Love At First Sight: A VE Day Meeting That Changed Everything

Rita Harvey, a spirited 97-year-old, recalls the day she met her husband on a train ride home from celebrating Victory in Europe Day. It was May 8, 1945, and London was alive with joy as World War II came to an end. Rita had ventured into the city with a friend to join the festivities. "We were drinking champagne and dancing in central London," Rita said. "We had a wonderful day." As they headed back to Waterloo Station for their journey home, the train was packed. That's when Ken, an Army serviceman, offered Rita his seat. "That lovely young man was Ken, and it was love at first sight," she shared. The two exchanged addresses and began writing letters to each other. Their correspondence blossomed into a romance that led them to marry in East Molesey, Surrey, in 1951. They enjoyed many happy years together until Ken's passing in 1993. Now residing at the Royal Star & Garter care home in Surbiton, Rita is set to join fellow residents in commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day. "I wanted to see what was happening in London," she reminisced about that fateful day. Despite living with dementia, Rita's memories of meeting Ken remain vivid—a testament to their enduring love story. As she prepares for this year's celebrations at her care home for veterans and their partners, her tale continues to inspire those around her.

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A Boston Marathon Runner With One Lung Is Defying Her Cancer Diagnosis

Rhonda Foulds has spent years chasing finish lines. These days, she is chasing time on her own terms. Foulds, 34, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease after losing much of her mobility. She told WFAA there was a point when, “I literally could barely walk from the couch to the kitchen.” For years, she had run toward milestones, including a first marathon and then another finish line she once thought would be her last. “But I thought I never wanted to do it again,” she told WFAA with a laugh. After deep brain stimulation surgery restored her movement, running became part of her recovery. What started as therapy became something much bigger for her. “Fighting for what feels good is the best thing you can do for yourself,” Foulds said. By 2020, she had completed 100 marathons. The races carried weight after Parkinson's had changed her daily life, and running had helped her get back to something she thought she had lost. Then, in October 2024, a routine check of her implanted brain stimulator led to another diagnosis. “Ovarian cancer,” she says to WFAA. “And lung cancer.” The cancer had already spread. Foulds said doctors found tumors on her liver and sternum, and cancer in her bones. “I was depressed and anxious about it… and then I thought, you know, why not try to fight it?” she said. Foulds has spoken plainly about what the diagnosis means to her and what she wants from the time ahead. “I don’t want to die. I just want to be good up to the very end,” she said. She has also kept hold of the outlook that has carried her through Parkinson's and cancer. Speaking about how she approaches her illness, Foulds said, “You can always look for the bad. But it’s so much better if you look for the good, regardless of what life is like.” Chemotherapy disrupted her plans to train. Faced with that, she made a decision about what she wanted to do next. “I’m not saying I’ll give up chemo forever, just for now, because I want to run Boston,” she said. For Foulds, the Boston Marathon is not about a finishing time, a placing or even a medal. According to the source text, she is choosing how to spend her time, and running Boston is one of the things she wants to do. She also has other goals, including a jump off the cliffs in Wyoming. The physical challenge is also different now. Foulds plans to run the Boston Marathon with one lung after losing the other in her fight with cancer. “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever been through,” she says. “But I’m gonna do it.” Her focus has shifted away from counting results. After years of measuring progress in miles and marathons, she has stopped counting in the same way. “We’re all gonna go one day,” she says. “I’m not afraid to die.” Foulds has learned that the hardest part is not always the end of a race. For her, it is the decision to begin, even when she knows the cost. “Keeping the faith,” she says softly, “that everything is gonna be good.” 📸Credit: @runrhodie on IG

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Scientists Say They've Discovered a 'Sleep Switch' That Builds Muscle, Burns Fat and Boosts Brainpower

