“Ghost Hitchhiker” Vanishes into Thin Air Leaving Burnt Footprints on Car Mat

An Argentinian man has been making news headlines all over South America for experiencing a bizarre paranormal phenomenon. A hitchhiker he picked up from the side of the road allegedly disappeared from the front passenger seat of his truck, leaving behind only a burnt smell and melted shoe marks in the rubber car mats.

Pedro Peirone, from the town of San Jose de la Esquina, in Santa Fe, was driving home on February 26th, when he saw a young man hitchhiking on the side of the road. As he often did on his business trips around the province, Peirone pulled over and offered to give the boy a ride. Although the hitchhiker was a bit shy and reserved, Pedro says he seemed to be a regular teen the likes of which he often picked up. But while he can hardly remember the faces of most of the people he given rides to throughout the years, the memory of this particular boy will probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

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Someone Dropped a Life-Size Jason Vorhees Statue to the Bottom of a Lake to Freak Out Scuba Divers

Imagine scuba-diving in the peaceful waters of a picturesque lake and coming face to face with Friday the 13th killer Jason Vorhees. It’s not the plot of a horror flick, but an actual possibility, thanks to the clever prank thought up by a Minnesota diver.

Inspired by the ending of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, where Megan and Tommy manage to defeat the infamous Jason Vorhees by trapping him in the bottom of Crystal Lake, diver Curtis Lahr came up with one of the scariest pranks ever. In 2013, he created a life-size statue of Jason, complete with his iconic hockey mask and machete, and dumped it to the bottom of Crystal Lake, not the one in New Jersey, but Crosby, Minnesota. It’s been sitting there ever since, waiting to give unsuspecting divers a heart-attack.

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Malaysian Store Cancels Sale for 200 Apple Gadgets After 11,000 People Queue Up Outside

A Malaysian reseller of Apple products was recently forced to cancel its warehouse sale after 11,000 people lined up outside its store for a chance to buy one of only 200 discounted gadgets.

This past weekend, the Switch store at MyTown Shopping Mall, in Kuala Lumpur, was supposed to host a clearance sale of various Apple gadgets, including iPhone 5s for only $50, 64GB MacBook Air for $128, or 24-inch iMac for $255, among others. All in all, only 200 products were up for grabs, and even though the company expected to have a busy weekend, they definitely didn’t anticipate a queue of 11,000 people stretching out from the second floor of the mall, all the way to the parking lot.

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Vietnam’s Fake Wedding Industry Is Booming Thanks to Social Stigma

Vietnamese women looking to avoid the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock are increasingly turning to grooms-for-hire businesses that specialize in throwing fake weddings complete with fake grooms and guests for a hefty fee.

Becoming pregnant before marriage is usually frowned upon in Vietnam, particularly in the northern parts of the country, where traditional social norms are still very strong. With over 300,000 abortions recorded every year, Vietnam’s abortion rate ranks fifth globally and first in Asia. Data shows that most of these pregnancy terminations are caused by social pressure, as 20 to 30 percent of women seeking abortion are not married, while most of the rest are young students. But what happens when a mother wants to keep the baby while at the same time avoid disgracing herself and her family? Well, that’s where the grooms-for-hire businesses come in.

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This Tree in Germany Has Been Helping People Find Love for Over a Century

The Bridegroom’s Oak, a 500-year-old tree just outside of Eutin, in Germany, has its own postal address and actually receives around 40 letters every day. They are sent by love seekers from all around the world, in the hope that someone will read them and write back.

With so many dating apps and services available nowadays, sending letters to a tree in Germany hardly sounds like the most effective way to find love, but for true romantics, there’s really no comparison. There’s just something undeniably charming about sending a letter and allowing fate to work its magic, so the Bridegroom’s Oak remains very popular even in this digital age.

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Russian Car Enthusiast Builds Functional Mercedes G-Class SUV Out of Ice Blocks

A motorist from the Russian city of Novosibirsk teamed up with a local ice sculptor to create a unique Mercedes G-Class SUV using blocks of ice mounted on a metal chassis and powered by an old engine.

Vladislav Barashenkov, the host of Garage 54, a popular YouTube channel focusing on cars, recently went viral for an invention that’s as outrageous as it is cool – a budget version of the Mercedes G-Class luxury SUV made largely out of clear blocks of ice. But Barashenkov wanted it to be more than just a cool looking ice sculpture, so he simply had the sculptor create the body out of ice, which he then mounted on the chassis of an old UAZ 469 military utility vehicle. That made the ice SUV drivable, although riding in it isn’t as smooth as a real G-Class.

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Dutch Engineer Builds Face-Recognition Gadget for His Cat

To make sure his cat doesn’t have to wait too long at the door waiting to be let in, a Dutch engineer built a face-recognition gadget that identifies the feline and messages him so he can let it in.

Arkaitz Garro, a WeTransfer software engineer in Holland, doesn’t have a cat-flap on his door, so every time his cat wants to come inside, it has to wait until he or his wife notices it at the door and lets it in. That didn’t really do, so he decided to use his skills to solve the problem. Instead of installing a good old cat-flap, he decided to go for a more high-tech solution involving artificial intelligence, motion-detection sensors, face recognition software and a messaging app. You might think it’s overkill, but Arkaitz claims that it only took him a few hours to do it, as all the hardware and software he used is available to anyone.

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Hardcore Fan Covers His Entire Body in Dragon Ball Z Tattoos

With millions of fans around the world, Dragon Ball Z is one of the most popular anime series to ever come out of Japan. From cosplaying as their favorite characters, creating amazing fan art to spending their hard earned money on memorabilia, fans love to show their appreciation for the epic saga, but few have gone as far as this hardcore Dragon Ball Z fan from Thailand who covered his whole body in colorful tattoos inspired by the Japanese franchise.

