A jury on Wednesday sentenced a Virginia woman to one year in jail for trying to extort money from the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain by putting a dead mouse in a bowl of soup. She has also been fined a $2,500. Carla Patterson, 38, and her accomplice, also her son, Ricky Patterson, 22, sought $500,000 from the chain after claiming they found the rodent in the vegetable soup the woman ordered at a Newport News restaurant on Mother's Day weekend in 2004.

A new reality TV show will feature 10 cats living behind a New York store window and vying for new owners. Reuters reports the show will be aired on Animal Planet as well as on the www. MeowMixHouse. com Web site.

A tiny mouse created panic after it cut electric power to more than 40 percent of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. The mouse managed to short circuit a 40-megawatt power plant south of the city.

A man who stuffed a dead mouse into his Taco Bell burrito in a botched extortion attempt was sentenced Friday to 16 to 30 months in prison. Ryan Daniel Goff, 20, pleaded guilty last month to a felony count of attempted false pretenses between $1,000 and $20,000.

A man was sentenced 16 to 30 months in prison after putting a dead mouse in his burrito and then complaining to a Taco Bell restaurant. According to reports, Ryan Daniel Goff told a Taco Bell employee his burrito tasted funny then reported finding a dead mouse in his food to a local health department.