While American spectators are upset at being denied a frosty cold one during Sochi Olympic hockey games most Russians agree with the ban saying it helps keep rowdy fans in check.

"If they sell beer at hockey games it could be dangerous," Yevgeny Khislavskii of Saint Petersburg told Agence France Presse.

Saturday was ice fisher Meelis Parnamae's lucky day when his catch won him a car worth 15,000 euros ($20,000) at Estonia's annual Gold Fish Festival.

Parnamae was among more than 4,000 people who headed to frozen Lake Viljandi in southern Estonia angling for the 50,000 euro jackpot, or failing that, the car, a Renault Duster SUV.

Olympic bobsledder Johnny Quinn vowed on Friday to shower with the door open and to avoid elevators after he became a Twitter sensation following back-to-back Sochi building disasters.

The 30-year-old gained instant fame when he tweeted pictures of himself smashing his way through the door of his bathroom after he became locked in.

Rescuers are deploying in the Philippines' Manila Bay to help distracted lovers aboard boats who could fall into the water while on Valentine's Day cruise dates, the coastguard said Friday.

The authorities expect the bay, with its spectacular views of the sunset, to throb with activity by sundown as couples hop onto yachts and cruise ships for deck-side, candle-lit dinners accompanied by romantic music from live bands.

Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday.

The survey included more than 2,200 people in the United States and was conducted by the National Science Foundation.

Loved-up couples in Russia's coldest city, Yakutsk, on Friday braved plunging temperatures to take part in an outdoor kissing contest, with the winners locking lips for almost 1 1/2 hours.

Eighteen couples took part in the Saint Valentine's Day contest called "Love warms you up" on a snowy central street in Yakutsk, where the daytime temperature was -29 degrees centigrade (-20 degrees Fahrenheit), the Interfax news agency reported.

A life-size bear mascot with red cheeks and no voice held a press conference in Tokyo on Friday, the latest public relations coup for the rural Japanese region he represents.

"Kumamon", whose name means "Bear-person" in the dialect of Kumamoto, southern Japan, answered questions from among the ranks of international journalists, as the domestic media looked on.

Despite the paper bag covering his noggin declaring "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE," Shia LaBeouf can still draw a crowd.

A line of more than 200 curious individuals seeking a few minutes of face time — Or should that be bag time? — with the masked 27-year-old actor snaked along the sidewalk of a busy Los Angeles street, around the block and down an alleyway Wednesday afternoon. A silent LaBeouf is brazenly on display this week for a performance-art piece titled "#IAMSORRY."

Lovesick crew members on the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long marked Valentine's Day by throwing bottled notes into the pristine wilderness of the Antarctic Ocean, state media reported Wednesday.

The vessel, also known as Snow Dragon, is on a scientific mission to Antarctica and last month took part in the rescue of personnel from a stranded Russian ship.

A 10-year-old Norwegian boy took his toddler sister for a joy ride in the family car, ending up in a snowy ditch posing as a dwarf, police and media reports said Wednesday.

The children had traveled around ten kilometers (six miles) towards their grandmother's house when a snowplow driver saw the automatic car stuck in a ditch on a quiet country road in southeast Norway, according to the police, who were informed at around 6:00 am.