Odd News Roundup: Can dogs be pets, N.Y. judge asks lawyer trying to free Happy the elephant; U.S. officials say Pentagon committed to understanding UFO origins

Following is a summary of current odd news briefs. Can dogs be pets, N.Y. judge asks lawyer trying to free Happy the elephant Would granting a female elephant some of the same rights as humans mean people could no longer keep dogs as pets?

Following is a summary of current odd news briefs.

Can dogs be pets, N.Y. judge asks lawyer trying to free Happy the elephant

Would granting a female elephant some of the same rights as humans mean people could no longer keep dogs as pets? That was among the questions that judges on New York state's top court during arguments in Albany on Wednesday asked a lawyer for an animal rights group that is pushing to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo.

U.S. officials say Pentagon committed to understanding UFO origins

Two senior U.S. defense intelligence officials said on Tuesday the Pentagon is committed to determining the origins of what it calls "unidentified aerial phenomena" - commonly termed UFOs - but acknowledged many remain beyond the government's ability to explain. The two officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray appeared before a House of Representatives intelligence subcommittee for the first public U.S. congressional hearing on the subject in a half-century. It came 11 months after a government report documented more than 140 cases of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, that U.S. military pilots had observed since 2004.

(With inputs from agencies.)