A good night’s sleep is doing a lot more work than most people realise. It helps rebuild the body, supports muscle and bone growth, burns fat, and for teenagers, it is tied to reaching full height potential. At the centre of that process is growth hormone, which surges during sleep. Scientists have long known that poor sleep, especially early deep non-REM sleep, is linked to lower levels of the hormone. Now researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say they have identified the brain circuits behind that link. In a study published in Cell, the team mapped the circuits that control growth hormone release during sleep and identified what they describe as a new feedback system that keeps those levels in balance. The researchers said the finding gives a clearer view of how sleep and hormones work together. They also said it could help guide future treatments for sleep disorders linked to metabolic diseases such as diabetes, as well as neurological conditions including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. “People know that growth hormone release is tightly related to sleep, but only through drawing blood and checking growth hormone levels during sleep,” said study first author Xinlu Ding, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Berkeley’s Department of Neuroscience and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. “We're actually directly recording neural activity in mice to see what's going on. We are providing a basic circuit to work on in the future to develop different treatments.” The study points to a system deep in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain shared by all mammals. In that region, specialised neurons release signals that either trigger or suppress growth hormone. Two of those signals are growth hormone releasing hormone, or GHRH, which stimulates release, and somatostatin, which inhibits it. The researchers said the two work together to coordinate hormone activity across the sleep-wake cycle. Once growth hormone enters the system, it activates the locus coeruleus, a brainstem region involved in alertness, attention and cognitive function. Disruptions in that area are linked to a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. “Understanding the neural circuit for growth hormone release could eventually point toward new hormonal therapies to improve sleep quality or restore normal growth hormone balance,” said Daniel Silverman, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow and study co-author. “There are some experimental gene therapies where you target a specific cell type. This circuit could be a novel handle to try to dial back the excitability of the locus coeruleus, which hasn't been talked about before.” To study the system, the researchers recorded brain activity in mice using electrodes and stimulated neurons with light. Because mice sleep in short bursts during the day and night, the team said they were able to get a detailed view of how growth hormone shifts across sleep stages. They found that GHRH and somatostatin behave differently in REM and non-REM sleep. During REM sleep, both hormones increase, leading to a surge in growth hormone. During non-REM sleep, somatostatin drops while GHRH rises more modestly, which still boosts hormone levels but in a different pattern. The team also identified a feedback loop linking growth hormone to wakefulness. As sleep continues, growth hormone gradually builds up and stimulates the locus coeruleus, pushing the brain toward waking. The researchers said the system has another layer. When the locus coeruleus becomes too active, it can instead trigger sleepiness, creating what they described as a delicate balance between sleep and alertness. “This suggests that sleep and growth hormone form a tightly balanced system: Too little sleep reduces growth hormone release, and too much growth hormone can in turn push the brain toward wakefulness,” Silverman said. “Sleep drives growth hormone release, and growth hormone feeds back to regulate wakefulness, and this balance is essential for growth, repair and metabolic health.” Ding said the hormone’s effects may go beyond physical growth. “Growth hormone not only helps you build your muscle and bones and reduce your fat tissue, but may also have cognitive benefits, promoting your overall arousal level when you wake up,” Ding said. The research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Pivotal Life Sciences Chancellor’s Chair fund. Yang Dan holds the Pivotal Life Sciences Chancellor’s Chair in Neuroscience. The study also included collaborators from UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-lying-on-white-cotton-8263101/)

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A Kindness Challenge Vending Machine is Dispensing Acts of Kindness

What used to sell bait and tackle in Michigan now hands out prompts for kindness. Nearly four years ago, Michigan artist Andrea Zelenak came up with the idea to turn an old bait and tackle vending machine into something she said could do more for the community. In 2022, the Detroit-area artist installed a refurbished, brightly colored vending machine on Monroe Avenue in Grand Rapids and called it The Kindness Challenge. Inside were three kinds of challenges aimed at getting people to do something kind for someone else. Green challenges are easy, yellow challenges are medium, and pink challenges are the most difficult to carry out. Zelenak first got a grant from an organization in Grand Rapids to create the project. As the owner of what she calls “an encouragement shop” called Inkcourage, she said she wanted to make doing good accessible to everyone. “The idea is that one act of kindness can create a wave of kindness in a community,” she told ABC 13 News, “so I’m really just challenging people to do one small act of kindness in order to create this bigger wave.” The project is still running in 2026. Over the years, the vending machine has traveled around Michigan to art festivals and different retail and arts districts. It is now in Detroit, outside Zelenak’s store. “You can come up , it’s open 24/7 , so you can come any time you want, and grab a mystery item from the machine,” Zelenak said in a recent social media video. “It’s inspired by the butterfly effect, so the idea is that when you do one random act of kindness for somebody, it creates a ripple of kindness in your community.” The machine works like a standard vending machine. It takes cash, coins and tap-to-pay options. FOX17 reported in 2022 that each item costs $3, and that the money goes back into creating more kindness challenges. Each purchase dispenses an envelope with what a person might need to carry out the act of kindness inside. The challenges can be simple. They might ask someone to give a warm hat to a person in need, share a stick of gum, write a thank you note or post encouraging words in public. Thousands of people have taken part since the machine started operating. During a recent installation at ArtPrize, Zelenak said more than 3,000 acts of kindness had been dispensed and that she ran out of challenges during the event. The machine gives out specific assignments, but Zelenak said she also wants people to think about the impact kind words can have. “If somebody says something kind to you, you will remember that for maybe a week, or five years, or the rest of your life,” she told ABC 13. “So I really feel like these words are really powerful no matter what you do with it.” She has also tied the project to the butterfly effect in describing how a small act can spread further than the person doing it may ever know. “The story goes, when a butterfly flaps its wings in Texas, it can set off a hurricane in Japan. One small action can create a ripple and lead to bigger, unpredictable things,” she writes on her website. “A simple act of kindness can make a huge difference and create a wave of kindness. Kindness is magic. Don’t underestimate it.” 📸credit: Andrea Zelenak/Facebook

