A motorist in western North Carolina escaped injury when the carcass of a cat crashed into the passenger side of her front windshield along a highway near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In a call to 911, the unidentified driver on U.S. Route 74 in Swain County, near Bryson City, told a dispatcher that a bald eagle dropped the cat. Bryson City is about 65 miles (104 kilometers) southwest of Asheville.
It’s not clear if the feline slipped from the eagle’s talons Wednesday morning or was discarded simply because the big bird didn’t have a taste for it.
“You may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield,” the incredulous driver said on the recorded 911 call. “It absolutely shattered my windshield.”
The driver relayed that another person also saw the cat drop, remarking, “He’s like, ‘That is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Really?’”
The dispatcher offered some assurance, saying, “Oh my goodness. Let’s see. I’ve heard crazier.”
BOSTON (AP) — It wasn’t a croc — there really was an alligator on the loose in Boston.
And the story of the city’s slithering saurian appears to have a happy ending. The small alligator, spotted along the Charles River in Boston multiple times this week, has been rescued and delivered to safety, wildlife officials in Massachusetts said Thursday.
The roughly foot-long crocodilian startled a few people and became an instant social media star after confused onlookers took videos of it slipping out of sight. But the animal is not native to Massachusetts, and couldn’t possibly survive the harsh New England winter, so the search for the wayward gator was on.
A local wildlife educator captured the critter on Wednesday night, and it’s now awaiting a permanent home, officials said.
Harvard University graduate student Whitney Lieberman was among the residents who caught a glimpse of the exotic visitor. She notified wildlife authorities when she saw the creature while she was jogging to work.
“Yeah, I did a double-take. For a second, I had to check myself — alligators are not native to Boston waterways, right?” Lieberman said. “I texted my coworkers because I had a morning meeting: ‘Hey guys, this is a good excuse to be late for work. There is an alligator right in front of me and I don’t know what to do.’”
“KPop Demon Hunters” is one step closer to another golden moment: The Oscars. The Netflix phenomenon is among 35 films features eligible for the animated feature film category at the 98th Academy Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released on Friday lists of all the films eligible for animated, documentary and international feature prizes at next year’s Oscars.
Though “KPop Demon Hunters” made its name on Netflix, it also received a qualifying theatrical run in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in June, which satisfied the film academy’s requirements for Oscar consideration. Its UK theatrical run was not enough to qualify for the BAFTAs, however.
Other animated titles that qualified for the Oscars animated feature category were Neon’s “Arco,” Disney’s “Elio” and “Zootopia 2,” GKids’ “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain,” Netflix’s “In Your Dreams” and Crunchyroll/Sony’s “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.” Notably, the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” was not among the 35 titles listed.
