Actor Mel Gibson recovered from virus

LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson spent a week in a Los Angeles hospital in April after testing positive for COVID-19, his representative said Friday.

The 64-year-old actor and director has completely recovered and is doing “great” according to the rep. He also said Gibson has tested negative “numerous times” since then.

Gibson is the latest in a long string of high profile figures to go public with coronavirus diagnoses and recoveries including Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, George Stephanopoulos and the singer Pink.

Mammoth skeleton found in Siberian lake

MOSCOW — Russian scientists are working to retrieve the well-preserved skeleton of a woolly mammoth, which has some ligaments still attached to it, from a lake in northern Siberia.

Fragments of the skeleton were found by local reindeer herders in the shallows of Pechevalavato Lake on the Yamalo-Nenets region a few days ago. They found part of the animal’s skull, the lower jaw, several ribs, and a foot fragment with sinews still intact.

Woolly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists think small groups of them may have lived on longer in Alaska and on Russia’s Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.

Rare frog found beyond its known rangeFLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A rare frog has been found beyond its known range in the Southwest.

A U.S. Forest Service volunteer recently photographed a Chiricahua leopard frog in an earthen stock tank near the town of Camp Verde in central Arizona, the agency said Thursday. Biologists later confirmed that at least 10 of the frogs were living there.

The aquatic frogs were thought to be only in eastern Arizona, western New Mexico and northern Mexico but historically were more widespread. The frogs’ numbers have declined because of habitat loss, disease and predators.

Coast Guard rescues fisherman

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a commercial fisherman who was clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico after his boat capsized, the day after evacuating a boy and his father from the same vessel.

The agency received an emergency alert at 8:56 a.m. Thursday from the Jenny Lynn, broadcasting its location, according to a news release.

A MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew dispatched from Air Station Clearwater found Robert Heart, 48, clinging to a cooler in 3 to 4-foot seas. He was still near the 36-foot boat, which was almost entirely under the surface.

A rescue swimmer helped Heart into a cage that was hoisted into a helicopter, whose crew took him to a Tampa hospital for a medical evaluation. His condition was not immediately known.

Trump honors former track phenom

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday presented one of the nation’s highest civilian honors to Jim Ryun, a former Republican congressman and the first U.S. high schooler to break the 4-minute barrier in running the mile.

Ryun was the 1968 Olympic silver medalist in the 1,500-meter run and is a three-time Olympian.

The Associated Press