You’ve heard of NSFW (Not Safe for Work), but what about NSFH (Not Safe for Hospitals)?
Category: Weird
PARIS — Getting your driver’s license in France is no small feat. Endless hours of studying the holy “code de la route” for a tricky written exam, followed by a minimum of 20 hours of mandatory driving lessons before the road test. And high rates of failing marks all around. But for one teenager near […]
Bansky would be proud …
If we know that greed is one of the seven deadly sins, what about lust for German cars? A Lisbon priest has received a four-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence for aggravated breach of trust and embezzlement, having taken his parishioners’ money to buy no fewer than 19 automobiles. Although Antònio Teixeira is known among his flock […]
TEHRAN — An Iranian man who divorced his first wife over her “secretive” use of Instagram is now ending his second marriage for the same reason. Tehran-based Shargh daily cited the anonymous man from an unnamed city as admitting he had a “good life” with his first wife, until he found she was on Instagram […]
There’s croissants and cheese, bérets and Brigitte Bardot — and then there’s pétanque. On the list of the Frenchest things, this national pastime ranks pretty high, conjuring up scenes of convivial apéros where old and young gather together, a boule in one hand and a glass of pastis or rosé in the other. What shock […]
She looked into his eyes, he shoved a q-tip up her nose, and they may live happily ever after.
Working at the town hall in Morez, we imagine, must be a busy yet somewhat uneventful affair: There’s roadworks on the main rue de la République to take care of, planning for the reopening of the Eyewear Museum — and perhaps most stressful, worrying about budget and spending for this village of 4,800 nestled in […]
Sleeping on the job is a known occupational risk for overnight security guards, long-haul truck drivers and deeply bored bean counters. But for someone robbing a home?
For the Romans, there’s no other choice but the mortal (though virtual) thumbs down for their mayor. Yes, online commentators (and no doubt offline elders around the Italian capital) are sending Mayor Virginia Raggi to the proverbial lions for mixing up the Colosseum — the one (and only) built in Rome nearly 2,000 years ago […]
There are the laws of the nation, then there’s what grandma says. Those two codes collided in a recent case in Iran, where a grandmother who was robbed by her own grandson was ready to see him pay for the crime — until she found out the punishment was chopping off the young man’s hand. […]
A French judge used a stand-in for the role of the groom, registering her ex-boyfriend’s name as her husband because she feared he would marry another woman.
There was only one problem: the weather.
Cartoon characters parading down the streets are usually synonymous with childhood glee, theme parks and carnival floats. But as French daily Le Parisien reports, recent encounters with the beloved icons such as Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh have been followed by calls to the police in eastern France. Since last month, multiple reports to […]
What’s the deal with strongmen and their horses? Whether its Kim Jong-un galloping through the snow or shirtless Vladimir Putin on horseback mountain or Nicolas Maduro striking an el vaquero pose on the ranch, power-hungry world leaders tend to have an equestrian thing going on. Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, however, is taking it to another […]
The Colombian man was located in Brazil, and has spoken by phone to his 95-year-old mother, but still not seen her.
