A fake doctor who used forged documents to practice psychiatry in the UK’s national healthcare system for two decades has been jailed and ordered to pay back hundreds of thousands of pounds. Born in Iran, Zholia Alemi and her family emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, in the early 1990s. There, she failed to secure the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees required to work as a qualified doctor, but she didn’t let that stop her from fulfilling her dream. In the mid-90s, she moved to the UK, where she took advantage of a legal loophole that allowed Commonwealth doctors to practise without additional examinations. Normally, doctors who obtain their degrees overseas have to take the PLAB (Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board) test, but Alemi was able to bypass it using paperwork forged in the UK. She then went on to practice psychiatry all over the UK for about 20 years. Read More »

A growing number of young Chinese looking for low-maintenance companionship are turning their attention to jars of activated yeast that only need flour and water. So-called static pets such as stones, mango pits, paper boxes, and even toothpaste have become very popular with Chinese youths looking for low-commitment companionship to compensate for their stresfull daily lives and careers. However, one such static pet has been seeing massive popularity in the Asian country, “pet yeast”. Nicknamed “face worm” by netizens, the yeast can be “raised” in a simple container by feeding dry yeast with flour, water, and a bit of sugar. After stirring the ingredients, all you need to do is wait a few hours to see the yeast grow into a sticky, bubbling mass that emits a typical wine-like aroma. Apparently, this is enough for young people looking for easy companionship. Read More »

A seasoned paraglider miraculously survived a rare and dangerous phenomenon that saw him being sucked up by clouds to an altitude of 28,210 feet (8,600 meters). Photos and videos of Chinese paraglider Liu Ge trying to keep his cool (pun intended) as he experienced dangerously low levels of oxygen and temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius (-40° Fahrenheit) went viral on social media this week. In them, the experienced paraglider’s clothes and face are covered with ice, and he struggles to breathe and keep from passing out because of the low oxygen. On May 24th, Liu Ge took off from about 3,000 meters in the Qilian Mountains, on the border between western Gansu and northeastern Qinghai, but as he was paragliding, a cumulonimbus cloud appeared behind him and he ended up being lifted higher and higher, above the clouds. Read More »

A group of squatters who illegally took over a house on the outskirts of a village in Spain’s Burgos Province has installed an alarm system to prevent others from breaking into their illegally occupied home. The people of San Miguel de Pedroso, a neighborhood in the village of Beldorado, are on high alert because of squatters who not only took over an unoccupied house in their community but also installed an alarm system there to prevent others from breaking in like they did. According to some local residents, “they have placed a sign belonging to the company that installed the alarm in the building” to prevent what happened to the owner of that house from happening to them. Some locals suspect that the squatters had been eyeing the property for some time, and after learning that no one had lived there for about two decades, they decided to move in. Now people are afraid that their houses could be at risk of being illegally occupied by strangers. Read More »

The CEO of a Dutch weather forecaster recently suggested that Belgian wind farms are inadvertently “stealing” wind from his own country’s wind farms in the North Sea. In an interview with Belgian broadcaster VRT, Remco Verzijlbergh, the CEO of Dutch weather forecasting service Whiffle, claimed that Belgian wind farms in the North Sea have an advantage over Dutch ones because of their placement, adding that they are effectively “stealing” Dutch wind. Verzijlbergh claimed that Belgian wind farms are taking up to 3 % of wind energy from Dutch installations, adding that wind speeds measured behind a wind turbine are measurably lower. He clarified that the phenomenon is purely accidental because of the location of the wind turbines, pleading for better coordination between countries in the near future. Read More »

A UK woman started suspecting her husband of cheating after checking the data on her electric toothbrush companion app and noticing that they were brushing at odd times of the day. Paul Jones, a British private investigator with over a decade of experience, recently recounted one of his most unusual cases. Catching a cheating partner in the act is rare, but rarer still is catching them cheating with the help of an electric toothbrush. And yet, it can happen! One of Jones’ clients, a married mother-of-two who was trying to improve her children’s brushing habits by monitoring their electronic toothbrush use via a smartphone app, noticed that the brush was being used at strange times of the day when her kids were supposed to be at school and her husband at work. After making sure her kids were indeed at school, she confronted her husband, who claimed to have been away at work all day. Read More »

A Chinese woman with severe vitamin D deficiency caused by excessive sunscreen use suffered a bone fracture just by rolling in her bed. Doctors at the XinDu Traditional Medicine Hospital, in Chengdu, China, recently reported the unusual case of a 48-year-old local woman who had apparently suffered a bone fracture just by casually rolling in bed. According to Dr. Long Shuang, tests performed at the hospital showed that the unnamed woman’s vitamin D levels were extremely low, which had accelerated bone loss and caused the onset of severe osteoporosis. Further investigation revealed that the patient had avoided sunlight since childhood, rarely wearing short-sleeved shirts and always applying sunscreen when going outside. Her case was presented as a warning for other sunscreen enthusiasts who might be overusing it and thus affecting their bone health. Read More »

A Mexican bank has been accused of lacking sensitivity after insisting that a bed-bound 96-year-old woman be brought to a physical branch to confirm her identity in order to release her pension. Photos and video clips of an elderly woman being transported to a BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) bank branch in Oaxaca, Mexico, on an ambulance stretcher have been going viral on Mexican social media and sparking outrage among the general public. 96-year-old Fidelia Vásquez Nuño cannot move due to her advanced age and various illnesses, but despite her son’s attempts to file the necessary paperwork with the bank to verify her identity, she had to be brought to a local branch to correct a glitch in her biometric registration that had prevented her from cashing her pension for six months. Read More »

A 47-year-old woman from Western France has been speaking with a distinctively English accent ever since she had her tonsils removed 14 years ago. Laetitia, a cashier from Montval-sur-Loir, in France’s Sarthe Department, doesn’t speak English. She only knows some basic words that she learned in school decades ago, but hearing her speak in her native tongue would have you believe she was born in England. For 14 years, Laetitia has been speaking with an English accent that makes most people think she is Anglo-Saxon. But the truth is much stranger – the 47-year-old woman has been stuck with her English accent ever since she woke up from a tonsil removal surgery. Her children had gone through the same procedure before, and they talked in a nasal voice, but it went away after a few days, so she wasn’t too worried in the beginning, but as the weeks passed, her weird accent remained just as strong. 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 »

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 »

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 »