This Groundhog Didn't Play Around To Find His Bizarre New Home In Pennsylvania

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania groundhog is making a name for himself for something other than predicting an early or late spring.

An intrepid varmint dubbed Colonel Custard — so named for the frozen custard shop and mini-golf outlet where he was discovered — was found stowed away with a passel of stuffed animals prizes in an arcade game two weeks ago. Players were maneuvering a mechanical claw to pluck toys from the glass game case when they suddenly realized a real live groundhog was blinking back at them.

The newly named colonel was found in Hollidaysburg, a good hour’s drive from Pennsylvania’s far more famous groundhog town, Punxsutawney, home to the weather-predicting groundhog Phil.

The owners and staff at The Meadows frozen custard shop aren’t being shy about promoting their own furry friend.

Staff and owners made T-shirts that read “Respect the Groundhog,” held the online naming campaign that drew an avalanche of responses and are working on more promotional ideas, such as naming one of their frozen treat flavors for Colonel Custard.

Meadows manager Lynn Castle said no one is sure how the groundhog got in the building, but he must have clambered up the game chute into the machine.

“They were just staring at the stuffed animals in there getting ready to decide what to pick and saw the groundhog’s eyes blinking and realized there was something alive in there,” Castle said.

It took a village to set the varmint free. Employees first called the claw machine owners, who were too skittish to take the colonel on. Next came the police, who called the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Game wardens opened up the claw machine and released the groundhog into a nearby field, Castle said.

“It’s a good story that ended well,” Castle said. “He got set free. No one got bit.”

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German Warship Blasts 'Darth Vader Theme' On River Thames

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Navy says there was “no deeper message” in the choice to blast the famed Imperial March — Darth Vader’s theme song in the “Star Wars” films — from one of its warships as it cruised down the River Thames through London this week.

A bystander captured the spectacle Monday on video, which quickly went viral on social media. The song selection made waves across Europe. The warship was in the area for training and dropped anchor in London for a normal supply stop, the German Navy said.

“The commander can choose the music freely,” the Navy said in a statement Thursday. “The choice of music has no deeper message.”

Other video recorded the warship, the Braunschweig, playing “London Calling,” the 1979 hit from British rock band The Clash, upon its arrival in London. The song’s title is drawn from the BBC World Service station identification in World War II and its lyrics include the lines, “London calling to the zombies of death/Quit holding out and draw another breath.”

The Braunschweig is named for a city in Germany’s Lower Saxony area — a galaxy far, far away from the UK — and part of the country’s newest class of ocean-going corvettes.

For its departure, a tugboat pulled the warship down the river near Tower Bridge as sailors — without any lightsabers, sadly — stood on the deck. This trip was the Braunschweig’s second to the British capital, the Germany Embassy to London wrote on social media platform X.

The warship’s commander “is a big ‘Star Wars’ fan and an admirer of the legendary musical scores of John Williams,” the embassy said in a statement. “He chooses a different Williams tune whenever his ship is visiting a foreign harbor.”

There’s no word whether Anakin Skywalker himself was aboard.

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Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Crashes Along Chicago Area Highway

OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) — One of Oscar Mayer’s hot dog-shaped Wienermobiles ended up flipped onto its side after crashing on a suburban Chicago highway, police said.

The Wienermobile hit a car Monday morning along Interstate 294 and its driver lost control and overcorrected, causing it to roll onto its side near the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois State Police said.

No injuries were reported after the crash, which prompted the closure of the right lane of northbound I-294 for more than an hour, officials said.

A spokesperson for the Oscar Mayer brand, which has several Wienermobiles, told the Chicago Sun-Times it’s “grateful that everybody involved is safe and there were no injuries.”

Video from the crash scene shows that the yellow and orange Wienermobile was later hauled away on a flatbed truck with apparent damage visible on part of the vehicle’s hot dog shape.