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Vancouver Woman is Restoring Cherished Stuffed Animals Through Her Own Teddy Bear Hospital

In a Vancouver home, a retired seamstress is giving battered teddy bears another shot. Ruth Hasman has turned retirement into repairing worn, torn and well-loved stuffed toys, working on them for nearly two decades, according to the CBC. She has repaired thousands of stuffed toys over that time. Some arrive missing eyes. Others have been damaged by pets. Many are simply, in her words, “loved” to the point of falling apart. Hasman told the CBC she treats every repair as its own problem to solve. “No bear is the same,” she said. “I learn something new almost every time I fix one.” She also said she does not cut corners. If a repair does not meet her standards, she starts over from scratch. Sometimes she visits dozens of thrift stores to find material that matches a bear’s original look. For Hasman, the work is also about the people attached to the toys. Many of the stuffed animals she repairs have been passed down through generations and carry deep emotional value for the families who send them in. One of the oldest toys she has worked on was 115 years old and had been cherished by five generations. “It’s a pleasure talking to the people, finding out the history of the bears,” she said. “There’s a lot of poignant stories.” She said the response after the repairs is often especially moving when it comes from children. “I get these little notes from the kids,” she said, gesturing to her heart. “It just pulls my heart.” 📸credit: @ruthhasman on IG

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A Couple Just Saved a Mother And Baby From an Indiana House Fire

What started as a routine trip to Lowe’s turned into a rescue for an Indiana couple who spotted a house fire just as a mother and her baby were inside. Matt and Erin Wuestefeld of Greendale were driving home from an errand on March 15 when they noticed something was wrong, according to local outlet WKRC. "We both smelled smoke,” Matt said. “We looked over to the left and saw some flames coming out below the window.” Matt said he turned the car around, put it in park and ran toward the white, two-story home. "[I] ran up to the door, knocked on the door. There was a young lady inside … [She] had a baby less than a year old. Told her her house was on fire," Matt said. He helped the woman and her baby get out of the home. Then he went back inside to grab a few items. “I ran back in the house, grabbed her keys, her purse, her baby carrier and a bottle, and we got the car moved, looked for the two fire hydrants, [made] sure that they were available for the fire department and waited for them to show up," Matt explained. He told WKRC he and Erin were simply there when help was needed. "There's people who needed help and we were there ready to help," he added. According to WKRC, the mother, who has not been publicly named, later thanked Matt and Erin. She said she had woken up from a nap only seconds before Matt knocked on her door. Matt said the timing was narrow. "If we were probably 10 minutes earlier, we'd be not even smelling or [seeing] it, but there [was] just the right time to see the smoke and see the flames coming out underneath the window," he said. The mother and her baby were not hurt, according to WKRC, but the fire destroyed their home and belongings. The Greendale Police Department described it on Facebook as an "extremely dangerous situation." It is not currently known what caused the fire. 📸 Credit : greedale police department

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Meet the Artemis II Astronauts Getting Set for a NASA Moon Mission Launch on Wednesday

