Some people find it hard to cry when their loved-ones’ die, but wailing and mourning are a big part of funerals in the African country of Ghana, as it is indicative of the deceased’ social standing or how beloved they were by their family and community. So it’s no wonder that some Ghanaians are willing to pay professional mourners to cry on their behalf.

Ami Dokli is the leader of one of the several groups of professional mourners in Ghana. In a recent interview with BBC Africa, she said that some people cannot cry at their relatives’ funerals, so they rely on her and her team to do the wailing. Dokli and the other women in her team are all widows who, after their husbands died, decided to come together to help others give their loved-ones a proper send-off to the afterlife. But crying for strangers is not the easiest thing in the world, so professional mourners charge a fee for their services, the size of which is in direct relation to the size of the funeral. If it’s a big funeral, their tears cost more.

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The head of a Russian advertising agency tasked with creating large building facades to promote the 2018 World Cup in Russia has come under fire for using one of the nearly 50-meter-tall facades to pay tribute to his wife, by using her as the model.

Ivan Panteleev, director of advertising agency Novatek Art has been criticised by street artists and members of the general public for putting a giant portrait of his wife Daria on a building facade funded by the Moscow city budget. Four murals were commissioned and co-sponsored by the city’s public relations committee in 2016, to remind the people of Moscow of the upcoming (now ongoing) World Cup, and some people didn’t like that Panteleev used his wife, of all people, as the model for one of the giant artworks.

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Levon Arakelyan was 44 years old in 1985, when his wife asked him to dig a potato storage pit under their house in the village of Arinj, in Armenia’s Kotayk region. He obliged, but after finishing work on the pit, he just couldn’t stop chiselling, so he kept at it every day, for the next 23 years.

A builder by trade, Levon was drawn to the rock the moment he started hammering away at it with a chisel. His wife Tosya, who now runs his underground temple as a tourist attraction, says that he was motivated by a series of visions and dreams in which a mysterious voice told him to keep digging. It said that Levon was going to create a He listened, and worked a whopping 18 hours a day, every day, for 23 years. At first, progress was slow, as he had to chisel his way through solid black basalt, but a few meters below the surface, he reached softer volcanic stone which made his work much easier.

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Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, yesterday told members of the press that Israel has been stealing Iran’s clouds while also working to ensure that whatever clouds do make it into Iranian air space are unable to release rain.

Relations between Iran and Israel have always been tense, but I doubt anyone imagined one side would go as far as to accuse the other of stealing their clouds. Well, that’s exactly what happened yesterday, when, during a press conference, Iranian General Gholam Reza Jalali said that his country’s prolonged drought has been caused by foreign interference, more specifically by Israel and “another country”. Jalali tried to back up his claims by citing a survey showing that all mountainous areas above 2,200 meters between Afghanistan and the Mediterranean are covered in snow, except those in Iran.

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Body odor is a very serious issue, so serious in fact that there is actually a market for high-tech devices that alert users if they start to stink.

The problem with body odor is that you can’t really smell is on yourself, and in an exceptionally polite society like Japan’s that can put people in uncomfortable situations. Carrying a bottle of deodorant on you at all times during the summer is quite common in Japan, but putting on too much of that stuff too often can irritate the skin or stain clothing, so it’s not exactly a fool-proof solution. If only we had a way of knowing when we smell, and how bad… Thankfully, Japanese wellness device maker Tanita just unveiled its newest creation, a handheld smell checker that analyzes body odor and ranks its intensity on a scale of 1 to 10.

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Indonesian media has been buzzing with news of a woman declared missing over one and a half years ago, after being swept away by a large wave, who was allegedly found alive three days ago,on the same beach that she disappeared from, and wearing the exact same clothes she was wearing on the day of her disappearance.

52-year-old Nining Sunarsih was on vacation in Sukabumi, West Java, when she was swept away by a strong wave on Citepus Beach, and carried out to sea by strong currents. At the time, eyewitnesses said they heard the woman screaming and waving her hands for help, but they were too scared to go in after her. Search and rescue operations didn’t find any sign of her, until a week after the tragic disappearance, when a dead body was discovered in the area. They asked Nining’s family to come and identify the body, and even though it was reportedly in very bad condition, her relatives were convinced that it wasn’t her, because it lacked a distinctive birthmark on the abdomen, and the fingernails looked very different.

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A Chinese woman recently got a lot of negative feedback after taking to social media to complain about her deceitful boyfriend who, it turns out, didn’t own an expensive Porsche Cayenne, but a cheap Chinese knockoff worth ten times less. This was apparently a deal-breaker for her, and she just had to dump him and expose him as the fraud that he was…

In a series of posts on Chinese social network Weibo, the young woman recounted the events that led to her breaking up with her seemingly rich boyfriend. The pair apparently met just over two weeks ago, at a party. They didn’t exactly hit it off, as he kept a lo-profile during the party and didn’t talk to many people. However, when she was about to leave, he told her that they lived in the same area and offered to give her a ride home. She recalls feeling shocked to see that his car was a Porsche Cayenne which she knew cost around $220,000, and wondering why such a rich guy behaved so humbly. In her post, the woman admits to having become interested in him after seeing his car.

