Wallet

George Washington, as legend has it, could not tell a lie. Those were the good old days - these days, facts are harder to come by. Yesterday, on the observance of Washington's birthday, a Doylestown, Pa., lawyer returned Washington's wallet, which was reported missing from an unlocked display case at the Old Barracks Museum here Jan. 28. But the lawyer, Eric Davis, didn't tell police where his anonymous client got the wallet, and he didn't...

Danny Graves, the Cincinnati Reds' closer, lost his wallet at the start of a West Coast trip last week and figured he would never see it again. The wallet contained his credit cards, his driver's license, his Reds identification card to get into ballparks, and about $1,400 in cash. But a man who cleaned the team's bus in San Diego returned the wallet and all of its contents, and took extraordinary precautions to make sure it would be safe during shipping. "The guy kept the cash and exchanged it for traveler's checks so it wouldn't get stolen through the mail," Graves said yesterday.

Dieters aren't the only ones suffering because of American Home Products Corp.'s decision Monday to pull its popular obesity drugs Redux and Pondimin off the market Shareholders of the Madison, N.J., drug-maker also are hurting. Yesterday, shares of American Home fell 5.7 percent on concerns that the company may have to set aside millions to settle product-liability lawsuits. The stock fell $4.25 to close at $69.94 on volume of more than 11 million shares. American Home's stock has fallen more than 9 percent since the company took the two diet drugs off the market at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia was robbed at gunpoint early yesterday morning at a Cleveland hotel by a group of men who stole his necklace, earrings and wallet, club officials said. Neal Huntington, the Indians' assistant general manager, said Sabathia and a cousin went to the Marriott Hotel with a group of people they had just met at a nightclub. As Sabathia, 21, and his cousin were getting ready to leave, two or three men pulled guns, Huntington said. A police spokeswoman said that a report had not been filed and that details of the case were sketchy.

For all the words poured into a daily newspaper, none lure me more than those in the letters to the editor. On a good day, they tell us what is possible when our hearts and souls are driven by what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature. " Perhaps most uplifting is the periodic letter from the visitor to our area who has met some adversity, only to be aided by a stranger. Invariably, the beneficiary concludes with a tribute to the generosity and good will of the people of our region.

In the middle of a late lunch crowd Monday, a 73-year-old woman was robbed when a man took her wallet as she was preparing to buy a drink at a McDonald's restaurant in Bristol Borough. "She was sitting in the booth with her husband," Patrolman Al Lebo said. "She got up to get a drink from the counter," he said. She was approaching the counter and "looking through her purse when the guy grabbed the wallet from her hand," he said. The robbery, at the Commerce Park McDonald's, apparently was unplanned.

The brown billfold lying in Martin Luther King Drive caught Mike Monaghan's eye Saturday morning. Monaghan, 47, riding his bike while his teenage son, Sean, and the Roman Catholic High School cross-country team took a nine-mile run along the river drives, screeched to a halt. He picked up the wallet and opened it. "The card on top of it said, 'John F. Street, attorney,' " said Monaghan, a cost accountant from the Morrell Park section of Northeast Philadelphia. Monaghan stuck the wallet in his pocket and caught up with the 60 boys.

The man walked into the local Wawa, wallet in hand as if he were about to make a purchase. But as soon as the clerk opened the cash register, the man grabbed the money and fled. There was just one small glitch. In his haste, the thief left behind his wallet, complete with photo identification and a copy of his birth certificate. And so it was that police tracked down Abdullah Yuzon and charged him with robbery and theft. Police say Yuzon, 29, of West Fifth Street in Lansdale, stole between $200 and $300 from the cash drawer at the Wawa on Butler Avenue about 9:30 p.m. on Thursday.

ON FEB. 13, I ran into the Home Depot in South Philadelphia to make a purchase. Then I left and proceeded home. As I pulled into a parking space, the realization of losing my wallet came crashing down on me. Besides the IDs and $200 in cash, I was extremely concerned about my credit cards. Money and ID is replaceable, but the aggravation of fraudulent credit-card purchases made me a nervous wreck. I went back to the store and searched around my parking space and found nothing. Then my phone rang, and my wife indicated that an elderly man had just returned my wallet and assured her he hadn't taken anything.

