A pet cat was reunited with its family after being lost for two months in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The U.S. Navy had transferred Lt. Cmdr. Will O'Connor from Washington state to Rhode Island, and on Oct. 2 he had taken the two family cats to the airport to be shipped in advance of the family traveling cross country.

One cat got loose as it was being loaded on the plane and the O'Connor family spent four days searching the airport for Jefferson, the Seattle Times reports.

When they had to leave, dozens of airport personnel and others continued the search.

In a last-ditch effort, Kelly O'Connor, Will's wife, flew back on Nov. 22 to put up laminated fliers offering a $250 reward and near the end of December, a woman who had taken care of the cat saw a flyer and returned the pet.

MOM DUBBED NEW BROCKOVICH

A New York mother, dubbed the new Erin Brockovich for the part she played in the arrest of a judge, may have signed a movie deal, the New York Post reports.

Frieda Hanimov, who was pregnant at the time, wore a wire to help police catch a judge suspected of cutting a deal with her ex-husband over custody of one of her three children.

The audio tapes Hanimov made helped lead to the arrests of the judge, his court officer, a retired clerk and a lawyer who allegedly worked with him and several litigants.

News of the arrests led others to come forward with complaints about the judge, earning Hanimov the comparison to whistle-blower Brockovich, whose dogged determination led to a multi-million-dollar settlement from a company accused of polluting a town's water supply.

BUYING HAPPINESS

Some say money doesn't buy happiness but a British think tank suggests money or a job can make all the difference when it comes to being happy.

A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research underscores problems caused by low employment in the northern parts of Britain, where incomes are less, reports the Independent.

"Put bluntly, people in the North die earlier than people in the South and levels of depression for men in the North was three-fifths higher than for Southern region, the study says.

The report says seven factors significantly affect happiness: income, work, private life, community, health, freedom and philosophy of life.

GIVING: A SELFISH ACT

Behavioral experts and spiritual leaders say givers, whether they give a card to a friend to a check to a charity, benefit from the act.

"People give because it makes them feel good. That's a very selfish motivator for giving," says Eugene Tempel, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Charitable donations more than doubled from $119 billion in 1994 to $241 billion in 2002, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

The main reason for the increase is a selfish one -- new tax benefits for donors, according to Tempel.