Finland is Europe’s largest producer of fox fur, but undercover investigations have repeatedly shown that arctic fox farms engage in dubious practices, such as fattening the animals until they become deformed, just to increase their fur yield.

Despite a concentrated effort by PETA and many high-profile celebrities to deter the general public from buying natural animal fur, the fur trade has been booming. Around 100 million animals are killed for their fur every year, and the industry is worth tens of billions of dollars. While China is by far the world’s largest fur producer, thanks in great part to the lack of concrete animal welfare legislation, Finland is the largest fur producer in Europe, and the conditions in its animal farms are worse than you can probably imagine. Millions of arctic foxes are kept in tiny metal cages with no bedding, very little light, and are stuffed with food until they become deformed so that more fur can be harvested from them.

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In what can be described as one of the weirdest accidents of the year, a Filipino man was seriously hurt by a crocodile after climbing down into a pool to take a selfie with it, thinking it was just a realistic plastic model.

68-year-old Nehemias Chipada was visiting the Amaya View amusement park in Cagayan de Oro City, the Philippines, on November 10 when he spotted what he thought was a life-like model of a crocodile. It looked eerily realistic, so the Filipino man, who was celebrating his birthday with his family at the amusement park, climbed down to take a selfie with the cold-blooded reptile and even tapped it on the head. The thought that the 12-meter “model” could actually be a real crocodile never crossed his mind, at least until he got dangerously close to it and the reptile sank its teeth into his left arm…

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A Michigan woman who turned to a bogus rent-a-hitman website to have an assassin kill her ex-husband was recently convicted for solicitation of murder.

The internet is amazing. You can find just about any kind of information or service if you put in the work and do some research, but when it comes to hiring someone to be your hitman, you may want to skip the obvious options. Wendy Wein, a 52-year-old woman from Michigan who wanted her ex-husband dead, failed to do just that. She found the website RentAHitman.com and assumed that it was a legitimate business where vengeful people like her could find professionals to do their dirty work for them. It won’t surprise anyone that this wasn’t the case and that she is now facing at least nine years behind bars.

RentAHitman.com promises confidentiality, boasts about complying with HIPPA, which apparently stands for the non-existent “Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964,” features testimonies from satisfied customers, including women who caught their husbands cheating, and offers access to a network of over 17,000 “field operatives”. And that’s apparently more than enough for people to put in an order for a hitman…

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As part of this year’s Movember, Australian menswear brand Politix teamed up with visual artist Pamela Kleeman-Passi to create a unique suit using men’s mustache hair.

Movember is an annual event that encourages men all around the world to grow their mustaches in the month of November to raise awareness of serious men’s health problems, such as prostate cancer and testicular cancer. This year, Politix decided to do something special for Movember, and ultimately decided on a wearable men’s suit made using real mustache hair. It turned out to be one of the most hideous, disgusting-looking suits we’ve ever seen, but at least it’s for a good cause, and it’s a hell of a conversation starter.

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A Hungarian man has been accused of jumping in front of a train and having both legs cut off by the metal wheels in order to claim over $3.2 million in insurance payouts.

Sandor Cs., a 54-year-old man from the Hungarian village of Nyircsaszari, lost both of his legs in a horrific incident in 2014. He claimed that on the fateful day of July 30, 2014, he was walking near the train track when he happened to step on a piece of glass, which caused him to lose balance and fall in front of a speeding train. The injuries to both his legs were so severe that he had to have them both amputated from the knees down, and he spent months in a wheelchair before getting prosthetic limbs. However, insurance companies have spent the last seven years gathering evidence in an attempt to prove that Sandor willingly in order to collect a fortune in payouts.

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For centuries, people have been asking themselves what the source of the underground spring known as Fosse Dionne spring in France’s Burgundy region might be, but they never got to the bottom of it, because they literally couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

The Fosse Dionne is a huge upsurge of water around which the town of Tonnerre was built. For as long as anyone can remember it has been spewing massive amounts of water, with a flow of around 311 liters of water per second on a regular basis, which can increase to 3,000 liters per second in rainy weather conditions. The Romans used it for drinking water, the Celts considered it sacred, and the French used it as a public bathhouse during the 1700s, but no one has ever been able to locate its source. Many have tried, some have died trying, but the source of the Fosse Dionne remains a mystery.

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The world’s oldest known wild bird is a Laysan albatross named Wisdom that biologists first identified and banded in 1956. She is now at least 70-years-old and just hatched another chick.

First banded in 1956, by biologist Chandler Robbins, who found her nest near a US navy base on the Midway Atoll that the world’s largest colony of albatross calls home, Wisdom has now outlived the man who discovered her, as well as all her male mates. Although cockatoos in captivity have been known to live nearly 100 years, for wild birds the odds of living over seven decades are extremely slim. Predators, food scarcity and, more recently, plastic waste, are all life-threatening factors that wild albatross deal with on a regular basis. And, yet, despite having the odds stacked against her, Wisdom has managed to live longer than any wild bird known to man.

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A Chinese woman has sparked controversy online with her extremely frugal lifestyle, which involves spending as little money as possible, even if it means giving up on some of life’s small pleasures.

