Any time spent in the US throws up plenty of candidates for the only-in-America category. The national newspaper, USA Today, reported last week on a judge in Jacksonville in Florida, Sharon Tanner, who faked her resignation on live television to meet the demands of a gunman who had taken a lawyer hostage. Happily, the lawyer was eventually set free and the gunman captured. Also in a Florida courtroom, lawyer Jeff Kaufmann slipped into a Tigger the Tiger suit to prove just how difficult it is to see and move around in one. He was illustrating to a jury that his client could not possibly have fondled a girl while portraying the AA Milne character at Orlando's Disney World. The jury was convinced and Mr Kaufmann's client was acquitted. Finally, the Associated Press (AP) reported on 21-year-old Vili Fualaau from Washington state who was applying to overturn a court order preventing him from seeing the mother of his two children. It is unclear whether the mother, former teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, objects or not. The main problem is that she was only recently released from jail having served more than seven years in prison for having sexual relations with Mr Fualaau when he was one of her 12-year-old students. A friend of Ms Letourneau, Seattle-based lawyer Anne Bremner, told AP that the former teacher 'wants to be a mother and a responsible member of society'.