wrath of his friends and relatives after faking his own death on Facebook and having his wife ask them for financial contributions for his burial.

Tachawit J.’s Facebook friends thought him to be in good health, so they were left in shock on Sunday, when his wife posted a series of photos of his dead body – complete with cotton balls in his nostrils – on his account, with the caption “Last photo before deactivating his Facebook, love you!”. Tachawit’s most concerned friends and colleagues left comments asking what had happened to him, to which his wife replied that he had died of cancer and asthma – a truly killer combo – after suffering for a long time.

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