California is holding a garage sale of sorts. The novel move to unload the cash strapped state's unnecessary items begins on Friday with deals galore for savvy shoppers looking to aid the Grizzly bear state.

The event, being held in the capital at a Sacramento warehouse, is being called the Great California Garage Sale, and according to state officials is the largest surplus sale since the state last rolled out its surplus of governmental goods shortly after Schwarzenegger was elected in 2004.

Swaziland's King Mswati III has sparked outrage by sending his favorite wives on a globe-trotting shopping spree. The monarch - ruler of some of the poorest people in the world - used £4 million [$7 million] of state money to send at least five of his 13 wives and dozens of their aides to France, Italy, Dubai and Taiwan on a secret trip last week.

Although it is a criminal offense to criticize the king's private life in Swaziland, campaigners have blasted the British government, who give the landlocked African country the majority of the £65 million it receives in European aid each year.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ate raw seal meat as he launched the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, a federal body designed to speed up the development in northern Canada. Its establishment is one of the commitments promised by Ottawa under the Economic Action Plan, on Tuesday.

The launch of the agency is one of the highlights of the five-day visit of the prime minister to Canada's north, which he has done yearly. Harper also replicated what Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean had done when she was in the same region a few weeks back - that is eat seal meat to send a message to the European Union that Canada backs the seal hunt industry.

A Nevada oncologist has converted his office's storage room into a chemotherapy room where underinsured cancer patients get his free service and drugs partly paid by Clark County.

Nick Spirtos, director of the Women's Cancer Center of Nevada, also uses cash donation boxes placed throughout the county to help cover the cost of chemotherapy of cancer patients, who have nowhere to go since the state cut budget for its outpatient cancer center at the University Medical Center's oncology clinic early this year.

An Australian official has demystified the crop circles in Tasmania's legal poppy plantations saying they were formed by wallabies that walked in circles after getting high from eating the opium plant.

Tasmanian Attorney-General Lara Giddings made the explanation while addressing the security issues at the state's poppy fields during a budget hearing in parliament Wednesday.