👋 Happy Friday!

Copenhagen just won the world's most livable city title - again - a streak so consistent you'd think the other 172 cities on the list have stopped trying. But there's a genuinely good detail buried in the data: New York posted one of the biggest single-year jumps of any city on Earth this year, thanks to falling crime and fewer flagged risks. The survey, notably, did not ask anyone about the L train, though.

This week:

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It’s not all doom and gloom out there. Here’s some positive news items from publications around the world.

🛟 Kentucky | 11-Year-Old Dives In When Adults Freeze, Pulls Drowning Man From Pool
Everyone else at the pool froze when a man sank to the bottom. But not 11-year-old Avory Woolery. He grabbed his goggles, dove down, and pulled the man to the surface himself. "There was no way that I was going to let another man die today," he said. The man is now recovering in hospital.
(Read more 👉 Sunny Skyz)

🐾 Florida | Missing Dog Turns Up 1,000 Miles Away, Owner Flies To Bring Him Home
Apollo went missing from his family's home in Ocala back in April. Nobody knows how, but the 13-year-old dog turned up at a police station on Long Island, New York – over 1,000 miles away. His owner flew up to collect him personally. "He went to New York before any of us," he joked. Apollo's 14th birthday party is already being planned for August.
(Read more 👉 WAFB)

🚣 Hawaii | Solo Rower Crosses 2,400 Miles Of Ocean, Breaks The Men's Record Too
Kelsey Pfendler set out from Monterey, California, on May 21, hoping to become the fastest woman to row solo to Hawaii. She did it in 43 days, beating the previous women's record of 86 – and the men's record of 52, for good measure. Hundreds gathered at Honolulu's harbor to watch her row in, arriving just in time for her own birthday. She's also raised more than $30,000 along the way for charity.
(Read more 👉 Hawaii News Now)

🌳 India | Man Has Planted 25 Millions Trees
Swami Prem Parivartan has spent 50 years planting trees across India, restoring vegetation across more than 270,000 hectares. But his conclusion after five decades on the ground is that one ancient tree does more good than a hundred thousand new ones, since a single "mother tree" can already be responsible for ten times that many offspring. "I confess: I have hardly made a dent," he writes in his new memoir. "But I tried. That is what matters."
(Read more 👉 The Better India)

🧬 USA | FDA Approves Gene Therapy For Sickle Cell Patients As Young As Two
The newly approved therapy, Casgevy, is a one-time CRISPR gene therapy, for children as young as 2 with sickle cell disease or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia. In trials, most young patients went a full year or more without a single severe pain crisis. For families used to a lifetime of hospital visits, it’s helping sufferers live as close to a normal childhood as ever before.
(Read more 👉 FDA)

😊 Vietnam | Japanese Doctors Mark 34 Years Of Free Surgery For Disadvantaged
A volunteer team from the Japan Cleft Palate Foundation has celebrated its 34th year straight traveling to Vietnam's Mekong Delta to perform free life-changing surgery for people born with cleft lips or palates. This year's mission sent 58 medical professionals to a hospital in rural Vinh Long province, about 90 kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City. Three decades in, they're still showing up and changing lives.
(Read more 👉 The Japan Times)

🧱 Global | LEGO Foundation Gives $97 Million To Get Playtime To 5 Million Kids In Crisis
The LEGO Foundation has committed $97 million over five years to the International Rescue Committee, aiming to bring play-based early learning to more than 5 million children caught up in conflict across East Africa and the Middle East. The company that's spent decades teaching kids to build things is now helping rebuild childhoods, too.
(Read more 👉 IRC)

🎗️ USA | Americans Gave A Record $617 Billion To Charity Last Year
New data on US charitable giving shows it crossed the $600 billion lined in 2025 for the first time ever – the second-highest total on record once you adjust for inflation and especially impactful given the cost of living crisis and inflation. Bequests grew fastest of any category, up nearly 17%, and corporate giving hit an all-time high, too.
(Read more 👉 Nice News)

Feel good stories from Happilynews.com guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Andy Teodoro made a promise to himself before he ever proposed: whatever happened to his body, his wedding day would include one dance on his feet.

