A touring rock band almost met disaster in the middle of nowhere, until a 60-year-old stranger reminded them that there's still a magical thing called 'Midwest Nice'.

The Autumn Kings trio had just finished performing at the annual Rock Fest Wisconsin in Chippewa Valley when their van broke down on a rural highway.

They called every mechanic in the area but it required two days to fix the engine—yet they only had ten hours to make it to their next gig, the Upheaval Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 500 miles away.

Just then, the band witnessed "one of the biggest acts of kindness of their lives," according to their agent, Brandy Robidoux.

A complete stranger, Ernie, stopped to see if he could help, and ended up giving the band the keys to his Ford Explorer to use for several days—to drive over a thousand miles—so they could finish out their tour.

"The kindness of this one man restored our faith in humanity," said the band on Facebook.

"With all the things you hear, about how the world is always going to

The rookie lifeguard didn't flinch.

A giant wave slammed into the California shore and a 10-year-old boy was instantly swept up.

Luckily, a 16-year-old lifeguard ran to help, rushing toward a rescue that would go viral on social media, earning Ryder Williams praise across the internet.

It's Ryder's first summer working as a lifeguard, scanning the shores at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz, California, where the surf often pounds.

Last week, a sudden sneaker wave surged up the shore, knocking over the little boy and pulling him into the surprising surf. But, Ryder arrived in seconds.

"That's when I turned the camera on and started to document it," California photographer Scott Vander Dussen, who happened to be nearby, told the Los Angeles Times. "I had no idea it was going to be that intense…I've seen lots of interventions and rescues. I have never seen something like this."

Tropical cyclones in the eastern Pacific Ocean were producing unpredictable powerful waves and dangerous currents all over the California coast. The massive 8-10 foot wave that

A dog owner says her pooch saved her life, by repeatedly pawing at her armpit, which eventually alerted her to breast cancer.

The 61-year-old says her chihuahua Flag started the odd behavior years ago, constantly hitting the underside of her arm with his paw.

She originally dismissed the behavior, until she spotted a small lump under her breast and started to suspect her pup was trying to tell her something.

Kristine Richards, the retiree from Wellington, Somerset, went to an oncologist and was diagnosed with an aggressive form of hormone sensitive lobular breast cancer, which had already spread to her lymph nodes.

But, after a year of intense treatments, Kristine is now cancer free, and says that this is down to Flag's detecting skills – because there were no other symptoms, even though the disease was advanced at the time.

"It was very annoying, I must say, at the time, but then I started to wonder… I had heard that dogs could tell if there was cancer.

Kristine finally went to the oncologist, who said it is quite common for dogs to sniff these

On this day 100 years ago, Tony Bennett, the famed jazz and pop singer, who passed away just last year, was born. Winner of 19 Grammys, he grew up in a poor family of Italian immigrants, but his uncle was a vaudeville tap dancer, giving Tony an early window into show business.

After singing in restaurants for money at age 13, he had three No.1 pop hits in the 50s—Because of You, Cold, Cold Heart, and Rags to Riches—but moved on to jazz and became the first male pop vocalist to sing with Count Basie. His 1962 cover, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, won two Grammys and became Bennett's signature song—along with If I Ruled the World. WATCH a spine-tingling song recorded in his home during lockdowns… (1926)

A World War II veteran, Bennett has sold over 50 million records worldwide, including his MTV Unplugged platinum LP that won the top prize, Album of the Year.

In concert, Bennett always sings one song (usually Fly Me to the Moon) without any microphone or amplification, demonstrating

Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp is the latest wild wonder of the USA to make UNESCO's hallowed World Heritage Site list.

It joins the Grand Canyon, Sequoia, Everglades, and Yellowstone national Parks on the same list, and reflects the stunning biodiversity of American "blackwater" swamps.

Most of the Okefenokee Swamp is included in the 403,000-acre (163,000 hectare) Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, the most-visited NWR east of the Mississippi.

Conservation in the swamp dates all the way back to 1918, by which time 1 million cubic meters of timber had already been logged. The federal government acquired most of the swamp for refuge purposes in 1936, and designated it an NWR a year later.