The next crew bound for the Moon is almost ready to go, and this time there are four names on the list. NASA says Artemis II is set to lift off as early as April 1. The mission will send four astronauts from the United States and Canada on an approximately 10-day flight around the Moon to test the Orion spacecraft, which will land on the Moon in future missions. The crew will not land on the Moon on Artemis II, but the mission will take them thousands of kilometres deeper into space than the Apollo astronauts went for the original Moon landings of the 1960s and 1970s. “We are getting very, very close [to launch], and we are ready,” Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a press conference over the weekend. “All of our operations have been going smoothly, it's been going very well.” Ahead of launch, the astronauts are reviewing emergency procedures and spending time with their families at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. They are also staying in quarantine to make sure they stay healthy before liftoff, which could be any day between April 1 and 6. Commander Reid Wiseman is a retired Navy captain who was serving as NASA's chief astronaut three years ago when he was asked to lead the crew. Wiseman previously spent more than five months at the International Space Station in 2014 as part of the 40th launch. He said his teenage daughters had “zero interest” in seeing him launch again. “We talked about it and I said, ‘Look, of all the people on planet Earth right now, there are four people that are in a position to go fly around the Moon,” he said. “I cannot say no to that opportunity.” Wiseman said the toughest part is not leaving his family, but “it's the stress that I’m putting on them.” He has been a single father since 2020, when his wife Carroll passed away from cancer. Wiseman was selected to join NASA as one of nine candidates in 2009 to start astronaut training after his military career. At the time, he was a lieutenant commander in the US Navy. He has often said he wanted to be an astronaut after going to a Space Shuttle launch in person as a child. Pilot Victor Glover has his own pre-launch routine. Before any launch, he listens to two songs, Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” and Marvin Gaye’s “Make Me Wanna Holler” from the white-dominated Apollo era. Glover said they "capture what we did well, what we did poorly." Glover, one of NASA's few Black astronauts, said he sees his place on the mission as a "force for good," and a chance to inspire others to get into space. In 2018, Glover was assigned to fly on the first operational flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, where he stayed for more than six months. Local media reported at the time that he was the first African-American crew member to stay on the ISS. In his previous career as a fighter pilot for the US Army, Glover logged over 3,000 flight hours in 40 different types of aircraft and flew in 24 combat missions. Before this launch, he said he has spent more time preparing his four daughters for his launch than he has preparing himself. Mission specialist Christina Koch, a 47-year-old electrical engineer from North Carolina, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days. That mission began when she blasted off to the International Space Station on March 14, 2019. During that time, Koch was also part of the all-female spacewalk, when she and Jessica Meir left the ISS to carry out upgrades to the station's power systems and physics observatories. According to Reuters, Koch's 328-day mission is used to study the physical, biological and mental effects of long-term space travel on women. More than any one individual, Artemis II is “about celebrating the fact that we’ve arrived to this place in history” where women can fly to the Moon, she said. Koch spent a year at a South Pole research station before getting the call from NASA. Between that and her time in space, she said she feels she's “inoculated” most of her family and friends. “So far, I haven't gotten too many nerves from folks. Maybe my dog, but I've reassured her that it's only 10 days. It's not going to be as long as last time.” Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen is making his space debut. He will be the first Canadian to ever go to the Moon. “Maybe I'm naive, but I don't feel a lot of personal pressure," Hanson told the Associated Press. Hansen, 50, grew up on a farm in rural Canada before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force as a captain. He piloted aircraft such as the CF-18 from his base in Alberta. He had been promoted to the rank of colonel before getting the call from the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. He also served as an "aquanaut" on a NASA mission to the Aquarius underwater laboratory in 2014, living underwater for seven days to simulate conditions in space and test NASA's remote guidance systems. “When I walk out, and I look at the moon now, it looks and feels a little bit farther than it used to be,” he said. “I just understand in the details how much harder it is than I thought it was, watching videos of it.”

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Exercise for Just Minutes a Day May Lower Risk of 8 Diseases, According to New Research

