For nearly 80 years, a global alarm clock has been ticking away ... And those annual settings are attended with a kind of fretful enthusiasm — a bit like Groundhog Day, if Punxsutawney Phil was the ...

Handler Mark Szafran holds Woodstock Willie during last year’s Groundhog Day prognostication event in Woodstock. Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file Share Would you trust a groundhog to predict the weather?

It starred Bill Murray — who is generally hilarious — as a TV weatherman covering Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania ...