Man Plants 40,000 Trees Over Two Decades to Create Sao Paolo Park

Helio da Silva, a retired business executive from Brazil, single-handedly planted over 41,000 trees in his hometown of Sao Paolo over the last two decades.

Flying over the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo, it’s tough to miss the 3.2-kilometers-long and 100-meter-wide green strip of trees wedged between two of the city’s busiest roads. It is known as Tiquatira Linear Park, and it is the work of a single man who worked tirelessly for over 20 years in order to transform a previously dilapidated area into an actual jungle within the urban jungle that is Sao Paolo. Originally from the town of Promissao, about 500km from Sao Paulo, Helio da Silva was a successful business executive for many years, but after retiring, he took it upon himself to transform the degraded banks of the Tiquatira River into a green oasis for his community. He started planting trees there in 20023 and hasn’t stopped since.

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Woman Wins Legal Battle with Carolina Herrera Over Use of Her Own Surname as a Brand

María Carolina Herrera, an elderly soap maker from Peru, won a legal battle against iconic fashion designer Carolina Herrera over the right to use her surname as a brand.

María Carolina Herrera lives in Ate-Vitarte, a residential area in Lima, Peru, where she operates her small artisanal soap business. She has always lived a discreet, quiet life, but in 2021 she became known all across Peru and even in other South American countries after becoming engaged in a legal battle with the corporation owned by Venezuelan fashion designer Carolina Herrera. It all started when María Carolina’s son, Dario Morales, surprised her by submitting her soap brand, ‘La Jabonera by María Herrera,’ to the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI). The request was immediately contested by Carolina Herrera Ltd., whose lawyers argued that another Herrera brand in Peru’s cosmetic industry would cause confusion among consumers.

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Meet the “Phoenix Squad”, Peru’s Infidelity-Busting Female Detective Team

A group of Peruvian women known as the “Phoenix Squad” have become famous for specializing in catching unfaithful people throughout Lima and the entire South American Country.

For the past 20 years, the Phoenix Squad has been working hard at exposing unfaithful partners in their home country of Peru. According to founder Jessica Melina, the group has solved over 10,000 cases in the last couple of decades, using a variety of tools and techniques, from old-fashioned detective work to drone surveillance and tiny hidden cameras. Although the Phoenix Squad does not discriminate between men and women when it comes to cheating, they do have one particularity – from the very beginning, its members have been exclusively female, because Melina believes they are most suitable for this type of work.

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60-Year-Old Woman Qualifies for Miss Argentina Contest Thanks to Shockingly Youthful Looks

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.

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Male Inmate Escapes Prison Disguised as a Woman

A dangerous Venezuelan criminal recently managed to escape prison by disguising himself as a woman and simply walking out at the end of visiting hours.

Manuel Lorenzo Ávila Alvarado, a 25-year-old man imprisoned for homicide and aggravated robbery managed to escape El Libertador Prison in Tocuyito, Venezuela’s Carabobo state on March 13, following a conjugal visit. According to local newspaper El Carabobeño, the incident occurred around 2:00 in the afternoon, at the end of visiting hours. Despite having a dark skin tone, Alvarado managed to trick several prison guards that he was a blond woman by putting on a wig and female clothes, most likely brought in by his girlfriend.

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Leda Bergonzi, Argentina’s Church-Backed Charismatic Faith Healer

Leda Bergonzi, the so-called Healer of Rosario, is a popular faith healer who managed to capture the attention of an entire country and even gain the backing of Argentina’s Catholic Church.

Argentina has had its share of religious faith healers throughout history, but none with a meteoric rise quite like that of 44-year-old Leda Bergonzi, a former seamstress and mother-of-five who one day realized she had received the gift of healing from God and decided to put it to good use. According to the Catholic Church, there are over a dozen faith healers throughout Argentina these days, but Leda stands out both through her wardrobe – she favors skinny jeans, T-shirts, and high-top sneakers – her charisma, and the official support of the Catholic Church. She draws tens of thousands of people from all over Argentina to her home city of Rosario and spends days at a time trying to heal them of all sorts of ailments, from paralysis to terminal cancer.

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Woman Dies After Eating Chocolate from Fortune Teller Who Predicted Her Imminent Demise

A 27-year-old Brazilian woman tragically lost her life after experiencing poisoning symbols associated with a chocolate candy allegedly received from a gypsy woman who had allegedly predicted her early death.

Fernanda Silva Valoz da Cruz Pinto fell ill on August 3rd, experiencing severe stomach pains, vomiting, nosebleeds, and excessive salivation. She was rushed to Santa Casa de Misericórdia Hospital, but there was nothing doctors could do, and she died in the early hours of the following day. According to initial information provided by her family, Fernanda had told them that she had received a chocolate candy from a supposed gypsy fortune teller in the center of Maceió City who had also predicted that she would die very soon. She ate the candy that very same day, then fell ill and started experiencing poisoning symptoms.

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Brazilian Man Spends 28 Years of His Life Legally Dead

A 71-year-old man from Brazil’s Tocantins region was pronounced dead in 1995, based on the testimony of his ex-wife and two witnesses. He spent the next 28 years of his life legally dead…

On August 16, Manoel Marciano da Silva finally had his death certificate annulled after a two-year-long court battle. To the Brazilian authorities, he had been dead and buried in the public cemetery of Augustinópolis, in Tocantins, for 28 years, but this only became a problem for the man himself about two years ago, when he couldn’t collect his pension and couldn’t get access to free healthcare, based on his insurance. That’s when he started investigating his ‘death’ and learned that it had been his ex-wife and two witnesses who had declared him dead to authorities.

