Flat-Screen TVs Must Use Less Energy: Calif.

Man arrested after neighbors report screeching, smelling 'awful meat'

(NEWSER) - Disgusted cops in Bakersfield say they've arrested a man on suspicion of cooking and eating cats. Jason Louis Wilmer was charged with animal cruelty and using a pet or domesticated animal for food after neighbors heard cats screeching at his house and called police, AP reports. "I heard a cat cry. It was a weird cry, real loud," a neighbor told KBAK-TV . He said he went outside to peer into Wilmert's backyard, where he saw "a little burner going" and smelled "awful meat." A search of the home turned up evidence that indicated Wilmert "had the intent to use a cat for food," investigators say. "I've never seen anything like this," said a sheriff's spokesman. More»

Reality show to reveal moment couple learned of miscarriage

(NEWSER) - After 19 kids, the Duggars aren't calling it quits. "We would be open to more if God saw fit to bless us with more," Michelle Duggar tells Today in her first interview after a miscarriage in December . Even after the "devastating" experience, "I would do it again," she says. "We realize our sweet little Jubilee is with the Lord, and we will see her again someday." Meanwhile, they're enjoying being grandparents to two. More»

Both Battleground and Lilyhammer get mixed reviews, as streaming services branch out

(NEWSER) - Online streaming sites Hulu and Netflix both launched original series this week, as both services take baby steps toward competing with regular television, reports Gigaom . A look at each:

• Hulu's Battleground is the more conventional of the two, a 13-episode comedy about a Senate campaign in Wisconsin that started today, with a new 22-minute episode airing each Tuesday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has solid praise for Battleground, saying it is "a smart, well-written comedy series you might find on a premium cable network." The AP is less kind, however, calling it "a light, watered-down knockoff of The Office," while the New York Daily News comes down somewhere in-between.

County shutting down innovative sheriff-supervised grower program

(NEWSER) - The US county with one of the highest concentrations of pot farms—and tokers—is finally caving in to pressure from the feds. California officials in Mendocino County are snuffing out an innovative medical marijuana program that put pot growers under the supervision of the county sheriff. The program was the first of its kind in the nation, and was generally a hit with locals—but not with federal law enforcement, reports NPR . Sheriff's Sergeant Randy Johnson supervised some 100 growers in the county and earned his department more than $500,000 in fees. "I can't describe the joy of feeling that we were finally part of the county, not the outcasts," said one grower. More»

Wesley Shermantine, partner killed up to 20 in decade-long murder spree

(NEWSER) - A serial killer on Death Row is giving up the locations of the bodies of up to 20 people he killed—for the tidy sum of $33,000, reports the LA Times . Convicted murderer Wesley Shermantine drew maps of two dumping grounds after he was paid by a Sacramento bounty hunter to reveal where he and his partner hid their victims' bodies from a drug-fueled murder spree that began in the mid-1980s and lasted more than a decade. "We have information that we may have 10 to 20 bodies in that well," said an investigator yesterday, referring to a farmland site identified by Shermantine. More»