A few minutes here and there might matter more than people think. Just a small amount of vigorous physical activity each day may sharply cut the risk of developing several major diseases, including arthritis, heart disease and dementia, according to research published today in the European Heart Journal. Researchers analysed data from nearly 96,000 people to test how overall physical activity and the share of that activity done at vigorous intensity affected the risk of disease over time. They found that even short bursts of higher-intensity effort, such as running to catch a bus, were linked to lower risks of disease and death. The strongest protective effects showed up for inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, major cardiovascular problems including heart attack and stroke, and dementia. The study was led by an international team that included Professor Minxue Shen from the Xiangya School of Public Health at Central South University in Hunan, China. He said, "We know that physical activity reduces the risk of chronic disease and premature death, and there is growing evidence that vigorous activity provides greater health benefits per minute than moderate activity. But questions remain about the importance of intense activity versus total physical activity. For example, if two people do the same total amount of activity, does the person who exercises more vigorously gain greater health benefits? And if someone has limited time, should they focus on exercising harder rather than longer?" All participants were part of the UK Biobank study. They wore wrist-based accelerometers for one week, allowing researchers to record detailed movement patterns, including brief bursts of vigorous activity that people might not remember or report themselves. Using those measurements, the researchers calculated each person's total physical activity and the proportion that was intense enough to cause breathlessness. They then compared that data with participants' chances of dying or developing eight serious conditions over the next seven years. Those conditions were major cardiovascular disease, irregular heartbeat, type 2 diabetes, immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, liver disease, chronic respiratory diseases, chronic kidney disease and dementia. The results showed that people who spent a larger share of their activity doing vigorous movement had lower risks across all the conditions studied. Compared with people who did no vigorous activity, those with the highest levels had a 63 percent lower risk of dementia, a 60 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes and a 46 percent lower risk of death. The researchers said these benefits appeared even when the total amount of time spent doing vigorous activity was relatively small. The study also found that intensity mattered more for some diseases than others. For inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and psoriasis, the researchers said intensity appeared to be the main factor linked to lower risk. For diseases including diabetes and chronic liver disease, they said both the amount of activity and how hard people exercised were important. Professor Shen said: "Vigorous physical activity appears to trigger specific responses in the body that lower-intensity activity cannot fully replicate. During vigorous physical activity, the kind that makes you feel out of breath, your body responds in powerful ways. Your heart pumps more efficiently, your blood vessels become more flexible, and your body improves its ability to use oxygen. "Vigorous activity also appears to reduce inflammation. This may help explain why we saw strong associations with inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis and arthritis. It may also stimulate chemicals in the brain that help keep brain cells healthy, which could help explain the lower risk of dementia." The researchers said the findings suggest people may gain substantial health benefits by making part of their activity vigorous, without needing to do long workouts. Professor Shen said, "Our findings suggest that making some of your physical activity vigorous can provide substantial health benefits. This doesn't require going to the gym. Adding short bursts of activity that make you slightly breathless into daily life, like taking the stairs quickly, walking fast between errands or playing actively with children, can make a real difference. Even 15 to 20 minutes per week of this kind of effort, just a few minutes a day, was linked to meaningful health benefits. "Current guidelines generally focus on the amount of time spent being active per week. Our findings suggest that the composition of that activity matters, and matters differently depending on which diseases you're trying to prevent. This could open the door to more personalized physical activity recommendations based on an individual's specific health risks. "Vigorous activity may not be safe for everyone, especially older adults or people with certain medical conditions. For them, any increase in movement is still beneficial, and activity should be tailored to the individual." Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-and-woman-stretching-on-yoga-mats-in-park-4971799/)

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How a Bracelet Helped This Athlete Detect a Dangerous Cardiac Event, and Saved Her Life

