A Russian man who had spent the last 22 years of his life in a penal colony for serious crimes, recently escaped on the very day he was supposed to be released.

According to the SHOT Telegram channel, Kamoljon Kalonov had been serving a lengthy 22-year-sentence for a double murder, theft,  and possession of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices, but he was supposed to be released from the IK-19 penal colony in the village of Markova near Irkutsk last week. However, the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service told RIA Novosti that on the morning of his release day, at around 4 in the morning, Kalonov disappeared from the colony without informing anyone and is now supposedly on the run.

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Danish artist Jens Haaning has been ordered to repay the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg 532,000 kroner ($76,000) after handing in two blank canvases as artworks in a project he named ‘Take the Money and Run’.

In 2021, Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg to recreate two of his earlier artworks for which he had used a bunch of banknotes to represent the average income in Denmark and Austria. The artist agreed and the museum provided about 532,000 kroner ($76,000) for him to recreate the art pieces, including a fee of 40,000 kroner. Only when the museum staff unpacked the two artworks from Haaning, they found two blank canvases titled ‘Take the Money and Run’.

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A 39-year-old Japanese man has been described as ‘trans-age’ after reportedly identifying as 28 because it’s an age that better describes his still immature personality.

In the age of ‘self-identified diversity’ where anyone is free to identify as whatever they want, a Japanese man has come out as ‘trans-age’, meaning that he chooses to identify as 28 years old, despite having been born 39 years ago. The Kyoto-based man known only as Jackie appeared on the reality show ABEMA Prime where he explained that he didn’t feel comfortable as a 39-year-old man, so he decided to be 28 instead. Apparently, the trans-age man settled on this particular age, because it strikes a good balance between being an adult and still having a childish side without attracting the judgment of others.

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A UK man has set a new world record for the most tattoos of the same name on the body after having his daughter’s name tattooed a whopping 667 times.

Mark Owen Evans originally got his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records in 2017, when he was featured for having his daughter’s name tattooed on his back 267 times. However, in 2020, he was dethroned by Diedra Vigil, a 27-year-old woman who had her own name tattooed on her body 300 times. Even though there wasn’t much space left on his back, Evans was determined to get his world record back, so he kept having his daughter’s name, ‘Lucy’, on his thighs. After going under the needle for five and a half hours for all 400 tattoos – 200 on each leg – Mark once again holds the Guinness record for the most tattoos of the same name on the body – 667.

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An Australian man tried to sue a Melbourne hospital claiming that he was ‘permitted’ and even ‘encouraged’ to attend his wife’s C-section, which caused the onset of a mental illness.

In January of 2018, Anil Koppula’s wife gave birth to a healthy baby via cesarean section at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. He was allowed in the operating room during the procedure, and seeing his wife’s organs and blood allegedly caused the onset of a psychotic illness. Now, years later, he is trying to sue the hospital for AU$ 1 billion in psychological damages. Koppula, who represented himself during the legal proceedings, claimed that the hospital breached its duty of care it owed to him, adding that the psychotic illness caused the breakdown of his marriage.

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A Ghanaian man living in Belgium became so frustrated with constantly failing the theoretical part of the driving test that he paid a lookalike to take the test in his place.

Serge, a Ghanaian immigrant living in Grammont, Belgium, had been struggling to pass his driving license exam for over a year. The man had already obtained a license in his home country, but he couldn’t use it to drive a car in Belgium, and the theoretical part of the exam had been giving him some serious headaches. Serge had tried and failed the test 12 times, but he couldn’t just give up, as having a driver’s license opened up some very lucrative options for him in Belgium. In the end, he decided that cheating was his best bet, so he started looking for someone with similar looks to take the test on his behalf.

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A Chinese woman recently filed a lawsuit requesting a divorce from her husband of less than a year, claiming that he blackmailed her into the marriage with some sensitive photos.

According to Li Song Song’s lawsuit, she and her husband, Tan Dan, met in May of 2022, at a party. She didn’t pay too much attention to him, but he apparently became obsessed with her, even going to the salon where she worked every day. Because he didn’t give him the attention he craved, Tan allegedly started finding ways of chasing clients away from the salon, just so he could be alone with his love interest. However, Song was less than impressed with his tactics and refused to give in to his advances. In the lawsuit, the woman claims that she saw him as an unreliable and conniving person.

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A 36-year-old woman in Vietnam has been raising a lot of eyebrows in her home country with claims of suffering from an insomnia that has lasted for over 11 years.

Ms. Tran Thi Luu, who works at a preschool in the city of Quảng Ngãi, has become the talk of Vietnamese social media after it was reported that she hasn’t slept in more than 11 years. In a recent interview, the woman said that her decade-long insomnia began with a bizarre crying episode. Tears just started flowing from her eyes for no apparent reason, and even trying to lie down and close her eyes couldn’t stop the trickle of water. The inexplicable crying eventually ceased, but so did her capacity to fall asleep. Try as she might, Luu couldn’t ‘log out’ anymore. Her eyes were tired, but her mind was fully awake, so for the last 11 years she has done little other than lie down with her eyes closed to relax while her husband and children are sleeping.