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Some artists spend decades honing their skills before even tackling hyperrealistic art, but 11-year-old Kareem Waris Olamilekan is already a professional artist with some stunning hyperrealistic artworks in his portfolio.

Kareem, who hails from Lagos, Nigeria, started expressing his artistic talents when he was around six years old, by drawing his favorite cartoon characters. His big break however, occurred two years later, when he and his family moved houses and he discovered the Ayowole Art Vocational Academy. His talent for drawing was evident, and despite facing great financial difficulties and struggling to buy basic artistic supplies, the young boy managed to improve his skills to the point where he is now able to draw detailed photo-like drawings.

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Every year, more than a million pigeons die while competing in Taiwan’s controversial pigeon sea races, a series of grueling events in which young birds are shipped far out to sea, released in the middle of nowhere and forced to fly home. According to several reports from animal rights organizations, less than 1% of them make it back to land.

The small island of Taiwan hosts more pigeon racing events than any other country in the world. A reported 500,000 Taiwanese race pigeons every year, competing for billions of New Taiwan dollars in prize money. Pigeon racing is such a big business that the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology once introduced an optional course on it, which proved very popular with both young and old pigeon racers. However, important notions taught during this course, like injury prevention and the use of performance enhancing drugs fly out the window during Taiwan’s seasonal sea races.

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New Jersey-based masseuse Dorothy Stein is known as the back-biting masseuse because one of her controversial technique involves sinking her teeth into her clients to “tenderise” their muscle and promote blood circulation.

Dr. Dot, as rock legend Frank Zappa nicknamed Stein in the 80’s, when she used to massage bands just to get into shows, was encouraged to use her teeth as a massage tool by her mother, at a very young age. She was only five when her mom asked her to give her a massage for the first time. However, her hands weren’t strong enough at the time, so her mother asked her to bite her instead. It apparently worked, because over four decades later, Dorothy Stein is still using her chompers to tenderise her clients’ muscles and promote blood circulation.

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Shaved Ice is a really popular dessert in Japan, so you can find it pretty much everywhere, but if you’re looking for the craziest, most outrageous shaved ice treat in the country, you have to go to Hyakusho Udon, in Miyazaki Prefecture. The only catch is that you’ll probably have to eat it standing up.

No, Hyakusho Udon doesn’t have a standing up policy, it’s just that their famous shaved ice desserts are so incredibly tall that it’s almost impossible to eat them with a spoon while sitting down. Just reaching the top of the colorful, syrup-soaked dessert with the spoon is a huge challenge for most people, and then there’s the risk of causing the tower of refreshing goodness to come tumbling down by mistake. Standing up is definitely the safe way to go, and considering you’re getting a lot more than your money’s worth, it’s a decent compromise.

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An Indian woman and her four daughters have confessed to hiring contract killers to have their husband/father murdered because he refused to let them wear jeans.

The lifeless body of Meharbaan Ali, a police sub-inspector, was found in a sewage canal in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, just 250 meters from his home, on Sunday. An investigation began and it didn’t take long for local police to figure out that the man’s family may have been involved in his murder. Circuit cameras installed in the area and a thorough verification of each family member’s call history helped inspectors crack the case and ultimately get a confession out of the wife and her four daughters.

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Butchers in France have recently asked police to better protect them and their shops against vegan activists who seek to impose their meat-free lifestyle on the entire nation,

In a letter to France’s Interior Minister, Jean-Francois Guihard, president of the French Confederation of Butchery, Butchers and Delicatessens (CFBCT), requested better police protection for the 18,000 professional butchers in the country, many of whom have become the targets of vegan activists. In April, seven butcher shops in Hauts-de-France were sprinkled with fake blood, and a butcher shop and a fish shop had their windows broken and their facades vandalized with the spray-painted inscription “stop to speciesism“.

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Miru, a Tokushima-based wool felt artist, has been getting a lot of attention on Japanese social media for his incredibly realistic wool-felt animals. Looking at some of his works, it’s not hard to see why everyone is so impressed.

Miru discovered wool felt art in 2010, when he saw a master of the craft work his magic during a TV show. He was captivated by this art form soon started experimenting with the material. However, at one point he realized that he needed a bit of guidance to unleash his full artistic potential, so he bought a book on wool felt art that he claims opened his eyes to the possibilities of the material. Over the last 8 years he has honed his skills to the point where it is sometimes nearly impossible to tell some of his wool felt animals apart from live ones.

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Ren Keyu, an elementary school student from Leshan, in China’s Sichuan province, is only 11-years-old but already measures 2.06 meters and thinks he may just be the tallest 6th grader on the planet.

The average 11-year-old Chinese boy measures 1.453 meters, according to data released last year, but Ren Keyu was that height when he finished kindergarten. At 2.06 meters tall, he just towers over his classmates and requires a special chair just to be able to sit at his desk comfortably. Teachers mistake Ren for a much older student and ask him to return to his own classroom, the first time they see him, some students make fun of him for his unusual height and people often stare at him in the streets, but the 11-year-old hopes that his stature will be an advantage for once, as he tries to get his name into the Guinness Book of Records. He wants to apply for the record of world’s tallest 6th-grader.

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