Funny old world: the week's offbeat news

From the global penguin menace to the Grannies World Cup... your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

'Greatest thing ever invented'

Let's hope the penguins of the Heard and McDonald Islands have learned their lesson and will "never try to take advantage of America" again.

Donald Trump this week hit the barren, uninhabited islands 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) from Australia with tariffs -- "the greatest thing ever invented", he declared -- as part of his "Liberation Day" trade crusade that sent markets into a tailspin.

"The penguins have been ripping us off for years," Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump spin doctor turned vocal critic, joked on X, with memes galore on social media also mocking the decision.

No human has set foot on the islands in nearly a decade, and they have neither a port nor an airport. But White House officials insisted the tariffs weren't a mistake. You can never be too careful, they said.

Don't pick up a penguin

And they may be right. You don't have to be a "Batman" fan to know the risk penguins pose. South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority said this week that one brought down a helicopter on tiny Bird Island.

The flightless fiend was being transported in a box to the mainland when it moved and slid into the pilot's lever, bringing down the chopper. Neither the penguin nor the four people on board were hurt.

"Trump was 100 percent right. These penguins are a problem for world security," joked one social media user.

 Opera snoozefest

Nodding off at the opera is nothing new, but in Geneva, they are positively encouraging it. Its opera house invited music lovers to come and sleep over this week in the gilded Grand Theatre.

"It's pretty crazy," said law professor Carine Lutz as she rolled out a sleeping bag at the foot of the stage. Others bagged the plush red velvet boxes, while some snuggled down in inflatable beds under the Milky Way of tiny lights that decorate the auditorium ceiling.

Italian pianist Marino Formenti played many of them to sleep, while others snored through a silent black-and-white film in the Great Hall. Nicolas Wisard, stretched out on his mat, savoured the view. "It's almost as good as Versailles, the Palace of Mirrors."

MAGA-nificent 

Donald Trump took a few moments of gardening leave this week from turning the world order on its head to plant a "MAGAnolia" tree, after his "Make America Great Again" slogan, in the garden of the White House.

The US president -- who has discussed plans to make the grounds more like his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida -- planted the young magnolia sapling himself.

With a golden spade, naturally.

Needless to say, the "MAGAnolia" will the most beautiful tree the world has ever seen. You are gonna love it.

Granny on!

To the Grannies World Cup, which was played at a slow but purposeful pace in South Africa this week. Limbs may have been creaky and the breathing laboured, but the football was no less fiercely competitive.

"I feel like a superstar," grinned striker Mbele Nonhlanhla, 63, of Johannesburg's Vuka Soweto, revealing a missing tooth. "They call me the goal machine."

But it was the grannies of the American New England Breakers who carried home the title.