Jesus, more drab news...

Running on today's AP wire:

Dying boy's birthday spoiled by toy thief


HOUSTON (AP) - A dying boy's birthday wish for a toy store shopping spree turned sour after someone stole the goodies he'd collected.

Steven Rael spent three hours on Monday cramming all he could into several shopping carts at a Houston Toys "R" Us. With store employees, friends and representatives of the Texas Wishing Well Foundation at his side, Steven picked a Play Station 2, DVD movies, computer games and a bike.

Steven lost a leg to cancer last year and the disease has spread to his lungs and bones. Doctors didn't expect him to live much beyond his 11th birthday, so celebrating his 13th on Monday was special, his family said.

"I just felt real happy," Steven told KPRC-TV in Houston. "It was the best day of my life."

All in all, he received about $5,000 in toys and donations, said his mother, Diane Lewis. That's much more than she or her fiance could afford to spend, she said.

After the shopping spree, a cab driver helped load the toys into his cab for the ride home. Steven and his family would lead the way in a Hummer they borrowed for the afternoon.

"He hugged me. He cried. He said he was so sorry for what Steven was going through," Lewis said of the cab driver. But he never showed up at their house, she said.

"We just couldn't believe it," Lewis told the Houston Chronicle for a Wednesday story. "Why would someone do this to Steven? Don't they have a heart?"

Other cabbies eventually found the missing taxi driver, but the toys were gone, she said. The driver was arrested on four outstanding warrants, but he wasn't initially charged in the toy theft.

Liberty Cab Co., which employs the man as a contract driver, said in a statement that he claimed that someone who hijacked his cab stole the presents. The company has promised to give Steven's family $3,000 to help replace the missing toys.