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With an age gap of 23 years they said it would never last. But today artist Sam Taylor-Wood, 42, announced she is to marry her 19-year-old toyboy Aaron Johnson. The couple met when she cast the relatively unknown teenager as John Lennon in her debut feature film Nowhere Boy, which premiered in London last night. A spokesman for the couple confirmed their wedding plans this afternoon and said they were 'very happy'.

DAYTON — A woman accused of celebrating her 55th birthday by having sex with a 12-year-old boy pleaded guilty to one count of gross sexual imposition of a person under age 13 on Friday, Oct. 23. Gloria J. Murphy, of 5440 Rawlings Drive, appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman, who set sentencing for Dec. 2. The charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Gloria J. Murphy, who uses a walker and an oxygen tube, appeared frail.

A paw print discovered in Wheaton could be that of a cougar, wildlife experts said today — a day after another expert doubted that it was. Wheaton police said today that evidence technicians successfully lifted a paw print from a creek bed after a resident reported seeing a large, black or dark-colored cat there. The castings were taken to Brookfield Zoo, where several experts examined the castings and photographs of the paw prints. Results of the examination, however, were inconclusive, police said. The mammal curator ruled out the print being from a canine or fox, but said it was consistent...

A five-year-old Rossland boy has been hospitalized, treated and released after a cougar attack in Stevens Country, Wa., yesterday Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), issued a press release saying the child was attacked and injured while hiking with his family on the Abercrombie Mountain Trail, along Silver Creek in the Colville National Forest east of Northport. “His parents, of Rossland, British Columbia, reported a cougar suddenly jumped out of a brushy area onto the boy, who was near his mother on the trail,” said the release. “The mother reportedly fought off the cougar and the parents took the...

SEATTLE (AP) -- A cougar that apparently had lived in Seattle for more than two weeks and forced the city's largest park to close was captured early Sunday and returned to the wild, state wildlife officials said.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A cougar that prowled through Seattle for about a week and forced the closure of the city's largest park was captured early Sunday, wildlife officials said.

State Fish and Wildlife officials say a 5-year-old Canadian boy was hurt when a cougar pounced on him while he and his family were hiking a remote trail in northeastern Washington. Department spokeswoman Madonna Luers says the big cat jumped the boy while he was hiking Wednesday with his parents and sister on the Abercrombie Mountain trail in the Colville National Forest. She says his mother began beating the cougar with a water bottle and the cat ran off.

Authorities have closed Discovery Park in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood after a cougar was seen roaming the area. a cougar was on the old parade grounds of the park, a former Army post bordering Puget Sound on the city's northwest side. "This cat was large; he was very long. His tail was very long," Jacobs said. "I was fairly shook up, I have to tell you."

Kathy Griffin went the cougar route for her date to the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday night. The star brought Levi Johnston, the teenage ex-fiance of Bristol Palin, daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. The couple held hands as they walked down the red carpet at the event, set to be hosted by the Jonas Brothers. So why did Johnston, 19, decide to come with Griffin, 48? “She’s beautiful and funny,” he told Access Hollywood. “She’s the star of the night.” “Miley (Cyrus), try to top this!” Griffin added.

A series of unusual accounts last week show that black panthers and bears are becoming more legend than mystery in the Bay Area. Lynn Reed, a ranch owner, avid hunter and wildlife expert, said he and his wife watched what appeared to be a black mountain lion for more than 10 minutes in the foothills near Dublin in Alameda County. The next day, another one was seen by an engineer in the nearby San Ramon hills. Reed's 10-minute sighting is the longest, eye-witness account of a black mountain lion reported by a wildlife expert in 20 years. It is similar...

Looking for some wholesome entertainment to share with the kids this fall? Well, don't turn on ABC at 9:30 PM (8:30 CST), for in that prime time slot will be a new sit-com called "Cougar Town." Yep, you guessed it: another show about mature divorced women seeking men half their age for -- ahem -- dates. One glimpse at the following sexually charged preview, along with ABC's own description of the show, should give readers all they need to know. For major league barf CLICK HERE. Can a woman of a certain age be a mom, a successful career...

