QUIRKY WORLD: Mercs for medals bonus after Sochi Olympics

Each Russian medallist from the Sochi games has been given a Mercedes by prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev gave away dozens of white Mercs, decorated with the Russian Olympic team logo.

While some of Russia’s star athletes, like 15-year-old figure skater Julia Lipnitskaia or 17-year-old teammate Adelina Sotnikova, don’t even have their licences yet, Medvedev found a way around that problem by providing a driver — all services paid.

After an embarrassing sixth-place finish in the medals table at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Russia finished at the top in Sochi.

Politician gets an earful for copping an eyeful

CHINA:

An embarrassed Hong Kong lawmaker has apologised after he was photographed looking at scantily-dressed pictures of models on his tablet computer during a budget speech at the Chinese city’s parliament.

Pro-democracy politician Albert Ho was snapped flipping through multiple photos of bikini-clad ladies while finance minister John Tsang delivered a budget speech.

“It just so happened that at that time, I casually saw the photos,” said Ho, who failed in a bid to become the city’s leader in 2012.

“I have learnt a lesson, I should not commit such a mistake again,” he told reporters, adding that he had apologised for the incident.

Photographs published in local media showed Ho in the legislative chamber holding up the screen cover of his iPad tablet, apparently in an attempt to conceal what he was doing, while swiping through the photos.

The South China Morning Post reported that the lawmaker, who was for a time the chairman of the city’s largest pro-democracy party, browsed through the photos for 10 minutes.

In 2011 an Indonesia lawmaker from a conservative Islamic party resigned after he was photographed looking at pornography on his tablet computer in parliament.

BEAVER SIGHTING

ENGLAND: A family of wild beavers has been seen in England in the first sighting of its kind for up to 400 years.

Three European beavers, believed to be adults, were filmed together on the River Otter in east Devon. Experts said the sighting was “highly significant” as it strongly suggested a small breeding population of beavers now existed outside captivity.

This would be the first time for centuries that European beavers have been breeding in the wild in England.

BAD IDEA

USA: A man accused of operating a methamphetamine lab in Chicago appears in his police mugshot wearing a T-shirt from the television show Breaking Bad. Daniel Kowalski’s photo shows him wearing a T-shirt for the fictional Los Pollos Hermanos chicken restaurant depicted in the show about a methamphetamine manufacturer.

Police say deputies acting on a tip checked Kowalski’s home and found beakers, burners, chemicals and instructions for making meth.

Psychedelic mushrooms were also recovered.

Kowalski, 21, is charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine manufacturing materials and precursors.

FISH SLAPPER

ENGLAND: A teenager slapped a supermarket worker across the face with a fish while another allegedly filmed the incident.

The girl went up to the fish counter in Asda in Accrington, Lancashire, and asked the 52-year-old victim about different types of fish, before picking up a large bream and slapping the worker, and then running out of the store.

The victim believes the incident was filmed on a mobile phone by a male standing nearby who also fled.

Police released CCTV images of a man and woman they would like to speak to.