A New Jersey family whose terrier-pit bull mix escaped from their backyard during Superstorm Sandy went to an animal shelter this week to adopt a new pet and came home with their old dog.

Chuck James tells The Associated Press that his family searched for the brown-and-white dog named Reckless for months after the October 2012 storm before finally giving up hope.

Dozens of snakes were paraded during a traditional May Day religious celebration in the Italian village of Cocullo in the Apennine Mountains on Thursday.

Thirty non-venomous snakes were draped onto a statue of Saint Dominic in the yearly ritual to celebrate the saint's supposed healing powers.

University of Connecticut alumnus Rick Mastracchio would have liked to deliver this year's graduation address to the school of engineering in person. But he'll be out of town on May 10 — orbiting the globe on the International Space Station.

So UConn has arranged for the 54-year-old astronaut give the speech from space.

A photo op with a squirrel that went awry has left a teenager flustered but unhurt.

Seventeen-year-old Brian Genest, of Auburn, said Thursday he saw what appeared to be a friendly squirrel on a hand rail while walking through John Chestnut Park near Tampa, Florida. He was on a trip looking at colleges.

A Japanese travel agent who forgot to book a fleet of buses for a school trip tried to cover his tracks by forging a student's suicide note in a failed bid to get the excursion cancelled.

Regulators from the Japan Tourism Agency raided the offices of JTB Corp, the country's biggest travel agency, after a 30-year-old employee failed to order 11 buses for a high school in central Japan for its trip scheduled for April 25.

A court in Fulda, Hesse, jailed three men from Hesse and two women for theft and receiving stolen goods on Friday.

A 37-year-old man was jailed for six-and-a-half years, his accomplice, also 37 for five years and three months and the third man, 35, for three years and nine months.

The Colorado Symphony Orchestra said Tuesday it will play a series of "cannabis-friendly" fundraising concerts sponsored by the state's burgeoning pot industry.

The state's only full-time professional orchestra hopes the unusual shows dubbed "Classically Cannabis: The High Note Series" will boost its audience as it struggles with dwindling attendance and shrinking budgets.

A man is facing charges after he allegedly attempted to sell a baby wallaby on Facebook, attracting bids as high as Aus$10,000 (U.S.$9,291) before he was caught, officials said Thursday.

The marsupial was rescued by Western Australia's Department of Parks and Wildlife after an officer posing as a potential buyer met the man in a car park in Broome, in the state's north.

A dog owner from northeastern England has been threatened with police action after his ageing pet Rottweiler was registered to vote in next month's European Parliament elections, it emerged Tuesday.

Russell Hoyle, 45, from Stockton near Newcastle, was asked to attend a police interview and risks a fine or even prison for the registration of his dog Zeus, according to the local Evening Gazette newspaper.

A tiny fishing community in Canada's island province of Newfoundland faced an unusual threat Tuesday: a giant blue whale that washed up onto its shores may explode.

The massive mammal is one of nine endangered blue whales that is believed to have died in heavy ice off Canada's Atlantic coast several weeks ago.