In March, we featured 15 cats and seven dogs in our pet feature in the weekday version of our newsletter, the Morning Report.

It’s a popular way we sign off for the day.

“I enjoy this feature of the paper,” Becky wrote. “My favorite!”

Check out more pet photos in our February slideshow.

Friday, March 28

Mocha

“Here are a few pics of my daughter’s cat, Mocha,” Jeane writes. “Mocha was a stray kitten who we think was dropped off in the country. Mocha managed to get to my daughter’s grandfather’s house, who took care of Mocha until my daughter could pick her up.

“Mocha has more toys than I’ve ever seen a cat have and is quite spoiled. My daughter enjoys dressing her up in bows and bandanas — much to Mocha’s dismay. Mocha loves looking out the windows on her cat ledge, taking naps and playing with all of her toys.

“Thanks for the pet photo section — we love seeing it every day!”

Thursday, March 27

Steve is enjoying his new home.

“Steve has settled in,” Linda writes. “These are his two favorite spots. He’s following in my footsteps!”

Wednesday, March 26

Bibbs, Sarge and Toby.

“Gibbs, 2, Sarge, 7, and Toby, 12,” Marilyn writes. “They all hang out together every day. They all have a better life than all of us humans, and they deserve it!”

Tuesday, March 25

Tailsrus Dream Maker of Softnotes.

“I hope you’re having a nice spring,” Jill writes. “Our furry crowd is doing well and I am attaching a picture of our Kurilian Bobtail Longhair, Tailsrus Dream Maker of Softnotes.

“This breed is very unusual and like some other bobtails they have a short tail consisting of kinked vertebrae and a pom-pom at the end. Because he is longhaired it’s more difficult to see the tail. They originated in the Kurilian Region of Russia and he comes by the way of Canada where he was bred.

“He will be on display at the Gopher State Cat Club show April 26 and 27 at the Crystal Community Center located at 4800 Douglas Drive N. in Crystal. The show runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and there will be dozens of breeds and exhibitors happy to talk about their cats and their care. There will also be vendors with lots of products for cats and their people.”

Monday, March 24

Sookie and Chloe as wedding attendants. (Photos by Betsy Wall)

“I love your pet column,” Nancy writes. “These are my grandpups, Sookie and Chloe, two French bulldogs who died four years ago. There were half sisters and died from different cancers a month apart.

“Here are Sookie and Chloe at their peak of beauty and sophistication. The ring bearers at my daughter’s wedding, they are kissing the flower girl. They were never that elegant again, after all they are Frenchies.”

Friday, March 21

Honey

“Thanks for keeping your wonderful pet column going, it is such a day brightener,” Sylvia writes. “Speaking of day brighteners, I have attached a photo of my sister Jane’s cat, Honey. Jane adopted Honey from the Animal Humane Society in Woodbury on Aug. 4, 2023, my sister’s 80th birthday. Honey was a year old at the time. Jane and Honey did lots of bird watching this winter. Blue jays would show up on the patio almost every day, providing hours of entertainment.”

Thursday, March 20

Dude and Wanda.

Dude and Wanda, two cats described in a poem-like email from Julene:

They are the constant companions of nephew Joe.

Laying on the floor

Dude on left

Wanda on right

One of favorite activities:

Hanging out on their tower

Watching dogs walking by.

Wednesday, March 19

Yoshi Neko

“Yoshi Neko is a 9-year-old tom,” Jeff writes. “He came to us as a stray in 2017. He has the most personality of any cat we’ve ever had. He is the first to the door when anyone comes over and if you don’t like cats, he considers you a project. His vices are bread in bags on the counter and tropical fish food, which he considers a condiment that should be shared. We absolutely love our bandit.”

Tuesday, March 18

Butters

“The cat distribution system found me a couple of years ago while I was staying at an Airbnb in southern Illinois,” Gina writes. “As soon as I checked in this young cat was at the door trying to get in. I thought maybe he belonged to the building owner, he was so friendly and had no fear of my big dogs. Over the next few days I saw him scavenging for food in the dumpster and sleeping on the porch. On the last day of my trip I checked with neighbors to see if he belonged to someone and was told he was just a stray. I tried to get a hold of a local rescue with no luck. I couldn’t just leave him, so I bought a small kennel and squeezed him into my packed truck with the dogs and made the twelve hour drive home. Welcome home Butters!”

