To everyone else, he is the president of the United States, but to his young daughters Barack Obama is just Dad, who sometimes messes stuff up.

The president's 11-year-old daughter Sasha on Sunday gave a rare glimpse into the 44th U.S. president's personal life, after watching her father take the oath of office to begin his second term.

A British professor who specializes in cities and urban life has been convicted of damaging luxury cars with graffiti that was surprisingly polite.

Stephen Graham was found guilty Friday of using a screwdriver to scrawl inoffensive words such as "very silly," ''really wrong" and "arbitrary" into the paintwork of vehicles including a Mercedes, an Audi, and a Volvo.

The maple leaf shown on Canada's new $20 bills is from a Norway maple, which is not native to Canada, several botanists cited by Canadian media decried Friday.

Canada's iconic red maple leaf image appears on its flag, government logos and countless other branding of Canadiana.

The townsfolk of Kikinda in northeast Serbia have welcomed an unlikely intruder into their midst, even decreeing stiff fines for anyone who dares disturb the peace of the long-eared owls that have made this their winter refuge.

Officials said Friday that a fine of up to 10,000 euros ($13,000) will be payable for disturbing the 700-odd birds that find shelter in the town's central treetops from November to May.

A lion that escaped from a private South African game reserve has been terrorizing residents of the small northern town of Makhado for a week, police said on Thursday.

Police have been hunting for the beast, but so far have been chasing their tails.

"Bob" the software engineer was becoming a modern workplace legend on Thursday as word spread that he had secretly outsourced his own job to China and sat at his desk watching cat videos.

The tale of Bob blazed across the Internet after being told in a Verizon security team blog post about the most "memorable" case investigators handled last year.

A seven-year-old boy brought a gun to school in his book bag Thursday, New York police said.

The find -- a .22 caliber handgun -- caused police to place the Wave Preparatory Elementary School in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens on lockdown for about an hour.

"Ted," the drug-smoking, foul-mouthed teddy bear who was a blockbuster hit last year, is to appear at the Oscars next month, his onscreen sidekick Mark Wahlberg said Thursday.

Comedian Seth MacFarlane, who is hosting the February 24 Academy Awards, has secured the invitation for his comic creation and Walhberg to appear on stage at Hollywood's biggest awards show.

Dogs, cats, parrots and other pets, some dressed in their finest winter coats, entered churches across Spain on Thursday to be blessed on the feast day of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of animals.

Animal lovers lined up outside the main entrance to the Church of San Anton in central Madrid with their pets on leashes or wrapped in blankets in their arms as they waited for a priest to sprinkle the animals with holy water.

Google on Wednesday moved to reassure users that no animals were harmed in the making of its popular maps after a street view picture surfaced of a donkey lying on the side of a road.

The message put out Wednesday by the Internet giant was prompted by reaction to the picture, which gave the impression that a Google Maps car had run over a donkey on a dirt road while gathering Street View images in Botswana.