COLLINSVILLE, Mo., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A Collinsville, Mo., medical equipment repairman found and returned $6,800 a dying man had stashed in an oxygen tank bag.

Corwin "Corey" Gibson, 22, was cleaning the oxygen tank Monday when he said a "big old bank envelope fell out" of the bag, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday.

Gibson had found $6,800 in cash hidden in the bag by Byron Tate, 52, a diabetic and respiratory-illness patient who had died last week.

Tate lived with his 86-year-old mother, who suffered from congestive heart disease, and neither was able to leave the house often.

Gibson, who makes $10 an hour, took the cash directly to his supervisors, who then called the family.

"I told him it was a godsend," said a family member who met Gibson. "I thanked him and asked the Lord to bless him."

119-year-old can't claim oldest record

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A 119-year-old Michigan woman may be the world's oldest living person, but Arbelia Wood can't hold the official title because there's no proof of her age.

A family bible older than Wood is the only proof she was born on April 6, 1885, in Arkansas, the Detroit Free Press reported. The county where she was born didn't start keeping records until 1912 and a 1921 fire in Washington destroyed records of the 1890 Census, officials said.

Wood, who beat cancer twice and survived two husbands, said she doesn't know why she has lived so long, but thanked her mother for a good upbringing.

"I had a smart momma, clever momma," Wood said. "I had to walk the line."

Wood, who moved to Michigan in the 1930s, defied traditional gender and racial roles, her 91-year-old brother said. The 119-year-old, who still feeds herself, has been in a Mount Clemens, Mich., nursing home since 1993.

The Guinness record for the world's oldest living person is held by a 114-year-old woman in The Netherlands.

National Geographic red-faced in Iran

TEHRAN, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- National Geographic magazine has apologized to the Iranian government for blunders in an issue where it renamed the Persian Gulf, Novosti reported.

In October, Iran's Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance issued a statement describing the magazine as "non-professional" and banned its distribution throughout Iran, and denied the issue of entry visas to correspondents after an atlas referred to the Persian Gulf as the Arab Gulf.

It also changed the names of two Iranian islands in the Gulf -- Kish and Lavan.

Iran issued a sharp protest, accusing the publishers of an attempt to deliberately change the historical and geographic realities.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi told Novosti the magazine has since offered a written apology to Iran and expressed its readiness to correct the mistakes in one of its coming issues.

He said Iran wants compensation for the damage caused by the errors.

N.M. Buddha statue weeps for wave victims

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- An 18-foot marble statue of a Buddhist goddess in Albuquerque appeared to weep just days after tens of thousands were killed by Asian tsunamis.

The statue of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy has weathered three years of exposure to harsh winter snow and sleet and summer monsoons, but until Tuesday its eyes had remained jet black, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

"We were all shocked," said Omar Hanson as he stood in front of the 13-ton statue, explaining how locals were amazed to see what appeared to be tears emanating from the statue's eyes and running down her cheeks.

The piece was handcrafted several years ago in northern Myanmar, one of the countries hit by Sunday's devastating earthquake and tsunamis, which have claimed over 80,000 lives so far.