NATION
ALHAMBRA, Calif. — A giant tortoise found ambling down a street in suburban Los Angeles has been reunited with its owners.
The Alhambra Police Department says a local family claimed the 150-pound reptile named Clark on Sunday, a day after it was spotted strolling on the street.
It took two officers to heft the creature into a patrol car so they could turn it over to animal control authorities.
The department posted photos of Clark on its Facebook page in hopes of finding the owner and cracked a “Tortoise and Hare” joke about officers capturing the reptile after a brief pursuit.
There was no word on how far the tortoise had gone from home when it was caught.
BURNEY, Calif. — A pair of wildfires burning without restraint about 8 miles apart in northeast California became the focus of state and federal firefighters Sunday as authorities reported one of the blazes destroyed eight homes and prompted the precautionary evacuation of a small long-term care hospital.The two fires, among 14 burning in the state, started within a day of each other in Lassen National Forest and had expanded into private property and scorched nearly 95 square miles as of Sunday evening, up from 39 square miles a day earlier.The more destructive of the two was threatening the town of Burney, where officials at Mayer Memorial Hospital decided to evacuate their 49-bed annex for patients with dementia and other conditions. The patients were transferred to another hospital.