It would go on to collect the designations of Federal Wilderness and Wetland of International Importance under RAMSAR, before the Georgia organ of the National Parks Service announced in 2023 it would be nominated to be the state's first ever prospective entry on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Okefenokee Swamp is the largest, lowland, freshwater peatland in the subtropical zone worldwide, and one of the largest and most intact ecosystems within the North

On July 31st, mine developer Canada Nickel Company announced it had received final permitting approval from the Ontario government for its gargantuan nickel mining/carbon capture project

The approval is the first issued under Canada's amended Impact Assessment Act, a reform of extractive industry regulations designed to allow the highest-quality projects to be permitted fast.

Financing for the project will come in part through the sale of carbon credits, as Canada Nickel develop what is now a proprietary carbon storage method that allows it to store atmospheric carbon within the milled stone out of which the nickel is separated.

Needed for stainless steel, plating, high-quality allows, and emerging as a must-have for next-generation EV batteries, the market for nickel as a globally-traded commodity is sequestered almost entirely within Indonesia, where poor tropical soils make mining nickel easy.

Some 67% of nickel is mined in the country, a greater share of market control than OPEC has over global oil production. Additionally, in 2024, nickel mining was identified as a primary national

Invasive species of Asian mussels have met their match in Alberta's riverine sniffer dogs.

These K9 conservationists have been employed by the provincial government for over a decade to help catch zebra and golden mussels from colonizing the rivers and lakes of Alberta.

Hilo, Jane, and Winnie, 2 black labs and a black-lab cross, are part of the paws-on-the-ground response at boat inspection stations across the province. It's now Alberta law that any watercraft must stop at an inspection station whether they are coming or going, and these patrol pooches are trained to smell the odor of developing mussel larvae which can be so small as to be detectable only by the faint feeling like sandpaper on the sides of boats or docks.

"The dogs are really complementing that human inspection and giving us kind of a better idea about what could be on that boat," said Cindy Sawchuk, the leader for the province's Aquatic Invasive Species Operations and Conservation Canine Program.

Sawchuk told the Canadian Press that golden mussels recently established themselves in California,

125 years ago today, the beloved American jazz trumpeter, composer, and singer Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans. Nicknamed Satchmo, or Pops, Armstrong was one of the most influential figures in jazz, with a trail-blazing career that spanned more than five decades. Take a moment to listen to "What a Wonderful World"… (1901)

With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong broke ground as he demonstrated great dexterity as an improvisational crooner and scat singer, bending the lyrics and melody to make any song more expressive.

Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971—and acted in cameo film roles, including his 1964 Grammy Award-winning vocal performance in Hello, Dolly!, co-starring Barbara Streisand.

One of his most memorable songs, What a Wonderful World, epitomizes the man, of whom Duke Ellington said, "He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone along the way."

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was born—the

In a story that shows how it's never too late to learn, a man in the UK has graduated from nursing school at 64.

His education actually saw the Nigerian immigrant, who is a father of 5, studying alongside his son, who was attending the very same university.

John Adesoye graduated with a degree in nursing from the University of West England after completing a 2-year nurse associate program, and a 2 year nurse apprenticeship program, at the National Health Services Foundation Trust in Bristol.

John grew up in a poor farming family in Nigeria and developed a keen interest in electronics, having been fascinated as a child with how his family's radio worked. He later lived in Greece, working as an electronics technician and servicing electronic equipment, and then moved to the UK.

The father-of-5, who now lives in Bristol, has secured a nursing role at Southmead Hospital where he had completed his apprenticeship.

"I didn't think I'd ever go to university, to be honest. But I have passion for learning," Mr. Adesoye said in a press

In 2022, the longest "predator exclusion fence" anywhere in the Pacific was completed on Kauai, encircling 168 acres of prime seabird nesting habitat.

The nesting birds include endangered species that were under constant threat of ravaging feral cats and pig before the 11,200-foot-long fence was raised.

Now, 4 years later, these seabirds are following their ancestral instincts and raising their chicks just meters away from nest sites that, 5 years before, would have double as their grave sites.

Originally developed on New Zealand, a predator exclusion fence (PEF) is no mean fence. It was designed to block passage of the 4 most deadly invasive mammalian predators across the Pacific.

It's too high for a cat or fox to jump over, is capped with a slick, claw-proof hood to prevent cats from climbing over, includes a combination rubber mat and skirt multiple inches below the ground to prevent pigs burrowing under, and boasts a metal mesh no teeth can chew through, yet also so fine that no rat can slide through it. The fence cost $1.7 million.

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