Three cougars that appeared to be stalking people were shot in Princeton, B.C., during the last two weeks, and a veteran conservation officer says he's never seen anything like it. The first cougar was spotted lurking near a campground in the southern Interior town on July 3... B.C. conservation officer Al Lay shot the big cat out of concern it may have been stalking people. "It was close to residences and campsites on the other side, and it was just one of those situations where it is better safe then sorry.… We just can't take the chance of someone being...

PRINCETON, British Columbia, July 15 (UPI) -- Three cougars shot in the past two weeks after being spotted apparently stalking people is a rare occurrence in Canada, a conservation officer says. One of the big cats was killed by a conservation officer July 3 near a campground in Princeton, British Columbia, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday. The second was shot by a Princeton area man after being seen following two girls tubing down a river. The next day, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer killed a third cougar spotted hanging around a softball tournament.

At first Stewart Loew was excited by the sight: a mountain lion on the family's farm near Amado. In 40 years on the Agua Linda Farm, Loew said this was first large cat he had seen when it appeared in the donkey pen about a month ago. But soon, his animals started to turn up mauled or dead. First there were four sheep. Then, on June 15, an awful sight: 16 pygmy and nubian goats — all the mammals in the farm's petting zoo — were killed. Only the geese were spared. Loew and his wife, Laurel, who run the...

COVE — What was supposed to be the first camping trip of the season for Wesley and Lisa Wynn of Cove unexpectedly turned into a nightmare on Mount Fanny that they will never forget. Road access to the Moss Spring campgrounds had just opened up, and the Wynns were eager to get away from it all and enjoy the quiet of the mountains for a couple of days. They arrived at the site mid-afternoon on Sunday, June 7, and set up camp. They brought their two quarterhorses with them and their dogs, Corona, an 8-year-old black lab, border collie mix...

Canadian mother Maureen Lee has fought off a cougar that leapt onto her daughter during a walk in the woods with her bare hands. Seeing her child pinned she dove between the two and threw the large cat off before scooping up her child and running. Her three-year-old daughter, who thought the animal just wanted to play, is recovering nicely from puncture wounds on her head and arm. The cougar fared less well - conservation officers located it and killed it.

A young mountain lion was trapped and relocated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife after eating a house cat Monday ... north Boulder. “He was just too close,” Churchill said. “We wanted to give him a spanking and move him out of town.” Wildlife officials previously tagged the same cougar in February when the kitten was stuck in a tree, Churchill said. He is part of the five-year Front Range Mountain Lion Study, which aims to track mountain lions between Lyons and Evergreen to better understand cougar movement trends and develop a way to mitigate aggressive behavior near human establishments,...

A feisty Chihuahua chased a cougar out of a Philomath yard earlier this week. As Pete Springer reports, it’s the third cougar sighting in the area in the past year. Chiquita the Chihuahua and Rosie the border terrier charged the cougar after it jumped a backyard fence. The mountain lion pinned Rosie down but Chiquita kept barking incessantly at the big cat until it jumped out of the yard and ran off. The house is next to a wooded area where Philomath police have posted cougar warning signs. Roger Furhman is with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He...

Charlie Wooten has been a hunter since 1976 and has seen more than his fair share of wild animals. His four trail cameras usually catch the occasional black bear roaming around between May and September,but when one of his cameras snapped a photo of an apparent cougar on his property in the Isle of Wight Courthouse area, he wasn't sure what he saw. "I'm no expert," he said, "but it doesn't look like a bobcat to me." Wooten, who primarily hunts white-tailed deer and turkeys, showed the photo to 20 fellow hunters, and "19 of them said it wasn't a...

HOLLISTER The county agriculture commissioner supports reinstatement of a long-absent mountain lion count and plans to request that supervisors endorse a letter to the state fish and game department encouraging California leaders to reconsider it. San Benito County Agriculture Commissioner Paul Matulich believes the state should reestablish a count because "nothing's been done since 1988" and there are concerns related to public safety, livestock security and a declining deer population. He plans to present the county board with a letter requesting a reinstatement to the lion count at its meeting May 26. Fish and game stopped conducting official cougar counts...

This is a short video clip from the the Oscar nominated nature film L'Ours (1988) aka "The Bear". It's a nature film with almost no human dialogue. In this picturesque story an orphaned bear who is confronted by a hungry cougar. This clip only runs about 4 minutes, but it's enough to really give that sense of pride in God's creation. The movie is a true classic in the sense that we so often fail to really understand what it is like for the most powerful of God's animals to be young and vulnerable.

