It wasn’t all bad
■ The “Jones 30,” current and former workers at Rector A. Jones Middle School in Kentucky, have played the lottery together for more than a decade. Last month, they won $1 million, thanks to the Kentucky Powerball. The group caravanned together to the lottery office, where each person collected $24,000 after taxes. After learning about the victory, a retired math teacher kept the winning ticket safe in a math textbook, “No one looks in a math book,” the former math teacher said. “I knew it would be safe there.”
■ After at least a week trapped in a shipping container, a brown-furred dog was rescued at a Texas port. The container was filled with junked cars, and the dog, now named Connie the Container Dog, probably got stuck inside one of the vehicles. Four U.S. Coast Guard inspectors were randomly checking the shipping units when they heard Connie’s scratching and barking in a 25-foot elevated container. If they hadn’t found her, Connie would have had no food or water for another week before the container made it to its final destination. Currently, she’s at a rescue agency, waiting for a family to adopt her. “We know with all this, she’s going to go to a good home,” said Ryan McMahon, one of the inspectors.
■ A California bride donated her $15,000 wedding reception to Parents Helping Parents, a specialneeds nonprofit, after calling off the engagement with her then-fiancé. She tried to cancel the reception, but with just weeks to go it was too late to get a refund, so the (not quite) bride decided to turn it into an event that would bring joy to others. Her family contacted the San Jose-based nonprofit, and PHP hosted a party for children and adults with disabilities that included food, music, dancing, fireworks, and a photo booth. “Our sons and daughters delighted in every moment,” said Trudy Marsh Grable, a special-needs parent.