The small city of Carmel-by-the-Sea is famous for requiring visitors to get an official permit in order to legally walk in heels higher than two inches. Carmel-by-the-Sea’s infamous high-heel permit sounds like an urban myth, but it’s a real, official requirement in the Monterey city. If your heels are over two inches in height and have less than one square inch of bearing surface, it is illegal to wear them in public without first getting a permit from the city hall. The permit is issued free of charge, and many visitors get it simply as a souvenir, even if they don’t plan on walking in heels. The certificate has every nice, official look, it is issued in the name of the person making the request and is signed by one of the city clerks on duty. Read More »

A Chinese woman was allegedly forced to take off her heavy makeup after facial recognition scanners at an airport failed to confirm her identity. A short clip showing a young woman using wet wipes to clean her face of makeup while being scolded by airport staff went viral on Chinese social media last week, sparking all sorts of humorous comments. According to the boarding pass shown in the video next to the woman’s ID, the video was shot in September of last year, at Shanghai Airport, but only recently attracted attention online. During the short clip, the woman holding the camera (presumably an airport official), scolds the young girl, telling her that she needs to wipe off all the makeup until she looks like the picture on her identification document. Read More »

A 25-year-old Japanese man who spent most of his time looking down at his phone eventually became unable to raise his own head and was diagnosed with ‘dropping head syndrome’. The rare case report published a couple of years ago in the medical journal JOS Case Reports detailed the disturbing consequences of holding one’s head bent down for hours on end over long periods of time. The patient, a 25-year-old Japanese man who spent most of his time playing on his phone, had developed a large bulge at the back of his neck and could no longer lift his own head using his neck muscles. Before seeking medical help, the man had reportedly experienced serious neck pains and had difficulty swallowing food, which caused him to lose weight rapidly. Eventually, his neck became s weak due to the unnatural position that he became unable to lift his head. Read More »

A Haitian woman who had lost family members to a violent criminal gang took her revenge by poisoning 40 gang members with tainted empanadas. Haiti has long been at the mercy of violent street gangs, and many families have suffered tragedies at the hands of these ruthless criminals, but few ever dared fight back out of fear for their loved ones’ safety. But vigilantes do exist! One woman in the Kenscoff district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city, made international news headlines after carrying out a massacre in the ranks of a local gang that had reportedly been responsible for the deaths of several of her family members. A respected street vendor specializing in pâtés, a Haitian version of empanadas, the woman recently offered dozens of gang members free pâtés as thanks for “protecting her neighborhood”. In reality, she was carrying out revenge against the people who had terrorized and killed several of her family members. Read More »

Kansai International Airport welcomes tens of millions of passengers every year, but it has developed a system that ensures none of their baggage ever goes missing. Losing a piece of baggage is always a risk at airports. For example, in the US, data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that domestic flights lose about 3 million bags every year. With hundreds of millions of individual bags to handle, losing some of them seems like an inevitability, and yet, one busy airport in Japan claims to have never lost a piece of baggage in its three decades of operation. Kansai International Airport, which serves the city of Osaka, opened in September 1994, to relieve the overcrowded Osaka International Airport and has been welcoming millions of passengers per year ever since. The staff at Kansai Airport pride themselves on being extremely efficient at handling passenger baggage, so much so that they have never once lost one. Read More »

A French motorist may have broken the record for the longest time driving a vehicle without a valid license, insurance, or technical inspection – over 28 years. Last week, a routine traffic stop turned out to be a memorable bust for a motorized police unit in Rhone, France. After checking the license plates, the traffic cops pulled the vehicle over for an expired technical inspection. But this turned out to be the least important offense the driver was guilty of. Upon checking his papers, the policeman realized that the vehicle didn’t have insurance either, and worst of all, the driver’s license had been revoked in 1997. The man casually told the officer that his driver’s license had been revoked over 28 years ago after being caught driving under the influence of alcohol, and he simply hadn’t bothered to reapply for it, comparing his old license to “an expired but still edible yogurt”. Read More »

A well-respected family in the UK was recently awarded compensation of $100,000 by a restaurant that had publicly accused them of leaving without settling the bill. In July of last year, Peter and Ann McGirr, along with their children Peter Jr and Carol, visited The Horse & Jockey Inn in the Peak District, England. It was a pretty uneventful affair; the family ordered ribeye and gammon steaks and washed them down with ales and lagers before leaving for their home in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Only shortly after their departure, The Horse & Jockey Facebook page posted a video of the McGirrs’ allegedly leaving the establishment without paying the £150 ($200) bill. The family was soon making national headlines for allegedly dining and dashing, which negatively impacted their otherwise great reputation, so they found themselves with no choice but to sue the inn to clear their name. Read More »

Caterpillars aren’t the most appetizing meal for humans, but for the people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, they are the main ingredient of a regional stir-fried dish. Every year, in the months of March and April, cassia trees in the central highlands of Vietnam are invaded by an army of yellowish caterpillars that love nothing more than to feed on their leaves. Once fully developed, the larvae leave the tree tops and crawl down the leaves to form cocoons, before turning into butterflies and flying away. But before this final transformation occurs, cassia caterpillar gatherers pick the caterpillars and pupae one by one to use in a simple stir-fried dish that can be a little hard to stomach. Read More »

