Polar bears' green fur a fluke

Critters

Green fur a fluke

Polar bears are drawing questions from puzzled visitors at a Japanese zoo. Three normally white polar bears at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in central Japan turned green in July after swimming in a pond with an overgrowth of algae. Visitors have asked whether the animals are sick or carrying mold, zoo official Masami Kurobe said Sunday. Algae that enters hollow spaces in the bears' fur is hard to rinse off, he explained. The bears are expected to return to their natural color when the algae growth subsides in November.

Fish packs a wallop

Seth Russell, 15, was cruising Arkansas' Lake Chicot on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a nonnative silver Asian carp leapt from the water and smacked him in the face. Seth was knocked unconscious. "He was laughing, and the next thing he remembers, he is waking in a hospital," the boy's mother, Linda Russell, said last week. The teen has had oral surgery to wire several teeth together and still experiences back pain that doctors attribute to whiplash from the high-speed collision.

People

Bowling ends with strike

Actor Gary Coleman hit a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a Payson, Utah, bowling alley, police said. Police Lt. Bill Wright said Colt Rushton and Coleman got into an argument in the early-morning hours Saturday over pictures Rushton had taken of Coleman inside the bowling alley. He said the argument continued outside, and that Coleman hit Rushton and a car as he was backing out of a parking space. Neither man was issued a citation, and Wright said neither man was giving authorities much information. Rushton was taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries and released.

Post-show no-show

Woody Allen would take no bows Saturday night. He had just made his successful debut as an opera director, creating a hilarious production of "Gianni Schicchi," the third of the one-act presentations in Puccini's "Il Trittico." The Los Angeles Opera's opening-night audience at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion kept applauding, wanting to see the 72-year-old filmmaker join the cast and conductor James Conlon for the curtain call. But Allen remained out of view, unwilling to come onstage because of shyness, according to the company.

Passages

Anita Page, 98, an MGM actress who appeared in films with Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton during the transition from silent movies to talkies, died Saturday at home in Los Angeles.

Today in History

1565: A Spanish expedition established the first permanent European settlement in North America at present-day St. Augustine, Fla.

1664: The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.

1900: Galveston, Texas, was struck by a hurricane that killed an estimated 8,000 people.

1974: President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.

1975: Boston's public schools began court-ordered citywide busing to achieve racial desegregation amid scattered incidents of violence.

1998: Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals broke major league baseball's record for home runs in a single season, hitting number 62 off Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel and eclipsing the 37-year-old record held by Roger Maris.

Today's Birthdays

Comedian Sid Caesar, 86. Actor Alan Feinstein, 67. Author Ann Beattie, 61. Actress Heather Thomas, 51. Singer Aimee Mann, 48. Actor David Arquette, 37. Actor Larenz Tate, 33. Actor Nathan Corddry, 31. R&B singer Pink, 29. Actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas, 27.

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