A Jehova’s Witness has taken the country of Spain to the European Court of Human Rights for administering her a blood transfusion during surgery against her will.

Rosa Edelmira Pindo Mulla, an Ecuadorian woman living in Spain, claims to be a victim of “medical paternalism”, due to her nationality and religion. In 2017, following a series of medical examinations, the 53-year-old woman was advised to undergo surgery. In 2018, before the procedure, Pindo Mulla was presented with three documents to fill out – an advance directive, a long-term power of attorney, and an informed consent form. She claims to have specifically mentioned in all three that she was a Jehova’s Witness and that she refused to receive any kind of blood transfusion (blood, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets or plasma), even at the cost of her own life. After suffering a life-threatening hemorrhage during surgery, she received a blood transfusion, and she has been seeking justice ever since…

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An 85-year-old woman is set to end a self-imposed 30-year vow of silence that only allowed her to speak for an hour a day.

Saraswati Devi, fondly known as ‘Mauni Mata’, began her ‘maun vrat’ (vow of silence) in 1992. She devoted her life to Lord Ram after the death of her husband in 1986 and has spent most of her time on pilgrimages ever since. In 1992, she arrived in Ayodhya, where she met Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, head of Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, who ordered her to circle Kamtanath Mountain as a sign of devotion to Lord Ram. On December 6, the same day that the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, Saraswati met Swami Nritya Gopal Das, the head of Ayodhya’s largest temple, the Mani Ram Das Ki Chavani, and was so inspired by him that she vowed to refrain from speaking until a new temple dedicated to Ram would be built in the city. Her vow will finally end later this month, with the inauguration of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya.

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A Chinese family has sparked a debate on social media after moving into a luxury hotel suite permanently because it’s cheaper and more convenient than renting or owning a home.

The family of eight has been living in a luxury hotel in Nanyang, China’s Henan Province, for 229 days and has no plans to move out anytime soon. After getting a special rate (1,000 yuan or $140 per day) for a luxury suite with two bedrooms and a large living room based on the length of their stay, the family now plans to remain in the hotel indefinitely. Because the daily price of the suite also includes electricity, heating, water, and parking, the unnamed family claims that they actually save money by living in a hotel and their life is much more comfortable.

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A Brazilian man tragically lost his life by plunging down a deep shaft he had dug in his kitchen after dreaming that there was gold buried deep under his house.

71-year-old João Pimenta da Silva’s dream of enrichment ended as a nightmare that claimed his life. His lifeless body was found at the bottom of an exceptionally deep well he and his neighbors had dug under his kitchen in Ipatinga, a municipality in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The man had reportedly dreamt that there was gold deep under his home, and that all he had to do was dig to get to it. He even told his neighbor about his dream and even though he was laughed at in the beginning, da Silva was actually able to convince the man to assist him with the digging. Unfortunately, the treasure hunt ended in disaster when the 71-year-old plunged to his death while trying to exit the 40-meter-deep hole.

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Ghanaian personality Afua Asantewaa Owusu Aduonum recently attempted to get her name into the Guinness Book of Records by attempting to sing continuously for 126 hours and 52 minutes.

Last month, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and event organizer Afua Asantewaa Owusu Aduonum tried to beat a world record that had been standing for over a decade. In 2012, Indian singer Sunil Waghmare sang non-stop for 105 hours, an incredible feat that required resilience, concentration, and mountains of energy. However, the Ghanaian woman claims to have beaten the old record by over 20 hours and is now waiting for confirmation from Guinness Records that her attempt was valid. She told journalists that she was hopeful of a favorable response in the coming days.

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Carmen Dell’Orefice is known as the oldest working model in the fashion industry. She was discovered on a bus when she was only 13 years old, and she is still working today, at age 92.

Carmen Dell’Orefice’s first contact with the fashion world was a flop. After being approached by the wife of photographer Herman Landschoff while riding a bus to ballet class when she was only 13 years old, Dell’Orefice saw her test photos go nowhere fast. But she was destined for greatness, and just two years later, at age 15, she graced the cover of Vogue Magazine for the very first time, after becoming a favorite model of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. Last year, at age 92, Carmen Dell’Orefice was featured on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, this time as the oldest working model in the world.

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A Japanese company that has been developing crow repellants for 15 years claims that its Crow Buster, a translucent piece of yellow plastic, is more effective than any scarecrow.

Crows are auspicious omens in Japanese culture, but in day-to-day life, they can be quite pesky pests. Notoriously intelligent and highly adapted to both rural and urban environments, crows have been known to cause serious damage to fruit and vegetable farms, rummage through garbage in search of food, and attack smaller birds, animals, or even humans, if they perceive them as threats. Because of their higher-than-average bird intellect and excellent memory, crows can be very tough to deal with, so even the most realistic of scarecrows may prove ineffective. However, one Japanese company claims that all you need to keep crows at pay is its surprisingly simple Crow Buster.

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Researchers at MIT created a high-tech pill that starts to vibrate once it makes contact with gastric fluid in the user’s stomach in order to stimulate receptors in the stomach and create the sensation of fullness.

