Funny old world: the week's offbeat news

Those emotional Norwegians
As the world prepares to celebrate Valentine's Day, some people are having trouble reading the signals.

Take the tragic case of the Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid who tearfully confessed to cheating on his girlfriend live on television minutes after winning a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics.

"Six months ago I met the love of my life, the most beautiful and best person in the world," the 28-year-old blubbed.

"And three months ago I made the biggest mistake of my life and I was unfaithful."

But the gesture backfired, badly. "I didn't choose to be put in this position and it's painful," his deeply embarrassed ex wrote back. "It's hard to forgive. Even after a declaration of love in front of the whole world."

His timing wasn't the best either. The Norwegian biathlete team are grieving the loss of Sivert Bakken, who was found dead in a hotel room by teammate Johan-Olav Botn on a training trip in December.

Botn went on to win the gold and said he felt his friend was skiing the last lap with him.

In such circumstances, "maybe it was really selfish of me" to use the moment to try to win back a woman, a cowed Laegreid later told AFP.

"Wrong time, wrong place," was the verdict of Norway's Olympic legend Johannes Thingnes Boe.
How men suffer
A French university has warned male students to stop using menstrual leave as an excuse to skip classes.

Around 50 young men at the University of Limoges engineering school have been taking sick days by claiming they were suffering from period pains.

No sick notes are needed under the university's experimental menstrual leave scheme "to avoid all stigmatisation", particularly of people who are transitioning, according to student vice-president Raphael Jamier.

But some smart alecs have "identified a loophole in the very restrictive system" to have a lie in, a university source told AFP.
Trump's fallen idol
A sculptor who created a massive golden statue of Donald Trump dubbed the "Don Colossus" is ruing the day he ever agreed to do it.

Alan Cottrill was asked by some of Trump's cryptocurrency backers to cast the two-storey-tall bronze and gold-leaf likeness of the US president in the run-up to his re-election.

But more than a year on, he still hasn't been paid.

"I would be a fool to install it without the payment... and I am not a fool," said the 73-year-old, who said he was still owed around $92,000.

The statue -- which has Trump raising his fist after he survived a 2024 assassination attempt -- was dreamt up to promote the $PATRIOT cryptocurrency founded by a Republican strategist who is under investigation over donations to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

The crypto was a hit with Trump fans but the bottom fell out of the meme coin when the president cashed in with his own crypto, $TRUMP. It now trades at 0.02 of a cent.

The unpaid bill is all the more galling as the sculptor was asked to airbrush the president's "turkey neck".

But "the hardest thing was sculpting his hair. Holy shmoly!" Cottrill said.