Although it was actually a uniquely groomed dog roaming loose, three callers to 911 on Tuesday reported a baby lion, the city of Norfolk said today.

Two calls came after 10 a.m. on Granby Street near the zoo and on Llewellyn Avenue.

About 1:20 p.m., another 911 caller reported seeing a baby lion on Colley Avenue at 50th Street.

"I'd like to report a lion sighting," one caller said.

"Say that again?" a dispatcher replied.

In the call near the zoo, a woman said, "There was a lion that ran across the street - a baby lion. It was about the size of a Labrador retriever." Another caller said, "I don't know if it got away from the zoo or what."

The dog, a Labrador-poodle mix named Charles the Monarch, is owned by Daniel Painter, who owns a garden shop on Colley Avenue where the dog is regularly seen. Painter said he has the dog groomed to look like the Old Dominion University mascot.

Watch the video on YouTube.

A pastor at a catholic church in Springfield, Illinois is currently on a leave of absence after he was forced to call 911 to request help getting out of handcuffs. The bizarre incident happened to Father Tom Donovan of St. Aloysius church last November. On a copy of the 911 call released by the Sangamon County Emergency Telephone System Department, the priest's muffled voice can be heard asking for help. When police arrived they discovered some sort of gag covering the priest's mouth.

'I'm going to need help getting out before this becomes a medical emergency,' Father Tom Donovan can be heard telling an incredulous sounding dispatcher during the Nov. 28 call.

'You're stuck in a pair of handcuffs?' the dispatcher asks. '(I was) playing with them and I need help getting out,' Donovan responds.

Scientists believe they have discovered a new species of humans that just recently evolved.

Yes, you guessed it, it's a new breed of young human beings and they are being named"homo slackass-erectus".

They are found in most shopping malls and have been created by natural genetic evolution through constant spineless posturing, and spasmatic upper limb gestures, which new research has shown to cause shorter legs and an inability to ambulate other than in an awkward shuffling gait.

Christine O'Donovan's dog had left home before, but when the Belle Harbor, N.Y., woman's year-old dog Ridgeback-shepherd mix ran away after superstorm Sandy devastated the community, O'Donovan said, this time was different.

She and her children searched the neighborhood, but weeks went by without any sighting of Buster.

"Time went on," the mother of five children said Monday. "I was just, I said either somebody took him, and I was hoping he was in a good home, or I thought the worst that he may have been killed by either a car or, you know. A thousand things go through your head."

On Dec. 12 - about a month after Buster disappeared - a friend sent O'Donovan, 42, a text message to say she believed she'd seen a photo of the dog on Urgent Part 2, a Facebook page that posts the euthanasia schedule of New York City's Animal Care and Control.

The friend, Kim Frazier, said the dog was on the list to be killed the next day. O'Donovan called the shelter and left a message to put a hold on Buster.

"I couldn't sleep that night because I was so worried they were going to put my dog down," she said, adding that she got up early the next day and took her children to the shelter's emergency facility in Brooklyn in the hopes of recovering their dog.

He was alive.

If Facebook and Twitter are not enough to show how cute and adorable your fluffy cat is, it's time to check out Catmoji. Malaysian developers have launched a special social network for cat lovers.

People with a feline fixation now have their own separate place to display love for their pets and post gigabytes of cat pictures without distressing their ailurophobic friends.

Staff at train stations in the UK have seen their fair share of surprising incidents but very few of them would be able to claim witnessing a goat calmly waiting for a train like their counterparts in Switzerland have just done.

Normally the only strange thing you witness at a station is your train arriving on time but if you happened to be a worker at one in Pratteln, Switzerland, you were treated to an appearance by a farmyard animal.

Baffled workers at the station were shocked when they found a goat waiting in one of their rooms.

Even more astonishing was that the animal was calm and seemed like he was used to travelling by public transport.

Officers managed to track down the owner of the goat after locating an identity chip under its skin.

'We don't know how he got there or what he thought he was waiting for but he's back in his field now,' said a police spokesman.

In the aftermath of the fiscal-cliff deal, Republicans in Congress issued a heartfelt apology to the top 1.5 per cent richest people in America, offering "messages of profound condolence" for allowing their taxes to increase slightly.

"Our hearts go out to them," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), still teary-eyed after hanging up the phone with a multimillionaire in Orange County, California. "We came to Washington to do the work of 1.5 per cent of the American people, and we didn't get it done."

The House Speaker said that he had spoken to several members of the top 1.5 per cent who were "understandably despondent" over seeing their taxes rise marginally as a result of the deal: "Some of them were so upset they even considered moving to Canada, until they found out the taxes were higher there."

Mr. Boehner said that he tried to offer the wealthy consolation by reminding them that because of an increase in payroll taxes, millions of middle-class and working-class Americans would be suffering more than they would: "That usually put them in a better mood."

It's a long-forgotten sight that left people blinking almost in disbelief - yes, the sun finally reappeared over Shropshire yesterday.

Following weeks of cloud, wind and rain, the New Year heralded a new dawn in Shropshire as an old friend returned to the skies over the county.

After the wettest on record by the Met Office, the sun made a spectacular reappearance on the first day of 2013. This shot shows what we have been missing as bright orange rays light up the hills below. Temperatures stayed chilly, reaching just 6C (43F), but are expected to pick up towards the weekend when highs of 11C (52F) are forecast.

But the county's sunny reprieve is not expected to last for very long.

Met Office officials predict the pleasant weather will remain until Saturday, before cloud returns and temperatures begin to drop again.

By the end of next week the rain could return while the mercury will peak at 7C (45F).

It is a far cry from this time last year when the county was covered in a blanket of snow with problems on the roads and the rail network.

A young boy's lost bicycle has led to a unique piece of natural roadside art on Washington state's Vashon Island, over 50 years later.

Traveling off of Vashon Highway, about 50 feet into the woods behind the local Sound Food Café, travelers will come across a peculiar site - an intact, 1950s-era bicycle embedded into a tree.

In 1954 Helen Puz had been recently widowed when she received the bike as a gift from someone in the community, according to Discover Washington State.

"People were very sympathetic and generous," Puz reportedly wrote in a document on display at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum. "We were given a girl's bike and my 8-year-old son Don seemed the natural one to ride it."

The next time you, or someone you know, is having trouble with a temperamental bird just be glad the little feathered bugger isn't screaming out a bunch of obscenities!

A zoo in Hubei, China got a big surprise when their Myna bird started screaming obscenities, which it had picked up from one of the zoo's guests according to zookeeper Li Yun, and had to be removed from display until his vocabulary could be deemed appropriate for all ages.

The bird may not be zoo friendly, but he has a great career ahead of him as an insult comic.

Source