Alabama

Fugitive alligator found

A 1,000-pound alligator that slipped away from a small coastal zoo amid flooding during Hurricane Ivan was found in a ditch Tuesday.

The 14-foot long gator named Chucky drew wide notice when he turned fugitive from the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores last Thursday. Volunteers helped track down the 14-foot reptile late Tuesday night — about 300 yards from the pond he escaped, but still on the zoo property.

It took a half-dozen people, including police and state troopers, to haul Chucky out of the ditch and take him to his new temporary home — in a bear’s den — while his pond is repaired.

Washington, D.C.

Social Security starts direct-deposit campaign

Fewer senior citizens are taking the government up on its offer to deposit their Social Security checks directly into their bank accounts, costing taxpayers millions.

Ninety percent of new Social Security recipients signed up for direct deposit in the late ’90s, but that number has fallen off to 68 percent, a recent federal study found.

It costs 68 cents to produce and mail each Social Security check, and the government sends out 13 million checks each month. That amounts to about $100 million each year.

The government is now testing a publicity campaign in Tennessee, Illinois, Texas and Puerto Rico to persuade more senior citizens to sign up for direct deposit. If they do not switch, the cost of sending paper checks will continue to climb as more and more baby boomers are added to the Social Security rolls.

Los Angeles

Company restricts personalized stamps

You can still get your baby, your dog, even your prized ’65 Mustang on a sheet of postage stamps and immortalize them in letters to your friends.

But plastering your own mug on the 37-cent stamps is off-limits. Same goes for that picture of your teenager you wanted to put on a stamp and attach to graduation announcements.

Stamps.com, the Santa Monica company that began offering people the opportunity last month to put pictures of themselves on postage stamps, has suddenly declared photos of adults and teenagers off-limits.

It seems some pranksters at the Web site The Smoking Gun have had some success in getting pictures of notorious adults past the company’s censors. The result has been a postage-stamp rogues gallery that includes Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The dress former White House intern Monica Lewinsky made famous also got by.

Detroit

Rosa Parks suffering dementia, judge told

Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has dementia and should not be forced to answer questions in her lawsuit over a rap song named for her, her doctor has told a federal magistrate.

Parks, 91, rarely has been seen in public since 2001, when she canceled a meeting with President Bush.

Parks’ lawsuit says that the 1998 song “Rosa Parks” by OutKast violated her publicity and trademark rights and defamed her. It also says that OutKast and record company BMG exploited her name for commercial purposes. OutKast has been dismissed as a defendant.

Defense lawyers will be able to question Parks’ doctor Joel Steinberg about her medical condition in early October.