Free Republic

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Most cat owners dread their pets bringing home mice or birds. But for the owners of one felonious feline in Auckland, New Zealand, there’s a worse shame — being the unwitting accomplice to an unstoppable one-cat crimewave. His prolific laundry-pinching from clotheslines and bedrooms in the placid beachside neighborhood of Mairangi Bay has turned 15-month-old Leo into a local celebrity and earned him a new moniker. He now goes by Leonardo da Pinchy. And he’s got expensive taste. His frequent hauls include silk boxer shorts, thick men’s work socks — preferably with clothespins still attached...

Author John Lednicky’s cat Pepper and its prey helped discover yet another new strain of virus. Credit: John Lednicky ======================================================================== When a Florida virologist’s cat brought home a dead shrew, no one expected it to lead to the discovery of a previously unknown virus. But that’s exactly what happened. The shrew carried a new strain of orthoreovirus—a virus family known to infect mammals, including humans. While its effects on people are still uncertain, some orthoreoviruses have been linked to serious illnesses. Feline Assistant Strikes Again Pepper, the house cat who gained attention last year for helping scientists identify the first...

In 1945, Edward Lowe (1920-1995) created an industry when he developed a clay- based cat box filler as a favor to a friend. Upon realizing the potential of his product, he faithfully pursued informing people of the need his new Kitty Litter® could fill. More than any man, Ed Lowe brought the cat in from the barn and out of the alley. Ed and the housebroken cat revolutionized the way people thought about cats and literally made them into America's favorite pet. In 1985, Ed turned his attention to helping other entrepreneurs achieve their own goals by creating the Edward...

A beloved Manhattan bodega cat was horrifically mauled to death by two pit bulls last week as the dogs’ heartless female owner and pals “watched and cheered,” animal rescuers claimed to The Post. Tragic adorable tabby Freddy was attacked around 9 p.m. Friday outside Michelle Flowers, where he lived, in Washington Heights, according to volunteer rescuers with Cat Collective NY, who said they looked at surveillance video and spoke with witnesses. The pit bulls’ owner and pals then smoked, danced and ate food while taking photos and mimicking the grisly scene, the group told The Post. “Someone deliberately set dogs...

EXCLUSIVE: A Biden-era decision could potentially keep a convicted murderer from being deported from the United States, at least while a key legal battle plays out in court. Fox News rode along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, the center of recent anti-ICE civil unrest, and the agency arrested Salvadoran national Alexander Alfredo Palacios Guevara, who not only has the murder conviction, but also two counts of attempted murder dating back to 1994, an HSI source said. The man told Fox News, "I have CAT, I have CAT," which turned out to be a...

'Let's talk about basketball!' Caitlin Clark bristles in news conference Fever star Caitlin Clark gets frustrated with reporters for asking about scuffles with the Sun despite Indiana advancing to the Commissioner's Cup championship.

Rusty-spotted cat World's smallest cat 🐈- BBC | 1:57 BBC | 14.9M subscribers | 65,850,336 views | January 5, 2018

May 9 (UPI) -- An animal control officer in Pennsylvania came to the rescue of a stowaway cat found crying under the hood of a state senator's vehicle. The Middletown Township Police Department said on social media that state Sen. Frank Farry, R-District 6, was driving this week when he "heard an animal crying" under the hood of his vehicle

Tourists Matthew Nannen, 45, and Bailee Crane, 58, were visiting Inspiration Point at Utah’s scenic Bryce Canyon National Park with their elderly tabby — now named Mirage — when the trio took a fateful plunge on Monday night or Tuesday morning, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, citing the sheriff’s office. Mirage, who is estimated to be 12 years old, was found by hikers on Tuesday night in a soft black pet carrier and in remarkably good condition... The fortunate feline only suffered two fractured canine teeth and a few fractured ribs — but miraculously “seemed to have weathered the fall...

A Maine Coon named Zeus has taken the internet by storm, earning millions of views across social media platforms with his sheer size and playful antics. Standing at an impressive 4 feet tall when on his back legs, Zeus is not your typical house cat. This gentle giant has captured the hearts of millions, and his owner, Daniela Ermolaeva, couldn’t be more proud of the attention her beloved pet is receiving, as highlighted in a recent feature by The Independent. Zeus, weighing 13 kg (around 28.6 pounds), has quickly become a sensation on Instagram under the handle @zeus.mainecoon.official. His rise...

