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An emu that had been on the loose for over a week in West Virginia was captured after wandering into a resident's yard.

Residents of Williamstown and Parkersburg reported seeing the emu wandering through their neighborhoods in recent days, and sightings reported on social media indicate the large, flightless bird had been wandering the area for over a week.

Christy Braham said her husband was doing worn on their Parkersburg house Wednesday evening when he found the emu inside the home's backyard fence.

The Brahams called 911, and personnel from the Wood County Sheriff's Office arrived on the scene to capture the bird.

"It took a little while, about 15-20 minutes to corral him to where they can touch him and get him down. My husband helped them. And then they kind of like hogtied him so he didn't use his legs," Braham told WTAP-TV.

The emu was placed in the care of Earl Khorsrovi, owner of Alpaca Run Farms, while authorities try to find the animal's owner.

Khorsrovi said the emu, which he dubbed Kevin, is very tame and not aggressive, indicating it was once kept as a pet. He said the bird may have been on the loose for longer than sightings would indicate.

"When we got him, we looked over him yesterday and today and he was covered in ticks. So we had pulled a lot of ticks off of him already. So he's been out there for a while," Khorsrovi said.

Khorsrovi said Kevin will have a new permanent home at his farm if no owner comes forward to claim the Australian bird.

Authorities in Florida said an angry alligator measuring more than 11 feet long put up such a fierce fight during capture that it knocked over a light pole.

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post that deputies and personnel from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission responded to a Rotonda home about 1 a.m. earlier this week on a report of an alligator lurking underneath the homeowner's parked Jeep.

Authorities arrived to find the massive alligator, measuring 11 feet and 2 inches long, was in a foul mood.

The sheriff's office shared video of the alligator roaring as it attempted to escape from a snare around its body.

The struggling gator "took out the homeowner's light pole," the post said.

A Michigan man said he won a $139,221 prize from the Michigan Lottery, despite believing that the initial email notifying him of his victory was a scam.

The 32-year-old man from Oakland County, Mich., chose to remain anonymous, but said on Thursday that the money "couldn't have come at a better time."

He said, though, that when he first heard the news of his jackpot, which was sent by the lottery via email, he thought that it was likely a scam.

"My wife called me crying one day and told me about an email that had just came through informing me that I'd won a $139,221 Lottery prize," the man said. "We agreed not to get too excited yet, thinking maybe it was a scam email."

"When we called the Lottery and confirmed the prize was real, my wife started crying and I couldn't stop pacing the house in shock."

The lucky winner said that he then went to the Michigan Lottery headquarters to claim his prize. He told the lottery that he was planning to use the money to take a vacation, and spend the rest opening college funds for his two daughters.

The Michigan Lottery said that the man didn't actually win the money by playing the regular lottery game. His victory actually came when he was selected in a random July drawing that he entered by playing the state's online lottery game.

A portion of every purchase on the online game is used to fund a jackpot that is awarded in a monthly "second chance" drawing, the lottery said. A new drawing period begins each month with the pot being reset to $5,000.

Players are able to earn one entry in the second chance drawing for every $0.50 that they spend online.

In addition to the state lottery, a number of Michiganders have seen significant wins playing national lottery games such as the Mega Millions.

In January 2021, a person bought a winning Mega Millions ticket at a grocery store in Novi, Mich.

This ticket made them the recipient of a $1.05 billion jackpot, the third-largest in United States history.

And just days ago, it was announced that a Genesee County, Mich., man won his second lottery jackpot in 15 years, bringing home $339,768 after previously winning $250,000 in 2007.

In life-changing situations such as these, Jake Harris of the Michigan Lottery gave some helpful tips for anyone who would win such a prize.

"What I would tell the winner is that they're gonna want to make sure to sign the back of the ticket and keep it in a very safe place," Harris told the Detroit Free Press. "A lottery ticket is a bearer instrument. So, in order to claim the prize, they have to have that original ticket in their hand."

"If they don't have the ticket we can't pay on the prize so just make sure to [keep it] safe at home or some people do a safety deposit box," Harris said, adding that many people take a long time to claim their earnings as they attempt to wrap their head around the news.

The annual Hemingway Look-Alike Contest began in Key West Thursday, marking the 123rd anniversary of Ernest Hemingway’s July 21 birth.

This year’s competition attracted 135 portly, bearded men, who are endeavoring to prove their likeness to the famed American author. The contest is a highlight of Key West’s annual Hemingway Days festivities, staged to celebrate the creative talent and colorful lifestyle of the man who lived and wrote on the island for most of the 1930s.

Thursday night’s entrants paraded across the stage at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, where Hemingway and his cohorts often met for drinks, before a judging panel of former contest winners.

Most had full beards and wore sportsman’s attire, seemingly emulating the “Papa” persona adopted by Hemingway in his later years.

On Thursday morning, a group of look-alikes helped release a 185-pound (83-kilogram) rehabilitated loggerhead sea turtle, coincidentally dubbed “Papa” when it was rescued after being entangled in fishing line, off the Florida Keys’ Sombrero Beach in Marathon.

The look-alike contest’s second preliminary round is set for Friday, and the 2022 winner is set to be chosen Saturday night.

Late Wednesday, Nick Henke of St. Louis, Missouri, was named the winner of the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. His entry, “A Lot of Carrefours,” triumphed over 775 other American and international submissions, judged by Ernest Hemingway’s author granddaughter.

