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(CNN)Two cats in New York have been infected with the novel coronavirus, federal officials announced Wednesday. Both had mild respiratory symptoms and are expected to make a full recovery. "These are the first pets in the United States to test positive," the US Department of Agriculture said Wednesday in a joint statement with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agencies emphasized that there is no evidence pets play a role in spreading coronavirus in the United States. "There is no justification in taking measures against companion animals that may compromise their welfare," they said.

Cute, plump, tabby kitten (possibly British Shorthair) being adorable and sweet. Video, 6 minutes & 50 seconds

Here's British Shorthair kitten "Artist" and his human mom snuggling and cuddling. Video, 3 minutes, 56 seconds

Here's our favorite Scottish Fold cat family from South Korea. Soul plays "tag" with his mom, Suri. Video, 4 minutes, 34 seconds

HONG Kong artiste Karen Mok has been criticised online for supporting Shenzhen’s ban on the eating of cats and dogs, Sin Chew Daily reported. “This is exciting news! Hope the entire China will soon ban the eating of cats and dogs, ” she wrote on Weibo, referring to reports that Shenzhen has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat starting next month. Mok, 49, is an ambassador for the Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Her posting, however, led to dozens of negative comments against her. One...

A newly-hatched study out of China, so raw that it’s not yet been peer-reviewed, has some disturbing news for cat lovers.Our furry feline friends appear to be susceptible to catching Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. Even worse, the cats in the study were able to infect each other, although they showed no signs of illness.Ferrets were also able to “catch” the virus, although it didn’t appear to harm them. Dogs, on the other hand, were not susceptible, according to the study. The virus showed up in the feces of five dogs, but no infectious virus was...

SHENZHEN, China: The Chinese city of Shenzhen has banned the eating of dogs and cats as part of a wider clampdown on the wildlife trade since the emergence of the new coronavirus. Scientists suspect the coronavirus passed to humans from animals. Some of the earliest infections were found in people who had exposure to a wildlife market in the central city of Wuhan, where bats, snakes, civets and other animals were sold. The disease has infected more than 935,000 people around the world and killed some 47,000 of them. Authorities in the southern Chinese technology hub said the ban on...

4 little baby kittens being hand-raised by humans. Video, 5 minutes, 29 seconds

A pet cat has tested positive for coronavirus in Hong Kong, in only the second such case in the world. The city's Agricultural and Fisheries department said the cat was tested after its owner was confirmed as having the virus. 'The cat had diarrhoea, kept vomiting and had breathing difficulties. The researchers found the virus in the cat's faeces,' the country's top virologist said. It is the second cat to test positive after another feline was found to have the virus in Belgium last week. Two dogs have also tested positive, also in Hong Kong, although experts say there is...

Another video from the beautiful British Shorthair cat family (of which Arnold is a member). Video: 7 minutes, 41 seconds

In the miasma of the Chinese Virus, at least I have my cat.Waking up is the unnerving part. Another day to dwell inside cut off from the world with only our screens slowly leaking information. Bagheera, my black cat seems confused. She is more attentive than usual and I have the sense she knows something is wrong, or maybe I’m just going crazy. What time is it? What day is it? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? I’ve always felt that time well spent feels like it goes by very quickly, but in retrospect it feels like it lasted for...

Please feel free to post links to your favorite talking cat videos. Of course cats can talk without making a sound too. We begin with the Long Johnston cat " Oh Long Johnson, Oh Don Piano... Oh I eyes yah!"

Some very amusing captioned cat photos...

A Miramar family is devastated after they say a stranger trespassed onto their property and shot their cat with an arrow, killing it. The family's mother said the incident happened around 2:00 a.m., last Saturday. "Apparently, they knew where she slept," the mother says. "So they started a hunt." Surveillance footage outside the home shows a hooded man walking around the backyard of the home. He can be seen shining a light into some bushes before walking away. Moments later, the cat - named Lola - is seen scurrying behind a couple of potted plants. The mother says her son...

Connor Reed, a 25-year-old expat from Llandudno in North Wales, has worked in a school in Wuhan, China, for almost a year. In November he became the first British man to catch the coronavirus...Day 9: Even the kitten hanging around my apartment seems to be feeling under the weather. It isn’t its usual lively self, and when I put down food it doesn’t want to eat...Day 11: Suddenly, I’m feeling better, physically at least. The flu has lifted. But the poor kitten has died. I don’t know whether it had what I’ve got, or whether cats can even get human...

https://twitter.com/silkdynastystx/status/1225609177587802113

SPRUCE PINE, N.C. — A cat named Perdita may be the "worst cat in the world," but a social post by a North Carolina animal shelter made her one of the most sought-after felines in the world. According to the rescue's Facebook post, Perdita has found her forever home after 175 adoption applications were sent to the rescue The post said that after narrowing down the applications to the top 10, staff conducted interviews, checked references and had some interactions with possible future families. Perdita chose her adopters after a successful meet and greet, according to the post. The post...

Three little pawpsicles were rescued last week in Canada by a quick-thinking man who used his coffee to thaw them out. On Wednesday morning, oilpatch worker Kendall Diwisch of Alberta, heard the tiny cries of three kittens in the snow. In a video shared on Facebook, which has since gone viral, Diwisch records himself approaching the cats and discovering their tails were frozen to the ice. The fast-acting man then goes to his car and grabs a still-warm coffee to use to free the kittens from the ice.

Surrounded by three coyotes in the backyard of his family's Highland Park home Monday night, a brave cat named Max held his own and tried to fight them off all by himself -- and the tense standoff was captured on video. Maya Gurrin and her husband were watching a movie in their home on Crestwood Way when they noticed a shadow of a tail through the window. The went outside to check it out and were stunned to find a group of coyotes in their yard. “I just kind of scream and lunge at them, and then they run away,...

The atrocious response from audiences and critics toward the feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats has no doubt upset execs at Universal and Working Title this weekend. The movie wound up opening below its $10M-$15M projections to $6.5M, and while you can’t expect much business-wise from adult-skewing movies outside of Star Wars before Christmas Day, the audience PostTrak exits of 2 Stars and a C+ CinemaScore indicate a significantly less than Greatest Showman or Mary Poppins Returns box office future (those two holiday films scored A and A- CinemaScores) for the Tom Hooper directed musical. In an age when...