Cathy Price, from Preston, Lancashire, has paid a visit to 500 different pubs named ‘Red Lion’ in Britain. In fact, she’s made it her life’s mission to visit every single Red Lion in the UK, which just happens to be the most common pub name in the country. She celebrated her 500th visit last weekend in Bedfordshire, where she visited a Red Lion at Dagnall, near Whipsnade Zoo.

55-year-old Cathy has been touring the nation since 2011, visiting local Red Lions in Milton Bryan, Studham, Upper Sundon, Leighton Buzzard, Great Brickhill and Houghton Regis. She said that she got the idea for the project on a whim: “I was away in the Lake District for the weekend a few years ago and I was watching the Grand National at a pub and I read a sign which said the Red Lion was the most common pub name in the country.”

“I thought they must be absolutely everywhere and that was when I decided I had to see them all,” she explained. “I began on Grand National day, April 9, 2011, and aim to complete the quest as near to Grand National day as I can next year, which will have taken four years.”

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‘Balaknama’, or ‘Children’s Voice’, is a quarterly publication that’s completely written and run by children living in New Delhi’s slums. With a readership in the tens of thousands, the newspaper is being hailed as one of the most impressive in the world.

Backed by the Indian non-profit organisation Chetna, Balaknama publishes contributions from a federation of Indian children who work for a living and live off the street. It started with only 35 child-contributors, but the stories come from various Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh.

Written in Hindi, the paper covers a range of serious subjects that highlight the problems faced by Indian street children. A typical issue would contain articles related to topics like police brutality, child marriage, and illegal child labor. It’s not what you’d expect from a children’s newspaper, but Balaknama is known for reporting hard truths and harsh realities.

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Through her work, artist and illustrator Yulia Brodskaya demonstrates that you don’t need complicated tools or expensive materials to create brilliant art. She works with simple materials used in everyday life – paper and glue. Using a technique known as quilling, she weaves multi-colored strips of paper into breathtaking three-dimensional patterns.

Yulia, who started her career as a graphic designer and illustrator in 2006, quickly abandoned computer programs to work with paper. “I believe that one of the main reasons I enjoy the paper craft, is due to my love of the material: paper,” she explained.

“I’ve always had a special fascination for paper, it has taken me a while to find my own way of working with it. Now I draw with paper instead of on it. And then it took a little longer to find out that the technique I have been using so intensively is called quilling – it involves the use of strips of paper that can be rolled, shaped, and glued to the background.”

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29-year-old Kuang Zhengxuan is currently making waves on Chinese social media websites for his atrocious behavior – he’s actually suing his parents for not taking care of his financial needs. Despite his age, Kuang apparently expects his parents to continue ‘raising’ him, an attitude that has earned him the nickname ‘man-baby’.

Kuang is said to have quit school at a young age and studied woodworking and haircutting instead. He tried working for a while, but he says he was wrongly accused of stealing and beaten. That’s when he concluded that he has no real abilities, so he simply stopped working.

According to news reports, he lived a rather lazy lifestyle in his parents’ home. He spent all his time sleeping or playing with his cellphone. Fed up with his behavior, his parents recently asked him to leave home and fend for himself.

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Wang Zi-heng met his childhood sweetheart when he was only six years old, and the moment he set his eyes on her, he told his mother he was going to marry her. While most people would dismiss such emotions as childish fantasies, Wang never forgot his vow. It took him 18 years to fulfill his promise, but he actually married that same girl.

When he was just a six-year-old boy living with his parents in Zhengzhou City, China’s Henan, Wang Zi-heng happened to meet a pretty girl of the same age, in his neighborhood, and instantly fell in love with her. He even told his mother in all seriousness that he had met the woman of his dreams.

Wang and the girl went to the same kindergarten, played together every day and soon became inseparable. They even used to kiss secretly when they played house. The parents found the young couple so cute that they’d dressed them up in wedding clothes and clicked a picture on an old wooden bridge somewhere in the city. Soon after the picture was taken, however, Wang was forced to move away from the neighborhood to a different area, losing touch with his one true love.

