PITTSBURGH (AP) – Some artists suffer for their work. Maggie, an 11-year-old sea lion at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, gets to eat dead fish for hers.

Kesha Phares, a zoo trainer, has been teaching the animal to paint since last year.

“It’s, in a way, enriching,” Phares said. “Sea lions are very smart animals, and painting keeps their minds active.”

It took three months to get the animal to hold a paint brush and touch the bristles to paper.

Phares picks the paint colors – sea lions are colorblind – and puts paint on the brush. The paintings are done one stroke at a time, with Maggie getting a fish after each stroke.

If the animal can be said to have a style, it is this: She tends to put more paint on the right side of the canvas than the left.

71-year-old twins meet for first time

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Pat Gudinas finally met her twin sister – 71 years after they were born.

“I’ve never had anybody in my family,” she said at the reunion Tuesday at a suburban restaurant not far from where her sister, Shirley McGuire, lives.

The twins were born to a woman who had been with a married man, and they ended up in different foster homes and eventually at St. Joseph Orphanage on Milwaukee’s southside.

Both girls were told while growing up that they were adopted and had a twin.

The efforts by Gudinas to find her sister made significant progress recently when a nun in Chicago who had archival materials from the orphanage provided her with the name of the people who adopted her twin.

She hired a genealogist to track her down with the help of public records and newspaper obituaries, and the genealogist showed up at McGuire’s door recently, leading to the arrangements for their meeting Tuesday.

“It’s hard – all these years I have missed with her,” McGuire said after she and Gudinas, who lives near Austin, Texas, shared their first hug and kiss.

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – Officials and residents here have gone sour on candy.

They want to see an end to a decades-old tradition of football fans throwing candy to Naval Academy midshipmen while they march to Navy-Marine Corps Stadium on Saturdays.

Residents living near the stadium complain that the streets are littered with candy wrappers and covered with a slimy, squishy and nasty mess after football games.

“It would be all well and good, if we didn’t have this litter,” said Lisa O’Leary, who lives nearby.

O’Leary suggested a round of applause might be a better way to support the academy. “I just don’t understand why we are throwing candy at adults,” she said.

The Naval Academy also wants the tradition to stop, spokeswoman Deborah Goode said. While community support is appreciated, she said the academy is concerned about injuries and litter.

“This candy-throwing isn’t a tradition, it’s a bad habit,” said Lawrence Heyworth III, vice president of communications for the Naval Academy Alumni Association.

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COOPERSBURG, Pa. (AP) – There won’t be any wet T-shirt contests at a strip bar here – the water’s been turned off.

The borough turned off the water to the Silhouette Showbar on Monday, with more than $700 owing on the club’s water bill, and the building cannot be occupied without water, Borough Manager Daniel Stonehouse said.

Stonehouse said the action concerning the pending water bill is unrelated to the borough’s legal efforts to shut down the bar’s Club Kama Sutra, which has been offering Saturday night sex parties.

Lehigh County Judge Edward Reibman has scheduled a hearing later this week on the borough’s request for an injunction against the club. Borough officials argue that it’s in a part of town zoned for a bar, restaurant and hotel, but not a private club.

The borough notified the bar Sept. 5 that the club violates the zoning ordinance and gave the operators 10 days to appeal. They declined to do so, saying they had not violated any zoning laws.

AP-ES-09-28-06 0633EDT

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