A lovelorn Australian farmer who headed to West Africa last month seeking a love match is glad to be home, albeit without his bride by his side. Des Gregor, 56, went to Mali to pick up the bride he had met over the Internet and pocket the promised dowry of $85,000 in gold bars to marry her.

Palmira, a 12-year-old male was chosen Sunday as the best and finest Arab thoroughbred. The announcement was made during the 29th annual National Show of Arabian Horses in the popular Janow Ppodlaski stud-farm in southern Poland. Reports said the annual show also attracted 32 mares and two stallions that were put on sale in this year's main auction, "the Pride of Poland. " Some 16 other horses were auctioned off Sunday morning in a silent sale, organizers of the event said.

The first of some 29,000 rubber ducks that have been circling the world's oceans for 15 years are expected to wash up on a beach in England sometime soon. The toys fell overboard from a cargo ship bound for Seattle from China in 1992, according to the BBC.

Zoologists in Australia are busy studying one of the largest ever giant squid that was found washed up on a beach on Thursday in southern Australia. The giant creature weighs some 550 pounds and stretched 26 feet from head to tentacle. The length is about as long as a school bus but zoologists say that it might have been even longer when it was alive, since the tentacles appeared to be badly damaged.

A Catholic school in Australia denied rights of admission to a 5-year-old Australian boy because his last name is Hell. St. Peter Apostle School in Hoppers Crossing, Australia, initially refused to accept Alex Hell's son Max Hell, but later accepted him after some consideration.