A baby caiman has found a new home at a Lithuanian zoo after its previous owner tried to sell it online, apparently upon realizing that the pet reptile he was raising in his bathroom wasn't a harmless lizard.

Officials at the Kaunas zoo said authorities confiscated the spectacled caiman from a student who had posted an online advertisement for a large lizard.

France's parliament officially recognized animals as "living, sentient beings" rather than "furniture" on Wednesday.

After more than a year of often passionate debate, a bill updating the legal status of animals in France was adopted aligning the 200-year civil code with current rural and penal law that already recognized animals "as living and sentient beings."

A Pennsylvania candy maker is getting a big kick out of the New England Patriots' scandal over some deflated footballs.

The (Washington) Observer-Reporter (http://bit.ly/1wzxQsz ) reports that Bill Sarris had his Canonsburg staff make a chocolate football with a big dent in the side. It's not for sale, but he posted it on Facebook as a joke.

Brazilian police had a shock when the search of a cache of stolen goods unearthed two tanks.

A container at a Sao Paulo storage depot was packed with up 500 new LCD televisions but also, to police officers' surprise, "a crane, several auto parts and two army tanks."

AC Milan CEO Adriano Galliani has been left red-faced after being tricked into revealing the club will not sack embattled coach Filippo Inzaghi during a prank telephone call on Italian radio.

Galliani also unwittingly revealed potential transfer targets to the audience of radio station RDS.

Firefighters in Colorado have rescued two cows that plunged through the ice on a pond.

Fountain Fire Chief Darin Anstine says someone driving by the pond south of Colorado Springs spotted the cows' heads sticking out of the water about 30 feet from shore Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters wearing protective suits used saws to cut through 6 to 8 inches of ice and clear a channel to the shore.

A guilty conscience and news coverage apparently led some thieves to return a cargo trailer and camping gear that was stolen from a Montana Boy Scout troop earlier this month.

Scoutmaster Rick Lindholm said the thieves left a handwritten note on the windshield of a car in the church parking lot from which the trailer and gear were taken around Jan. 12.

As Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Ricky Hernandez was being lowered from a helicopter to inspect an abandoned car in rugged terrain, his team spotted a bear on the ground.

But when team members tried to warn Hernandez, they lost radio contact.

Wearing a camouflaged flak jacket at a counter shaped like a Chinese aircraft carrier, the manager of Beijing's Diaoyu Islands Malatang Noodle Shop insists nevertheless that Japanese "friends" are welcome.

The two countries are at loggerheads over the East China Sea islets which Tokyo controls and calls Senkaku and Beijing claims as Diaoyu. Both sides repeatedly send ships and aircraft to the area.

A French court has blocked parents from naming their baby girl Nutella after the hazelnut spread that is a staple in Gallic households, arguing it would make her the target of mockery.

A registrar recording the baby's birth last September flagged the unusual name to local prosecutors who took it to a family court judge, the prosecutor's office told Agence France-Presse, confirming a story in the Voix du Nord newspaper on Monday.