First, the good news: A major archeological find has been discovered in the north of Peru. A ceremonial mound or temple that’s thought to date back some 3,200 years, the site also contains a mural with a vaguely visible image of a giant spider and, for reasons yet unknown, a spoon. Cool, right? This is […]
While drilling deep for water last week in his field near Ouled Rahmoune, in northeastern Algeria, a farmer was surprised to see a liquid pouring from the pipes of a very different consistency, smell, color — and worth! Oil. What makes the discovery all the more unusual is that Algeria’s most important known deposits of […]
Since its founding in 1949, the iconic French weekly Paris Match has published countless photos of the rich and powerful — and every now and then, a paparazzi shot might cost them. This time, instead, it was a homeless man demanding the magazine pay serious VIP money for running a photograph of him without his […]
Thieves in Bogotá have been displaying impressive gymnastic prowess by forming human ladders to break into homes. Security footage from one incident shows a seamless, efficient thieving chain as a television is passed out the window to an accomplice below. This circus-style robbery took place in the district of Usaquén. The understandably stunned homeowner, Daniela […]
The proof, this time around, was not in the proverbial pudding. It was in the sausage. As daily Berliner Kurier reports, police this week said they have identified the culprit in a 2012 break-in that happened in the western German town of Gevelsberg after the man’s DNA was found on a piece of sausage he’d […]
You’re hungry and restaurants aren’t serving because of COVID lockdowns, but at least there are always vending machines. Hmmm? What looks tempting from behind that plexiglass?A Snickers bar or a bag of chips? Or maybe a pair of plastic-wrapped triangle sandwiches and a can of Coke? Otherwise, if you’re in the Franche-Comté region of eastern […]
Amid a wave of protests against the Paraguayan government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, one unlikely voice — that of a sharp-tongued, silver-haired abuelita (grandmother) — has stood out above the chorus of discontent. One of countless people taking to the streets in the capital Asunción in recent days, the elderly woman has yet to […]
There are some things more terrifying than facing police arrest. In Märkisches Kreis, Germany, a driver had a special kind of ask from the officer who had pulled him over for speeding, according to German weekly magazine Stern. As the local police department reported on its official Twitter account, here’s how the conversation went: — […]
Some may find this story a little hard to gobble.
Like the rest of us, street hustlers are adjusting to pandemic conditions. In Laval, a small city in western France, a young man who might have otherwise been taking passersby for a ride with Three-Card Monte or Find The Lady tricks, concocted a COVID-inspired scam for easy money. The Ouest France daily reports that the […]
Shortly before being appointed Undersecretary for Education, Rossano Sasso dashed off for Rome, amid around-the-clock negotiations in the capital to form Italy’s new government. And Sasso made sure to share the moment with his Facebook followers. “He who stops is lost, a thousand years for every minute,” the 45-year-old politician from the southern Puglia region […]
Diving, flopping and faking for the referee’s benefit have become an integral part of modern football. But Guatemalan player Wilfredo Ramos Pérez has taken the craft to the next level of the absurd. During a match in the Central American country’s third division, with one player already on the ground, the referee stopped the match […]
Drugs, weapons and… spring rolls? Add the Asian fried staple to the list of contraband items that have been seized in the illegal international smuggling market. Police discovered 61.5 kilograms (136 lbs) of chicken spring rolls stashed in a car trunk during a control at a France-Switzerland border crossing on Feb. 16. The driver, a […]
It’s a modern tale with a rich and fragrant whiff of Jonah and the Whale, when a group of Yemeni fishermen made the catch of their lives this week in the Gulf of Aden. After a large, dead whale was spotted floating in the waters of the coast of Yemen, 37 fishermen helped drag it […]
The 18-year-old was doubled over in pain, but her parents thought it was just a case of exam-time nerves. She survived… and then some!
Parenting can be a tricky thing. Who can safely say they’ve never, in the heat of the moment, brandished over-the-top threats to try to get unruly offspring to comply? And who ever follows through? Well the scene earlier this week inside a family home in Limoges, France, was looking familiar, as reported by local radio […]
Why did the bear cross the road?
Yes, they are both French. Yes, those are their real names. No, they weren’t driving a Ford Gran Torino.
Italy, as everyone knows, is the place for pasta. And so it goes without saying that visitors to the country often head home with a package or two in their duffels or suitcases. The woman in this story was no exception, in that regard. And yet, there was something about her that must have puzzled […]
The almost aptly-named village of Barr, considered one of the wine capitals of eastern France, has been targeted by vandals who may have been making a political statement about pandemic lockdown measures. Last Saturday night, someone stole the final “R” from the main town sign, proudly standing on a roundabout near the famous Route des […]
A near fatal act of sabotage at a French opera house wound up in a courtroom last week, after a feud between stage hands offered an unsuspecting audience a moment of true drama six years ago. Let’s rewind back to January 28, 2015, at the Théâtre du Capitole, in the southern French city of Toulouse, […]