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Boy Allows Himself to Be Bitten by Black Widow to Become Spider-Man

An 8-year-old Bolivian boy ended up in the hospital after allowing himself to be bitten by a dangerous black widow spider in order to become like his favorite superhero, Spider-Man.

The incident occurred in the municipality of Vichuloma, near the city of Oruro, in Central Bolivia. The 8-year-old child, whose name has not been revealed by the media, was reportedly playing near a river close to his house when he turned a big rock and discovered a black widow spider. Without realizing the consequences of being bitten by a highly-poisonous spider, he grabbed the arachnid and put it on the back of his hand, in the hopes of being bitten. He got his wish, and then headed home, where he began experiencing symptoms like body aches and intense muscle spasms. Initially, the boy didn’t say anything to his mother about the spider bite, but after about three hours of agony, he said that he had been bitten by a colorful spider.

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Man Sues Civil Registry After Being Kicked Out by Wife Due to ‘Phonetic Error’

A Chilean man was kicked out of the house by his family after the Civil Registry Office mistakenly registered him as the father of two Venezuelan children whom he had never even met.

Up until the beginning of this month, Leonardo Sepúlveda Rodríguez, a middle-aged man from Santiago, Chile, had enjoyed a peaceful and fulfilling life alongside his wife of 30 years and their two children. However, everything came crashing down on July 5th, when his son went to the local Civil Registry Office to get some documentation required for Family Court and learned that Leonardo had recognized two Venezuelan children as his own. The son called Sepúlveda Rodríguez to confront him, but he was just as dumbfounded. He had never even traveled abroad, let alone conceived two children in Venezuela, but despite his best attempts to prove his innocence, his wife asked him to move out of the house.

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Four ‘Miracle Siblings’ Survive 40 Days in the Amazon Jungle After Plane Crash

Four siblings, aged 13, 9, 5, and 1, miraculously survived a plane crash in one of the most remote areas of Colombia, and then 40 days alone in the Amazon jungle.

On May 1st, 2023, a small Cessna 206 airplane en route to San Jose de Guaviare suffered an engine failure and crashed deep in one of Colombia’s most remote and dangerous regions. Three adults, including the pilot, died in the crash, but the four children on board miraculously survived. However, they were stranded with little to no supplies, in a jungle filled with dangerous snakes, spiders, and mosquitoes, where members of the ex-Farc military group are still active. For 40 days, thousands of volunteers searched for the siblings, and the hope of them being found alive kept millions of Colombians on the tip of their feet. Last week, the miracle everyone was waiting for materialized – the children were found alive and well in a jungle clearing.

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Woman Locks Boyfiend in Her House for Three Days to Prevent Him from Cheating

An extremely jealous woman in Argentina was recently arrested for keeping her boyfriend a prisoner in her house for three days to make sure he didn’t cheat on her.

On Saturday, police in the Argentinian city of La Plata rescued a 29-year-old man from a locked room in his girlfriend’s house. He claimed to have been locked in there for over 72 hours following an argument with his girlfriend of six months, who happened to be extremely jealous. After uninstalling WhatsApp from his phone and then smashing it against the floor to prevent him from talking to other women, the unnamed woman reportedly locked the man in a room. She kept him there for three days straight, until he was somehow able to steal her phone and text a friend for help.

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Useless Thieves Steal 220 Sneakers from Store, All for the Right Foot

A trio of Peruvian thieves managed to make international news headlines after pulling off one of the dumbest heists in history – 220 sneakers from various brands, all for the right foot.

The hilarious crime occurred on April 30th, at a sports goods store in Huancayo, central Peru. At around 03:30 am, three men managed to cut the padlocks at the back of the store and steal three large crates filled with sneaker boxes from various brands. What the thieves didn’t realize was that all the shoeboxes they stole only contained sneakers for the right foot, as the owner had prepared the three crates to have the footwear displayed at a local sports goods fair. Authorities suspect that the thieves have hidden their haul, as there is no way that they can sell the sneakers on the black market without their pairs.

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Woman Has Been Living with a Painful Needle in Her Belly for 11 Years

A Colombian woman has spent the last 4,000 days of her 39-year existence in excruciating pain because of a surgical needle forgotten in her belly after an operation.

María Aderlinda Forero’s decade-long nightmare began in 2012, soon after the birth of her fourth child. The housewife, who lives in the village of San Isidro, in the rural area of ​​El Retorno, decided to undergo tubal ligation surgery to close her fallopian tubes as a form of birth control. The operation was performed in the town of San Jose del Guaviare and seemingly went without a hitch. Maria left the hospital a few days later and return home to take care of her children. However, a few days later, she started experiencing severe pain in her abdomen, but every time she went to the doctor, they would just prescribe her paracetamol for the pain.

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65-Year-Old Mayor Marries 16-Year-Old Girl, Immediately Appoints Her Mother in Office

A Brazilian mayor sparked massive controversy earlier this month after legally marrying a 16-year-old girl and then appointing her mother Secretary of Culture and Tourism.

65-year-old Hissam Hussein Dehaini, the mayor of Araucária City, in southern Brazil, recently married a girl 49 years his junior the day after she turned 16, which is the legal age that someone can get legally married. This alone sparked controversy in the South American country, but the controversial union was also shadowed by serious accusations of nepotism and corruption. The Prosecutor’s Office in the Brazilian state of Paraná is investigating the appointment of the young bride’s mother to the position of Secretary of Culture and Tourism in Araucária just a day after the mayor’s wedding.

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