Hemingway Days continues through Sunday with events including an offbeat “Running of the Bulls” spoof and the Key West Marlin Tournament.

While living in Key West during most of the 1930s, Hemingway wrote classics including “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “To Have and Have Not.”

A Texas man said a painting he bought for $125 at a thrift store is being donated to a museum after it was found to be a work by famed Georgia artist Keith Bankston.

William Pugh, an assistant professor of practice for the University Texas at San Antonio Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, said the painting caught his eye during a recent trip to a thrift store.

Pugh said he suspected the $125 painting, which depicts the biblical Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, might be an original, so he did some research to find out more about the piece and its artist.

The painting turned out to be Eve in the Rose Garden, a 1982 work by Georgia artist Keith Bankston, who died at the age of only 34 in 1992.

Pugh decided to donate the painting to the Tubman African American Museum in Macon, Ga., after learning the facility had several of Bankston's other works on display.

The museum has not yet determined the painting's value.

"Even if it's worth substantially more, I've always had the inclination that I wanted to donate it," Pugh said in a UTSA news release. "The Tubman Museum in Macon is the perfect place for it."

He said the painting deserves to be seen by the public.

"Hanging in an office or a bedroom in my house probably wouldn't be the best place for it," he said.

A Texas man who has been collecting Sonic the Hedgehog memorabilia for 30 years earned a Guinness World Record when his cache of items was officially tallied at 3,050.

Barry Evans of Dayton said he bought a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Genesis in 1992 -- his first-ever video game purchase -- and he's been hooked on the character ever since.

"Sonic The Hedgehog has been my passion for 30 years," Evans told Guinness World Records.

Evans said the game was the first item in his collection, and the second was a Sonic-themed bubble gum container in 1993.

"Later I saw a poster and more toys, and I just started decorating my room with it," he said.

Evans said some of the most treasured items in his collection are giant statues of Sonic and his sidekick, Tails, that were decorations at a Toys 'R' Us store for years.

He said his most unique item is a mold used to create plastic Sonic toys for British Burger King restaurants.

The most recent addition is a pair of Sonic and Tails plush walkie-talkies from Japan. He said the items cost him $1,700.

"There is a lot of amazing Sonic the Hedgehog stuff that never sees the U.S. shores. The Internet opened up the world for collectors," he said.

The collector said earning a Guinness World Record for his collection is validating.

"It was just incredible to have Guinness World Records give me vindication for my collection. To have my collection recognized by Guinness World Records is a life-fulfilling event to me."

A pair of Italian men broke an unusual Guinness World Record by changing a tire on a vehicle while it was in motion.

Guinness World Records announced driver Manuel Zoldan and tire-changer Gianluca Folco captured the record for fastest time to change a wheel on a car while driving when they achieved the feat in 1 minute and 17 seconds on the set of Italy's Lo Show dei Record.

The video of the attempt shows Zoldan drive the car, a BMW 3-Series onto a ramp that flipped the vehicle onto two wheels, allowing Folco to hang out of the car and quickly change the tire while the vehicle continued to move.

Guinness said the duo beat the previous record of 1 minute and 30 seconds.

A parish council accidentally planted some cannabis plants in a flowerbed before a passing gardener spotted what they really were.

Of course, the question here is – how did they know what they were?

Seriously though, the folks at the community group in West Parley, Dorset, were just trying to give their little part of the world a splash of colour for summer but made a big mistake.

Worse still, according to a recent photo on social media, the plants were left there for a few days afterwards.

West Parley Parish Council were alerted to the presence of a different kind of pot plant in their planters by Tray Veronica, who saw the ‘interesting plants’ sticking out of the display whilst on the school run.

She explained: “I was driving to drop my daughter off and as I drove down New Road I saw the planter, being a gardener I always notice things like that. But as I looked over I thought ‘oh my god, is that what I think it is?’”

Spoiler alert - it was.

Tray continued: “When I drove past again I stopped to have a closer look and yes, it’s definitely cannabis. I was laughing all the way home.

“But at first there were six plants in there, now there’s only two. The first ones were so big, they were towering above the bedding plants. They absolutely thrived on that planter.”

There you go, if you need to grow any weed, forget the energy consuming grows in houses, just stick them in a lovely floral display with some daffodils and chrysanthemums.

Of course, that’s a joke – don’t grow weed or do drugs, kids.

Tray first saw the plants on 17 July, but two days afterwards the West Parley Parish Council shared a picture of the planters that they were obviously very proud of, to which one person commented: “Smokin’.”

After a council meeting took place on Wednesday, the council released an update.

A spokesperson said: “On 20th July, the parish council was alerted to a report concerning one of the village’s floral displays, which suggested it may have been tampered with and amongst the flowers was a plant not part of this year’s schedule.

“On the advice of the police, the plant was located, removed and has been secured by the parish council and arrangements are being made to pass it on to Dorset Police for identification and destruction.

“An inspection has taken place of all the parish’s other planters, and this has not raised any further concerns.”

For her part, Tray added: “I hope the council can see the funny side. It is worth adding that all the planters around the village do look beautiful, they’ve done a great job.”

We shouldn’t have to tell you this, but it is prohibited by UK law to cultivate cannabis plants, meaning tending, watering, feeding, and nurturing them is against the law.

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