Monday, March 17 (Memorial Monday)

Chester and family.

When we say goodbye to a pet, we grieve; so do the other pets in our home.

“Chester, my college roommate’s cat, was the sweetest and had everyone wrapped around his paw — even his dog roomies, which he showed who was boss by taking over their bed!” Calia writes. “His furry friends (cat Merlin and dogs Ringo and Guinness) and humans, Kelsey and Travis, miss him.”

Friday, March 14

Snoop Dog and Martha

“Snoop Dog is a rescue Cocker/Chihuahua Mix from Kentucky,” Mary writes. “Martha Stewart is a cockapoo who will turn 1 in Jan.. They love to play and wrestle each other for toys and chase each other in the yard. We joke that they are the reason we can’t have nice things. Martha’s favorite pastime is stealing toilet paper, Kleenex and socks from the laundry. Snoop Dog loves to curl up on the couch next to his human. We couldn’t imagine life without them.Snoop Dog was so patient with his Mom dressing him up.”

Thursday, March 13

Raj and Rumi.

“The most meowgical time of year for siblings Raj and Rumi, Lynx Point Siamese from Wags n Whiskers rescue,” Seth writes.

Wednesday, March 12

“In early December 2023, on a very gray Sunday, after months of rattling around in my new house by myself and feeling kinda lonely, I spied a photo of a sweet-looking kitty on my hometown animal rescue’s Facebook page. Something about her intrigued me and I found myself revisiting her photo several times that day. Long story short, I made the nearly four-hour trek the following weekend to meet her. And, well, Gracie (aka Heeeer Kitty Kitty) accompanied me back to the Twin Cities the next day.

Gracie

“A few days later, I couldn’t find Gracie anywhere. After walking through the living room for the fourteenth time, I discovered her hanging out with the Christmas decor on top of the entertainment center (yes, I still had one of those). She was the prettiest ornament up there! I climbed up on a chair and stifled a laugh as I grabbed her. How did she get up there? After a few minutes of scratching my head, I realized she must have jumped up on the kitchen counter, leaped up on the refrigerator, up onto the partial wall, and then made her way to the entertainment center, jumping down and artfully arranging herself in the garland. I wondered how long she had been mapping that out in her mind.

“It has been a year of ‘Where-is-she-now’ searches around the house (her coloring makes her blend in with the furnishings), as well as plain old domestic bliss for both of us. I feel immensely blessed that we found one another.”

Tuesday, March 11

Ninja Marie and Mo

“Tis the season for chilling under the Christmas tree before the presents arrive!” Meridy wrote. “Ninja Marie is our sweet girl, adopted from Feline Rescue summer 2022. She fit into our family right away and is the best cat. When she’s not curled up next to one of us, she’s alternating between avoiding attention from and instigating chases with our Cockapoo rescue, Mo. Here’s a photo of a rare brief moment of calm between the two.”

Monday, March 10

Ida

“This is my dad and stepmom’s cat who was adopted as a tiny, scared kitten many years ago,” Becky writes. “She has the run of the land they live on, sleeps on the flowers in the garden and likes to drink out of the lake. In the winter she spends most of the day indoors and enjoys the fireplace and can’t wait for her nightly treats, giving my dad a gentle reminder that it’s treat time, if necessary. She is a bright spot in their lives. I enjoy this feature of the paper. My favorite!”

Friday, March 7

Dempsey

“Here’s a picture of Dempsey enjoying the snow this morning!” Sean wrote in December. “Having moved here from Texas six years ago, he’s been fascinated by the winter weather here and always watches it from our windows looking out over Union Depot.”

Thursday, March 6

Charlie, waiting for baseball season.

“Waiting for Spring!” writes Susan. “This is Charlie, my 3-year-old Springerdoodle, modeling his Christmas present. He is not crazy about wearing clothes but he looks so darn cute wearing his Twins gear!”

