James Sakara, the pastor of a Zambian Christian church, was found dead after asking to be buried alive in the ground so he could come back to life in three days’ time, like Jesus…

To say that 22-year-old James Sakara was overconfident in his ability to emulate the resurrection of Jesus Christ would be an understatement. Be that as it may, the pastor of the Zion Church in the Zambian town of Chidiza managed to convince his congregation that he could in fact come back to life after three days, just like the Son of God. He somehow got three members of his Church to assist him by digging a shallow grave, tying up his hands, and burying him alive, only instead of coming back to life after three days, Sakara was found dead by members of the Zion Church curious to see why their leader hadn’t fulfilled his promise.

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Panta Petrović has been living in a cave in the canyon of Serbia’s Gradašnička river for over 16 years, away from modern civilization and in the company of both domestic and wild animals, including a 200-kilogram boar named Mara.

Serbia’s most famous cave dweller recently made international headlines after Agence France Press reported that even he had gotten a Covid-19 vaccine, even though he hardly interacts with other people. But in his home country, Panta has been making headlines for at least the last five years. Everyone in the area around Petrovac city, in south-eastern Serbia knows who he is, because of his unique lifestyle. He has been living as a hermit for the last 15 years, spending half the year in a wooden treehouse in the middle of nowhere, and the other half in a 25-meter-long cave hidden in the canyon of Gradašnička river. All because he wanted to go back to the basics and get away from modern civilization.

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An Indian woman who lost her husband in a tragic car accident years ago has built a small temple in his honor, and worships a marble bust of him.

Padmavathi, a woman living in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district has been getting a lot of attention in her home country of India after it was reported that she built a small temple in honor of her late husband, complete with a white marble statue sculpted in his likeness. The woman claims that her husband, Gurukula Anki Reddy, appeared in her dreams soon after his death, in 2007, asking her to build a temple for him. She honored his wishes and has been worshipping there ever since.

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Indonesian media recently reported the bizarre story of a young man who ended up marrying both his fiancée and his ex-girlfriend at the same time, after the latter crashed his wedding ceremony.

Late last month, 20-year-old Korik Akbar, from the regency of Central Lombok in the Indonesian state of West Nusa Tenggara, was in the process of marrying his betrothed, when his ex-girlfriend burst in asking that she marry him as well, as his second wife, claiming that she couldn’t get over their relationship. Instead of making a scene, Akbar’s fiancée, Kotimah, actually agreed to the proposal and told the young man that she accepted his former fling as his second wife. So he ended up marrying the both of them in the same ceremony.

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A Russian woman is reportedly taking fast-food giant McDonald’s to court for making her break fast during Lent with its aggressive advertising showing delicious burgers.

Ksenia Ovchinnikova, an Orthodox Christian from the Russian city of Omsk, is suing the world’s largest fast-food restaurant chain for allegedly making her break fast for Lent two years ago, with its delicious-looking ad banners. The woman accuses McDonald’s of breaking the consumer protection law and insulting her religious feelings by advertising delicious meat products during a time when Christians attempt to refrain from eating meat and other animal products. She is requesting 1,000 rubles ($14) as compensation for sustained moral damage.

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36-year-old Juan Dual likes to joke that he is empty inside, but in his case the phrase has a literal meaning. Over the years, he has had his stomach, colon, rectum and gallbladder removed, but he has learned to live without them.

Juan’s sad but inspiring story began when he was only 13-years-old. It was then that he was diagnosed with a terrible hereditary condition called familial multiple polyposis, which left him with a 99.8% chance of developing cancer of the digestive system. His grandmother and an uncle of hers died of colon adenocarcinoma, and his father had undergone surgery of the bowels to avoid succumbing to the same fate. At age 19, right after finishing high-school, Juan underwent a tough operation to have his colon and rectum removed. Sadly, it was only the beginning…

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Alexander Volchek, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Novosibirsk, Russia, has been dubbed “Doctor Chip” by Russian media, after he had several tiny chips implanted under his skin to help him perform daily tasks seamlessly.

Volchek recently made news headlines in Russia after announcing that he recently implanted a bank card chip in his arm, which he hopes will help pay for stuff just by swiping his palm instead of an actual credit card. The implant has been attempted several times before in Russia, but failed every time, so he hopes to become the first happy recipient of a contactless transmission chip in the country’s history. But this is only the latest addition to Doctor Chip’s growing collection of subdermal implants, some of which he had done as far back as 2014.

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Zhang Ziyu, a 14-year-old basketball player from Shandong, China, has been getting a lot of attention because of her unusual height, 7ft 5in (2.26m), and getting compared to Chinese basketball legend Yao Ming.

In photos and videos that have been doing the rounds online for the past week, Zhang Ziyu can be seen towering over both teammates and opponents during an under-15s tournament in Jingzhou, where she just happened to score 42 points in a game, as well as 25 rebounds and six blocks. Chinese media reported that Zhang’s parents were both professional basketball players, but still, her stature is surprising, especially considering her age.  She is already  taller than both her father (6ft 11in/2.13m) and her mother (6ft 6in/1.98m).

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A 42-year-man in India recently made international headlines for suffering from a condition that causes him to sleep 300 days a year.