VIBES, short for Vibrating Ingestible BioElectronic Stimulator, was only recently unveiled in a study published in the Science Journal, but it is already being touted by the media as the future of weight loss. Although it has yet to be tested on humans, trials on pigs have yielded very promising results. After about 30 minutes of VIBES activity, pigs consumed on average almost 40 percent less food in the next half hour than they did without the smart pill. Apparently, the revolutionary device works by activating stretch receptors in the stomach, simulating the presence of food. This in turn signals the hypothalamus to increase the levels of hormones that make us feel full.

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Japanese media recently reported the controversial story of a 35-year-old Japanese man who allegedly has four wives and three small children but hasn’t worked in over a decade.

35-year-old Ryuta Watanabe of Sapporo, on Japan’s Hokkaido Island, has become an overnight sensation in his home country due to an unconventional lifestyle. Watanabe reportedly lives with three of his four wives – who get along great with each other – and relies on them for most of the family’s financial needs, as he hasn’t had a job in the last 10 years. The polygamous family’s daily life was recently featured on Japan’s AbemaTV news program Abema Prime and sparked quite a heated debate in Japan, a country where polygamy is officially banned. To bypass Japan’s polygamy law, Ryuta’s four wives are currently in what is known as a ‘common-law relationship’ with him, but they plan to register their marriages and then divorce him, one at a time, so they can take the surname ‘Watanabe’ and pass it on to their children.

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Emily Pellegrini has only been on Instagram for four months, but she already has nearly 150,000 fans showering her with compliments and date invitations. Only she’s not a real person…

AI-generated social media influencers are on a tear these days. A couple of months ago, we featured Aitana Lopez, aka Fit Aitana, a Spanish model who had amassed a following of around 110,000 people on Instagram in four months despite only existing in the digital world. She was the creation of a communication agency, but she looked just like a real person. It turns out that she was only one of many hyperrealistic digital avatars taking social media by storm and making their creators fortunes in advertising, sponsorships and paid personalized content. Emily Pellegrini, a digital model based on the guidelines of ChatGPT, has been getting a lot of attention in the media recently, sparking controversy in the process.

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Every year, Japanese pesticide company Earth Corporation holds a ‘transcendence ceremony’ at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City to honor insects that sacrificed their lives for research purposes.

Earth Corporation prides itself on being the ‘no. 1 preferred household insecticide company in Japan’, a status it has achieved over decades of research and trial & error. In order to test the efficacy of its products, the company uses them on various species of insects at a proprietary research facility in Ako City, and some of those bugs inevitably die in the process. The company breeds the bugs it uses for testing, but that doesn’t make their sacrifice meaningless, and to show that it doesn’t take the tiny creatures for granted, Earth Corporation holds an honorary ceremony at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City.

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A Minnesota woman is suing her dentist for allegedly putting her through hell for over five hours by conducting 32 different procedures in a single, agonizing session.

Having to endure one root canal is traumatizing enough, but imagine having to sit through four root canal procedures, eight dental crowns, and no less than 20 fillings in a single session. It sounds like a nightmare and Kathleen Wilson, a Minnesota woman with severe dental problems, can attest that it truly was. In a span of just over 5 hours, her dentist, Dr. Kevin Molldrem, allegedly used about double the recommended dose of anesthetic, in an attempt to fix all her teeth in a single session. His efforts allegedly left the woman disfigured and distressed, and she is now asking for at least $50,000 in damages.

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‘Star Wash’, a small, family-owned car wash on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile, is being sued by LucasFilm, the company that owns the Star Wars brand, for allegedly plagiarizing its property.

Matias Jara, the owner of Star Wash, was in the process of registering his brand with the Chilean patent authority when he received a lawsuit from LucasFilm. The Disney-owned company reportedly wanted to stop the registration of the Star Wash name, arguing that the brand could be confused as being affiliated with Star Wars. However, Mr Jara is contesting the suit and claims that the name is different enough not to be confused with the LucasFilm property, adding that they are not selling movies of branded products. Apparently, the Star Wars copyright does not cover car cleaning services.

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A group of South Korean students recently sued the Government for millions of dollars in damages because their teachers ended a life-changing exam 90 seconds earlier than they should have.

The Suneung, South Korea’s college admission exam, is notoriously long and difficult, and its implications are literally life-changing. Not only do the results of the Suneung determine students’ college placements, but also their career options and relationships, so it’s no wonder that everyone, from the students and their families to the South Korean government takes the Suneung very seriously. During the 8-hour exam, South Korea closes its air space and delays the opening of the stock market to help students concentrate. So when a teacher recently ended the exam 90 seconds early, it was a very big deal with serious legal consequences.

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A prison in the Brazilian state of Santa Cantarina recently replaced its guard dogs with a flock of geese that supposedly make loud noises when they detect strange noises, like someone trying to escape.

In this day and age, prison complexes feature state-of-the-art detection systems that make it very difficult for inmates to escape undetected. Still, regardless of technological advancements, it’s always a good idea to have a backup analog detection system as well, in case the sophisticated stuff fails. Human guardians and guard dogs are usually the norm, but some prisons use some unlikely alternatives. For example, several prisons in Brazil have replaced guard dogs with geese, which they say are not only just as effective, if not more so, but also cheaper to maintain. Apparently, geese have very good hearing and will make loud noises whenever they detect strange noises, thus alerting the human guards.

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