Only a generation ago, little girls had to beg their moms just to put on make-up for a special occasion. But things have changed quite drastically since then. Moms these days are actually pampering their daughters at kiddy spas with custom-made packages to suit their needs. And believe it or not, some of these girls are as young as seven!

Whoever heard of a seven-year-old needing a massage, right? But the demand is apparently so great that the spa industry has really begun to target children in a big way. Adult spas are adding separate menus of services for little girls, and most major cities in the US have day spas that are meant exclusively for children. Manicures, pedicures, hairdos, makeup, oil rubs and even custom-sized robes are made available to clients, who are often too young to have had their first pimple.

According to the International Spa Association, industry trends indicate that 25 percent of the approximately 20,000 spas in the US now offer services that are specifically meant for the under-13 set. They offer kid-friendly music, banana-scented facials, and age-appropriate vocabulary – customers are ‘princesses’ and toes are referred to as ‘pigglies’.

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The town of Epecuen, in the Argentinian farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires, was once a bustling lakeside resort with a population of over 5,000. Over a quarter of a century ago it was flooded by the waters of a nearby lake and, until recently, it remained submerged. Now it’s finally come back up for air.

Established in 1920 along the shore of Lake Epecuen, the popular tourist destination played host to at least 20,000 visitors every season. Its main attraction was the saltwater lake, which contained 10 times more salt than the ocean. According to local legend, the lake is so salty because it was formed by the tears of a great Chief crying for the pain of his beloved. The waters of the lake were believed to cure depression, rheumatism, skin diseases, anemia, and even diabetes.

Thousands of visitors would arrive by train from the nation’s capital to relax in the town’s saltwater baths and spas. Tourists, mainly from Buenos Aires’ large Jewish community, enjoyed the floating water because it reminded them of the Dead Sea in Israel. The town had almost 300 thriving businesses – including guesthouses, lodges, hotels and other establishments centered around tourist trade.

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Images of a simple-looking 80-year-old man gifting his elderly wife a diamond ring are making waves on Chinese social networking site Weibo. The photos of the couple dressed in plain clothing and trying on rings were posted by Weibo user ‘This is Xinjiang’ last week, and have already been shared over 1,500 times.

Intrigued, the Xinjiang Internet Office decided to investigate the story. They contacted and interviewed staff at the jewellery shop where the photo was taken. According to staff member Zhou Lanlan, the couple had visited their shop at noon on Wednesday. The man then proceeded to ask for diamond rings that were ‘reasonably priced’.

The salesperson recommended one particular ring that was being sold at a discounted price. After trying it on, the man payed for the ring with a huge roll of small banknotes that are believed to have been his entire life’s savings. He mentioned that he wanted to make his wife happy after a lifetime of struggles. “We’ve been leading a hard life. I just hope to cheer her up,” he told the staff.

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26-year-old Luke Cameron has performed a good deed every day for an entire year, and he says that the exercise has completely transformed his life. The Cheltenham resident made the vow when a close friend died from cancer last year, and since then, he has been doing at least one nice thing every single day. He estimates that he has spent close to £3,000 ($4,700) on good deeds in the past year.

“In a world of taking selfies with your besties and Instagramming pictures of your new handbag and Rolex watch, we forget to think about anyone else but ourselves,” he said. “Our generation has forgotten to care about others, because we are too self-obsessed to even care what others are going through.”

Luke runs a website called TheGoodDeedDiary.com, on which he documents every single good deed or kind gesture – ranging from taking the trash out for his elderly neighbor, or baking cakes for his family and friends. He has also purchased meals for several people at McDonald’s, and even paid for a stranger’s petrol just because they stood next to him in the line. Luke now has over 12,000 followers on his corresponding Facebook page, and more than 6,000 followers on Twitter.

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Fasting is a common religious practice in several cultures across the world, but few are as hardcore as ‘Santhara’. The exacting ritual is a part of Jainism, one of the oldest religions in the world, and it involves participants making an oath to stop eating until they literally die of starvation. According to the Jains, this is a surefire way to purge oneself of bad karma and achieve ‘Moksha’ – liberation from the worldly cycle of death and reincarnation.