Apple recently received some free advertising from an iPhone 13 Pro Max user who dropped his handheld while skydiving at 14,000 feet, only to find it in perfect working order on the ground. Last month, Casey Flay, an engineer and skydiving enthusiast from Devon, in the UK, jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) without closing one of the front pockets on his wingsuit, which caused his iPhone 13 Pro Max to fall out almost immediately after leaving the airplane. The GoPro camera on his helmet captured the moment on video, but before checking the footage, he was convinced he had left the phone on the plane. It was only after searching for it that he decided to use the Find My iPhone app to learn that his handheld was located about 4 miles from where he had landed. But the most shocking thing of all was that the phone still worked. Read More »

A 68-year-old Swiss woman was taken to Court by her neighbor, who claims that the pensioner systematically fed her pet cat for months, despite being notified in writing to stop. This unusual story takes place in Zurich, where a woman stands accused of luring her neighbor’s cat with food for a period of 10 months with the intention of stealing it away. The plaintiff claims to have notified the woman repeatedly, even in writing, to stop feeding her pet, Leo, but to no avail. Not only did the accused continue to feed Leo, but she also installed a cat flap on her door so the feline could come and go as it pleased. As a result, after a while, the cat stopped returning to its original owner, and they were left preparing meals for it in vain. The pensioner’s neighbor filed a criminal complaint against the woman, and the public prosecutor’s office ordered the accused to pay a fine of 800 Swiss francs ($950) and also issued a suspended fine of 3600 francs ($4,273) for unlawful appropriation. But the 68-year-old woman refused to pay, so the case ended up in Court. Read More »

A 35-year-old man diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) claims that the mere thought of eating fruits, vegetables, eggs, or meat is enough to make him sick. Calling Thomas Sheridan a picky eater would be an understatement. The 35-year-old UK man relies on a very strict daily diet that usually consists of two loaves of white bread, three bowls of Shreddies cereal, and lots of Haribo sweets, and he has never tasted fruits and vegetables. Because of his bland diet, he needs to take protein and vitamin supplements, but only those with a taste profile that he can stomach. The unemployed man claims to have made attempts to diversify his diet, but they have all ended in failure. A couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), an eating disorder that prevents sufferers from eating certain foods, and despite several attempted treatments, his daily diet remains incredibly restricted. Read More »

A UK woman whose co-workers compared her to Darth Vader after taking an online personality test on her behalf has been awarded £30,000 in damages. Darth Vader is an iconic villain, and being compared to him by workmates is apparently insulting and traumatic enough to warrant compensation. At least that was the decision of a UK court in the case of an NHS blood donation worker who claimed that the association with the Star Wars character caused her to feel unpopular at work and ultimately quit her job. The judge concluded that being told she has the same personality type as the infamous sci-fi villain was a workplace “detriment”,(a negative experience) that required compensation. Read More »

A Greek woman decided to divorce her husband of 12 years after ChatGPT told her he was having an affair, simply by “reading” the coffee grounds in his coffee cup. OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot is great for a lot of things, but it can ruin your life if you blindly put your trust in it. One Greek man recently appeared on the Greek TV morning show To Proino to complain about ChatGPT destroying his marriage by painting him as an adulterer simply by interpreting the coffee grounds in a cup of coffee he had posed with for his wife. Allegedly following a social media trend, the man’s wife thought it would be fun to have the world’s most popular chatbot “read” their coffee cups in a sort of modern twist on the art of tasseography. She made coffee for both of them and then uploaded photos of the grounds in their cups for ChatGPT to “read”. The chatbot claimed that the woman’s husband was having an affair with another woman, which made his wife furious enough to file for divorce without even asking him if it was true. Read More »

A 22-year-old Australian man has been suffering from a mysterious illness that causes his body to feel hot when he experiences cold, and cold when he touches anything hot. Aidan McManus’ troubles began at the age of 17, when he was in his final year of high school. At first, he lost feeling in his feet, telling his mother that they felt “tingly and numbish”. When his feet started swelling, he went to the hospital, where doctors gave him some medicine for fluid retention, but that didn’t help his condition at all. Things only got worse from there, as the simple act of walking felt like stepping on sharp tacks, and he was diagnosed with post-viral irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which complicated his condition even more. Despite his failing health, Aidan managed to graduate from high school, but then he began experiencing a bizarre sensation in his hands as well. When he touched something cold, his hands felt like they were burning, and when he touched something hot, it felt extremely cold. Read More »

China’s Chery Automobile brand recently introduced Mornine, a humanoid robot designed for use in car dealerships, at one of its Malaysian dealerships. Originally designed as a digital character meant to connect with the young generation by leveraging concepts like the metaverse and social media, Mornine evolved into a humanoid robot that can interact with customers in the real world. Technically known as the AiMOGA Robot, Mornine uses a multimodal sensing model that allows it to accurately perceive the gestures and commands of humans it interacts with, as well as navigate the environment it functions in. Its robotic body incorporates automotive-grade technology and a bionic motion system that allows upright movements and accurate hand gestures. For decision-making, Mornine uses Deepseek’s large language models, which allow it to understand natural language and deliver personalized responses. Read More »