Heather Mills Persuades Paris Hilton to Stop Wearing Fur

PARIS HILTON has abandoned her fur-wearing ways after SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY's estranged wife HEATHER MILLS made her watch horrific footage of animal cruelty. The hotel heiress was previously pelted with flour by members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) after sporting real fur at this year's (February 2006) London Fashion Week. But it was animal rights campaigner Mills who managed to persuade Hilton to turn her back on wearing animal skins for good. She says, "I am not going to be wearing fur anymore. "I met up with (Mills) and she showed me videos of how badly the animals are treated. It is just disgusting. I am an animal lover."

Robber jailed for attempted theft of dog poop

London - A would-be mugger fell foul of the law after he told a woman to hand over her bags in the west of England, only to discover they contained fresh dog excrement.

Drug addict David Carlisle, 32, held a knife to Marion Budd's abdomen as she walked her dog in Bristol, and demanded that she hand over her bags and cash.

When Budd, 52, told him the bags had just been used to scoop up her pet's poop, he fled empty-handed.

Carlisle appeared at Bristol Crown Court earlier this week and was sentenced to four years in prison for the attempted robbery, which happened last July.

Microchip Leads to Return of Cat Missing 10 Years

SACRAMENTO, California - Sneakers the cat is being reunited with his owner, hundreds of miles away from where the feline disappeared in 1996.

The long-haired black cat was given to Sacramento's Animal Care Services last week, where an employee scanned him for a microchip, a routine procedure.

The number on the chip was used to track down Allison MacEwan of Seattle, who said she placed newspaper ads and went door-to-door with fliers in a futile search for her lost cat a decade ago.

Officials on Wednesday said they aren't sure how the cat wound up in Sacramento.

MacEwan's daughter was 4 years old when her cat disappeared, and officials said she is now looking forward to being reunited with her childhood pet.

N'kisi, an African Grey Parrot Surprises Scientists

New Zealand - The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has scientists coming up short explaining this one.

The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

N'kisi's remarkable abilities include telepathy, and N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.

About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"

He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."

Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".