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PALO ALTO — At age 8, Mario Pagan might have asked for a trip to Disneyland or a visit from a professional athletes to get his mind off cancer. 

Instead, he simply wanted to play in the dirt just outside his Palo Alto hospital window. 

Mario got his wish in a big way Friday when he helped construction workers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital carve out a foundation for a new building. 

Mario’s grandmother and guardian, Debbie Allen, persuaded the hospital and builders to let the sick boy strap on a hard hat and go to work on the new cancer treatment center due for completion in 2003. 

“I haven’t seen this smile for a long, long time,” Allen said of Mario. 

The boy’s mother, Monika Pagan, came from her home in Idaho to watch him climb on a worker’s lap and help navigate the heavy machinery through mounds of dirt. 

Mario suffers from desmoplastic cancer which fills his stomach with tumors. Mario’s grandmother said he hasn’t responded to chemotherapy. 

After trying his hand at the dump truck and bulldozer Mario accepted a few souvenirs from the crew. 

Mario told his grandmother of his day in the dirt, “It was fun. I was helping.” 

MILWAUKEE — Along with not feeding the animals comes a new request from Milwaukee County Zoo officials: Don’t throw cash at the exhibits. 

Bird curator Kim Smith said zinc poisoning from pennies killed a wattled curassow from South America last spring and a Humboldt penguin in 1997. 

A sign warning visitors that “Coins Kill” was placed outside the Humboldt penguins’ pool at the zoo a year ago, but failed to stop visitors from tossing things. 

“We caught some kids throwing coins in, and asked them why they were doing it, and they told us: ’We thought you wanted them,”’ she said. “We’re preparing a sign that can’t be misinterpreted.” 

New pennies pose a particularly high risk, Smith said, because they contain higher levels of zinc and dissolve quicker in the birds’ digestive systems. 

“Because the birds are intelligent and curious, they will examine and play with anything unusual,” Smith said. 

“When they swallow that object, it can kill them.” 

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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — These animals may not roar or croak, but the pair of lions and a giant frog that disappeared from their posts outside a local restaurant are sorely missed. 

The 200-pound cement lion statues and the frog flower pot have been missing from Billy’s Restaurant and Lounge for more than a week. 

Now Nader Farahbod, Billy’s owner, has offered a reward for their return. He said he’ll serve dinner for two to anyone who returns his outdoor decorations. 

“Anything they want,” said Farahbod, also the chef. “As long as we have our lions back, we’ll treat them with the utmost respect and give them the best dinner we have.” 

He even offered to cook Billy’s specialties including baked brie and Paris pork chops, or shrimp served with Chardonnay. 

The large amphibian planter and decorative lions sat outside Billy’s front entrance for more than two years. Farahbod said he drove the streets of south Lincoln trying to find them on his own. 

Farahbod said he received one tip from a lost-and-found ad he ran. He said a woman called and said she spotted the lions having a drink at a local establishment, the Zoo Bar. 

If he gets more serious tips and his prized decorations are returned, he said he’ll make sure the don’t go missing again. 

“I’m gluing them down,” he said. 

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BAYFIELD, Colo. (AP) — Alton Jameson was on his way to a high school diploma when he became involved in a fracas in Europe. 

Fifty-nine years later Jameson made up for lost time, finally getting his diploma from Bayfield High School. 

Jameson left Bayfield at age 17 to fight in World War II. A year later he was fighting in Italy. 

Now 76, Jameson became the oldest student ever graduated by the school when he got his diploma Thursday at the beginning of the school’s annual awards ceremony. 

Jameson’s sister, Viola Padilla, contacted principal Ken Marang a few months ago. She asked if there was any way her brother could get a diploma. 

Marang set it up. 

Jameson arrived at the school Thursday expecting to pick up his diploma at a school board meeting. Instead, he donned a cap and gown and received his degree amid applause from hundreds of students and parents. 

Jameson said he hadn’t earned the degree, but Marang disagreed. 

“I told him he darned well earned this thing fighting for our country,” Marang said. “We appreciate it.”