That’s because in March 2019, a stray bullet from a gang shooting tore through his spleen, diaphragm, and left lung as he walked on a San Francisco street, clipping his spine on the way out. Doctors operated but were unable to remove a fragment lodged in his chest wall – Andy later nicknamed it Kevin – and the injury to his spine led to the loss of use of his legs. He's used a wheelchair ever since.

But years later, he came across a video of another wheelchair-using groom being lifted to his feet for a first dance. Andy said he watched it and simply burst out crying with not just the beauty of it, but the hope it gave him. There and then he decided he'd do the same for his fiancée Michelle when they got married.

But crucially, he didn't tell her.

For months in the run up to their wedding celebration in the Philippines, Andy trained with physical therapists at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for the moment. Using a standing frame built for paraplegics, he slowly built enough strength to hold his own weight briefly.

On their wedding day this year, the band struck up their first dance song. And as wedding coordinators placed chairs on either side of Andy's wheelchair, Michelle looked on slightly confused. And as his best man and a groomsman sat down, strapped Andy's legs to theirs with velcro, and on a count of three, lifted him to standing, Michelle walked toward her husband and wrapped her arms around him.

"I couldn't see or hear anyone else," she said. "It was just me and Andy."

The video has since been watched more than six million times online. But Michelle keeps coming back to something else it showed her: "It felt like such a clear picture of who he is. How he continues to show up for me, with so much resilience and strength."

A unique, sometimes quirky, but always eye-catching photo feature each week.

An Aston Martin has starred in 13 of the 25 James Bond films and survived exploding volcanoes, ski chases, and one memorable submarine transformation. But this one didn't even survive a flooded country road.

The Vantage's driver eased in slowly, seemingly confident the water was shallow enough to cross. But it wasn't. Halfway through, the V8 swallowed enough water to stall completely, leaving the car marooned mid-flood while its driver waded out to inspect the damage.

"It just didn't look that deep," the owner reportedly told his insurance company, according to local news reports in the UK – a sentence every driver hopes never to have to say out loud.

Sports cars are built for speed, not swimming - with barely 94mm of ground clearance and no snorkel anywhere in sight, the Vantage never really stood a chance.

And the internet being the internet, a suitable nickname for the driver has emerged: James Pond 🍸🤵

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Feeling perpetually short on time hits your wellbeing harder than you'd expect. Harvard Business School research has found that people who report being "time poor" take almost as big a hit to happiness as people who are unemployed. The fix isn't complicated: a peer-reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who spent money on time-saving purchases, like grocery delivery or a cleaner, felt happier that day than people who spent the same amount on material goods. This week, try redirecting one purchase away from "stuff" and toward "time," and see how it feels.

The average body at rest produces enough heat to boil half a gallon of water – we’re basically a furnace in a skin suit.

1885 – Louis Pasteur successfully gives an anti-rabies vaccine to 9-year-old Joseph Meister, saving his life.

1893 – Surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open-heart surgery, repairing the torn pericardium of stab-wound patient James Cornish – without the use of penicillin or a blood transfusion.

1957 – John Lennon, 16, and Paul McCartney, 15, meet for the first time as Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, perform at St. Peter's Church fête in Woolton, Liverpool. Mutual friend Ivan Vaughan makes the introduction – and the rest is history.

Feel-good clips are scientifically linked to better mood - consier this your weekend prescription!

A first-grade teacher's wedding hit an unexpected pause when the DJ said a few guests couldn't make it in person – but had something to say anyway. What came next left the bride in tears before she even understood what was happening.

That’s it for this week. If you liked what you read, why not buy the team a coffee? We’re fuelled by caffeine and a thirst for sharing the most uplifting, positive stories with you, our beloved readers.

And don’t forget to share with your friends and family to brighten their day, too.

Have a great weekend!

~ Team Happily 😊