Indian media recently reported the bizarre case of Purkharam, a middle-aged resident of Bhadwa village, in Rajasthan, who allegedly suffers from “HPA axis hypersomnia”, a rare condition that causes him to sleep for long stretches of time that can last up to 25 days. 23 years ago, when Purkharam was first diagnosed with the rare disorder, he slept for about 15 hours at a time, but his symptoms gradually got worse and by 2015 his family started counting his sleeping schedule in days instead of hours. The small shop owner would sleep for more than 7 or 8 days at a time, but the condition kept worsening, and he now sleeps for up to 25 days. Out of 365 days, he spends about 300 sleeping.

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A Russian man was given a 3.5-year suspended prison sentence for tormenting his neighbors with loud horse neighing and stomping noises every night, for over two years.

47-year-old Yuri Kondratyev is famous in his home city of Nizhny Novgorod, after making national headlines for mentally torturing the neighbors in his apartment building for over two years. The unemployed man, who lives alone ever since his wife left him, started harassing his neighbors in 2018. Annoyed by the noises one of his neighbors’ kids were making during the day, Yuri started exacting his revenge on the whole building at night. At first, he started playing loud rock music for hours, and at one point switched to recordings of horse neighing and stomping.

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A Chinese woman was forced to lie to her grandmother, and even recruit someone to do the same, for 13 years, just to avoid breaking the old woman’s heart.

Chinese media recently featured the heartbreaking story of a young woman who decided to deceive her own grandmother for over a decade, knowing that the truth would be to much for her to bear. Cheng Jing, a 46-year-old woman from Xi’an, recently lost her grandmother, who died at the ripe old age of 100, but for the last 13 years of her life, she did everything in her power to make the old woman believe that her daughter was still alive. Jing’s mother had died in 2003, but knowing that the news would devastate her grandmother, she resorted to recruiting someone to imitate her mother’s voice over the phone to spare her granny the heartache.

Jing’s mother, Cheng Congrong, and her grandmother had always been very close, and even after Cheng developed lung cancer in 2003, she still called her mother as often as she could to let her know she was alright. Knowing that she didn’t have much to live, Congrong even recorded dozens of voice messages and asked her children to play them to their grandmother so she wouldn’t worry.

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A Ukrainian tiktoker who filmed himself giving a young girl on the street a new smartphone to get views on the popular video app, only to ask for it back once the “touching” scene was filmed, has sparked outrage on social media.

From pulling cruel pranks on unsuspecting bystanders, to renting studios to make themselves look richer, there’s not a lot modern online influencers won’t do for clicks and views. But one young influencer in Russia crossed the line when he decided to heartlessly deceive a young girl by making her think she was getting a new smartphone for free, only to then ask for it back, claiming it was just props for a TikTok video. Things got really bad when the child understandably refused to hand over her gift.

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Most 90-year-olds can barely walk, let alone exercise, but 90-year-old Takishima Mika not only conducts daily fitness regimens religiously, but she actually works as a fitness instructor at a gym.

For most of us, “age is just a number” is just a tired cliché, but people like Takishima Mika, aka “Takimika”, are proof that it doesn’t have to be. The sprightly pensioner, who turned 90 on on January 15, is more active than most 20-year-olds and probably fitter too. She is Japan’s oldest fitness instructor and has become somewhat of a minor celebrity in the Asian country, both because of her excellent physical shape, and her positive attitude and infectious smile. But Takimika wasn’t always like that. In fact, her transformation began late in life, when she was already in her 60s.

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An Indian woman who had left her family home in 2010 and hadn’t been seen since was recently found living just 500 meters from her parent’s home, in the house of a man she had fallen in love with.

Sajitha’s family had given up home of ever finding her, after she simply walked out of the house one day, in 2010. Thinking that she had died or was living thousands of miles away somewhere, they never even entertained the idea that she could be in the same village, let alone in walking distance from them. As it turns out, the woman, who was 18 at the time of her disappearance, simply walked out of the family home and into that of her secret lover, a local man who she was convinced her parents wouldn’t approve of. How they managed to keep the secret from both of their families for over a decade is a tale fit for Bollywood.

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Anand Dhawaj Negi, a retired bureaucrat turned desert farmer, spent over two decades of his life turning the cold wastes of northern India’s Himachal Pradesh into a vibrant oasis.

In 1977, the Indian Government kickstarted an ambitious program to mitigate the adverse effects of desertification in the Asian country’s cold and hot deserts. A. D. Negi  worked in the financial department in charge of the Desert Development Program and saw millions of dollars go down the drain with no real results to show for it. Whenever he asked scientists and officials involved in the program why there was no real progress, the answer would always be that they lacked the technology to develop any type of sustainable crops in the inhospitable environment that is the desert. A farmer’s son himself, Negi grew tired of excuses and took a leave of absence in 1999 to take a crack at it himself. By 2003, he had already permanently retired from his job to concentrate all of his energy on his growing desert oasis.

A native of Sunam village in Kinnaur, Negi took it upon himself to turn a barren patch of land in the cold desert of Himachal Pradesh into a green oasis just to show everyone, particularly the struggling farmers in the area that it could be done. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the world, but the former bureaucrat knew what he was getting into and had the ambition and patience to see it through.

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