A Chinese woman was recently sentenced to prison for kidnapping an 11-year-old girl whom she planned to raise into the perfect wife for her 27-year-old son.

The woman surnamed Yang met the underaged girl on February 13, 2023, while visiting a village in Liupanshui City in the southwestern province of Guizhou. Convinced that she would make a great bride for her much older son, she asked the girl’s parents if they would allow her to come back with her to Qujing City, Yunnan province. The girl’s father refused the proposal, but that only made the woman go ahead with her backup plan. She conspired with her 27-year-old son to kidnap the girl, and on February 14 they waited until the target was home alone and abducted her.

Read More »

A 40-year-old Turkish man can consider himself lucky to be alive after having a dental implant screw pushed all the way into his brain cavity by an overzealous dentist.

Ramazan Yilmaz went to a private dental clinic in his home city of Bursa, Turkey, after experiencing serious dental pain. After examining him, the dentist there informed the man that he had loose teeth and a delicate bone structure and that the best solution was to take out his natural teeth and replace them with implants. Trusting the opinion of the expert, Yilmaz agreed to the cost of the dental procedure and to have some of his teeth removed on that very same day. But things started going south from there. First, he heard the doctor, referred to only as A.D. by Turkish media, telling his assistant that the tool used to insert the implant screws into the bone wasn’t working properly, and then he had to endure the pain of having the screws inserted manually by the physician.

Read More »

A Japanese man who enjoys living as a dog recently unveiled a brand new hyperrealistic dog costume that not only looks cute, but also allows him to wag his furry tail.

A couple of years ago, a Japanese man writing under the username ‘Taco’ on Twitter announced his unusual dream to the world – to live as a canine, experiencing the simple pleasures that man’s best friend enjoys on a daily basis – walking on all fours in the park, playing with plastic balls and frisbees, and rolling around on the floor. The man didn’t disclose his real identity, as he was embarrassed that his friends and family might find his passion a little weird, but he didn’t shy away from showcasing his life as a dog both on YouTube and Twitter. He recently got a new dog suit and one can easily pot the improvements over the old one – more realistic aesthetics and even a functional moving tail.

Read More »

An unknown person believed to be a scorned ex-boyfriend placed over 50 food orders at multiple restaurants in Izmir, Turkey, and sent them all to the same address.

The incident took place last week, at around 9:00 pm, when over two dozen couriers showed up in front of an apartment building on Çimen Street, in Izmir’s Balçova district. The unusual gathering was captured on video by passers-by and the clips shared on Turkish social media quickly went viral. It wasn’t long before the press got involved and started investigating the story. It turns out that a person took advantage of Turkish food delivery app Yemeksepeti‘s cash-on-delivery option to place several orders under fake names and send them all to the same address.

Read More »

Alejandra Marisa Rodríguez, a 60-year-old lawyer and journalist from Buenos Aires, recently won the title of Miss Buenos Aires and qualified for the Miss Argentina beauty pageant.

At the end of last year, the Miss Universe beauty contest became more inclusive by eliminating an age limit that had been enforced since 1958. Starting this year, the competition is no longer limited to women between the ages of 18 and 28. Instead, the rules only mention that contestants must be of legal age to participate, which opened the door for many more mature hopefuls, including a stunningly youthful-looking 60-year-old woman from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alejandra Marisa Rodríguez recently went viral on Latino social media after winning the Miss Buenos Aires title despite competing against dozens of much younger women.

Read More »

Wang Deshun is an 88-year-old actol and fashion model who rose to fame in 2015 when he walked the runway topless at the China Fashion Week in Beijing during his first modeling gig ever.

In 2017, when we first featured Wang Deshun on Oddity Central, he was just two years into his modeling career, even though he was already 81 years old. His iconic walkout at the China Fashion Week was still in everyone’s minds, and he was getting all sorts of deals from some of the largest fashion houses in the world. People loved his story, and for good reason. Born in 1936 into a modest family, he was the second-oldest of ten children. His parents encouraged him to follow his dreams and he did just that, becoming an actor, then pivoting to pantomime and performance art before trying his luck at fashion modeling with incredible success. But that wasn’t enough for China’s hottest gandpa, as Wang has come to be known. He has since obtained a plane pilot license and learned how to ride a motorcycle and a horse.

Read More »

Dutch researchers recently reported the longest-ever known case of SARS-CoV-2 infection, a whopping 613 days, in an immunocompromised man who eventually died due to an underlying condition.

The unnamed 72-year-old man had severe immunity deficiencies when he became infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in 2022, after receiving multiple Covid shots. Since then, he was continuously positive for the coronavirus for a total of 613 days until his death in October of last year. Although extremely long cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past, this is the longest one ever by quite a stretch. Over the course of the 20 months of infection, doctors tried everything to help the elderly man, but nothing worked. His body could not mount a strong enough immune response to fight the virus, even with the help of antibody medication, and he died last year due to a flare-up of an underlying medical condition.

Read More »

A Japanese boy allegedly spent three weeks piecing back together a 10,000 yen bill like a jigsaw puzzle after it had been accidentally put through a paper shredder.

Japanese Twitter user ‘Tomo’ recently completed one of the hardest puzzles he’s ever done – putting back together a 10,000 yen ($65) bill that had been shredded into thousands of pieces. Apparently, his father accidentally shredded an old envelope at work after forgetting that he had put a 10,000 yen bill in it months ago. Realizing his mistake, the man decided to use his mistake as a challenging project for his son. He took home the entire shredder waste basket and told his son that if he could piece together the shredded bill and exchange it for a new one at the back, he could keep it. It was a daunting project for even the most avid jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, but one the boy gladly accepted.

