A team of Texas high school students is being sued for allegedly forcing players to do up to 368 pushups in under an hour during a grueling training session that put their lives at risk.

Former Rockwall-Heath High School coach John Harrell and a dozen assistant coaches stand accused of having junior varsity football players do nearly 400 pushups with no rest and no water breaks in a 50-minute training session that landed some of them in the hospital for several days. According to a lawsuit filed by one of the players’ parents, on January 6th, 2023, dozens of junior varsity players hoping to make the varsity team were punished for every mistake made during their 50-minute training session with 16 pushups. There were 23 mistakes counted, so they had to do a total of 368 pushups. Following the grueling workout, 26 players were diagnosed with or had symptoms of rhabdomyolysis, a potentially deadly medical condition that causes muscle tissue to break down and enter the bloodstream.

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A 32-year-old Indian man admitted to cutting off four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to continue working as a computer operator at a relative’s company.

Learning to say ‘no’ sounds easy, but for some people, it can be harder than crippling themselves for life. Case in point, a Gujarat man who staged an “accident” that left him missing four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to tell his boss that he wanted to quit his job. Earlier this month, Mayur Tarapara showed up at a police station in his native city of Surat to report that four mingers were missing from his left hand. He claimed to have been riding his motorcycle to a friend’s house when he suddenly felt dizzy and passed out on the side of the road. When he woke up 10 minutes later, four fingers on his left hand had been chopped off. Police initially believed that the man’s fingers had been stolen for black magic rituals, but their investigation found huge holes in Mayur’s story.

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An Indian devotee who accidentally dropped his iPhone into the collection box at a Hindu temple while making a donation was told that the phone was now the deity’s property and could not be returned.

Last month, a Chennai man who was visiting Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple in Thiruporur with his family to offer prayers, felt his iPhone slip out of his pocket and into the hundial – a metal donation box – just as he was making offerings to the temple’s patron deity. The man, referred to only as Dinesh, approached temple officials and explained the incident, demanding that his handheld be returned. To his surprise, they refused, claiming that rules did not permit them to return anything placed into the hundial, willingly or accidentally, because it is the deity’s property.

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In a bizarre trend sweeping Chinese social media, young women pose with fake silicone belies to make sure they look their best in their pregnancy photos even though they aren’t yet pregnant.

There was once a time when being single and pregnant was considered a stigma in Chinese society, but today, young women go as far as to fake their pregnancy even if they’re not even in a relationship just to make sure they capture the special moment at their very best. In a craze that has been sweeping the nation, Chinese women in their early 20s pay for fake pregnancy photos to ensure they have beautiful maternity memories later in life when they may not have perfect figures and wrinkle-free faces. The so-called “premade maternity photos” started attraction online after a popular influencer shared her own fake pregnancy photo session online, but the trend has apparently been around for a while.

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A three-inch jawbreaker candy managed to live up to its name after causing a 19-year-old woman to literally break her jaw by trying to bite into it.

Canadian student Javeria Wasim had seen videos of people biting into small jawbreaker candies, but she had never seen anyone successfully bite through a big three-inch jawbreaker, so she decided to try it. It turned out to be the worst decision of her life because she only managed to dent the outer layer of the hard candy when she felt a piercing pain in her lower jaw. The young woman’s friend then pointed out that one of her teeth was chipped and when Javeria checked it herself, she realized that another tooth felt wiggly when touched. At this point, the 19-year-old student could barely open her mouth without screaming in pain, so her friend called an ambulance. An X-ray later showed that the reason her tooth was wiggly was that she had fractured her mandible in two places trying to bite into the jawbreaker.

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An English vicar stands accused of ruining Christmas for a class of Year Six students by saying that Santa Claus didn’t exist and their parents were the ones putting presents under the Christmas tree.

Last week, Rev Dr Paul Chamberlain was supposed to speak about the birth of Jesus in front of Year Six pupils from the Lee-on-the-Solent Junior School in Hampshire, England, but he somehow ended up talking about the existence of Santa Claus, a topic that many of the children weren’t ready for. He casually told the class that Father Christmas was not real and that it was their parents buying them presents and eating the cookies they left for Santa. Apparently, all this came as a shock for many of the kids, who started sobbing and later told their parents about the traumatic experience. The minister has since been forced to apologize to the children, their parents, and the school for his revelations.

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A 24-year-old Chinese man who got a skull tattoo on his face six years ago has been trying to get a job ever since.

The unnamed man, referred to only as Mr. A by Chinese media, was recently featured by Morning Star News and shocked the entire country with his unusual look. The 24-year-old man claims to have been a rebellious youth who also struggled with depression and found refuge in his tattoos. He first started getting tattoos on his body, but six years ago, he made the radical decision to get a skull tattoo on his face. The design featured dark holes around his eyes and on his nose, teeth around his mouth, and a brain pattern on his shaved head. He was happy with it at the time, but quickly realized that the design was going to make it very hard for him to lead a normal life.

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71-year-old Jin Hui recently became the first Chinese man over the age of 70 to run 100 meters in under 14 seconds during a competition that saw him winning five gold medals in his age group.