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911 Operator Helps Expectant Mom Through Surprise At-Home Delivery

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — When a 911 call came in saying a woman in Nashville was experiencing sudden labor, emergency operator Kaitlyn Kramer says her training kicked in as she successfully coached the expectant mom and bystanders through delivering a healthy baby boy.

Audio of the July 7 call reveals Kramer’s calm voice guiding the process even as the voices on the other end grew frantic as the mother’s water broke and the baby’s head started crowning.

Kramer is a training officer for Nashville’s Department of Emergency Communications.

“Whatever the call comes in, you have to be able to maintain control,” Kramer said, adding that she had to remember to stay calm herself.

“We’re going to do this together,” Kramer told a friend of the mother’s over the phone. Moments later, the caller is yelling with excitement that the baby arrived, but mentioned that the cord was wrapped around his neck.

Kramer said the bystanders were able to free the baby and soon enough, Kramer could hear his first wails over the phone.

“When I think of a baby being first born, the biggest thing for me is I want to hear them cry,” said Kramer. “And he did that on his own.”

The whole call lasted about 8 minutes before the ambulance arrived and Kramer got to congratulate the mother and bystanders on a job well done. The family did not respond to a request for an interview.

“I think my favorite part about this whole situation was there was also another younger child in the room, maybe between the ages of seven and 10 years old,” Kramer said “She started talking to the baby, welcoming him to the world. And that absolutely just melted my heart.”

Kramer said this is the second time she has helped during a delivery over the 911 hotline.

“We get a lot of sad here. Our job is hard,” Kramer said. “This is one of the reasons that remind me that what I do is important ... it just it makes me happy to do what I do.”

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Swedish Officials Forbid Removal Of Champagne Bottles From Shipwreck

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — No one will be allowed to fish out any of the nearly 100 bottles of 19th-century Champagne and mineral water nestled in a shipwreck off southern Sweden without proper authorization, officials said Wednesday.

Though the wreck’s location has been known since 2016 and is registered in Sweden’s National Antiquities Office’s cultural environment, it was only on July 11 that Polish scuba divers found the precious cargo.

The wreck, which sits at about 58 meters (190 feet) deep off the coast of the southern Sweden county of Blekinge, was found by the divers while they were checking spots of interest about 37 kilometers (20 nautical miles) south of the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Oeland.

Wine and water experts have quickly contacted the divers and been vying to carry out laboratory tests on the contents of the bottles, according to the divers’ leader, Tomasz Stachura. However, Swedish authorities have put their foot down and labeled the sunken ship “an ancient relic” which the county says requires “a clear and strong protection” to remain intact.

“You must not damage the ancient remains, which also includes taking items from the wreck, e.g. champagne bottles, without permission from the county,” Magnus Johansson, a county official told The Associated Press. “The champagne bottles are a fantastically well-preserved find that gives us a snapshot of shipping and life on board at the end of the 19th century,” he added.

Had the wreck been from before 1850, it would automatically have been listed as an ancient relic, local authorities said.

“But we have established that the cultural and historical values of the wreck were so high that it should be declared as an ancient relic,” Daniel Tedenlind, a county official in neighboring Kalmar.

Stachura, the diver, earlier said it was believed that the cargo could have been on the way to the royal table in Stockholm or the Russian tsar’s residence in St. Petersburg when the ship sank sometime in the second half of the 19th century.

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Ohio Jail Accidentally Frees Murder Suspect Because Of Typo

CLEVELAND (AP) — A man awaiting trial on an aggravated murder charge was mistakenly released from a county jail in Ohio this week due to a clerical error, authorities said.

A warrant was issued Tuesday for Amarion Sanders, 22, of Cleveland, who was being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $1 million bail. He was mistakenly released Monday after charges were dismissed against a man in an unrelated case, and that defendant’s court case number was somehow entered incorrectly.

Sanders’ trial was due to start Aug. 19. He’s charged with aggravated murder in connection with a September 2023 shooting in Cleveland and has maintained his innocence. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Numerous county, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Marshall’s Office, are involved in the hunt for Sanders.

