New York City

Tiger owner faces endangerment charges

The owner of a pet tiger and alligator rescued from a Manhattan apartment was released from a hospital Monday night in Philadelphia, where he fled. Police took him back to New York City to face reckless endangerment charges.

Antoine Yates, 31, had told Philadelphia TV station KYW in a phone interview from his hospital bed that the tiger grabbed him and “tore open my whole leg down to the bone.”

A veterinarian examined the tiger Monday at Noah’s Lost Ark preserve in Berlin Center, Ohio. The licensed facility takes abused and neglected exotic animals and warns that wild animals can’t be tamed.

“We should just stop letting people buy them,” preserve director Ellen Whitehouse said. “We shouldn’t be breeding them in the United States.”

Iowa

‘Madison County’ house damaged in arson fire

The 1800s-era farmhouse featured in the film “The Bridges of Madison County” was damaged Monday by a fire that officials said was deliberately set.

It was the third structure connected with the 1995 movie and the 1992 novel of the same name to be set afire. One wood bridge was destroyed in 2002, and another was damaged last month.

Norwalk Fire Chief Tom Fleming said late Monday that the house fire, like the bridge blazes, was arson. “There’s still another step to determine if it’s related to the bridges,” he said.

The latest fire, only days before the annual Madison County Covered Bridge Festival, was reported shortly before 7 a.m., and flames were out just over an hour later. The northwest corner of the house was extensively damaged, authorities said.

Philadelphia

Prosecutor gets tough in football hazing case

A prosecutor said Monday he would seek to have three high school football players tried as adults on charges they sodomized teammates during a hazing at a preseason training camp.

“The impact these crimes have had on the victims and on their families is too terrible to consider,” Wayne County Dist. Atty. Mark Zimmer said.

The teens, members of the Mepham High School football team in Bellmore, N.Y., are accused of sexually torturing a 13-year-old and two 14-year-old boys with a broomstick, pine cones and golf balls. Two of the suspects are 16; one is 17.

The school district on Long Island suspended the three accused players from school and canceled the football season.

Chicago

Trash piling up during garbage strike

Rats and other vermin scurried through overflowing trash bins Monday as thousands of garbage haulers stayed off the job for a sixth day in a contract dispute.

Negotiations were scheduled to resume today, with the help of a federal mediator.

Some 3,300 Teamsters who handle garbage for private waste haulers in Chicago and its the suburbs rejected an offer Sunday by the Chicago Area Refuse Haulers Assn. The two sides are divided over wages, benefits and contract length.

The Chicago Cubs is host to the first two games of the National League championship series starting Tuesday, putting the city in the national spotlight. City officials have said trash will be collected at Wrigley Field and surrounding businesses during the series.

Connecticut

Mother convicted in son’s suicide

A woman was convicted Monday of contributing to the suicide of her 12-year-old son, who hanged himself in his closet with a necktie after being picked on for months at school over his bad breath and body odor.

Judith Scruggs, 52, of Meriden, was found guilty of one count of risk of injury to a minor for creating a filthy home that prosecutors said prevented J. Daniel Scruggs from improving his hygiene. She faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced next month.

The six-member jury cleared Scruggs of a second charge that accused her of failing to provide her son with proper medical and psychological care. She also was acquitted on a cruelty charge.

Judith Scruggs said she frequently told Daniel to take showers, but said she could not force him to do so.