Here's the Good News

Schneider and his new dog, Buster

Driving along I-470 in Missouri last week, Aaron Schneider saw a car strike a stray dog that had wandered onto the highway. The Iraq War veteran quickly pulled over and then darted across several lanes of traffic to help the injured pooch. “All these cars were coming at me, honking and flashing their lights,” said Schneider, who fashioned a makeshift stretcher and drove the battered beagle to a nearby animal hospital, where he is expected to make a full recovery. The heroic vet plans to adopt the dog, which he named Buster. “From the moment I saw him get hit, my heart went out to him.”

Last week, 10-year-old Brianna Vance put her social media skills to good use—to save her father’s life. Gregory Vance was on the porch when a violent storm suddenly struck his West Virginia neighborhood, sending a tree crashing down upon him. With no working phone lines, Brianna posted a frantic plea on Facebook: “My dad’s almost dead. He needs an ambulance.” A neighbor saw the post and called 911. As the elder Vance recovered, Brianna posted another message: “Get well soon. You are the best dad I could ever ask for.”

Brazilian taxi driver Adilson Luiz da Cruz often finds lost phones and forgotten umbrellas in his cab, but last week he hit the jackpot: 40 tickets to the World Cup. Despite his lifelong dream of going to the tournament, plus the thousands of dollars he could have earned by scalping the tickets, the cabbie didn’t hesitate to do the right thing, returning all 40 tickets to the two very relieved Mexican fans he’d dropped off at a São Paulo hotel a few hours earlier. “It was my duty to give them back,” said da Cruz, who did exact a small reward: “I told them to root for Brazil.”