First it was the cow farts. Now it’s dog “sh*t.” Moral of the story: eco crazies will never be satisfied until people start seeing climate change threats in their soup. Leftist newspaper The Guardian published an April 9 story that reeked of being desperate for attention, even if that meant making its writers look like cats that have been overdosing on catnip. “Pet dogs have ‘extensive and multifarious’ impact on environment, new research finds,” read the headline coughed up like a hairball from science writer Donna Lu. The syntax read like a Babylon Bee special, “An Australian review of existing...

A Colorado city plans to seize residents' pet cats and dogs in a bid to limit the number of animals allowed in households. On August 1, pet owners in Northglenn - about 40 minutes outside of Denver - will not be allowed to have more than four cats, dogs, or a combination of the two 'totaling no more than four.' The new pet ordinance was recently approved by the city council 'at the request of residents and after extensive research and discussion,' the city said. The restriction was introduced after concerned residents complained of 'excessive noise and waste caused by...

Quantum scientists have shown it’s possible to generate Schrödinger cat states in warmer conditions, challenging the assumption that cold is essential for quantum effects. Credit: SciTechDaily.com *************************************************************************** Researchers have pulled off a quantum feat that defies traditional expectations—they’ve created Schrödinger cat states not from ultra-cold ground states, but from warm, thermally excited ones. Using a superconducting qubit setup, the team demonstrated that quantum superpositions can exist even at higher temperatures, overturning the long-held belief that heat destroys quantum effects. This breakthrough not only validates Schrödinger’s original “hot cat” concept but also paves the way for more practical and accessible quantum...

In a groundbreaking experiment, UNSW researchers successfully applied the Schrödinger’s cat concept using an antimony atom to enhance quantum computations. This method significantly improves the reliability of quantum data processing and error correction, potentially accelerating the advent of practical quantum computing.

My new cat looks just like Hitler. He has NEIN lives.

Anew report published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, highlights more than $1 trillion worth of taxpayer money spent on projects that he argues wastes and abuses taxpayer money. Tucked in the report are three programs funded by federal agencies using millions of taxpayer dollars to experiment on cats. The details are explicit and gruesome.

After 60 years of searching, geneticists have finally identified the gene behind the marmalade coloration in domestic cats. Two independent teams of researchers found any fiery-hued fuzz on our beloved clawed floofs is likely the result of a missing segment of DNA in a non-protein-coding part of the cat's genome. "It's been a genetic mystery, a conundrum," Stanford University geneticist Greg Barsh told Sara Reardon at Science. Barsh and his colleagues discovered cat skin cells from which orange fur sprouts express 13 times as much RNA from a gene called Arhgap36, compared with skin cells from cats with no orange...

An Ohio woman who ate a cat in a viral video that fueled rumors of Haitian migrants eating pets was sentenced to one year in prison on Monday, as a judge hit out at her for the gruesome act. Allexis Ferrell, 27, was arrested at a housing complex in Canton on August 16, when she was caught on police body camera footage crouching on all fours and biting into a cat. Police later determined that Ferrell had smashed the cat's head with her foot and then began to eat it, according to a police report obtained by the Canton Repository....

A much-loved moggy called Rosie, believed to be the oldest cat in the world, has died at the ripe old age of 33. The tortoise-shell walked into the hallway of her home in Norwich, Norfolk, lay down and passed away, said her devoted owner Lila Brissett, 73. Rosie was born in 1991 and turned 33 on June 1, which in cat years is an extraordinary 152. Lila never got around to registering her pet as officially the oldest in the world, but the current Guinness World Records holder, a cat called Flossie from Kent, is a mere 28 years old....

On July 1, Alex Bitts was walking into work at Sutter Roseville Hospital when she stopped near a drainage ditch outside after hearing what she said was a cat "yowling." "Cats generally don't yowl like that unless something is wrong," Betts said. She went down and looked into a small cement tunnel to find a cat barely holding on to life. "It took me a while to get the cat close enough to see it because it didn't want to come close," Betts said As an animal lover at heart, Betts did what she says was the right thing to...