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Theodore Roosevelt's Stolen Pocket Watch Returns To His Home After More Than 3 Decades

The silver pocket watch was a prized possession of Theodore Roosevelt, a keepsake given to him by his sister and her husband in 1898 before he became president that would travel with him around the world and end up at Sagamore Hill — his home on Long Island, New York, and now a national historic site.

But in 1987, it went from museum piece to pilfered prize when someone stole it from an unlocked case at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, New York, where it was on loan.

It was mystery that endured 36 years until it turned up at a Florida auction house last year and was seized by federal agents. On Thursday, it was returned to public display at Sagamore Hill as the National Park Service and the FBI triumphantly announced it was back home during a ceremony featuring Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt.

“This was feel-good news,” Tweed Roosevelt, 82, said Friday in a phone interview. “For me, it kind of felt like almost as if a piece of TR’s spirit being returned to Sagamore Hill, like a little bit of him was coming back. And so I felt that was really cool.”

Growing up, he said he didn’t know about the watch and only learned about it vaguely after it was stolen. He called it “unremarkable” in appearance, but priceless to his great grandfather.

“As it turns out, this isn’t just any old pocket watch,” he said. “It was a watch that TR placed great sentimental value on.”

The mystery of the watch’s disappearance, however, is not fully solved. It is still not clear who stole it and how. The Park Service and FBI only released details of its reappearance this week after an investigation. The agencies did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

Roosevelt, who was president from 1901 to 1909, apparently had the watch with him at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and during future exploits, including wild game hunting in Africa and exploring the Amazon in South America, according to the Park Service.

The watch, made by the now-defunct Waltham Watch Co. in Massachusetts, appears like many pocket watches of its day, with a plain silver exterior and no etchings. But the inside reveals its significance, with engraving that says “THEODORE ROOSEVELT” and “FROM D.R. & C.R.R.,” referring to Roosevelt’s brother-in-law and sister, Douglas Robinson Jr. and Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.

When it showed up last year at Blackwell Auctions in Clearwater, Florida, owner Edwin Bailey was excited by the engraving but skeptical it was real. It had no supporting documents with it, and the general mindset among art dealers and collectors is to verify before getting your hopes up, he said.

Bailey said he did not know the watch was stolen, and the person who brought it to him didn’t know where it came from. He declined to identify the person, saying he never divulges the identities of his consigners. He only would say the person was an art dealer and collector in Buffalo in the 1970s and 1980s.

The collector told Bailey that he received the watch from another man who used to borrow money from him to go “picking” for antiques and other collectibles in the late 1980s. The picker would leave the watch with the collector as collateral, Bailey said.

One day, the picker never showed up to retrieve the watch, and the collector found out that he had died, Bailey said.

“This dealer probably had that thing just squirreled away for 30 years thinking it was just another pocket watch,” Bailey said Friday. “I don’t think that my consigner had a clue about not only where it came from, but he probably didn’t even suspect it was real.”

Bailey said he researched the watch for weeks, pouring through Roosevelt’s writings in online archives, trying to come up with definitive proof it was authentic. He said he found several bits of evidence that made him believe it was. The FBI, Park Service and Sagamore Hill officials would later confirm it was the real deal.

In a note to his sister in May 1898, Roosevelt wrote, “Darling Corinne, You could not have given me a more useful present than the watch; it was exactly what I wished. ... Thank old Douglas for the watch — and for his many, many kindnesses.”

He also mentioned a watch in his 1914 book “Through the Brazilian Wilderness.” Writing about a bayou crossing, he said “One result of the swim, by the way, was that my watch, a veteran of Cuba and Africa, came to an indignant halt.” Bailey believes that was the same watch Roosevelt’s sister and brother-in-law gave him.

Bailey also wrote letters and sent pictures of the watch to various museums, the Sagamore Hill historic site and others, asking if they had any information about it.

Last year, shortly before he was set to put the watch up for auction, Bailey got a visit from several people he thought were interested buyers. Then they pulled out their badges and a warrant. It was the FBI coming to investigate the watch and take possession of it, he said.

