The University of Vermont is offering a $10,000 reward for the return of its missing cat – but this is no ordinary kitty.

It’s a 200-pound, 9-foot-long, 7-foot-wide aluminum mascot depicted jumping through an oversized V.

It was swiped from the Sign-A-Rama shop in Burlington, where it was getting a makeover.

Officials believe the theft was a student prank.

Gee, ya think?

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A San Jose, Calif., man has won the Wing Bowl, setting a new record at the annual chicken-wing-eating contest.

Joey Chestnut, 22, ate 173 wings to take the title and top prize, a 2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

As usual, the 14th annual Wing Bowl was replete with thousands of beer-crazed fans, piles of saucy wings, dozens of scantily clad “Wingettes” – many of them strippers – and several sickened contestants.

Chestnut qualified for the sold-out event by downing a gallon of milk in 41 seconds.

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A South African sex-education teacher did his job with a real hands-on approach – but not the kind the kids appreciated.

Cops say Mafa Chauke asked 12- and 13-year-old female students if he could sign their bottoms.

A judge has now told Chauke, 34, of Port Elizabeth, that he must go to school himself – to attend rehabilitation classes because of his “warped ideas of teaching children about life skills and sexual matters.”

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A group of German railway workers unwittingly ripped up three miles of track for a pair of crafty crooks.

The thieves, claiming to be rail-company executives, ordered the workers to remove the tracks in Lohra and load them onto a truck.

But when the workers went to get paid, they learned the job had never been ordered.

Cops believe the tracks were sold for scrap.

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A burglar broke into a Norwegian grammar school – and solved some math problems.

Officials say that, oddly, nothing was stolen from the school in Klaebu – but the crook took a math test intended for third-grade students.

And he did a good job – solving all the problems correctly.