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Two Chinese workers were recently arrested for “irreparably” damaging a section of the Great Wall of China by smashing through it with heavy machinery to create a shortcut.

China’s Great Wall, one of the very few man-made structures visible from space, was built over several centuries from the third century BC. Long sections of the giant structures are still around today and are protected as heritage sites, but that didn’t stop two ignorant workers from simply smashing through a part of it that just happened to be in their way. The two suspects, a 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman, were working near the affected area and got tired of having to go around the wall in order to reach their destination. They decided to extend a gap in the centuries-old structure to then drive their excavator straight through, instead of going around.

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A Kentucky oncologist who studied nearly 5,000 near-death experience cases over the last 37 years, claims that he has come to believe that “there’s certainly an afterlife”.

Jeffrey Long was an oncology resident when he first came across an article describing a near-death experience. He was studying how to best treat cancer using radiation at a library when he came across this fascinating case that ended up changing his life. Up to that point, he had been taught that people were either alive or dead, but here was this cardiologist describing the incredible experience of a patient who had died and then came back to life. Long was eager to learn more about near-death experiences or NDEs, and he became so obsessed with them that after his residency he founded the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, and he has since collected and studied thousands of NDEs. His conclusion – there is definitely life after death.

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11,000 runners out of the 30,000 participants at last month’s Mexico City Marathon have been disqualified by organizers for cheating by cutting out sections of the 26.2-mile course.

Marathon cheating is not exactly unheard of. In fact, it occurs at almost every major event, and offenders include some of the world’s most acclaimed athletes, like Australian ultramarathon runner Joasia Zakrzewski, who was accused of using a car during a race, or Kelly Agnew, who allegedly hid in portable toilets to avoid running several race laps. However, this year’s Mexico City Marathon may have set a new record for the highest number of disqualifications due to suspected cheating. A whopping 11,000 runners, more than 1 out of 3 participants, were disqualified for using various means of transportation to cut out sections of the race.

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A 60-year-old Spanish man who claims to be desperately lonely and suffering from serious health problems has been trying to be let into a state prison, because he doesn’t want to commit any crimes.

Justo Márquez, a 60-year-old from Granada, Spain, has been standing outside the Alhaurín de la Torre Prison in Malaga for days, hoping to be allowed inside. He has been photographed holding a sign that reads “I want to go to prison” and he told journalists that he has already met with the prison warden who has so far denied his voluntary incarceration. Márquez, who reportedly suffers from cancer, depression, anxiety, and heart problems, said that he is desperate to “stop being lonely 24 hours a day,” and that prison is his best option to do that.

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After an Indonesian groom disappeared on his wedding day, his father assumed responsibility and married the bride just so the expensive event would not be canceled.

What was supposed to be the happiest day in one Indonesian woman’s life quickly turned into a humiliating nightmare after her husband-to-be disappeared right on their wedding day. The young woman, identified only as SA by Indonesian media outlets, hails from the village of Jikotamo, South Halmahera, and was said to be in a long-term relationship with the groom. However, on August 29, on the day of their wedding, the man ran away, leaving her to explain to the guests that the wedding was off. This was apparently considered inconceivable by both families, as the wedding preparations had cost a small fortune, and the dowry had already been settled, so the groom’s father stepped in and married SA.

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Unable to fight the desire for a phone she could not afford to buy, a Chinese woman ended up stealing a new iPhone by ripping through the anti-theft cord with her teeth at an Apple Store.

The woman, surnamed Qiu, became the talk of the internet in China earlier this month, after the security cameras at an Apple Store in Fuzhou City, China’s Fujian Province, caught her stealing an iPhone in a rather unusual way. Footage that has since gone viral online shows the woman entering an electronics store and heading straight for the smartphone section, where she proceeds to inspect the device on display. She can be seen glancing around furtively to see if anyone else is around, before grabbing an iPhone and starting to chew on the anti-theft cord securing the device to the display stand.

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Government employees working in a decrepit building in Telangana, India, have taken to wearing motorcycle helmets to prevent slabs of concrete from the ceiling falling on their heads.

A video of several male employees at the ‘Development Office’ of Jagtial district, in Telangana, wearing motorcycle helmets while working has gone viral on Indian social media. Ironically, the Development Office is tasked with developing the district by giving the internet to villagers and creating infrastructure, but the workplace is in such a terrible state that workers have to protect themselves against falling debris. Local media reported that the staff have been demanding relocation to a safer office building after a colleague nearly suffered brain damage when a cement slab of cement fell from the ceiling.

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