The federal agents were courteous in asking questions, and he told them the story. He said he was glad that the watch is now where it belongs.

“It was exciting,” Bailey said. “I’ve had a small handful of items that I say ‘these are the best things I’ve ever handled.’ I got to hold something that was personally treasured by a prominent American president. … This was Teddy Roosevelt’s watch. This was a Mount Rushmore guy’s personal pocket watch.”

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Arizona's 'Poozeum' Teaches Science Using Fossilized Feces

WILLIAMS, Ariz. (AP) — One way to help tell how a Tyrannosaurus rex digested food is to look at its poop.

Bone fragments in a piece of fossilized excrement at a new museum in northern Arizona — aptly called the Poozeum — are among the tinier bits of evidence that indicate T. rex wasn’t much of a chewer, but rather swallowed whole chunks of prey.

The sample is one of more than 7,000 on display at the museum that opened in May in Williams, a town known for its Wild West shows along Route 66, wildlife attractions and a railway to Grand Canyon National Park.

The Poozeum sign features a bright green T. rex cartoon character sitting on a toilet to grab attention from the buzzing neon lights and muffled 1950s music emanating from other businesses.

Inside, display cases filled with coprolites — fossilized feces from animals that lived millions of years ago — line the walls. They range from minuscule termite droppings to a massive specimen that weighs 20 pounds (9 kilograms).

Poozeum’s president and curator, George Frandsen, bought his first chunk of fossilized feces from a shop in Moab, Utah, when he was 18, he said. He already loved dinosaurs and fossils but had never heard of fossilized poop. From there, his fascination grew.

“It was funny. It was gross,” he said. “But I learned very quickly it could tell us so much about our prehistoric past and how important they are to the fossil record.”

Coprolites aren’t tremendously common but they can make up the majority of fossils found at some sites, and people have learned more and more about them over the past few decades, said Anthony Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

It can be hard to identify them and in some cases, specimens that appeared to be coprolites — with their pinched ends and striations — were examined further and ultimately reclassified as something else.

“There’s a number of sedimentary processes that can produce an extrusion of soft mud to a different layer,” he said. “So think about your toothpaste, for example. When you squeeze it, there can be some striations on that toothpaste.”

Fossil enthusiast Brandee Reynolds recently visited the museum with her husband after finding it was a short detour from a road trip they had planned.

“I mostly find sharp teeth and things like that,” she said. “I haven’t really found a whole lot of coprolite, but who doesn’t love coprolite?”

A highlight of Frandsen’s collection is a specimen that holds a Guinness World Record for being the largest coprolite left by a carnivorous animal. Measuring more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) long and over 6 inches (15 centimeters) wide, Frandsen said it’s believed to be from a T. rex, given where it was found on a private ranch in South Dakota in 2019.

Frandsen also holds the record for the largest certified coprolite collection of 1,277 pieces, earned in 2015 when it was verified at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Florida.

His collection now stands at about 8,000 specimens. He doesn’t have the room to display it all in the museum in Williams and features some online.

No need to worry about any smell or germs, Frandsen said. Those evaporated millions of years ago, when the feces were covered with sediment and replaced by minerals, making them rock-hard.

Location, shape, size and other materials like bones or plants can determine if something is a coprolite, but not necessarily which creature deposited it, Fiorillo said.

“I think the majority of us would say, let’s pump the brakes on that and just be happy if we could determine carnivore, herbivore and then look at possibly those food cycles within each of those broad groups,” said Fiorillo, a trained paleontologist and author of books on dinosaurs.

Ideally, Fiorillo said he hopes fossils that are rare and can add to the understanding of the prehistoric world find their way into the public sphere so researchers can use them as they form hypotheses about life long ago.

Like Frandsen, Fiorillo said he was captivated by fossils when he was young. He pointed to private quarries in Wyoming’s Fossil Basin where the public can hunt for fossilized fish, plants and even coprolites. People also can visit a research quarry to learn about paleontology at the nearby Fossil Butte National Monument.

