News In Brief

HIS LOSS; OUR GAIN

Did the polar bears at the Buffalo Zoo ever make out well from a deal-gone-wrong! It all began last Nov. 3, at a US-Canadian border crossing, when a Quebec trucker couldn't produce the permits required under an international treaty for his cargo of frozen sturgeon. So customs agents seized the $9,000 shipment, which a market in Miami had arranged to buy. Uncertain that the fish were safe for human consumption, authorities recently decided to give all 2,600 pounds of them to - yes - the bears, which are usually fed mackerel. "They will," a zookeeper predicted, "do somersaults."

FATHERHOOD? MAYBE NOT YET

In Nashville, Tenn., high-school freshman Sasha Feoktistov was supposed to be learning about child care by carrying around a five-pound sack of flour as a surrogate infant. But he got into a fight on a city bus and dropped the bag, which split open. If that wasn't lesson enough, the transit system billed him and another youth $360 for the cost of cleanup.

Books, computers, CDs are favorites of online shoppers

A new survey conducted by the accounting and professional services company Ernst & Young - and responded to by 1,200 Americans - found women most often lean toward books and men toward computers when they shop online. Both, however, rated Amazon.com as their favorite online shopping site, followed in order by bookseller BarnesandNoble.com and by CDnow.com. The five favorite categories for each gender and the percentage of respondents who preferred them:

Women's favorites

Books 64%

CDs 60

Computers 57

Health/beauty aids 42

Toys 41

Men's favorites

Computers 76%

CDs 60

Books 59

Small electronics 44

Videos 38

- PRNewswire

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