Wednesday, March 5

Welcome home, Steve.

“Good morning!” Linda writes. “This is 5-month-old Steve. He came from Humane Society of the Lakes in Detroit Lakes. He is a very welcome addition to my home. Even if he is a little boisterous.”

Tuesday, March 4

Franklin

“Greetings from Franklin, in one of his favorite spots,” write Sue and Bruce. “He keeps us entertained with his zoomies and cuddling. And he’s always better dressed than we are!”

Monday, March 3

Skittles

“Skittles is a British Shorthair cat that my dad had flown in from Seattle for me when I was 9 years old,” writes Avi Noelle of Vadnais Heights. “I am now 21 and celebrating our 12th ‘Gotcha Day.’”

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Today is Wednesday, April 2, the 92nd day of 2025. There are 273 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, the Polish pope born Karol Józef Wojtyła, died in his Vatican apartment at age 84. The first non-Italian pope in over 450 years, John Paul II became one of the most influential leaders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries while playing a crucial role in the fall of communism in Europe.

Also on this date:

In 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

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2,350 Minnesotans were sterilized under state’s 1925 eugenics law — most of them women

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after Union troops broke through Confederate lines in the Third Battle of Petersburg.

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declared war four days later.)

In 1982, Argentine troops seized the disputed Falkland Islands from the United Kingdom, sparking the Falklands War.

In 1992, mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering; he was later sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Gotti died in prison in 2002.)

In 2007, in its first case on climate change, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

In 2012, a gunman killed seven people at Oikos University, a Christian school in Oakland, California. (The gunman, One Goh, died in 2019 while serving a life prison sentence.)

In 2020, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 1 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Today’s Birthdays:

Disc jockey Dr. Demento is 84.
Actor Linda Hunt is 80.
Musician Emmylou Harris is 78.
Actor Christopher Meloni is 64.
Tennis Hall of Famer Todd Woodbridge is 54.
Actor Pedro Pascal is 50.
Actor Adam Rodriguez is 50.
Actor Michael Fassbender is 48.
Country musician Chris Janson is 39.
Actor Jesse Plemons is 37.
Rapper Quavo is 34.
Country musician Zach Bryan is 29.

Anthony Edwards scored 24 points over the final 16 and a half minutes of basketball. Nikola Jokic scored 61 points while playing 34 straight minutes.

Minnesota trailed by eight with five minutes to play in regulation, then led by six with two minutes to play in the first overtime.

And all of that paled in comparison to the chaos that took place over the final 18 seconds of the second overtime in Denver in Tuesday’s nationally-televised affair.

Minnesota inbounded the ball, trailing the Nuggets 139-138. Edwards got the ball and was almost immediately doubled, a look Denver employed often down the stretch. Edwards made a number of nice reads out of the double team Tuesday, but this bounce pass went to no one. Russell Westbrook scooped up the loose ball and off he and Christian Braun went on a 2-on-1 fastbreak.

They passed the ball back and forth until Westbrook had a wide-open layup at the rim that should’ve put Denver up three with nine ticks to play … but he came up well short and it clanked off the bottom of the iron. Nickeil Alexander-Walker grabbed the rebound and back Minnesota went the other way.

Mike Conley got the ball to Edwards, who encroached the paint as the final seconds waned off the clock, and kicked out to an open Alexander-Walker.

Alexander-Walker was brilliant Tuesday, knocking down five triples while also tallying eight assists and seven rebounds. But his attempt at the buzzer hit the front iron. It appeared as though the Wolves had dropped a thriller … until they hadn’t.

The ref standing right next to Alexander-Walker signaled a foul. Sure enough, a hard-charging Westbrook hit Alexander-Walker’s arm and body as he frantically tried to close out on the shooter. So, with 0.1 seconds to play in the second overtime, Alexander-Walker went to the line for three free-throws.

He swished the first two, securing Minnesota’s 140-139 victory, the Wolves’ fourth-straight victory in perhaps the wildest game of the entire NBA regular season.