If a child goes home inspired after finding a fossil or seeing one on display at a museum, then that’s awesome, Fiorillo said.

“Maybe they’ll be the next generation,” he said.

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Stingray That Got Pregnant Without A Male Companion Has Died

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A stingray that got pregnant at a North Carolina aquarium this winter despite not having shared a tank with a male of her species for many years has died.

The Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville said on Facebook late Sunday that the stingray, Charlotte, died after getting a rare reproductive disease. It didn’t go into further detail.

The aquarium, which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, announced in February that Charlotte had gotten pregnant despite not having shared a tank with a male stingray in at least eight years. But it said in late May that she was suffering from a rare reproductive disease and announced in early June that she hadn’t given birth and was no longer pregnant.

The pregnancy was thought to be the result of a type of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis, in which offspring develop from unfertilized eggs, meaning there is no genetic contribution by a male. The mostly rare phenomenon can occur in some insects, fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles, but not in mammals. Documented examples have included California condors, Komodo dragons and yellow-bellied water snakes.

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Chinese Military Buff Somehow Buys 4 Books Of Military Secrets For Under $1

BEIJING (AP) — A military history buff in China appears to have made an alarming discovery after picking up four discarded books for less than $1 at a neighborhood recycling station: They were confidential military documents.

The country’s Ministry of State Security told the story in a social media post on Thursday, praising the retired man for calling a hotline to report the incident. It identified him only by his family name, Zhang, and did not say what the documents were about.

“Mr. Zhang thought to himself that he had ‘bought’ the country’s military secrets and brought them home,” the post reads, “but if someone with ulterior motives were to buy them, the consequences would be unimaginable!”

The post, which was reposted on at least two popular Chinese news websites, was the latest in a series by the powerful state security agency that appears to be trying to draw in new audiences with dramatic stories. Some have been told in comic-book style.

The campaign seems designed to raise awareness of the importance of national security at a time when confrontation with the U.S. is rising and both countries are increasingly worried about the possible theft or transfer of confidential and secret information.

The post describes Zhang as a former employee of a state-owned company who likes to collect military newspapers and periodicals. It says he found two bags of new books at the recycling station and paid 6 yuan (about 85 cents) for four of them.

State security agents rushed to the station after Zhang reported what had happened, the post says. After an investigation, they found that two military employees charged with shredding more than 200 books instead got rid of them by selling them to a recycling center as paper waste — 30 kilograms (65 pounds) in all — for about 20 yuan ($2.75).

The agents seized the books and the military has closed loopholes in the handling of such material, the post says.

China’s opaque state security bodies and legal system often make it difficult to tell what is considered a state secret.

Chinese and foreign consultancies operating within the country have been placed under investigation for possessing or sharing information about the economy in an apparent broadening of the definition of a state secret in recent years.

___

Associated Press video producer Penny Wang in Bangkok and researcher Wanqing Chen in Beijing contributed.

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23 Sets Of Twins Graduate From Massachusetts Middle School

NEEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Twenty-three sets of twins have graduated from a Massachusetts middle school, making up about 10% of the eighth-grade class.

The identical and fraternal twins graduated from Pollard Middle School in Needham, Massachusetts, on Wednesday. Another student, who is also a twin, graduated but her brother attends a different school, said principal Tamatha Bibbo.

It’s “quite unusual,” said Bibbo. “We typically have anywhere from five to 10 sets at most. Given our numbers, we have approximately 450 to 500 children in each grade so this was extraordinarily high.”

The school gave a special shout-out to the 23 sets of twins during the so-called “moving up” ceremony on Wednesday, she said. Twins account for around 3% of live births in the U.S., according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The Pollard Middle School graduates must all have completed up to 10 hours of service learning in their communities and every year the Needham Exchange Club offers five community service awards. For the first time this year a set of twins — Lukas and Sameer Patel — won an award and a donation to their charity, Bibbo said.

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