Pink plastic flamingo faces extinction (AP)

LEOMINSTER, Mass. - The day Mayor Dean Mazzarella turned 40, he got a surprise. "After I woke up and went out for my morning run, I came back and there were 40 pink flamingos in my front lawn," Mazzarella recalled. "Someone had put them there as a joke." Now that he's 49 — "the same age as the pink flamingo," he notes — he hopes both he and the iconic lawn ornament that his city claims as its own will still be around next year to celebrate 50. But the original version of the plastic flamingo ...