Minnesota was without Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid, who were suspended as a result of their roles in the fight with Detroit on Sunday. Denver was sans Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., both of which were surprising absences. Murray experienced hamstring tightness on Tuesday, while Porter Jr. missed the game for personal reasons.

Denver doesn’t possess anything resembling Minnesota’s depth. So its short-handed roster had to be carried by Jokic and Aaron Gordon. The Serbian MVP candidate had 10 rebounds and 10 assists to go with his gaudy point total, which was a new career high for him. Jokic didn’t sit a second minute after halftime, as Denver coach Mike Malone went all in on trying to pull off the victory.

Yet Jokic never seemed to fatigue. He continued to generate good shots for himself and his teammates. Unfortunately for him, the only teammate knocking any of those looks down was Gordon. The forward, who was absent for last month’s meeting in which Minnesota thrashed the Nuggets in Denver, finished with 30 points and eight rebounds. He and Jokic sparked a flurry to open the fourth quarter that quickly moved the Nuggets from down five to up two.

Minnesota was stuck in neutral for the next four minutes of action, until its best player finally came to life. Edwards was largely a bystander for the first 40-plus minutes of Tuesday’s affair. But he nailed a triple to trim Minnesota’s deficit to eight with fewer than seven minutes to go in the fourth. Then he used his gravity to set up teammates for a series of plays.

He then hit a triple to knot the game at 108-108 with 2:34 to play, and hit another to put Minnesota up 25 seconds later.

At that point, it appeared as though the Wolves were set to put away the Nuggets. But that never happened. Minnesota had chances to win the game at the end of regulation and overtime. But the final offensive possessions left much to be desired.

With the game tied at 112-112, Julius Randle’s triple try at the end of the fourth was no good.

With 24 seconds to play in overtime, Minnesota forced a rare Jokic miss to get the ball back with a two-point lead. At that point, Denver would’ve had to foul. But Edwards stunningly threw the ball across the court, and the pass was picked off by Braun. Jokic tied the game on Denver’s ensuing possession, and Minnesota’s final shot attempt was an air ball from Jaden McDaniels.

The second overtime was the whackiest of all, even before the wild final sequence. There were eight lead changes over that five-minute span. The game was knotted with 20 seconds to play, when officials didn’t get a good view on an out-of-bounds call, and therefore ruled a jump ball. McDaniels fouled Jokic on the resulting jump, and the center hit one free throw to put Denver on top.

And the chaos ensued from there.

With the win, Minnesota (44-32) completed a season sweep of Denver, and has now topped the Nuggets (47-29) six-straight times dating back to last year’s second-round playoff series.

More importantly for the Wolves, they moved into a tie for the all-important No. 6 seed with Memphis. The Grizzlies own the head-to-head tiebreaker, but they’re in free fall at the moment and have a far more difficult schedule than Minnesota with six games to play.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in “Top Gun,” donned a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors,” has died. He was 65.

Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, said in an email to The Associated Press.

Val Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies.

“I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed,” he says toward the end of “Val,” the 2021 documentary on his career. “And I am blessed.”

Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984’s spy spoof “Top Secret!” followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including “MacGruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”

FILE – Val Kilmer poses for a portrait, Jan. 9, 2014, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

His movie career hit its zenith in the early 1990s as he made a name for himself as a dashing leading man, starring alongside Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in 1993’s “Tombstone,” as Elvis’ ghost in “True Romance” and as a bank-robbing demolition expert in Michael Mann’s 1995 film “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

The actor — who took part in the Method branch of Suzuki arts training — threw himself into parts. When he played Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” he filled his bed with ice for the final scene to mimic the feeling of dying from tuberculosis. To play Morrison, he wore leather pants all the time, asked castmates and crew to only refer to him as Jim Morrison and blasted The Doors for a year.

That intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation that he was difficult to work with, something he grudgingly agreed with later in life, but always defending himself by emphasizing art over commerce.

FILE – Val Kilmer poses for a portrait in New York, Tuesday, April 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File)

“In an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life into a myriad of Hollywood moments, I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,” he wrote in his memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry.”