    When a local couple heard their cats outside crying at about 2 o'clock on Tuesday morning, they thought it was probably a dog bothering their cats, but it wasn't. They were completely shocked at what they found in their yard. A huge mountain lion had made its way into the enclosure in which their cats were kept. The three cats didn’t stand a chance. The couple, who live near Crestline Video, asked not to be identified. They are heartbroken and in shock. “The mountain lion was probably 3-and-a-half to four feet long,” the woman said. “It looked...

A cougar lounging in the courtyard of a rural Santa Fe-area home ... Game warden Desi Ortiz says the animal showed no fear... He hit the 100-pound female mountain lion in the hind leg with a tranquilizer, and she jumped over the courtyard wall and disappeared. He got a call a short time later about a cougar staggering into the courtyard of another nearby home.

When a colt was severely mauled on Sandy Kenner's property on 50th Avenue, near Kemper's Woods nature area on the edge of Chippewa Falls, the family contacted a U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife damage specialist. The expert ruled out bear, wolf and coyote attacks. "He thought it had to have gone into some bad kind of fence, but we don't have a barbed wire fence," Kenner said. When the family e-mailed photos of the injured colt to a relative in Colorado, he replied that claw marks were the obvious signs of a cougar attack. When Kenner told others of the...

BAGHDAD, Feb. 20, 2009 – The U.S. military fielded its 10,000th mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle in Iraq today during a ceremony on Camp Liberty, just 22 months after it was introduced into the theater of operations. Mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles sit in a row on the Camp Liberty, Iraq, fielding site, Feb. 20, 2009. The day marked the introduction of the 10,000th vehicle into Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Christopher Gaylord  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Servicemembers and civilians from across Victory Base Complex gathered among rows of MRAPs at the largest fielding site in Iraq to acknowledge the...

Near a northwest Boulder home early Tuesday, wildlife officers fired non-lethal bean bags at an adult mountain lion that was feeding on a deer carcass -- adding to the growing list of sightings and animal attacks in the neighborhood in recent weeks. A woman had her Jack Russell terrier taken by a lion Dec. 24 outside her home ... residents down the road have reported a family of lions drinking at their backyard pond; and Colorado Division of Wildlife officers have fielded several reports of sightings in the neighborhood. Tuesday, they found two animal carcasses within a few blocks. "People...

Colorado Division of Wildlife officers are searching the Boulder area for a mountain lion that grabbed a couple's Jack Russell Terrier late Christmas Eve outside their home ... The owner had stepped outside with the small dog about 11 p.m. to take some garbage to the alley and told wildlife officers that she "got a creepy feeling," division spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said. The woman ran back indoors, Churchill said, and accidentally left her dog outside. When the woman realized her pet wasn't with her, she got in her car, where she felt safer, and drove back into the alley with...

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and Bossier City Police Department (BPPD) responded to a call on Sunday, Nov. 30 that a cougar had been spotted in a residential neighborhood in Bossier City. LDWF’s efforts to immobilize the 125-pound cat with a tranquilizer dart were not immediately successful and BPPD officers shot the animal to minimize the possible threat to public safety. The state’s third documented cougar sighting in three months was witnessed by neighbors in Bossier City, as well as law enforcement officers, state biologists and news media representatives. The cougar was discovered in the same neighborhood...

Early last week a mountain lion snatched a family’s dog from their yard and killed it...in the Village of Oak Creek. The dog, approximately 12 pounds, was in the yard with the family’s other two dogs when the mountain lion attacked... Arizona Game and Fish Spokesman Zenon Mocarski said a game warden was called to the scene and determined the attacking animal was in fact a mountain lion. “It’s pretty easy to distinguish between a mountain lion and a coyote,” ... Since the attack... neighbor came over and told her to keep her children inside because the mountain lion was...

A 32-year-old Fort Worth woman accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy exchanged messages with the teen in which they stated that they loved each other and made reference to a previous sexual encounter, according to a forensic analysis of the boy’s phone. Nicole Elizabeth Gray denied having sex with the teen to police, but acknowledged sexual encounters in a recorded conversation with the boy’s parents at their house on Oct. 8, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

It was near midnight Tuesday when the woman was shocked awake in bed by the howling scream of her pet cat from under the bed. Through glazed, half-open eyes, Jane Chanteau, a 73-year-old grandmother, saw a giant animal next to her bed. "I was half asleep and first I though it was a big dog, trying to get under the bed, and I whacked him on the rear end, like, 'You're not getting my baby,' " Chanteau said. The animal leaped onto a box in the corner of the room. Chanteau realized she'd just swatted a 4-foot mountain lion that...

