A gang of six alleged armed robbers led by senior citizens in their 60s and 70s have been arrested in Italy after carrying out several armed burglaries at post offices in Rome.

70-year-old Italo De Witt, nicknamed “the German”, Sandro Baruzzo, 68, and 77-year-old Raniero Pula look more like harmless grandpas than hardened criminals, but appearances can be deceiving. Italian prosecutors claim that they were the leaders of a ruthless gang of armed robbers that specialized in Rome post offices. The gang had a very clear structure, with the three elderly gentlemen at the top, and three other experts, a key maker (66) to breach the various locks, and two bricklayers (51 and 56 years old) who handled “the hole” through which the gang entered the post offices. All members had criminal records, but the leaders had particularly impressive records that went back all the way back to the 1970s. Apparently, some people never change.

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A Mexican beauty salon has been getting a lot of attention on TikTok because of its promotional videos, many of which seem to show some “horrible” makeup examples.

TikTok is a great marketing tool, even when the product or service you’re promoting isn’t exactly the best money can buy. Case in point, a Mexican beauty salon that has been gaining followers on the popular video-sharing platform primarily because of its unflattering makeup clips. Ohio Esthetic’s most popular TikTok videos are precisely the ones showcasing the salon’s most bizarre makeup. With names like “Makeup to Go Sign the Divorce” or “When You Thought You Would Be Single on Valentine’s Day,” these viral clips show young women completely transformed with thick layers of makeup, but definitely not in a good way.

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An 80-year-old German man has been dubbed the world’s most frugal millionaire for living off food and stuff found in dumpsters despite owning several properties worth millions of euros.

Heinz B. looks like a homeless person with nothing to his name, but appearances can be deceiving. The German man may only have €15 euros ($16) in his bank account at the moment, but that’s only because he just withdrew 700,000 euros ($756,000) to buy a new home, his tenth. The 100,000 euros left over was transferred to a fixed-term deposit to generate interest. He might not look like much, but the octogenarian is worth several millions of dollars and knows how to increase his fortune. Besides, he claims to have been frugal his whole life, so he doesn’t really need money to get by. He is more than happy living on food found in dumpsters and hoarding all sorts of things other people throw away.

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Located atop a cliff on the Indonesian island of Bali, 150 meters above sea level, the stunning Private Jet Villa by Hanging Gardens is probably the world’s most beautifully converted Boeing 737 jet.

Converting retired airplanes isn’t new. We’ve seen them transformed into homes, restaurants, or even museums, but what developer Felix Demin managed to do with a Boeing 737 on the island of Bali is truly unprecedented. He managed to convert the giant aircraft into a luxurious two-bedroom villa perched atop a cliff overlooking the iconic Bali coastline. The project has been three years in the making, and involved several logistic challenges, from transporting the jet to its breathtaking location to the conversion itself. Luckily, Demin managed to overcome these hurdles and today, the Private Jet Villa by Hanging Gardens is one of the most sought-after accommodations on the Indonesian island, despite its steep nightly rates.

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A Quebec art teacher is being accused of selling his high school students’ artworks on his website without their consent for personal profit.

An art teacher at the Westwood Junior High School in Saint Lazare has landed in hot water with the parents of several of his students for allegedly selling their drawings and paintings online without their knowledge and permission. The discovery was made by accident when one of the students searched his name on Google only to discover one of his art class drawings listed for sale on his teacher’s website. Word spread around the school, and before long, other students reported their own artworks had been listed online by the teacher. Some of the kids told their parents about the bizarre practice, and they appealed to the high school board for clarification. Now, some parents are asking for moral and punitive damages from both the art teacher and the high school.

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A couple of enterprising students from Thailand have come up with an innovative business strategy – sleeping in problematic houses and apartments to certify that they are free of ghosts and paranormal phenomena.

21-year-old Wifei Cheng, a Thai-Taiwanese student at Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna in Chiang Mai province, knew about the problems realtors had selling properties where deaths had been reported in the past, and decided that there was a market for ghost-free home certifiers. And who better for the job that himself and his colleague and associate, 22-year-old Sretthawut Boonprakhong? The pair recently started advertising their services on social media, offering to sleep in problematic houses and apartments and then issue ghost-free certificates to put buyers’ and renters’ minds at ease.

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Scientists at South Korea’s Yonsei University have created a new type of hybrid rice that not only has a meaty pink color but is also packed with beef protein and fat cells.

Rice is already one of the most nutritious foods available in nature, but thanks to some scientific ‘magic’, it could soon become a viable, sustainable alternative to meat. A team of researchers at the Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, managed to create a rice hybrid laced with beef protein and fat cells. The new pink rice has 8 percent more protein and 7 percent more fat than regular rice, and while it doesn’t yet taste like beef, it does carry a “unique blend of aromas, including a slight nuttiness and umami which are characteristic of meat”. Thanks to the integrated animal cells, this new pink rice could one day become a complete meal by itself, ensuring a sufficient, sustainable food supply for the whole world.

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A young tattoo artist from St. Petersburg, Russia, was recently detained for insulting religious believers with controversial tattoos featuring Jesus Christ, the cross and other Christian symbols.