One of his more iconic roles — hotshot pilot Tom “Iceman” Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise — almost didn’t happen. Kilmer was courted by director Tony Scott for “Top Gun” but initially balked. “I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me,” he wrote in his memoir. He agreed after being promised that his role would improve from the initial script. He would reprise the role in the film’s 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

One career nadir was playing Batman in Joel Schumacher’s goofy, garish “Batman Forever” with Nicole Kidman and opposite Chris O’Donnell‘s Robin — before George Clooney took up the mantle for 1997’s “Batman & Robin” and after Michael Keaton played the Dark Knight in 1989’s “Batman” and 1992’s “Batman Returns.”

Janet Maslin in The New York Times said Kilmer was “hamstrung by the straight-man aspects of the role,” while Roger Ebert deadpanned that he was a “completely acceptable” substitute for Keaton. Kilmer, who was one and done as Batman, blamed much of his performance on the suit.

The Times was the first to report his death on Tuesday.

“When you’re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down,” Kilmer said in “Val.” “You also can’t hear anything and after a while people stop talking to you, it’s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit, and it was frustrating until I realised that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.”

FILE – Actor Val Kilmer attends the British premiere of his new movie “Alexander” in London, Jan. 5, 2005. (AP Photo/John D McHugh, File)

His next projects were the film version of the 1960s TV series “The Saint” — fussily putting on wigs, accents and glasses — and “The Island of Dr. Moreau” with Marlon Brando, which became one of the decade’s most infamously cursed productions.

David Gregory’s 2014 documentary “Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau,” described a cursed set that included a hurricane, Kilmer bullying director Richard Stanley, the firing of Stanley via fax (who sneaked back on set as an extra with a mask on) and extensive rewrites by Kilmer and Brando. The older actor told the younger at one point: “‘It’s a job now, Val. A lark. We’ll get through it.’ I was as sad as I’ve ever been on a set,” Kilmer wrote in his memoir.

In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ran a cover story about Kilmer titled ″The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate.″ The directors Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who finished “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” said he was difficult. Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: ″Climb Mount Everest and work with Val Kilmer again.″

Other artists came to his defense, like D. J. Caruso, who directed Kilmer in ″The Salton Sea″ and said the actor simply liked to talk out scenes and enjoyed having a director’s attention.

″Val needs to immerse himself in a character. I think what happened with directors like Frankenheimer and Schumacher is that Val would ask a lot of questions, and a guy like Schumacher would say, ‘You’re Batman! Just go do it,’″ Caruso told The New York Times in 2002.

After “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” the movies were smaller, like David Mamet human-trafficking thriller “Spartan”; ″Joe the King″ in 1999, in which he played a paunchy, abusive alcoholic; and playing the doomed ’70s porn star John Holmes in 2003’s “Wonderland.” He also threw himself into his one-man stage show “Citizen Twain,” in which he played Mark Twain.

“I enjoy the depth and soul the piece has that Twain had for his fellow man and America,” he told Variety in 2018. “And the comedy that’s always so close to the surface, and how valuable his genius is for us today. Still, we battle racism and greed. The same country, it’s greatness and it’s tragedy.”

Kilmer spent his formative years in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. He attended Chatsworth High School alongside future Oscar winner Kevin Spacey and future Emmy winner Mare Winningham. At 17, he was the youngest drama student ever admitted at the Juilliard School in 1981.

Shortly after he left for Juilliard, his younger brother, 15-year-old Wesley, suffered an epileptic seizure in the family’s Jacuzzi and died on the way to the hospital. Wesley was an aspiring filmmaker when he died.

″I miss him and miss his things. I have his art up. I like to think about what he would have created. I’m still inspired by him,″ Kilmer told the Times.

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While still at Juilliard, Kilmer co-wrote and appeared in the play “How It All Began” and later turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” for the Broadway play, “Slab Boys,” alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.

Kilmer published two books of poetry (including “My Edens After Burns”) and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for spoken word album for “The Mark of Zorro.” He was also a visual artist and a lifelong Christian Scientist.

He dated Cher, and married and divorced actor Joanne Whalley.

He is survived by their two children, Mercedes and Jack.

Kennedy reported from New York.