Jin Hui became known as China’s “hardcore uncle” after dominating the 2024 China Track and Field Masters, a competition that challenges athletes between the ages of 35 and 84 to compete in a variety of track and field events. It was Jin Hui’s second time competing in the prestigious event following his debut in 2023 when he finished second in the 100-meter race with a respectable time of 15.26 seconds, but he somehow managed to blow everyone away with his performance. Not only did the septuagenarian set a new national record for the 100-meter race in his age group, but he also snatched the gold medal in all the five events he participated in.

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Spanish police have credited a recent Google Maps update for providing them with evidence crucial to solving a murder case that they had been investigating for over a year.

The tragic case of a 33-year-old Cuban man identified only by his initials, JLPO, whose remains were found on the outskirts of Tajueco, a town in the Spanish province of Castille and Leon may soon reach its conclusion thanks to a Google Maps update. JLPO had traveled from Cuba to Spain to visit his wife who was working in the European country, but soon after arriving in Spain, his relatives began receiving weird texts from him. He told his family that he had met a woman in Spain and planned to throw away his phone, so after they stopped hearing from him completely, JLPO’s relatives declared him missing. Parts of JLPO’s nobody were discovered near a Tajueco cemetery late last year, and investigators have been trying to solve his murder ever since.

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In a case that recently scandalized the Karnataka High Court, a woman filed a cruelty case against her husband, claiming that he cared more about their pet cat than about her.

An Indian woman was scolded by judges in Bengaluru for filing a frivolous cruelty complaint against her husband in which she mostly complained that the man pays more attention to their pet cat than to her. Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed that no specific allegations of cruelty or harassment were made in the complaint. Instead, the plaintiff focused on the husband caring for their feline more than for her, claiming that whenever she confronted him about his behavior, they ended up arguing and hurling insults at each other. The wife apparently also complained about the cat attacking and scratching her several times and the husband doing nothing about it.

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A Chinese man got so angry while tutoring and helping his teenage son with his homework that he suffered a heart attack and almost lost his life

Surnamed Zhang, the 40-something man from China’s Zhejiang province started experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain while helping his son prepare for senior secondary school entrance exams. Things got so tense between the two that Zhang was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction. Doctors at the Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital performed emergency artery bypass surgery and managed to save Zhang’s life. The cause of the heart attack was attributed to premature coronary artery disease, a life-threatening condition often exacerbated by stress.

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Russian entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck have started selling twigs online, marketing them as “perfect snowman arms” and asking for up to 5,300 rubles ($50) per pair.

Russian media recently reported that online classifieds platforms have been inundated with ads for snowman spare parts. Apart from the snow itself, you can buy pretty much anything online, from the hat and carrot nose to the coal eyes and buttons. Wooden twigs as arms have been particularly popular, with sellers asking from 500 rubles ($4.8) per pair to a whopping 5,300 rubles ($50), discounted from 5,900 rubles. Marketed as “long-lasting”, strong, reliable and unique – like snowflakes in winter – the wooden snowman arms are said to be the perfect purchase this holiday season.

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Dyer’s Burgers is a popular Memphis eatery that has been frying its meat patties in the same grease for over a century, claiming it is the secret to its delicious-tasting burgers.

Elmer “Doc” Dyer founded his now-famous burger joint in Memphis in 1912, betting on his secret mix of seasonings to make the patties irresistible. It worked, people loved Dyers’ burgers, but it wasn’t until one fateful night when one of the cooks forgot to change the grease in the pan that they became to-die-for. Kendall Robertson, the current owner of Dyer’s Burgers, claims that the next day, someone came in, had a burger and said ‘That’s the best burger I’ve ever had in my life’. That skillet of grease has never been changed since, so all the burgers are still cooked in the original grease that made the restaurant famous more than a century ago.

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The Scratcher Girls is an unconventional relaxation therapy studio that charges clients up to $130 per hour for back-scratching and tracing services so relaxing they can put people to sleep.

Over the years, we’ve featured our share of unusual services here on Oddity Central, from renting fat people by the hour to professional cuddling and human bed warmers, so we can’t really say we were shocked about the world’s first professional back-scratching service. Founded by 55-year-old Toni George, The Scratcher Girls is the world’s first back-scratching studio and it has been offering scratching and tracing services for years. George claims that she has always enjoyed getting back scratches and one day came to the realization that she may not be the only one, so she decided to start her own back-scratching service. She has been using the 3-inch-long manicured nails to scratch people’s backs ever since, charging up to $130 per hour.

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At an age when most people struggle to move around without a cane or a crutch, 88-year-old Ploutarchos Pourliakas just completed his 12th consecutive Athens Marathon (42.195km / 26.22 miles)

If you ever need a bit of extra motivation to get up off the couch and go for a jog, remember that an 88-year-old man finished the Athens Marathon, aka the Authentic Marathon, crossing the finish line in 6 hours and 31 minutes. Ploutarchos Pourliakas only took up running at the age of 73, after getting inspired by his son, an ultra-marathon runner, but he quickly became obsessed with it, running four to five kilometers daily and up to 20km on weekends. He has finished the Athens Marathon 12 times, and despite getting older, Pourliakas actually managed to improve on last year’s performance, 42.195km (26.22 miles) eighteen minutes faster.

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