Every year, hundreds of Jains across India take up the onerous oath – some are monks, others are ordinary people. Interestingly, over 60 percent of the participants are female, and it is believed that women are more strong-willed than men. The practice is more popular with Jains who are ill or dying, but healthy people are also known to participate.

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Dead Raising Team (DRT) is a team of evangelical Christians who boast that they can raise people from the dead with their prayers. Tyler Johnson, the group’s charismatic leader, claims to be responsible for bringing 13 corpses back to life!

The DRT story was covered in the 2013 documentary film Deadraiser. It depicts various miracle stories where DRT members pray for dead people and witness them come alive. Some of the people who allegedly came back from the dead claimed to have seen hell and the demons who were torturing them. But they were ultimately saved and pulled back to earth.

Mark DeDio, for instance, used to be a troubled drug user who actually claims to have died in 2006 as a result of an overdose. The next thing he knew, “there was screeching, torment, screams. The smell was just like vomit, sulphur.” But he was eventually saved by DRT member TJ Aderholdt, who happened to pass by the ambulance in which Mark’s corpse lay.

Although the man had no pulse, TJ began speaking in tongues as soon as he spotted Mark. Within minutes, Mark’s eyes popped open, he stood up and started telling everybody how he went to hell and was pulled back. “It was like a grab on my collar,” he recalled. “Jesus pulled me out.”

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Hu Juan, a 28-year-old mother of two from Hunan, China, suffers from a rare condition known as Cutis laxa which has caused the skin on her face and neck to age at an accelerated rate, leaving her looking like a woman in her 60s or 70s.

The young woman’s nightmare began 11 years ago, right after she gave birth to her eldest son. She started noticing that her appearance was changing fast and just six months after giving birth, her youthful looks had deteriorated drastically to the point where she could hardly recognize herself in the mirror. Hu Juan was diagnosed with Cutis laxa, an extremely rare connective tissue disorder that causes the skin to become loose, saggy and wrinkled at a very rapid speed due to loss of elasticity. It has only affected her face and neck, and several medical checkups over the years revealed that she is otherwise  in good health. Hu Juan is the only known Cutis laxa sufferer in China and one of ten worldwide. Read More »

The isolated Dutch village of Hogewey, located on the outskirts of the town of Weesp, has only 152 inhabitants who seem to be living a normal life – they eat, sleep, walk around the village and visit shops and restaurants. But in reality, every single one of them is being constantly watched. That’s because Hogewey is actually an elder care facility, and all of its residents suffer from dementia.

‘Dementia Village’ takes care to maintain the illusion that life is normal for the residents. The 152 patients have no idea that their home is a mental institution, nor that their living quarters are constantly monitored. Within the village, residents do not live in wards and there are no long hallways or corridors. Instead, they live in groups of six or seven to a house, with one or two caretakers. The homes are furnished according to the time period when the residents’ short-term memories stopped functioning properly – the 1950s, 1970s, and the 2000s, all accurate down to the tablecloths.

The residents are allowed to freely roam the grounds and admire its landscaped trees and fountains, or rest on the benches. Caretakers are stationed all over the village; 250 full and part time nurses and geriatric specialists wander the town as cashiers, grocery-store attendees, post-office clerks and more. Finances have simply been taken out of the equation, as everything is included in the family’s payment plan.

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At age nine, Russian-born supermodel Kristina Pimenova has achieved what many women in their 20s and 30s long for – she has been named the most beautiful in the world by a reputed fashion magazine. She is undoubtedly a pretty child, but her popularity among adults is stirring up controversies. People are taking offence over her sexualization by ‘fans’ and the idea of referring to her as a ‘woman’.

Born to former footballer Rusian Pimenov and supermodel Gilkeriya Shirokova, Kristina has been modelling since the age of three. The little girl has an impressive portfolio of clients like Vogue, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. According to her Facebook page, Kristina got into modelling while accompanying her mom on shoots. “Anywhere her mom would go, people would tell her how adorable Kristina was and tell her to try modelling. Her mom decided to try it out and Kristie soon realised how much fun it was, especially catwalk and fashion shows. She’s been having a blast ever since and is loving every minute of it!”

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New York resident Andre McDonnell spends all his spare time handing out free shoes to the homeless. Through his charity organisation ‘It’s From the Sole’, the generous 40-year-old has given away over 5,000 pairs of shoes in less than three years.