Consumerism may be at an all-time high in the developed world right now, but the minimalist lifestyle trend is also becoming increasingly popular. In China, hundreds of thousands of people share “money-saving tips” on private social media groups, with some members standing out through their frugal lifestyles. One such individual is Wang Shenai, a 32-year-old woman from Nanjing and member of a 400,000-strong online group called Frugal Women’s Federation. She has achieved celebrity status among her peers for her extreme money-saving techniques, but also sparked controversy among the general public, after a recent interview she gave went viral.

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An Indian man shocked his relatives and his entire country after he agreed to let his wife-of-five-months marry her lover, and even arranged their wedding.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, a 1999 Bollywood blockbuster, tells the unlikely tale of a man who helps his wife marry the man she truly loves, played by superstar Salman Khan. It’s the kind of story most people don’t even imagine could happen in real life, and yet the exact same thing already happened twice in India this year alone. Back in April we posted about a man’s India’s Bihar state who helped his wife of seven years marry her lover, whom she had been having an affair with, and now we feature the similar story of a husband who recently helped his wife marry an old fling.

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Megavalanche is a unique enduro race that sees thousands of participants riding downhill on a glacier, 8,530 feet above sea level while trying to stay on their bikes and not get run over by the pack.

Downhill enduro racing usually involves a series of stages where competitors ride individually against the clock, trying to get the best time possible. The contestant with the fastest time on average wins. But Megavalanche, a monster of a race that has been taking place every year – except 2020 – since 1995, is different. It is the only endura downhill race with a mass start on a glacier, a detail that creates the ideal condition for the chaos and mayhem that Megavalanche is famous for. Imagine 2,000 bike riders setting off on a snowy track, reaching speeds of around 75mph, losing control of their mountain bikes, and trying not to get swept away by the human avalanche forming all around them. That’s the starting portion of Megavalanche in a nutshell.

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Dekochari (デコチャリ) is a bicycle decoration movement specific to Japan, and that is characterized by the use of plywood accessories, chrome plating, elaborate light displays and hi-fi audio systems.

Dekochari can be traced back to the 1970s, back when Japan’s Dekotora truck decoration trend started gaining traction. Unable to unleash their creative decorating talent on trucks, kids started adapting the same general style to their bicycles, and they ended up creating their very own culture. Dekochari thrived right alongside dekotora, but as the trucks’ excessive lighting and extra weight started posing legal problems to drivers, both cultures kind of faded from the roads of Japan, and today dekochari bikes are considered rarities.

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As part of its ambitious efforts to attract tourists from across the world, Saudi Arabia has announced plans to turn an abandoned offshore oil platform into an oil-themed extreme theme park.

Named ‘The Rig’, the upcoming offshore theme park is part of the Saudi Vision 2030’s strategy, which aims to diversify the country’s economy and boost its tourism industry in particular. The 1.6 million-square-foot extreme theme park will feature roller-coaster rides, submarines, bungee jumping, and sky diving, among other adrenaline-inducing amenities, as well as three hotels and 11 restaurants across The Rig’s interconnected platforms.

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Jasen Bracy became completely blind at the age of 7, but he didn’t let that setback come between him and his dream of playing football, and he is now a quarterback for the Modesto Raiders.

Jasen, who lives in Modesto, California, was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a type of cancer that causes tumors in the retina, when he was only 1-year-old. Despite undergoing several treatments to treat his condition, there was no saving his eyesight, and by age 7, Jasen was completely blind. Today, the only thing he can distinguish is whether it is daytime or nighttime. But despite growing up blind, Jasen never hesitated in following his dreams, no matter how ambitious they may have seemed. And it was this ambitious attitude that won him the role of quarterback on a local football team.

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Les Grands Buffet à Narbonne is a unique all-you-can-eat buffet in Narbonne, France, where you can stuff your face with the most decadent dishes of French cuisine, in a luxurious environment, and without breaking the bank.

While the above paragraph may sound like the beginning of a sponsored post, that is most certainly not the case. I only discovered Les Grands Buffet yesterday, while on my daily session of internet surfing for interesting topics to write about, when some photos of what looked like a lobster fountain caught my eye. It turned out to be just one of the many eye-catching arrangements at the Les Grands Buffet in Narbonne, France, a unique all-you-can-eat-buffet that only serves the best dishes of French cuisine, from lobsters to foie gras and cassoulet. It’s the kind of place that, as a gourmand, you simply have to visit at least once in your life.

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Walking through the streets of Sweden Hills, with its traditional read-and-white Swedish houses, Swedish flags and traditional Swedish outfits, you’d never guess you were on the island of Hokkaido, in Japan.

Located in Tōbetsu, about 30 kilometers from Sapporo, the largest city on Hokkaido, Sweden Hills (スウェーデンヒルズ) was inspired by the visit of a Swedish ambassador in the area. During their visit, the Swedish diplomat remarked how similar the climate and landscape were to his native land, and that inspired developers in the area to build a settlement modeled on idyllic Swedish towns. Planning started in 1979, and the actual construction began in 1984. Today, Sweden Hills or Suēden Hiruzu is home to about 400 permanent residents, as well several hundred who only vacation here. It’s safe to say they are all massive fans of Swedish culture.

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