San Diego Padres reliever Trevor Hoffman was going to offer a $100 reward to the man who found his wallet, then had second thoughts when he realized who it was. "I thought it might look funny, giving money to an umpire," Hoffman said. On Tuesday, Hoffman took a cab from the team hotel to Busch Stadium in St. Louis and left his wallet in the backseat. Umpire Ed Montague later got into the same cab and recovered the wallet. Montague was waiting at the clubhouse door when Hoffman approached.

REALLY, PHILLY, this is how you're gonna do me? Me, who's been your one-woman cheering squad for months now? Who's been full-steam ahead with the whole "No Philly Shrug" campaign - despite the sometimes universal, it seems, eye-roll from haters? Me, who's been so rah-rah about Philly that old friends who know that optimism and boosterism and, oh-who-am-I-kidding, even smiling doesn't exactly come natural for me have wondered if I was having some sort of breakdown. No! I'd proclaim.

Forget about the $1,000 her sister had wired from Ireland, police told Angela Mohan. It's gone. Maybe the Broomall fitness instructor would get back the wallet she lost at the King of Prussia mall, they said. But even if she did, her chances of getting the $1,000 inside it were akin to winning the Powerball or Mega Millions lotteries. "I said, OK, I'm down a thousand," said Mohan in a brogue that highlighted her Irish roots. "But my credit cards, my license. My life is in that wallet.

Philadelphia police are searching for two teens who robbed a 9-year-old student Friday morning in the Wister section of East Germantown. The victim, identified as a third grader, was robbed of a wallet containing $13 on the 5200 block of Wakefield Street. The assailants, described as boys between the ages of 14 and 18, watched the victim make a purchase inside Jaques Mini-Market, waited for the victim to leave the store, and then grabbed the victim's wallet and fled, police said.

A New Jersey woman already in jail for allegedly stealing from a Philadelphia Hospital was charged with a similar crime in Delaware County. Tiffany Dellapia, 30 of Turnersville, is charged with theft, receiving stolen property and trespass for incidents that took place at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, according to court records. She is currently in custody at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Philadelphia. Yeadon police said they identified Dellapia through hospital security video as she walked down corridors trying to gain access to various offices.

A 72-year-old man in East Mount Airy was attacked and robbed in his home Friday night by three masked men, police said. The man, whom NBC10 identified as Stephen Shenk, was home alone on the 2400 block of 76th Avenue when the men broke into his bedroom about 11 p.m. and forced him to the floor, police said. They tied his hands and feet, gagged him, and went through his pockets, stealing his wallet, cash, and car keys. The attackers, who were described as approximately 20 years old, then took the man's car, a gray 2005 Toyota Corolla.

Now that the presidential election is over, Wall Street and financial advisers are telling clients that taxes are going up. We rounded up a sampling of opinions about potential tax hikes now up for debate in Congress, and possible fallout from the budget-cutting, tax-raising consequences of the fiscal cliff, if it happens. Ratings agencies may downgrade U.S. debt for a second time should Congress disagree about the debt ceiling and decide not to address long-term fiscal deficits, notes Barbara Novick, BlackRock Inc.'s vice chair and head of government relations.

What's in your wallet? Do you have a written list of the medications you take? If not, it might kill you, as it does thousands of people every year. Lack of an accurate medication list also makes it much more difficult to choose Medicare prescription drug coverage. The Medicare open enrollment period begins Monday and ends Dec. 7. Medicare Part D - prescription drug coverage - is a crucial and complex part of an often confusing process for many Medicare-eligible seniors.

KITTANNING, Pa. - A Pennsylvania Department of Transportation worker who feared being late when he turned around to retrieve the wallet he forgot at home was just in time to save four people from a burning house he saw on his way to work. Brant Cirrincione said he would not have seen the burning house along Route 28 in Boggs Township about 7 a.m. Wednesday had he not been running 10 minutes late because of his wallet. He beat on the windows and doors of the house, and had a neighbor call 911 to report the house fire.