With one of these fearsome creatures staring out of your rear window, you're never going to need a car alarm.

Startled police officers on a night patrol encountered this 6ft alligator after stopping a motorist for erratic driving.

Video from the police car shows the officers pointing their torches into the back of the sedan, illuminating the highly unusual passenger.

The reptile, which had been travelling in the back seat, had then moved up to the area behind the headrests by the rear window.

The look in its eyes suggested it would be less than co-operative when it came to helping the officers with their inquiries.

They questioned the driver, William Johnson, who turned out to be wanted over a burglary.

He said he had found the alligator by the side of the road in Brazoria, near Houston, Texas.

The new legislation is the latest embodiment of scorn directed at Carter over meetings he plans this week with leaders of Hamas, which both the United States and Israel recognize as a terror organization and with which they refuse to negotiate.

Also Wednesday, Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the Foreign Affairs Mideast subcommittee, wrote Carter imploring him not to meet with any more Hamas officials.

"[T]his visit will undermine the Middle East peace process and damage the credibility of Palestinian moderates," they wrote, adding that the "legitimacy and prestige that Hamas will derive from your visit will be seen in the region as a clear demonstration that violence pays."

Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., told FOX News, "I don't think Israel should try to negotiate with Hamas because Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist." Davis added that Carter's overtures stood athwart a tradition of support for Israel in America.

On Tuesday, more than 50 House members wrote Carter urging him to not meet with Meshal, calling him the man behind the deaths of 26 Americans.

Sen. Barack Obama, who has stated his disagreement with Carter on the Hamas visit but supports an open dialogue with Iran, was pressed Wednesday on the difference between the two.

"[T]here is a distinction in terms of their status within the international community," he told a group of Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia. "Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They obviously have developed great influence within the Palestinian territories, but they do not control the apparatus of power," he said.

PHILADELPHIA, April 16 — Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive here Wednesday night as he sought to bat away criticism of his remarks about small-town values, questions about his patriotism and the incendiary sermons of his former pastor in a potentially pivotal debate six days before Pennsylvania's presidential primary.

In their first head-to-head encounter in nearly two months, Obama (Ill.) and his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), sparred over gaffes, missteps and past statements that could leave them vulnerable in the general election against Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee.

But it was Obama, now his party's front-runner, who was pressed most persistently by moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News to answer questions that have dominated the Democratic race in the weeks since the last major contests, held March 4 in Texas and Ohio.

The encounter, particularly in the early stages, seemed more like a grilling of Obama on a Sunday-morning talk show than a debate between the two candidates. Obama fielded most of the questions calmly, although at times he appeared to choose his words with extreme care as he faced perhaps the toughest series of questions he has encountered since taking the lead in delegates in the nomination battle.