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HUDSON, Fla. (AP) — A man on Florida's Gulf Coast has been charged with animal cruelty after authorities said he killed, cooked and ate two of his pet peacocks. The 61-year-old man from Hudson, Florida, was arrested last week on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty, according to an affidavit from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. The man told investigators that he had killed the two peacocks because his neighbor kept feeding them. He had written the neighbor a letter telling her that he would continue to kill his pet p...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Residents of a San Francisco Bay Area city are on the lookout for an aggressive squirrel that has sent at least two people to the emergency room for medical treatment. Joan Heblack told ABC affiliate KGO-TV that she was walking in the Lucas Valley neighborhood of San Rafael when a squirrel seemingly came out of nowhere and attacked her leg, clawing and biting. "It clamped onto my leg. The tail was flying up here. I was like, 'Get it off me, get off me!'," Heblack said. Isabel Campoy also said she was attacked while w...
PEMBROKE, Maine (AP) — A bull moose that fell into an abandoned well in Maine was pulled to safety during an elaborate five hour rescue. The operation happened Wednesday after Cole Brown, whose family owned the forested land in northern Maine, spotted a pair of antlers. He heard a noise and initially thought it was turkeys but, upon, closer inspect, realized it was something a lot bigger. "He walks over and, through the thick alders and bushes, he saw the antlers, just the antlers peeking out," said Delaney Gardner, Brown's stepsister who v...
The latest recruit on Deion Sanders' roster weighs in at 700 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash as fast as she wants. Colorado's new live buffalo mascot will make her debut at Folsom Field on Saturday night against Wyoming. She's officially named Ralphie VII, although a unique nickname is soon to come after her first run. Ralphie VII is the latest in a string of field-storming live mascot buffaloes, a storied tradition and one of college football's most iconic. The running of the buffalo has been a must-glimpse event at the school for the past...
BOSTON (AP) — A team of researchers from Japan wondered if painting cows with zebralike stripes would prevent flies from biting them. Another group from Africa and Europe pondered the types of pizza lizards preferred to eat. Those researchers were honored Thursday in Boston with an Ig Nobel, the prize — a hand made model of a human stomach — for comical scientific achievement. In lieu of a big paycheck, each winner was also given a single hand wipe. "When I did this experiment, I hoped that I would win the Ig Nobel. It's my dream. Unbel...
Thousands of people will paint a town red with tomato pulp Wednesday, flinging the fruit at one another in the 80th anniversary of Spain's famous "Tomatina" tomato street fight. The hourlong event brings 120 tons of overripe tomatoes to the eastern town of Buñol, where tarp-covered buildings flank a crowd of up to 22,000 participants awaiting their ammo. Non-local attendees pay 15 euros ($17.50) for a ticket and arrive from countries across the globe or cities a bus ride away. "When it's going on, it's just a blur of tomatoes," said Adrian...
Famed competitive eater Joey "Jaws" Chestnut reclaimed his title Friday at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest after skipping last year's gastronomic battle in New York for the coveted Mustard Belt. Chestnut, 41, consumed 70 1/2 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, falling short of his 2021 record of 76 wieners and buns. It marked the 17th win in 20 appearances for the Westfield, Indiana, eater at the internationally televised competition, which he missed last year over a contract dispute. "I wish I ate a couple more. Sorry...
VENICE, Italy (AP) — The sky itself is no limit for billionaire Jeff Bezos and fiancée Lauren Sánchez, who have traveled into space — and expectations are just about as high for their wedding in Venice. One of the world's most enchanting cities as backdrop? Check. Star-studded guestlist and tabloid buzz? Of course. Local flavor? You bet. Beyond that, the team of the world's fourth-richest man has kept details under wraps. Still, whispers point to events spread across the Italian lagoon city, adding complexity to what would have been a massi...
LONDON (AP) — There is a history-rich part of London that few people have seen, where the city braced for the Blitz, James Bond's creator got inspiration and secret Cold War messages passed between Washington and Moscow. It's a network of tunnels 100 feet (30 meters) below the streets that was secret for decades — but could be the city's next big tourist destination. Local authorities have approved plans to fill the 90,000 square-foot (8,400 square-meter) site with an intelligence museum, an interactive World War II memorial and one of the wor...
NEW YORK (AP) — An explosion on a boat carrying raw sewage that was docked on the Hudson River in New York City killed a longtime city employee Saturday, authorities said. Another worker on the city-owned Hunts Point vessel was injured and taken to the hospital after the blast around 10:30 a.m. near the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, according to city Fire Department Deputy Assistant Chief David Simms. A third worker refused medical treatment. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, but New York City Mayor Eric Adams said i...
CHELSEA, Mich. (AP) — Residents of all ages in a small Michigan community formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books — one by one — to a new storefront about a block away. The "book brigade" of around 300 people stood in two lines running along a sidewalk in downtown Chelsea on Sunday, passing each title from Serendipity Books' former location directly to the correct shelves in the new building, down the block and around the corner on Main Street. "It was a practical way to move the books, but it also was a...
MADRID (AP) — Spanish police have arrested two people in connection with the sale of exotic felines on the internet. The authorities seized 19 animals, including a caracal and two servals, in an operation in Manacor, on the Balearic island of Mallorca, the Civil Guard said in a statement Thursday. More than 40 irregular animal passports from countries such as Russia, Belarus and China were also found. The operation began in March last year when the Civil Guard became aware of a couple in Palma de Mallorca who were raising servals, caracals a...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The world's most famous sled dog race is longer this year than ever before. Thanks to a lack of snow, this year's edition of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race needed a new route across the Alaska wilderness. The course change adds more than 100 miles (161 kilometers), so teams of dogs will have to pull their mushers over 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) to the finish line. The number of mushers participating this year is down from previous years, and tied with 2023 as an all-time low. This year is the fourth time the s...