Read More »

An Argentinian man became an overnight sensation in South America after reportedly barricading himself inside a car dealership and refusing to leave without the truck he had made an advance payment for.

Abelardo Usandivaras, aka the “gaucho of Salta’, has been making international news headlines for over two weeks and has become somewhat of a living symbol of the common man’s struggle against the shady practices of car dealerships. The middle-aged man from Metán, in Salta, arrived in Buenos Aires with his family at the beginning of April, and went straight to the dealership that was supposed to deliver his new much-needed truck. After failing to get the answers he needed and finding himself unable to get in touch with the owner, Usandivaras barricaded himself inside the dealership, refusing to leave without the truck he was promised, or at least the downpayment he had made for it. His story quickly went viral, and Abelardo’s struggle became a hot topic in all of Latin America.

Usandivaras, a horse breeder and advisor from Metán, decided to buy a new truck last year, and after getting in touch with a dealership in Buenos Aires, he decided to sell his old truck and make a downpayment for a new one. Everything went smoothly up to that point, but after paying the advance, he never heard back from the dealership. They had a 120-day delivery deadline, but he never got so much as an update, and whenever he got in touch, they just referred him to another department.

Read More »

In what has been described as a world first, Chinese scientists have created a 3-carat diamond exclusively out of carbon elements derived from red peonies.

The world’s first diamond made from peony-derived carbon elements was unveiled today in Luoyang, China’s Henan Province. It was donated to the Luoyang National Peony Garden by Luoyang Time Promise Co., a company that specializes in artificial diamonds. At the end of last month, the city’s peony garden agreed to supply the diamond company with the peonies necessary to create the unique diamond, including a nearly 50-year-old peony.

Read More »

A wealthy couple from Gujarat, India, have decided to donate their entire Rs 200 crore fortune to charity and become Jain monks, relying solely on the generosity of others for survival.

Bhavesh Bhandari and his wife have built their wealth in the lucrative construction business, amassing an enviable fortune of over Rs 200 crore ($24 million). Like most other millionaires, they have enjoyed a life of luxury complete with opulent houses, expensive cars, and pretty much anything else their hearts desired. But the two recently decided to give it all up in order to become Jain ascetic monks, inspired by their two children – a 16-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter – who adopted the same path in 2022. On April 22, the Gujarat power couple will renounce all worldly possessions, sever ties with their families, and embark on a barefoot journey across India, surviving only on alms.

  Read More »

A 42-year-old Brazilian woman was recently arrested for allegedly bringing a dead man to a bank and trying to obtain a bank loan in his name.

On April 16, Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes arrived at an Itau Unibanco branch in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro to assist 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga in obtaining a bank loan of R$17,000 ($3,200). The elderly man was in a wheelchair and she claimed to be his niece and primary caretaker. Bank employees soon noticed that there was something seriously wrong with Braga, as his alleged niece had to support his head with her hand. He literally showed no signs of life, but Vieira Nunes allegedly kept telling the staff that he was just quiet by nature. She even tried speaking to him although it was obvious he wasn’t capable of answering.

Read More »

Arshia Goswami, a 9-year-old girl from India’s Haryana state, has been dubbed the female version of Hercules after deadlifting a whopping 165 pounds (75 kg).

Arshia first started attracting attention a couple of years ago when she set a national record as India’s youngest deadlifter, with a personal best of 45 kilograms. She has been training ever since, though, and she recently went viral once again by deadlifting 75 kilograms, more than two times her own body weight. The impressive feat was captured on video and shared on the young weightlifter’s Instagram page, where it went viral. But although most of the feedback was positive, with people praising her strength and form, some comments also expressed concern for her wellbeing, claiming that lifting such heavy weights at her age could have serious health consequences.

Read More »

Chinese runner He Jie’s victory at last week’s Beijing Half-Marathon has been overshadowed by a scandal involving three Kenyan runners who appear to let the Chinese competitor win the race.

Sunday’s Beijing Half-Marathon saw 25-year-old He Jie crossed the finish line first, in 1:03:44, under a second ahead of an African trio of runners who collectively claimed second place. It was an impressive achievement for the Chinese runner, especially since one of the runners-up was former 5km world record-holder Robert Keter of Kenya, but his win was quickly called into question on social media after suspicious videos recorded during the race made their way online. The fact that He seemed to be the only one sprinting as he approached the finish line was bizarre enough, but one clip shows Kenya’s Willy Mnangat signaling his countryman Keter and Ethiopian runner Dejene Hailu Bikila to hang back and waving He Jie to overtake them.

Read More »

The simple mistake of a law firm clerk accidentally choosing the wrong file from a dropdown menu on an online portal led to the irrevocable divorce of the wrong couple.

A senior judge recently refused to overturn the divorce of a couple who had accidentally been chosen from a dropdown menu by solicitors at leading London law firm Vardags, headed by Ayesha Vardag. The couple, referred to as Mr and Mrs Williams by the court, had been married for 21 years until 2023 when they separated. The couple was still in the process of arranging financial agreements for their separation when a Vardags clerk accidentally selected them for a final divorce order on an online portal, which saw them legally divorced in just 21 minutes. All attempts to have the error overturned by the judge were denied because the public trust in a truly final divorce order was more important.

Read More »