ODDLY ENOUGH

A Greek candlemaker has come up with a novel way of highlighting the need to wear a mask to curb the spread of the new coronvirus; putting them on his Santa candles.

A former Sri Lankan fisheries minister bit into a raw fish at a news conference in Colombo on Tuesday to encourage sales following a slump during the coronavirus pandemic.

At flavour maker Givaudan's innovation centre near Zurich, veteran chef Sam Brunschweiler serves up a lamb shawarma dish that looks and tastes appropriately meaty but is made from pea protein.

British police are hunting for thieves who made off with 5 million pounds ($6.6 million) worth of Apple products from iPhones to watches after tying up a driver and security guard during a truck heist in central England.

A two-year-old Belgian racing pigeon called New Kim set a world record of 1.6 million euros ($1.89 million) at an auction that ended on Sunday, the online auction house said.

At the lowest point on earth, in the middle of a giant salt lake where animals and plants have no chance of surviving, a jolly man dressed in red with a flowing white beard stuck a Christmas tree in the ground and went for a swim.

For a mask producer in Japan, the transition from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden has been a smooth one, as it switches production to masks of the Democrat president-elect.

Russian student Alexei Dudoladov has been forced to go to great lengths - or rather great heights - to attend classes online, having to climb a birch tree in his remote Siberian village every time he needs an internet connection.

A huge gilded statue of a dog has been unveiled on a busy traffic circle in the capital of Turkmenistan by the country's longtime leader, who has also written an ode to the local breed and gifted one to Russian President Vladimir Putin.