Interesting news articles. Turtles are normal prey for raccoons, when they get through the shell, so that one is no surprise; though the vet's ingenious attempt to provide prostheses was surprising. The Florida story, however, makes absolutely no sense if the raccoons were not rabid. And since the whole east coast raccoon rabies pandemic began in Florida, and they did not capture or test the raccoons, I'm at a loss to explain why "authorities" say they weren't rabid coons. My best guess, and it is purely a guess, would be that this was a litter of adolescents whose mother was infected, and they were in the early stages of infection themselves. If that was the case, and if the woman was frail, carrying food, and/or made the raccoons feel cornered, I can see them attacking in concert. In the early stages of infection, the animals are not always visibly ill, though on close observation they can seem a bit disoriented or uncoordinated. I remember a case during an upsurge of rabies cases in my animal control days, when I got a call about a raccoon outside a firehouse who "was behaving strangely." When I arrived, I saw a young adolescent coon standing outside the firehouse. As I approached with my long-handled net, the raccoon was not obviously ill, though he did alternate between standing on hind feet and all fours, and appeared very nervous and confused. As I got closer, he became more obviously nervous- understandably. You could clearly see him alternating between fight and flight impulses; he'd walk away a few steps, then stop and stand upright and stare at me; he could easily have escaped, by the way, in several directions. When I got within about ten feet of him, I seemed to have reached his threshold. Without moving in either direction, he angled his body on all fours in several directions, alternating with standing upright and staring at me. His reactions all the while were much much slower than the usual lightning-fast raccoon response to danger. Finally, after a very long upright stare, he lowered himself to all fours and charged me, allowing me to easily capture him in the net. As I was sure he would, he tested positive for rabies; in my experience, a healthy raccoon would not have hesitated to escape, and certainly would not have attacked when escape routes were available. The incident taught me that the disease can begin to impact behavior well before it visibly impacts appearance; and that the mental processes are the first casualty of the disease. I was not cornering or attacking him, and yet he obviously perceived me as a threat, and was unable to think clearly enough to formulate a prompt or appropriate response. I'd guess the situation was similar in the incident in Florida; the woman did not have to be posing a true threat to be perceived as such, if the raccoons were infected with rabies.
As for raccoon reaction to hot weather, you're right that they don't pant as dogs do. Like cats and some dogs, they shed most of their undercoat in hot weather; because their guard hairs are rather long and very coarse, this is not usually visible but does allow them to stay much cooler. And like both cats and dogs, their paw pads aid in thermal control, allowing for a fair amount of heat loss through the soft and hairless pads. And as basically nocturnal animals, they are usually inactive during the hottest parts of the day. And of course they drink more water in hot weather, if it's available; these are all little things, but together are very adaptive to help the animal stay more comfortable.
Judy, you're really drawing a crowd these days. Congrats: you have your own Virginia diner for the local raccoons!