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Model Gets Tattoo of Her Cat with Ink Made from Its Fur

A German model has found a way to makes sure her beloved pet cat stays with her forever. Not only did she get a huge tattoo of it on her thigh, but she had it done with a s special ink synthesised from its fur.

38-year-old Kathrin Toelle loves her two pet cats like they were her own children, and knows that she’ll miss them more than anything else when they eventually pas away. So when she heard about a new tattoo ink that would help her stay connected to her felines forever, she didn’t hesitate. Now Kathrin, who goes by the modelling name Makani Terror, sports a large tattoo of her 10-year-old cat Gizmo, made with ink from its luscious fur, and plans on getting one of her other pet soon.

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Self-Confessed Selfie Addict Takes 200 Photos of Himself Every Day

Junaid Ahmed, a 22-year-old man from Peterborough, UK, is obsessed with selfies. He can spend up to three hours getting himself ready for his daily photo-shoots, and claims to snap around 200 photos of himself, uploading the best of them to his Instagram page.

An ex-fashion student and model, Junaid treats every day like a photo-shoot and even calls himself the ‘selfie king’. To make sure he looks his best for his 50,000 Instagram followers, the young man gets weekly facials, has his eyebrows done and spends hours in front of the mirror applying makeup. Over the years, he has also undergone several cosmetic procedures, including veneered teeth, chin fillers, cheek fillers, jawline fillers, lip fillers, botox under the eyes and on the head, tattooed eyebrows and fat freezing. That’s a lot for anyone, let alone a 22-year-old, but Junaid claims it’s all worth it as long as he gets the attention he seeks on social media.

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The Complicated Case of a Death Row Inmate Who Can’t Remember His Crime

67-year-old Vernon Madison has been on death row for over three decades and was supposed to be executed in 2016, but after a series of strokes allegedly wiped out his memories of fatally shooting a police officer, his lawyers have been trying to suspend his death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court will now have to decide if it is lawful to execute a murderer who does not remember his crime.

Madison was supposed to receive the death penalty in May of 2016, for the 1985 murder of a police officer. Shortly before the sentence could be carried out, his lawyers intervened, arguing that as a result of several strokes, the inmate had suffered neurological damage and could no longer remember his crime. A previous ruling of the Supreme Court stated that mentally incompetent prisoners cannot be executed, but also that some of them may be ruled competent to be executed as long as he or she understands their punishment and why they are receiving it. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation by state courts, so Vernon Madison’s execution has been scheduled and postponed several times in the last two years. It is now up to the Supreme Court to rule if it is lawful to have a man executed for a crime he doesn’t remember.

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Russian Parents Agree to Fake Their Own Deaths to Help Convict Son That Tried to Have Them Killed

A 22-year-old man from Sochi, Russia, was recently busted by police after his parents help prove he tried to have them assassinated by posing for photos of their fake bloody murders.

The shocking story of a young man who tried to have his parents and sister killed so he could inherit their wealth first appeared in Russian media earlier this month, with even more disturbing details surfacing later, as the criminal confessed to police. Apparently, police learned of the man’s diabolical plan from a friend of his, to whom he had confided in. To make sure he was serious about killing his family, police set up a meeting between the man and an undercover policeman posing as a professional hitman. Their worst fears were confirmed when the man gave the “assassin” all the details he needed to get into his parents’ house, like the location of the security cameras and of their guard dog, as well as a plan of the home. He allegedly offered the “killer” 3 million rubles ($54,000), one for each of his murdered family members.

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Indian State Becomes World’s First to Offer Free Cosmetic Breast Surgery to the Poor

When thinking of ways to assist the poor, offering free breast augmentation or reduction surgery is probably not the first thing to come to mind, but that didn’t stop health department officials in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu from doing it.

Most governments are tackling poverty problems the old fashioned way, trying to make sure that unprivileged citizens have access to food, water, a place to live and basic healthcare. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, is taking a slightly different approach, becoming the first state in the world to offer free cosmetic breast surgery to both impoverished women and men. These procedures are currently funded by the state health department, but authorities are trying to get health insurance providers on board to cover them as well.

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Russian Parents Accidentally Discover Their Baby Is Alive Seven Years After Being Told It Had Died

A couple in Volvograd, Russia, were recently reunited with the child they had though had died seven years ago, right after birth. What’s even more astonishing is that the startling revelation was the result of a completely accidental administrative error.

In 2011, a young girl gave birth at a hospital in Volgograd, but was soon told that her child was not viable and that it would not survive a week. Advised to give up the child, the depressed mother agreed to sign a waiver leaving the newborn in the care of the state and went home. Five days later, guilt overwhelmed the two parents, so they returned to the hospital to retrieve their baby and look after it for as little as it had to live. They were told that they were too late, that the baby had died. After grieving their terrible loss, the parents went on with their lives, but last year, they were shocked to discover that the child had been alive all this time.

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California’s “Butt Lady” Picks Up 1 Million Discarded Cigarette Butts in Just Over 3 Years

Sally Dawly is a woman on a mission. Over the last three and a half years, the anti-littering activist has spent most of her free time picking up cigarette butts from the streets of her home city of Auburn, in California, and on this year’s Valentine’s Day she picked up her millionth butt.

Dubbed the “Butt Lady” by her local community, Dawly began her quest to rid the streets of Auburn of cigarette butts in October 2014. Armed with a broom, dustpan and a pair of tongs, the woman started scouring the streets of her town in search of discarded cigarette butts, picking them up and throwing them in the trash, where they belong. To keep a tab on how many butts she picks up, the Butt Lady has been using a clicker, and earlier this month, she hit a historic milestone – one million cigarette butts.

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