BLACKSTONE, Virginia — Like some other residents of the small town of Blackstone, Virginia, Mary Elizabeth Goodwyn doesn't go outside after dark much anymore.

BULL VALLEY – While driving down Thompson Road on Wednesday morning, Robert Poyner Sr. couldn’t believe his eyes. “At first I thought it was a couple of small deer,” he said. “And then I said, ‘Them ain’t deer; they’re two large cats.’ ” Images fresh in his mind from when a cougar was shot and killed by police in Chicago’s Roscoe Village in April, Poyner said the two animals looked similar. He described them as about the size of German shepherds with golden brown fur and long tails. “My first instinct was to call 911,” Poyner said. “I figured I’d...

A mountain lion is chased up a tree in downtown Palo Alto. Another one is shot after mauling a Chihuahua at a Watsonville mobile home park. In Los Gatos, a lion hits a car while trying to cross Summit Road. Peninsula and Silicon Valley residents rarely ponder the lives of mountain lions trying to survive in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But urban development — the razing of habitat for homes, roads and parking lots — is the chief obstacle the wild cats face every day as they hunt for deer and fulfill their instinct to roam hundreds of miles, looking...

Fox News correspondent Molly Henneberg, 34, married Marine Captain Chris Nagel, 30, in her hometown of Falls Church on Saturday. According to the DC Post, they met at a Christmas party seven months ago and got engaged three months later. She's covering the 2008 campaign. He's a military lawyer. First marriage for both.....

An animal tracker hired by city officials was heading into Foothills Park in Palo Alto tonight to hunt down and kill a mountain lion that attacked a man over the weekend, authorities said. Foothills Park and the adjacent Pearson-Arastradero Preserve were closed today after officials learned of the incident, the first known mountain lion attack in Palo Alto, said Palo Alto Police Agent Dan Ryan. The 50-year-old hiker was uninjured but narrowly escaped with his life after the cat leaped onto him from behind about 4 p.m. Saturday, sending man and beast tumbling down an embankment, Ryan said. The Portola...

BAQUBAH — With beads of sweat rolling down their neck, Soldiers from 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, labored away alongside members of the Iraqi Army and Sons of Iraq sweeping suspected Al-Qaida forces out of two separate villages south of Baqubah during Operation Cougar Storm recently. The operation was designed to deny Al-Qaida forces a place to stage Improvised Explosive Device attacks along key routes that Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians use, as well as establish an Iraqi Army presence in the area, said 1st Lt. Fernando Pelayo, a platoon leader with 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. The...

People in the Silver City/Pinos Altos, New Mexico, vicinity are nervously looking over their shoulders these days, fearing they may be the next meal for a mountain lion prowling the area... On Friday, the body of Robert Nowojski, 55, was found about 75 yards from his Pinos Altos home, severely mauled and partly fed upon. The animal would not leave until Game and Fish officers shot at it. Although not yet confirmed with an autopsy, authorities suspect the lion is responsible for the fatal attack. Hunters with hounds are now tracking the animal. Several people reported sightings of the mountain...

Wyoming officials confirm fifth case of plague found in mountain lions Friday, June 6, 2008 4:51 PM MDT Mountain lion hunters, the owners of domestic cats and others who may come in contact with mountain lions in Wyoming and other Western states are urged to protect themselves and their animals against plague. “Plague was confirmed in a mountain lion found dead in mid-April by a landowner in rural Johnson County,” said Todd Cornish, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture's Department of Veterinary Sciences. Cornish said this is the fifth case of plague confirmed in mountain...

A mountain lion attacking a small animal was spotted by students living near Gerhart Hall on the Bethany University campus in Scotts Valley Monday night, the second such sighting in as many days... Students reported seeing the cougar on both Sunday and Monday nights... Students are also being advised to avoid jogging or walking alone during the early morning hours or at dusk to avoid coming into contact with a mountain lion.