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16-year-old Ann Makosinski, from Victoria, Canada, has come up with a marvelous invention – a flashlight powered solely by body-heat. Her project won second prize at a local science fair, and made it all the way to the 2013 Google Science Fair, where she was declared the winner for her age group. She also updated it to a handsfree version this year – a body-heat powered headlamp, for which she won the 2014 Weston Youth Innovation Award.

Ann’s project is truly remarkable for its sheer simplicity and brilliance. I mean, it isn’t every day that you come across a light source that doesn’t use batteries, solar power, or wind energy. The device just powers on as soon as you hold it in your palm. If that isn’t genius, I don’t know what is!

The secret behind Ann’s invention is thermoelectric technology, and devices called Peltier tiles. And it’s really surprising that no one’s ever thought to use that kind of technology to power a flashlight before. Think of all the AA batteries we could avoid using!

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Lillian Weber, from Iowa, is almost 100 years old, but she doesn’t let her age stand in the way of her life’s mission – helping those in need. She spends every single day making a dress from scratch, so that a child in need will have something to wear. She started the unique project in 2011, and she’s made over 840 dresses so far. Her goal is to  make 1,000.

Lillian, who was nominated for WQAD-TV’s ‘Pay It Forward’ award, gets started on a new dress every morning, takes a break at midday, and is finished by the afternoon. “It is just what I like to do,” she said. The dresses she makes are donated to Little Dresses for Africa, an organisation that distributes clothes to impoverished young girls in Africa and beyond.

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Mark Bustos is a New York hair stylist with a heart of gold. He spends his Sundays – his only day off from work at an upscale salon – giving free haircuts and shaves to the homeless. His heartwarming story has gone viral on Instagram, where he posts photographs of his unusual weekend escapades.

Every Sunday, Mark sets out through the city in search of anyone who might need a trim or a shave. Once he spots someone who fits the description, he approaches them with a simple phrase: “I want to do something nice for you today.” He then proceeds with the haircut and repeats the process for up to six different people.

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When American artist William Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1995, he decided to make the best use of his limited time and memory. He began to use his art to understand himself better – for five years, he drew portraits of himself before he completely forgot how to draw.

Through this unique series of self-portraits, viewers can observe the London-based artist’s quiet descent into dementia. As the terrible disease took control of his mind, his world began to tilt and his perspectives flattened. The details in his paintings melted away and they became more abstract. At times, he seemed aware of the technical flaws in his work, but he simply could not figure out how to correct them.

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Like many other couples their age, 49-year-old Mandy Jones and her husband Gary, 48, were struggling to save their failing marriage. That’s when they hit upon a unique solution – they decided to give the 1950s lifestyle a try. Now, the couple from Staffordshire claim that the change has actually saved their marriage.

So what’s so great about the fifties that it could bring Gary and Mandy closer to each other? Well, some might find this regressive, but Mandy says that she now cooks for her husband every night, just like most women did back then. So Gary gets to come home from work every night to a ‘dutiful’ wife and a wholesome 1950s dinner.

And that’s not all – Mandy, a part-time caterer, spends all her free time cooking, cleaning and darning Gary’s socks. She dresses in vintage frocks, drives a 1949 Chevrolet and listens to rockabilly records on her jukebox. She strongly believes that all women should adopt a similar lifestyle if they want to keep their man happy.

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Lonely New Yorker Dan Perino got so tired of traditional dating methods that he’s trying something new and unconventional in order to find love. He’s plastering posters of himself all over Manhattan in a bid to find the woman of his dreams.

It might sound desperate, but he insists that he’s not. The 50-year-old simply believes that it’s a better way of meeting women. The black-and-white posters consist of a large photograph of Dan, with the words ‘Looking for a Girlfriend’ below. He’s currently pasting them all over the city – on post boxes, lamp posts, and parking meters.