Daria Krichker is facing up to one year in jail for her crimes. According to the Orthodox activist group that filed a complaint against her, she has committed “repeated gross blasphemous acts against Christ, the Mother of God, and the saints of the Church,” which “cannot be tolerated on Russian soil. It all started earlier this month when photos of a tattoo reportedly inked on Krichker’s own calf went viral on social media. It showed Jesus on the cross having an orgasm, which isn’t the kind of creative work that religious people would appreciate. It’s weird, many would describe it as disgusting, but in Russia, such a tattoo can literally land you behind bars.

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The Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie, in Italy’s Lombardia region, is an old church famous for having a real taxidermied crocodile hanging from the ceiling.

What’s the last thing you expect to see when you look up in a church? Granted, there are plenty of interesting answers one can think of, but ‘a crocodile’ definitely ranks up there with the quirkiest of them. But if you travel to the small municipality of Curtatone, in Lombardia, Italy, you’ll find a church with a five-century-old crocodile hanging from the ceiling. It’s a peculiar sight, to say the least, but one that has been around for as long as anyone can remember. How the croc wound up at the Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie is, and will probably remain a mystery, but its purpose had been linked to religious symbolism.

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A Spanish woman sparked controversy after claiming that dripping urine into her eyes cured her myopia and astigmatism.

Urine therapy or urotherapy is a form of alternative medicine popularized by British naturopath John W. Armstrong in the early 20th century. Advocates of this unusual form of therapy promote the application of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including massaging one’s skin, or gums, with one’s urine, and even drinking it. However, TikTok user and “assistant metaphysical counselor” Suama Fraile claims that urine is also much better at treating eye problems than the chemical-infused medicine prescribed by most doctors. The woman claims to have dripped urine into her eyes daily until it cured her astigmatism and myopia.

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An Italian woman stands accused of faking no less than 17 pregnancies – 12 natural abortions and 5 false births – over the last 24 years, to receive 110,000 euros ($120,000) in maternity benefits.

50-year-old Barbara Ioele has had an unusual number of pregnancies over the last 24 years, which have resulted in years of maternity leave and a small fortune in state-paid benefits. According to documents filed by the woman, she went through 17 pregnancies, 12 of which unfortunately couldn’t be carried to term. The other five allegedly resulted in the birth of healthy babies named Benedetta, Angelica, Abramo, Letizia, and Ismaele, only there is no record of them ever being registered, and no one has ever actually seen them. Barbara allegedly birthed her youngest child in December of last year, but now authorities claim she had been under surveillance throughout her late pregnancy and they have proof that she was never pregnant. They are also accusing her of having faked all 17 declared pregnancies to receive over 110,000 euros in benefits and get time off from work.

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A Dutch man was fined 380 euros ($400) after an AI-powered camera caught him talking on his phone while driving. Only he claims he was only scratching his head and the system made a mistake.

In November of last year, Tim Hansen received a fine for allegedly speaking on his mobile phone while driving a month earlier. He was shocked, mainly because he didn’t remember using his phone at the wheel on that particular day, so he decided to check the incriminating photo on the Central Judicial Collection Agency. At first glance, it seems that Tim is indeed talking on his phone, but a closer look reveals that he isn’t actually holding anything in his hand. He was simply scratching the side of his head and the camera mistook the position of his hand for it holding a phone. What is even more baffling is that the human who checked the photo and validated his fine didn’t spot the “false positive” either.

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In what is believed to be the first ever such documented case, researchers in India came across a live frog with a small mushroom growing on the side of its body.

The Last of Us, the hit HBO series based on the namesake video game series, has popularized the fictional idea of mushrooms and fungi infecting humans and turning them into mindless zombies. In reality, fungi from the cordyceps family only infect insects, but a team of Indian researchers recently made a discovery that speaks to the adaptability of these microorganisms and their ability to survive and thrive in the most unusual conditions. While observing the fauna around a small pond in the foothills of the Kudremukha Ranges, India, hobbyist naturalist Chinmay Maliye and wetland specialist Lohit Y.T. came across a frog with a mushroom sprouting from its flank.

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A woman recently tried to sneak out of a private hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, hours after undergoing plastic surgery in order to avoid having to pay for the procedure.

The incident reportedly took place last week at a private hospital in Istanbul’s Sisli neighborhood and was captured on camera by passers-by. In a short clip that has been doing the rounds online, a woman wearing a hospital robe and white slippers can be seen arguing with doctors and nurses trying to stop her from leaving. The woman’s face is visibly swollen and almost completely covered in bandages, which makes sense when considering she had only undergone extensive plastic surgery just hours prior. What makes less sense is the woman’s motives for leaving her hospital bed as soon as her anesthesia wore off – trying to avoid covering the bill for the procedure.

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A 64-year-old Japanese woman from Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward has admitted to counterfeiting luxury bags and wallets in the comfort of her own home and selling them in her small shop as originals.

The unnamed woman’s story began a few years ago when she opened a small bag shop in Katsushika where she tried to sell her original bags. Unfortunately, business wasn’t very good, especially on weekdays, and things only got worse when the pandemic hit. But, as it often happens in our darkest moments, the woman came up with a solution to her problem at the peak of the pandemic. She was watching TV when she saw a segment on the popularity of designer bags and accessories and decided that riding that same wave was her way to success. After doing a bit of research, she found branded fabric and synthetic leather online, ordered some, and began making luxury bag knockoffs using her sewing machine.

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