The 2015 Pan American Games are running an online vote until May 5 to choose their mascot. The six finalists, selected from 4,130 entries, are:

1) a Maple-leaf headed beaver	2) a moose	3) a multi-colour owl
4) a porcupine with multi-color quills	5) a raccoon	6) twins wearing hats

See more: Original finalist designs, prior to conversion to Pan Am colours and style by illustrator/animator James Caswell of Sheridan College.

The Furry Basketball Association is accepting character submissions for the 2013 FBA Draft.

All fans are invited to submit new characters, regardless of participation level in the FBA or knowledge of basketball. With a fresh emphasis on backstories, submissions no longer require details regarding the stats or playing style of the submitted characters. There is no limit to how many characters may be submitted this year by a contributor.

Submissions will remain open until May 1, or until 100 are received, whichever comes later. Players will be considered for participation in the 2013 FBA Draft, when teams will select new players to join them for the league's 5th season. The 2013-2014 season begins October 31.

Divisions is set in Kyell Gold’s Forester universe (Waterways, Green Fairy, Winter Games, etc.), and is the third in the series featuring the tiger Devlin Miski and the fox Wiley Farrel (Out of Position, 2009, and Isolation Play, 2011). The series is narrated in the first person by both Dev and Lee in mostly alternating chapters.

Each novel documents a year in their life. In Out of Position, 2006, the two seniors at Forester U. meet, become secret lovers, and at the conclusion Dev, on Forester’s football team, becomes the first “out of the closet” football player. Isolation Play, 2007, starts immediately after Out of Position and deals with the aftermath of Dev’s and Lee’s revelation: Dev’s hostile teammates, shocked parents of both, a reporter determined to use them in a sensationalistic story, and facing life after graduation.

Now in Divisions, 2008, Dev and Lee pursue equally their professional careers, their personal lives, and the results of their open homosexuality.

Divisions is a romance novel intended for an adult audience only and contains some explicit sexual scenes of a primarily Male/Male nature. It is not for sale to persons under the age of 18. (publisher’s advisory)

Sofawolf Press, January 2013, trade paperback $19.95 (xvi + 367 pages; on Amazon). Illustrated by Blotch.

In 2013, Moscow will play host to the 2013 World Championships in Athletics. On Wednesday, organisers unveiled the event's mascot – an anthropomorphic sparrow in a blue T-shirt and running shoes.

The sparrow was amongst more than 200 designs submitted by the public over the Internet. Mikhail Butov, the general secretary of the Russian athletics federation, explained why the sparrow was chosen:

The bird shares a lot of qualities with the athletes: It's quick, light and nimble.

Brazilians cast almost 1.7 million votes in choosing Fuleco, an anthropomorphic three-banded armadillo, as the mascot for the 2014 FIFA World Cup games (soccer). A fursuited mascot is featured in the BBC's TV coverage.

As one of the most high-profile ambassadors of the event and a member of a vulnerable species, the Official Mascot can play a key role in driving environmental awareness. The name Fuleco™ is a fusion of the words “futebol” and “ecologia”. This seamlessly represents the way in which the FIFA World Cup™ can combine the two to encourage people to behave in an environmentally friendly way. In voting for the name Fuleco™, the Brazilian population has clearly demonstrated an affinity for both themes that the name epitomises. (press release)

But while Brazilians approve of the armadillo as a mascot, the way the name was chosen – a three-way online poll – is less popular. Over 23,000 signed a petition requesting a "more democratic" process, with some asking for a name featuring the vulnerable species itself.

Drama: it's a complicated little word that with a large negative connotation when used within the furry fandom. There are those who don't always see the best in furry; who point out flaws in what sometimes seem an overbearing manner, and decry some within the fandom from their own corner of the web. These voices may seem pointless at best and harmful at worst to the health and enjoyment of the furry fandom.

However, a recent event in the college football fandom might show why furries who see and speak no wrong in the fandom could be just as harmful as those who see only wrong in it.

