Dear Strangers, I remember you. Ten months ago, when my cellphone rang with news of my father’s suicide, you were walking into Whole Foods prepared to do your grocery shopping, just as I had been only minutes before you. But I had already abandoned my cart full of groceries and I stood in the entryway of the store. My brother was on the other end of the line. He was telling me my father was dead, that he had taken his...

In 2011, a retired bricklayer and part-time fisherman found a starving, oil-covered penguin lying on his local beach in southeast Brazil. Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, scooped up the bird and took him home. He cleaned the bird, fed him, and named him Dindim. When Dindim was strong enough, Pereira de Souza took him back to the sea. But the bird wouldn’t go.

A dog who fell off a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean and had been "presumed dead" more than a month ago has now been found alive by Navy officials on an island 80 miles off the coast of San Diego, California. The 1-year-old German Shepherd, named Luna, was first reported missing the morning of Feb. 10 about 2 miles off of San Clemente Island by her owner -- Nick Hayworth, a fisherman -- according to Sandy DeMunnik, public affairs officer for the US Navy's Naval Base Coronado.

Today, the historic river bed of Kali Bein, a tributary of the Beas River which flows through Punjab, is teeming with life and is a delight to watch. But it wasn't always like this. The river was once filled with filth and garbage. Till one man, Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, took it upon himself to clean up the river. In 2000, Seechewal popularly known as 'Eco Baba', along with a large number of volunteers, decided to take things into his own hands.

Not many people have had positive experiences with buses. The slow moving, perpetually late mode of transport is normally associated with swearing, anger and frantically refreshing iPhone apps to discover that you’ve actually been looking at the wrong route on the wrong day and the next one doesn’t come for another 2 hours. Let’s not even talk about public holidays.

Time to take to the streets to sing and dance in celebration of the fact that it's now legal to do so! The Swedish government has finally agreed to abolish a law that required a public place to have a special licence for people to legally dance there. The days when voguing, daggering, popping and/or locking were illegal in public places in Sweden are now over. The Swedish people are free to be a slave to the rhythm. In Sweden...

When his three children were young, Warren Buffett installed a dime slot machine on the third floor of the family’s house, in Omaha, Nebraska. The objective was to convey the dangers of gambling, but it also meant the children’s allowance remained in his hands. “I could then give my children any allowance they wanted, as long as it was in dimes, and I’d have it all back by nightfall,” he remarked once at a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Darryl Pinkins, who spent nearly 25 years behind bars, was released from prison Monday just in time for his daughter’s 26th birthday. “It feels good,” Pinkins said. “It feels real good.” Pinkins, now 63, was 38 when a jury convicted him in a 1989 gang rape of a woman in Gary, Indiana. He was released from Lake County Jail in Crown Point after new DNA evidence proved he was not involved in the crime.

A Safe Haven Baby Box where mothers can drop off unwanted newborns anonymously with emergency help moments away is now available in northeastern Indiana. The padded, climate-controlled container was dedicated Tuesday at the Woodburn Volunteer Fire Department about 15 miles east of Fort Wayne near the Ohio state line. It’s on an exterior wall of the fire station.

Two years after a Wisconsin man lost the dog he says helped him through some of the worst times of his life, the universe found a way to return his stolen pal. Identified only by his first name, Jose said he hit bottom two years ago. He was homeless, divorced and living in his car when he decided to get a puppy, who he would later name Chaos. The name fit the dog, who was brimming with energy and grew quickly.

A California mother was reunited Thursday with her abducted son, laying eyes on him and wrapping her arms around him for the first time in 21 years. Maria Mancia had been left with just a single photo of her son since his father took him in 1995. The boy she last saw when he was just 18 months old is now a man. Steve Hernandez, 22, was found living in Puebla, Mexico, and on Thursday morning was brought to the U.S. to meet his mother for an emotional reunion.

A Syrian refugee has attracted praise after he discovered a large stash of money in a second-hand wardrobe and turned it into German police. Muhannad M. found €150,000 shortly after moving into his new flat in Minden, north Rhine-Westphalia, police reported. Mr Muhannad, 25, had been able to furnish his flat largely due to contributions from charities, and the wardrobe was included among the donations.

Six years ago, Eric weighed 340 pounds and was diagnosed with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and Type II Diabetes. His doctor told him he had 5 years to live. Then he met Peety—and everything changed. Peety was adopted from Humane Society Silicon Valley. Jake was adopted from Seattle Humane. Please support local animal shelters and rescue groups in your area.

How Canadian hockey moms, poker buddies and neighbors are adopting Syrians, a family at a time. One frigid day in February, Kerry McLorg drove to an airport hotel here to pick up a family of Syrian refugees. She was cautious by nature, with a job poring over insurance data, but she had never even spoken to the people who were about to move into her basement.

A pristine beach in New Zealand bought through a crowdfunding campaign has been handed to its new owners - the public. Nearly 40,000 people donated almost NZ$2.3m (£1.3m, $1.7m) to buy the Awaroa beach in the Abel Tasman National Park, on the South Island. Campaigners snubbed a businessman who offered them money in exchange for private access to part of the beach. The seven-hectare site will now be run by a national park. The previous owner, businessman Michael Spackman, agreed to sell the beach after the online crowdfunding campaign reached its target in a little more than three weeks.

More than 270 kilograms of lucky lobsters were spared the pot Saturday, thanks to compassionate monks on Prince Edward Island. The monks bought the lobsters, equivalent to about 600 pounds, from various places around the Island, said Venerable Dan of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society in Little Sands.

While the Pokémon characters created in the ultra-popular augmented reality app are fake, the impact the game may be having on people who suffer anxiety and depression is very real, proponents say.

A North Texas family was reunited with their dog almost seven years after he went missing. Corky left the Montez family's Decatur-area home in mid-2009. The family searched for him for six months before they had to move to Fort Worth, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported. "We knew he was microchipped and he had a collar, so we were just waiting for one day he would come home," Kimberly Montez told NBC5.

Four policemen cooked pasta for an elderly couple after their loneliness and television news caused them such distress they were overheard crying. Eighty-four-year-old Jole and 94-year-old Michele told police that no one had visited them in months and they were desperately saddened by the state of the world. Yet in a rare break from fighting crime in one of Italy's best-known tourist - and mafia - hotspots, four policemen called to their door stopped to comfort them by cooking them up some of the country's most famous exports: pasta and parmesan.

A dog named Maddie is back with its owner after a group of boaters spotted her swimming all alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. According to NECN, a ferry off the coast of Falmouth, Massachusetts, was on its way to Martha’s Vineyard when passengers spotted a dog desperately paddling toward their boat. "Everyone on the boat was like, ‘Oh my God! We have to help him,'" Carol Potier told NECN.