In brief: Pink plastic flamingo creator dies at 79

BOSTON – Don Featherstone was a classically trained painter, a talented sculptor and artist who became famous for creating the pink plastic lawn flamingo – the ultimate piece of American suburban kitsch.

And it didn’t bother him a bit.

Featherstone, who died Monday at 79, embraced the fame the invention brought him.

He died at an elder care facility in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, after a long battle with Lewy body dementia, his wife of 40 years, Nancy, told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

Featherstone, who studied art at the Worcester Art Museum, created the ornamental flamingo in 1957 for plastics company Union Products Inc., of Leominster, modeling it after photos of the birds he saw in National Geographic.

Featherstone worked at Union for 43 years, inventing hundreds of products in that time and rising to the position of president before his retirement in 1999.

In addition to his wife, Featherstone is survived by two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

‘High-energy’ injury killed Freddie Gray

BALTIMORE – A medical examiner found Freddie Gray suffered a “high-energy injury,” most likely caused when the Baltimore police van he was riding in slowed down, according to an autopsy report obtained by the Baltimore Sun.

The report says Gray’s death could not be ruled an accident and is instead a homicide because officers didn’t follow safety procedures “through acts of omission.”

Police arrested Gray, 25, on April 12, and he died a week later, prompting protests and rioting. A grand jury indicted six officers on various charges; one officer faces the most serious charge of second-degree “depraved-heart” murder. They have pleaded not guilty.

Although officers loaded Gray into the van on his abdomen, the medical examiner surmised Gray may have gotten to his feet, then been thrown into a wall when the van abruptly changed direction. Because Gray wasn’t belted in and had his wrists and ankles shackled, he was “at risk for an unsupported fall during acceleration or deceleration of the van.”

Navy Pier getting bigger Ferris wheel

CHICAGO – Navy Pier plans to debut a bigger and more luxurious 196-foot Ferris wheel when the Chicago tourist attraction celebrates its 100th anniversary next summer.

Standing 49 feet taller than the current Ferris wheel installed two decades ago, the replacement will fit up to 180 more passengers per ride. It will be outfitted with temperature-controlled gondolas that can carry up to 10 passengers each and feature padded seats, TV screens, speakers and condensation drainage systems.

The new model, which will be the first of its kind in the U.S., already has been purchased with private funds. It was created by Dutch Wheels, the Netherlands-based company that built Navy Pier’s current wheel.

Oil spill forces offshore shutdown

LOS ANGELES – The shutdown of a pipeline that spilled up to 101,000 gallons of crude on the Santa Barbara coast forced Exxon Mobil Corp. to halt operations at three offshore platforms because it couldn’t deliver oil to refineries, the company said Tuesday.

The company temporarily ceased operations last week because Santa Barbara County rejected its emergency application to truck oil to refineries, spokesman Richard Keil said.

The shutdown is not expected to have an impact on oil prices.

Google simplifies ‘undo send’ steps

SAN FRANCISCO – Google is making it easier to steer clear of the trouble that can be caused by a misdirected or inappropriate email.

An option to cancel the delivery of an email within 30 seconds of hitting the send button is now a standard safeguard in Google’s Gmail as part of a settings change made this week.

The “undo send” feature had already been available for the past six years in Google’s experimental labs, but that required Gmail users taking extra steps to get it.

Gmail accountholders will now be able to activate the protection in Gmail’s settings. The tool delays the delivery of emails from five to 30 seconds after the send button is pressed to give users a fleeting chance to retrieve an email mistakenly sent to the wrong person or an ill-conceived communique.