Andre’s idea is very simple: he collects new or gently used sneakers through donations, and then cleans them thoroughly himself. He actually spends $50 to $60 each week to wash donated shoes at a laundromat. Once the shoes are cleaned, Andre walks to the Grand Central Terminal and Union Square every day to hand them out to the homeless. Whenever he makes a donation, he takes a photograph along with the recipient and emails it to the donor. He also puts up the pictures on his Instagram page, where he has over 2,000 followers.

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Every day, heartbroken Masha, a brown dachshund, waits in vain at a Siberian hospital for her owner who died a year ago. Her sad tale mirrors that of the famously loyal Japanese dog Hachiko who waited for his master at a train station for 10 years. Owing to the similarities between the two dogs, Masha has earned the nickname ‘Russia’s own Hachiko’.

The sweet little dog has been visiting the Novosibirsk District Hospital Number One for the past two years, ever since her owner – a pensioner from the village of Dvurechie – was admitted. Masha was his only visitor – she would go away at night to guard their house and return to the hospital in the morning to keep the man company.

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Believe it or not, folks, a normally-proportioned Barbie doll has finally hit the market. The doll, called Lamilly, was created in the image of the average young American woman – fuller, rounder, with acne, cellulite, stretch marks, and more!

Lammily is the brainchild of artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm, who had always been frustrated with the unrealistic proportions of Barbie dolls. One day, he decided to create a fun, appealing doll with natural makeup and a casual wardrobe.

“I feel that, right now, dolls are very ‘perfect’ looking, when, in real life, few of us have perfect skin,” he told reporters. “So, why not give dolls a ‘real treatment?’ Things like acne, stretch marks, and cellulite are a natural part of who we are.” Lamm wanted little girls to get used to the idea that these things are normal and not ‘flaws’ to be ashamed of.

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A weight loss contest held in Dubai this summer promised to pay all its participants two grams of gold for every kilogram of body weight lost. The initiative was dubbed ‘Your Child in Gold’ and followed last year’s ‘Your Weight in Gold’ contest organized by the Dubai Municipality. Over 7,500 winners were declared this year, which will collectively be awarded 40kg of gold worth Dh6 million (over $1.6 million).

“This year the priority was given for families as they will get double rewards than individual participants when they participate with their family members,” the official Dubai Municipality website declared. “Each family is allowed to participate with two of their children below 14 years old.”

Families that enrolled with their children were given the chance to win double the reward – two grams of gold per kilo of body weight lost. Over 28,000 Dubai residents enrolled in the month of July. Funnily, a lot of them had to be turned down because their kids weren’t actually overweight.

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Chinese businessman He Liesheng is putting Tiger Moms to shame by taking ‘pushy parenting’ to whole new levels. ‘Eagle Dad’, as he calls himself, has only one philosophy when it comes to raising his son: “We think that not having adventures in life is the most dangerous thing.”

Well, adventures don’t sound all that bad, but wait till you hear what he’s put his son through so far. At age four, He Yide was made to jog in the snow, while wearing only underpants. It was supposed to be a character building exercise, and the video clip that Liesheng shared online showed the boy crying while running in New York’s subzero temperatures. It earned him the name ‘Running Naked Boy’ on Chinese social media.

A year later, Yide was taught to fly a plane and he made a 35-minute flight above Beijing Wildlife Park in an ultralight aircraft, breaking the Guinness Record for the world’s youngest pilot.

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In a bid to highlight the sexism faced by his female colleague, Australian TV presenter Karl Stefanovic conducted a year-long experiment during which he wore the exact same imitation Burberry suit every day for a year. As it turns out, no one noticed, while his co-host on Channel 9’s Today, Lisa Wilkinson, continued to receive snarky comments for her fashion choices.

According to Stefanovic, he was concerned by the level of scrutiny that women, especially his co-host, are subjected to for their style. He said that Wilkinson is a victim of regular unsolicited fashion advice from viewers and other mediapersons.

Some of the emails she has received are quite disturbing. “Who the heck is Lisa’s stylist?” an angry viewer demanded to know. “Today’s outfit is particularly jarring and awful. Get some style,” wrote another.

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