This year Anthrocon got pushed into Father's day weekend to make way for the NHL Draft as opposed to its traditional timing of the last Sunday of June. Now it would appear that furry is returning the favor and encroaching on the NHL.

When asked about taking on the Penguins in the quarter-final playoffs, Ilya Bryzgalov, the goalie of the rival Philadelphia Flyers, said:

You know, I'm not afraid of anything. I am afraid of bear, but bear is in the forest.

Being a city that is no stranger to animal costuming, the response of "about 70" Pittsburgh fans was to don bear costumes to taunt and perhaps take advantage of Ilya's ursaphobia.

Although the tactic appeared to be having an effect at the start, the Flyers seemed to overcome their fears, and now hold a commanding 3-0 lead in the playoff series.

The Furry Basketball Association is accepting character submissions for the 2012 FBA Draft.

The Furry Basketball Association is a fantasy basketball league built and supported by the furry fandom. It has grown through the creative contributions of dozens of furries who have created the league's 24 teams and more than 350 players.

Every year the FBA opens up for new characters, usually arond mid-March. These new characters, after meeting approval by the FBA Commissioner, enter that year's Draft Pool where they will be available to the general managers of the league's 24 teams. During the FBA Draft, a live event that usually happens in September, the general managers choose players one at a time from the Draft Pool, eventually bringing 48 new players into the FBA.

The York Revolution, a professional baseball team based in York, Pennsylvania, is holding auditions to find a performer for DownTown, the team's blue, vaguely avian mascot.

Auditions will be held 2–4 PM on Saturday, February 18 at Sovereign Bank Stadium, 5 Brooks Robinson Way, in York City. Applicants must be friendly, energetic, dependable, outgoing, in good physical shape, work well with children, have reliable transportation to and from the stadium, and be at least 16 years old. In order to fit into the mascot costume, applicants must also be between 5'6" and 6'2".

Candidates will have to perform a two-minute skit during the audition. Those chosen to join York Revolution's promotional squad (the Shipley Green Team) will be paid $7.25 an hour, and the person selected to play DownTown will be paid $60 per game.

I wasn’t as proactive as I thought I would be, and I’m pretty sure I missed a couple posted during the first of September, so apologies there. Otherwise, here was last month’s Newsbytes.

Anthrocon announced Friday night that next year's convention had been moved up a week to accommodate a mystery event, at the request of the City of Pittsburgh.

The new dates are June 14–17, 2012. Anthrocon was duly rewarded for its flexibility:

Pittsburgh has been given a very rare opportunity to host an event that they have been wanting to host for many years. The only trouble was that the proposed event (and we won't say what it is until it is officially announced) would lie in part over Anthrocon's planned weekend. [...] As much as we love our adopted home city and would do anything in our power to support them, we were hesitant to change the date of our convention after having announced it.

Pittsburgh replied with, "What if we got you another hundred hotel rooms within walking distance of the Convention Center?" — We said, "Where do we sign?"

While the event has not been announced, it has been rumoured that the NHL Entry Draft, convened annually in late June, might be coming to Pittsburgh for the first time since 1997.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has a history of doing strange things and not taking itself completely seriously.

Now one wrestler, Jack Swagger has got himself a mascot: Swaggers Soaring Eagle.

Stretching the bounds of anthropomorphism today were Wenlock and Mandeville, the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic mascots.

The characters are purportedly forged from the "last drops of steel" from the Olympic stadium support girders. Each is equipped with a giant camera lens for an eye – a fitting match for the UK's surveillance-friendly streets. [tip: bunnywarez]

As reported on the Journal Sentinel's blog, Milwaukee Bucks mascot Bongo successfully dunked a basketball while doing a backflip from a 16-foot ladder.

Perhaps more impressively, Chelsea F.C. mascot Stamford and Millwall's Zampa the Lion ran the London Marathon, each raising over £10,000 for charity. [freakylynx/furrymedia]