In the News

Charity worker finds $7,500 among donated shoes
This stacks up among the better finds at a Goodwill store: $7,500 in cash stuffed in a shoebox. A recent Bulgarian immigrant found the money during her first day on the job last week at a Goodwill near St. Louis in Glen Carbon, Ill.
Teodora Petrova didn't hesitate after finding the cash with a pair of donated shoes - she turned the money over to a manager who told executives for the nonprofit charity.
The president and chief executive of the area's Goodwill organization says it's eager to find the owner of the money. The charity figures it may have been left with the shoes accidentally.
If the owner isn't found, Goodwill says the money will go toward the charity's job-placement efforts.
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Parrot credited with choking tot rescue
DENVER, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A Denver area babysitter said her pet parrot may have saved the life of a 2-year-old girl by raising a ruckus when the toddler started choking.
The babysitter, who gave her name as Meagan, said she was using the bathroom in her home while babysitting for the 2-year-old, Hannah, when she heard her parrot, Willie, screaming wildly,
"Willie started screaming like I'd never heard him scream before and he started flapping his wings," Meagan said. "Then he started saying 'mama baby' over and over and over again until I came out and looked at Hannah and Hannah's face was turning blue because she was choking on her pop tart."
Meagan said she performed the Heimlich maneuver and stopped the young child's choking.
"If (Willie) wouldn't have warned me, I probably wouldn't have come out of the bathroom in time because she was already turning blue, her lips were blue and everything," Meagan said.
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Weight violation prompts elevator rescue
Seven people had to be rescued from a stalled elevator in New Bedford, Mass., City Hall after the vehicle's weight restriction was surpassed, an official says.
John Perry -- the New Bedford Department of Public Facilities superintendent of facilities, maintenance and construction -- said the elevator had an approximate weight capacity of 1,700 pounds, and the weight of 10 people was just too much for the elevator car to handle last week.
Perry said riders packed into the elevator despite the weight limit warning and stalled the transport for two hours Thursday.
"Some people just don't want to listen to the elevator operator," Perry said.
Three of the trapped riders chose to leave the stalled elevator using a ladder but the remaining seven had to wait in the elevator car until rescuers could free them.
Officials would be more stringent regarding the use of the elevator, which was manufactured in 1912 and is the nation's oldest continually operating elevator.
"We will be kicking people off from now on," the superintendent said.
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Feinstein Urges Web Sites Not to Sell Scalped Inauguration Tickets
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is overseeing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, is asking Web sites like eBay not to sell scalped inauguration tickets -- which could be sold for up to $40,000 online.
WASHINGTON -- The senator overseeing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony said Monday she's writing to Internet sites like eBay asking them not to sell scalped inauguration tickets.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also said she's crafting a bill that would make a federal crime of selling tickets to the historic event Jan. 20.
Feinstein, who chairs the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said she foresees overwhelming demand for the 240,000 available tickets and has heard reports they may be sold for as much as $40,000 online.
The tickets are supposed to be free to the public and distributed through congressional offices.Lawmakers' offices won't get the tickets until shortly before the inauguration, to try to prevent scalping. In-person pickup will be required.