Odd & Interesting

Some beetles go to great — and disgusting — lengths for their children.

A goat and a dog who were each elected mayor have helped raise money to renovate a Vermont community playground.

Nearly 100 cats have survived a house fire in a town outside Rochester, New York, according to an animal protection group.

A goat and a dog who were each elected mayor have helped raise money to renovate a Vermont community playground.

A pet cat believed killed along with her owner in a huge mudslide has been found three years later.

Think your dog deserves dessert? So does Ben & Jerry’s. The venerable Vermont ice cream company said Monday it’s introducing a line of frozen dog treats, its first foray into the lucrative pet food market.

The International Space Station bid adieu Tuesday to 12 bottles of French Bordeaux wine and hundreds of snippets of grapevines that spent a year orbiting the world in the name of science.

A racing pigeon has survived an extraordinary 8,000-mile Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to find a new home in Australia. Now authorities consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it.

In the “gamblers will bet on absolutely anything” category, here’s a new one: A major sports book is taking bets on aerial drone races.

Two fishermen have rescued a naked fugitive who they found sitting on a tree branch in Australian crocodile habitat.

An incumbent Pennsylvania state representative was joined by a familiar face when lawmakers took the oath of office last Tuesday — his own mother.

The race to be the mayor of a Houston suburb ended this week with the winner’s name being drawn from a top hat.

A passerby spotted a wandering llama in a field off an interstate in Massachusetts and with the help of an animal control officer, brought it to a farm for safekeeping.

If you’re an identical twin who’s always resisted being called a clone of your sibling, scientists say you have a point.

Residents of a Queens neighborhood are dealing with a squirrely threat.

Even as vaccines are being rolled out to battle the coronavirus, wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula say they want to kick any trace of it from the English language.

Peace, love — and LaGrange. LaGrange County, Indiana, has repealed a 1971 law that was intended to block huge gatherings like the 1969 Woodstock music festival in New York state.

A Utah man has pleaded guilty after authorities said he was caught digging in a Yellowstone National Park cemetery in search of hidden treasure.

A Massachusetts police officer declined to charge two women accused of trying to steal groceries for the children — and instead bought them Christmas dinner.

A Massachusetts state lawmaker is asking for the public’s help to select an official state dinosaur.

A veteran returned a sword he stole from a statue of a Revolutionary War general 40 years ago, telling the head of the Massachusetts town’s historical commission that he regretted taking it.

Most couples wondered whether the forces of nature were against them after moving their wedding three times because of the pandemic and two hurricanes.

Boston Dynamics released a video last Tuesday showing four of its robots dancing to the 1962 hit “Do You Love Me?” by The Contours, and it caught fire online.

An official at an Anchorage soup kitchen said she received as a donation of at least 30,000 pounds (13,608 kilograms) of food on Christmas Eve from a local towing company after a truck carrying the produce crashed.

An Illinois woman who ordered flags for her grandmother’s garden got a surprise when the package arrived — someone’s apparent COVID-19 test specimen.