An artificial beach complete with palm trees, boardwalks and rentable fire-pits and barbecues along with the world's first outdoor artificial surfing machine will soon be rising on the Thames as Tower Hamlets sets to lure surfers. Beginning 2011, instead of driving to Devon and Cornwall, surfers will be treated to six-foot swells to a disused dock in east London.

A 12-year-old boy reeled in a 551-pound bull shark Tuesday, north of the Palm Beach inlet in Florida. The catch managed to break the state record for the heaviest bull shark caught. After spending half a day out in the water, Aidan Murray Medley, a seventh-grader at Eagle Hill School who was vacationing with his family, found himself wrestling with the fish for 20 minutes, reportedly losing feeling from his body.

A man from Florida has bitten more than what he chewed from a $10 plate of steamed clams he and his wife ordered at a beach bar. He found from the dish a rare purple pearl that is probably worth thousands. George Brock and his wife Leslie turned out to be the lucky diners at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar on Friday. The couple from Royal Palm Beach ordered steamed clams containing the gem.

Thieves in Hungary have made off with an entire riverside artificial beach that had 6,000 cubic meters of sand, beach huts, shops and furniture. Cross-border thieves are to be suspected because at part of the Schengen zone there is no border controls between Hungary and other EU states. Hungarian authorities also believe that the stolen material has been shipped across the border to be sold. Land-locked Hungary doesn't have beaches; hence tons of sand were used to make the riverside as real as possible. But managers who cleaned up and covered the leisure park for winter were taken aback to discover that thieves had carted off 6,000 cubic meters of sand and playground rides, huts and even the wooden shops.

Around 20 riot police were summoned to help pacify angry tourists in Macau, China who claimed they were being forced into shopping by being led to shops instead of being shown the country's cultural heritage. The tourists complained their guides were pressuring them to buy foods and other goodies instead of showing them more of the former Portuguese colony's historic sites.