For Mia Beam, the gym was routine. Then last November, the former Division I basketball player found herself struggling to take a deep breath. The 24-year-old Louisville, Kentucky, student first went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue separating the lungs from the chest wall. Anti-inflammatory medication helped at first, but days later her symptoms got worse. Sweat soaked her sheets. She was freezing. She could not lie flat because breathing got harder when she did. "I would have to get in the bath every morning because I was freezing," Beam says over a video call to USA Today. "I couldn't lay flat because I couldn't breathe very well when I was laying flat, so I had to sleep kind of elevated." Her heart rate also shot up into the 130s and 140s, even while sitting on the couch. Her WHOOP bracelet, a wearable device that tracks vital signs, sleep patterns and exercise performance metrics, showed how hard her body was working without exercise. Medical providers initially struggled to diagnose her. Bloodwork, a CT scan and an echocardiogram later showed she had pericarditis that progressed to cardiac tamponade, swelling and irritation around the heart that caused fluid to build up and stop normal blood flow. Doctors drained 871 milliliters of fluid from around her heart in surgery and told her she would have died within 24 to 48 hours. "Her left lung was collapsed," her mother Jamie Beam says, "her left ventricle was collapsed, and it was seeping into the right part of her heart." Beam credits her WHOOP bracelet with saving her life. The device tracks metrics including heart rate, blood oxygen and skin temperature and sends the information to an app on a phone. It also monitors health across categories including sleep. Another category is "strain," which looks at cardiovascular and muscular load and how exercise, anxiety and other factors affect health. During those two weeks, Beam's heart rate pushed her to a 15-16 out of 21 on the strain scale while at rest. She had previously only seen numbers that high after a workout such as a basketball game. Beam got the WHOOP as a gift about a year ago. At first, she thought the bracelet might have been glitching when it showed such a high resting strain. Doctors now monitor Beam closely, and she takes medication so it does not happen again. She said slowing down has been hard. "I'm trying to be really intentional about play activity and what I'm doing and just listening to my body," she says, "but I'm in a phase of my life that I never thought I'd be in." She retired from basketball in spring 2025 and said she worried that if she were still playing, she would have pushed herself too hard. She even played through a facial fracture last year. Beam said she is trying not to focus too much on her WHOOP numbers, even though it is tempting. "In the beginning I was obsessed with it, and if anything looked wrong, I was freaking out," she says. "But now I'm kind of, like, it's more of a monitoring thing." John Sullivan, chief marketing officer at WHOOP, said it is important not to treat wearable data as a constant judgment. "It's important to not look at your data in all cases, all the time as a report card or a referendum on whether you're living successfully or not," says John Sullivan, chief marketing officer at WHOOP, "versus trying to just be growth-oriented and say whatever the data is telling me today, I'll use it to inform decisions about how to bend the curve tomorrow." Sullivan said the company hears from users weekly that the product led them to conditions they were otherwise unaware of. He said WHOOP built an intake system for people to share their stories and give the company permission to talk about them. He also said he found his own risk for heart disease through the company's advanced lab work. Medical experts still recommend regular visits with a primary care doctor as the standard way to stay on top of health. But wearable tech devices such as WHOOP, the Oura Ring and Apple Watch can serve as an extra tool. Since Mia Beam's ordeal, her family has started tracking their health with wearables. "She's like a medical miracle walking around being so healthy," Jamie Beam says. "We're just so thankful."

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This Pro Golfer Just Won a PGA Tournament 2.5 Years After Brain Surgery

Gary Woodland had not won on the PGA Tour in nearly seven years. On Sunday in Houston, he changed that. Woodland won the 2026 Texas Children Houston Open with a 3-under 67 in the final round, finishing at 21-under for the tournament at Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston. Nicolai Højgaard finished second, four strokes back at 17-under. Johnny Keefer and Min Woo tied for third at 15-under. When Woodland’s final putt dropped on the 18th hole, the crowd erupted into chants of “Gary, Gary, Gary,” and Woodland became emotional. He hugged his caddie, then embraced his wife, Gabby. It was a big moment for the 41-year-old, who underwent surgery in September 2023 to remove a lesion on his brain. Woodland returned to the PGA Tour in 2024, but doctors were not able to clear the entire tumor and advised the 2019 U.S. Open champion to discontinue playing. Earlier this month, Woodland said he has been playing through post-traumatic stress disorder. He told The Golf Channel that during the Procore Championship last September, he would wear sunglasses and go to the bathroom to cry while continuing to play in the tournament. Woodland also told The Golf Channel in an interview in early March that he had decided he was not going to “waste energy” trying to hide his PTSD, and that he had received strong support since returning to competition. “Every week, I come out and everyone is so excited and happy that I'm back. I hear that every week,” Woodland said. He also said, “(Golf) is what I’m going to do, and no matter how hard it is, I’m going to play.” Sunday’s win was the fifth of Woodland’s career and his first since the 2019 U.S. Open. That title came 6 years, 9 months and 13 days before this Houston Open victory. Before this weekend, Woodland had not won a PGA Tour event since that 2019 U.S. Open triumph. The Houston Open title came 2.5 years after his brain surgery. Woodland’s other PGA Tour victories came at the 2018 Waste Management Open, the 2013 Reno-Tahoe Open and the 2011 Transitions Championship. The win also secured Woodland an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament. The Masters begins on Thursday, April 9. 📸credit: "Gary Woodland 2018b" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) "Gary Woodland 2018b" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

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Monday Mood Boost: Here are the Happiest Stories From Around the World