ELKTON, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Man Games are back for Round 2, as teams from around the state gather to prove they have what it takes to join the ranks of the world's worst superhero. Following the success of last year's inaugural Florida Man Games in downtown St. Augustine, organizers have moved Saturday's event a few miles away to the St. Johns County Fairgrounds, where they expected to have room for more spectators and tailgating. The games were hosted by Florida comedians Josh Wicks Robinson and Kevin Flynn. Poking fun at the state's r...
Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 migrants detained in the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and filed statements from men held there who said they were mistreated there in conditions that of one of them called "a living hell." The federal lawsuit came less than a month after the same attorneys sued for access to migrants who were already detained at the naval base in Cuba after living in the U.S. illegally. Both cases are backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in...
Crocodiles, monkeys, tigers, zebras and dozens of other taxidermy animals will move to new homes after concerns about arsenic exposure forced the closure of the South Dakota museum where they had been displayed for decades. The Delbridge Museum of Natural History at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls closed in August 2023 after testing showed potentially hazardous levels of arsenic present in 80% of the specimens of the Brockhouse Collection. The decision raised concerns that the 152 specimens, some dating back to the 1940s, would no longer...
DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — German hunters tried to convince the jury at a national stag calling championship that they can imitate a bellowing red deer most realistically. The unique tradition goes back hundreds of years and was initially aimed at feigning a stag's rival during the rutting season so the deer comes out. The trick gave hunters a chance to better assess the stag before deciding whether to shoot it. The competition took place Friday at the Jagd & Hund, or hunting and dog, trade fair in the western city of Dortmund. There were no a...
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A Maine coon cat named Mittens became an accidental jetsetter this month when her cage was overlooked in a plane cargo hold and she made three trips in 24 hours between New Zealand and Australia. Mittens, 8, was booked for one-way travel with her family from Christchurch, New Zealand to their new home in Melbourne, Australia on Jan. 13. But owner Margo Neas said Wednesday that as she waited for Mittens to be unloaded from the plane's freight area, three hours passed with no sign of the cat. It was then that g...
BOSTON (AP) — A gold medal awarded at the first Olympics hosted on U.S. soil was sold at auction for over half a million dollars, part of hundreds of lots of memorabilia from the Games over the decades, a firm announced Friday. The 1904 St. Louis Olympics medal, auctioned for $545,371, bears the inscription "Olympiad, 1904" and shows a victorious athlete holding a wreath on the front. On the other side, Nike, the goddess of victory in ancient Greek mythology, is shown alongside Zeus, the pantheon's king of gods, and the words for the 1...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Saturday was cold even for Minneapolis, but that didn't stop thousands of people from tromping out onto a frozen lake to immerse themselves in art, make new friends — and try their best to stay warm. The annual Art Shanty Projects drew crowds onto Lake Harriet for the first of four weekends of interactive, often silly and occasionally downright strange art events. The art was presented in or near shanties, a repurposing of the shelters often seen on Minnesota lakes for hardy souls who ice fish in the frigid depths of winter....
LONDON (AP) — An 84-year-old British man armed only with a pair of trousers beat back a mugger half his age who tried to rob him at a laundry in the north of England. Ron Croker was drying his clothes last week when the masked thug accosted him at the unstaffed Coin-Op Launderette in Maltby in South Yorkshire. In the altercation caught on a surveillance camera, it appeared the two were struggling over the pair of jeans Croker was folding when the man attacked him. But the would-be robber wanted his wallet and Croker wasn't giving it up w...
ROME (AP) — Lazio has fired the man who handled the Italian soccer club's eagle mascot after he posted photos and videos online of his own prosthetic penis. Falconer Juan Bernabé shared the images on his private social media accounts after undergoing surgery for a penile implant, which he said was for non-medical reasons. Bernabé also gave an interview to controversial Italian radio show La Zanzara on Monday and elaborated on his reasons for undergoing the procedure. Bernabé added that he felt "very proud" and "more masculine" being part of Laz...
LAKE CITY, Colo. (AP) — Wildlife officials and several climbers rescued a bull elk by lowering it down a cliff after the animal became entangled in a rope at a popular ice climbing area in southwestern Colorado. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials said a group of ice climbers in Lake City encountered the distressed elk Friday morning, and a CPW biologist darted the ungulate with a tranquilizer and covered part of its head with a ski mask to protect its eyes during the rescue. The team cut the rope away from the elk's antlers but needed a w...
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Imagine having 5 gallons of mayonnaise dumped over your head. Well, that's exactly what the winning head coach of the annual Duke's Mayo Bowl receives as a "reward" for winning the game at Bank of America Stadium, a tradition born in 2021 as Duke's Mayo looked to carve out its unique niche in the college football bowl world. Each year, the mayo dump trends on social media — and college football fans just can't seem to look away, no matter how disgusting the idea is to some observers. "I think with my bald head the may...
BERLIN (AP) — For the elephants and others at the Berlin Zoo, it's finally time to unwrap their Christmas presents. Trees that didn't find a home this festive season were given to some of the animals on Friday in what has become an annual event. Elephants tore off branches with their trunks, lobbing them around their enclosure or eating the greenery. The zoo takes only fresh, unsold trees from select vendors. It doesn't accept trees from the public, which could contain chemicals or leftover decorations. "They don't just serve as food, they a...