NEAR WIMER, Ore. - Two girls got a scary close encounter with an aggressive cougar in southern Oregon over the weekend.According to the family, 8-year-old Gina Granacki and 6-year-old Annie Granacki were riding their bikes to their home near Wimer on Saturday to grab a sandwich when the older girl was approached by the animal.Gina quickly followed the instructions her parents and school teachers had taught her, putting the bike between her and the mountain lion and not running."...She knows you can't run from a cougar," her mother, DeAnna, told KDRV-TV in Medford. "They'll attack."Her younger sister ran to get help,...

Mountain Lions Stop By For A Drink

TMZ has learned Clay Aiken is going to be a daddy. In case you didn't process that, Clay Aiken is going to be a daddy. Here's what we know. Multiple sources tell us the mother is Jaymes Foster, a record producer and Clay's best friend. He lives at her home when he's in L.A. We're told 50-year-old Foster, who produced several Aiken CDs, is due in August. She's the sister of record mogul David Foster. She divorced a few years back and has no kids. Aiken is 29.

A handful of mountain lions in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California soon will wear high-tech collars as part of a new study by researchers at the University of California, Santa   Cruz. The collars will reveal not only how these animals range within their sprawling  territories, but also how they hunt. The scientists aim to figure out ways to minimize conflicts between humans and mountain lions — also known as pumas and cougars. The collars combine Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite technology with an accelerometer, an electronic chip the size of a pinkie fingernail that measures acceleration and gravity....

A mountain lion stirred up some excitement near Flatiron Elementary School... The 138-pound cat was shot once with a tranquilizer gun but then bolted ... At 10:30 a.m., the cat was shot with another tranquilizer dart ... Agents carried the cat to ...an Open Space park in west Boulder where it was released. Wildlife officers said the cat is about 2-years-old and known in the neighborhood. The same mountain lion was in the same neighborhood last week. In that incident, the mountain lion was tranquilized, but managed to run away. The cat also appears to have a high tolerance for...

Confronting Lion Was Breathtaking Experience. “I was walking this trail I had made, hunting for mushrooms, when I came across a deer carcass which hadn't been there before,” said Ron Olson... “I kind of looked around and didn't see anything. When I turned around, just to my left, there stood a mountain lion.” The lion sighting was officially confirmed Friday by officials from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. It is the state's first confirmed sighting in four years. About 90 minutes after they set up the camera, four shots were taken of the mountain lion eating on the carcass....

Finding strength in faith, Anne Hjelle is determined to recover after she was mauled while mountain biking in a wilderness park.A young woman walked into a restaurant last week and sat close enough to get a good look at Anne Hjelle's face. A mountain lion had torn off the left side four years before, leaving it hanging by a flap of skin. Six surgeries hadn't camouflaged the scars. "She saw me and had a deer-in-the-headlights look," said Hjelle, 35, of Mission Viejo. "She quickly got up and moved so she didn't have to look at me." The stranger's reaction didn't...

The video shot in Jack Foerschler’s barn shows his flock of sheep lying quietly in the dark... The flock seems peaceful, until the animals are suddenly startled. A nanosecond later, a blur leaps into the screen and tackles one of the sheep. The ewe is able to escape momentarily, jumping up from the creature’s clutches, running to the viewer’s left. But the invader is faster. It bounds to its feet and extends a claw toward its fleeing prey. The viewer can see its massive claws, slender muscular body and distinctively long tail. The culprit that killed four ewes, a ram...

Agile, fast and fierce, cougars once hunted their prey throughout Yosemite National Park, but as human invasions and hunting began about 80 years ago, the predators steadily disappeared, and the entire ecology of the fabled valley was disrupted, researchers say they have discovered. With fewer cougars to prey on them, Yosemite's mule deer multiplied and browsed on the tasty shoots of young black oak trees. The oaks disappeared, pines and firs replaced them, and even the wild evening primrose, known for its nutritious roots and its perfumed oil, grew rare among the altered plant growth in the valley's moist meadow...

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is addressing recent internet rumors claiming photographic evidence of cougars in Illinois. These photos are being falsely identified as being taken in Illinois – in many cases claiming to be taken near Findlay in Shelby County. The photos are real, but appear to have been taken in 2001 or 2002 in Lander, Wyoming where cougars are common. The Internet rumors have been circulating throughout Illinois via email and usually misidentify the location of the photos. “While it is not completely impossible for a cougar to be found in Illinois, sighting of...