Free Republic

BADGER BURGLAR COLLARED A badger broke into a house and woke up the neighbours by smashing a window during its bungled escape. A police spokeswoman said: "It is believed the badger entered the house via a cat flap and made its way up the stairs to a bedroom. "Once there it tried to jump through the window, causing the window to smash, and injuring itself." The 78-year-old woman who lived in the house, in Swindon, Wiltshire, was alerted to the break-in by a neighbour who was disturbed by the sound of smashing glass at about 1.30am. The neighbour told police...

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Scientists are marveling at a fossil find in California's San Joaquin Valley that has produced the remains of a never-before-seen badger-like creature and a monstrous predator that looks like a cross between a bear and a pit bull. Among the discoveries was the skull of an animal that appears to be an entirely new genus within the same family as otters, skunks and weasels. "It just blew me out of my mind," Xiaoming Wang, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said after seeing the fossil of the badger-like...