Dan claims that he received hundreds of calls only a few hours after the fliers went up. Some women were genuinely interested, while others thought the posters were a joke. As strange as it sounds, the posters idea seems to have worked – Dan already has one date set up.

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Tihar Food Court, a new restaurant in New Delhi, serves its customers a regular fare of north Indian dishes – rice, flatbreads, lentils, samosas, and more. You’d probably get to eat these dishes at many other restaurants in India’s capital, but here’s what’s special about Tihar Food Court – the food is prepared and served by convicts serving time for murder at New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail.

The restaurant opened earlier this month within the sprawling Tihar complex – South Asia’s largest prison – as a rehabilitation effort on an experimental basis. It is a rather simple eatery with indoor and outdoor seating for around 50 customers, and cream colored walls decorated with paintings made by prisoners. The small staff consists of a manager who is also a police constable, and seven convicts who have displayed good behavior over several years of imprisonment.

To be eligible to leave prison for a few hours of work at the restaurant, inmates must have a high school education and need to have maintained an ‘unblemished’ record for at least 12 years. They mostly pick prisoners who are due to be released within two years time, so they don’t feel too tempted to escape. The inmates walk or ride a cycle to work everyday completely unsupervised, as the authorities apparently trust them enough not to provide an escort.

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Nine-year-old Saneie Masilela has managed to accomplish something that probably no other kid his age has ever done – he’s been married twice! And as if that wasn’t shocking enough, his bride is old enough to be his grandmother.

Saneie has married 62-year-old Helen Shabangu twice in the span of one year. The second wedding ceremony was recently held at the bride’s home in Ximhungwe, in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. As the highly unusual couple exchanged vows for the second time, 100 wide-eyed guests watched on in utter bewilderment.

Saneie, the youngest of four children, belongs to the nearby town of Tshwane. His first wedding to Helen took place last year at his parents’ home, after he claimed that his dead ancestors had ordered him to marry her. While most parents would brush away such claims from a little boy, Saneie’s parents actually took him seriously. They hurriedly contacted the bride, paid her $800 as dowry and spent over $1,500 on the arrangements.

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Dogs are amazing creatures and Lilica, a Brazilian stray, is a perfect example of that. She lives in a junkyard, hangs out with a motley crew, and she makes sure her friends never go hungry. Every night, Lilica walks four miles in the dark, braving the rush hour traffic, just to bring food back to the other animals in her ‘family’ – a dog, a cat, a few chickens and a mule.

Lilica was abandoned at a junkyard in San Carlos, Brazil, when she was just a puppy. Neile Vaina Antonio, the junkyard caretaker, took her in and cared for her. As she grew, she became friends with all the other animals in the junkyard. It appears that they offer each other warmth, companionship and solidarity.

Three years ago, Lilica was pregnant and had eight puppies. As her responsibilities grew, she knew she had to find a way to provide food for her cubs, as there was little to be found at the junkyard. That’s when she started going out at night, walking for miles, in search of scraps. During one of her nightly travels, Lilica was lucky enough to meet dog-lover Lucia, who took pity on her.

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One-year-old Kimberly Gordon was born under the most unusual circumstances. She was delivered last year by emergency C-section after her mother was struck by lightning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Surprisingly, the miracle baby survived the electrical jolt, but with consequences – she now has the most adorable static hair that stands perfectly straight.

The bizarre event took place on July 4 last year, when Ian Gordon and his 38-weeks pregnant girlfriend Kendra Villanueva were outdoors watching the Independance Day fireworks. It began to rain and a thunderstorm soon followed, and the couple were forced to run for cover. As they passed under a tree, both of them were struck by lightning, knocking them out instantly.

According to Ian, the lightning traveled through his ears, jumped to Kendra’s body and left through her thumb. “They were both awake and looking at us,” said Lt. Ryan Perry of the Albuquerque Fire Department, who had rushed to their rescue. “But we knew that there was underlying injuries that we possibly couldn’t see that we needed to treat quickly and get them to the hospital.”

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