ODDLY ENOUGH | Groundhog hitches ride with unsuspecting Pa. man

ODDLY ENOUGH

Groundhog hitches ride with unsuspecting Pa. man

WHITEHALL, Pa.

A stowaway groundhog created quite a mess, not to mention a neighborhood ruckus that drew police, a state wildlife officer and even the mayor, when it became trapped inside a car in suburban Allentown.

The fat, furry rodent tore up the back seat of a 1995 Pontiac Bonneville and used the car as a toilet.

Tyler Duncan, 20, of New Tripoli, made the unpleasant discovery Sunday afternoon when he returned to the car after a sleepover at a friend’s house in Whitehall Township, according to The Morning Call of Allentown.

“I screamed,” he said.

He called his mother, Sharon Duncan, who was brave enough to get in the car and start cleaning it. As she was picking up pieces of cushion and animal feces, Duncan’s friend’s mother caught a glimpse of the buck-toothed varmint trying to escape from underneath the front passenger seat. She, too, began screaming.

Township police and a state wildlife officer worked together to catch the woodchuck, which was put in a cage and released to the wild. Authorities believe the critter had traveled with Duncan from New Tripoli to Whitehall, a distance of about 15 miles.

Ohio judge gives defendants homework assignments

TOLEDO

A judge in Ohio gives defendants what sounds like homework assignments as a part of probation sentences.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook in Toledo has ordered offenders to write five-page reports on topics including teen violence, drug use and head injuries.

The judge tells The Blade newspaper her goal is to get defendants thinking about why what they did was wrong and how it hurt others.

The Blade reports Cook has told as many as 30 people to write papers since she took the bench in 2007. She reads all of them and says it seems that the number of writers who’ve later returned to her court for serious probation violations has been low.

Toy tiger sparks UK police alert

LONDON

Police scrambled helicopters and ordered tranquilizers to hunt what they feared was an escaped wild animal in southern England — but found that the tiger was a toy.

Hampshire Police say they responded after several residents called in to say they’d seen a white tiger in a field near a golf course in Hedge End, near the English coastal city of Southampton.

A tongue-in-cheek recorded message posted to the force’s media line said that after “a brief stalk through the Hedge End savannah ... it became obvious that the tiger was a stuffed, life-sized toy.”

A second message posted Sunday emphasized police had a duty to take such sightings seriously.

Associated Press