It was a busy week for people trying to make things a little better. Start your week off right with a few stories that might just shift your mood. Wales is set to become the first part of the United Kingdom to require solar on new buildings when new building regulations take effect in March 2027. The rules do not directly require solar panels, but they do require “a system for renewable energy generation” onsite. Experts believe that will lead to rooftop solar “in virtually every circumstance,” because it is the most functional and affordable option. The regulations also include exceptions for systems that would be impractical or uneconomical, including cases where a setup cannot generate at least 720 kWh a year. In ocean cleanup, the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup said it has removed 110 million pounds of plastic from the oceans since 2013. The group, founded by Boyan Slat after he noticed more plastic in the water than fish while scuba diving in Greece at age 16, uses U-shaped floating barriers and autonomous drones. The milestone reflects improved technology, better deployment in high-density pollution zones, and stronger data on the rivers responsible for most waste entering the seas. There was also encouraging news for monarch butterflies. New figures from the World Wildlife Fund showed the area occupied by monarchs in the forests of western Mexico grew to 7.24 acres, up 64 percent from 4.42 acres the previous winter. It is the most extensive coverage since 2018. Scientists said the increase offers hope for a species considered at risk of extinction and shows conservation work has been helping. The report also noted a significant reduction in forest degradation in the butterflies’ winter habitat. In the United States, cigarette smoking among adults fell below 10 percent in 2024, reaching a record low of 9.9 percent. In 1964, the adult smoking rate was about 42 percent before major public health campaigns began pushing it down. Good Good Good described the long-term drop as one of the biggest public health successes in recent history. A 2025 report from the American Cancer Society estimated that reduced smoking led to nearly four million fewer lung cancer deaths between 1970 and 2022. Chile also expanded ocean protection in a major way. President Gabriel Boric signed a decree granting full protection to 360,000 square kilometers of water around the Juan Fernández Archipelago. That brought the total fully protected area in the region to 946,571 square kilometers. Good Good Good said that makes it the third-largest fully protected marine area on Earth and pushes Chile past 50 percent protection of its exclusive economic zone. The move followed a proposal from residents to expand conservation areas around the archipelagos. Najma Omar, an occupational therapist inspired by her family, created a sensory-friendly hijab after thinking about her younger sister Nasteho, 17, who struggled with wearing one. Among Omar’s 10 siblings, three are autistic and have different sensory and communication needs. Her design, called the SereniHijab, uses lightweight, stretchy fabric and subtle ear padding to reduce overwhelming sounds while staying breathable for daily use. An 11-year-old girl from Greater Manchester, identified only as Millie, designed color-changing glasses to help people with dyslexia read more comfortably and reduce visual stress. Millie has long dealt with headaches and words moving on the page as she reads. She first imagined the idea when she was eight. It later beat more than 70,000 entries to win a major engineering competition, and she hopes to raise enough money to bring the glasses to market. Another story centered on a Tennessee woman who saw something upsetting in her own doorbell footage. Brittany Smith had ordered Starbucks through DoorDash and later saw an elderly driver struggling to climb stairs. She tracked him down and gave him a $200 tip in person. The driver, Richard, 78, told her he had been retired but returned to delivery work after his wife’s medication became too expensive. Smith then launched a fundraiser that drew more than 12,000 donations and passed $500,000 in a matter of days. In Hawaii, where severe flooding has swept homes from foundations, scattered debris across beaches, covered neighborhoods in mud, forced thousands from their homes and knocked out power, neighbors used a tractor to rescue a 98-year-old woman from her flooding house. The rescue was captured in a viral video, with commenters writing, “This is what happens when people move with heart. No waiting, no division, no ego; just love in action.” The shorter items in the weekly list covered a wide range: Greece launched an animal airlift program that carried 45 pets and 101 people from Abu Dhabi. A California program helped more than 4,400 people leave homelessness by allowing pets in shelters and offering free veterinary care. MIT researchers found that groups of ocean bacteria work together to consume biodegradable plastic. In the United Kingdom, Primark released an adaptive clothing line designed by and for disabled people, with magnetic zippers and buttons, easier-to-hold loops, adjustable leg zips and a pouch for stoma bags. And finally, a seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy became the first child in the UK to trial a “bionic exoskeleton,” a comeback for the large tortoiseshell butterfly in southern England, and a police detection dog trained to find hidden hard drives used in child abuse investigations.

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