👋 Welcome back to Smileworthy!

Quick note first – last week's edition had a few technical hiccups, which meant some of you didn't receive it in your inbox. Apologies for that! If you missed it, you can catch up right here.

Now, onto this week: two Vietnam vets hadn't seen each other in 55 years.

Plus:

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

🇦🇺 Western Australia
He's the Last Speaker of His Language. So He Started a Band To Keep It Alive
Uncle Peter Salmon, 87, is the final fluent speaker of Thiinma, an Aboriginal language from WA's Upper Gascoyne region. Rather than let it die with him, he teamed up with linguist Rosie Sitorus and wrote 17 songs in it. Their group has won awards, reached millions through Australian TV show The Piano, and – best of all – his grandchildren are now learning it too. (Read more 👉 ABC)

🇺🇸 Boston, Massachusetts
Two New Drugs Just Doubled Survival for One of the Hardest Cancers to Beat
Pancreatic cancer has shrugged off treatment for 40 years – most patients sadly don't reach a one-year anniversary. Then in April, two drugs developed by separate teams published trial results in the same week. Both roughly doubled survival. Daraxonrasib stretched average survival from 6.7 to 13.2 months. Elraglusib cut the risk of dying by 38%. Both are now fast-tracked toward FDA review and can hopefully turn the tide. (Read more 👉 Time)

🇹🇿 Tanzania
The Best Malaria Breakthrough of the Year Isn't a Drug. It's a House
Scientists in southern Tanzania built 110 two-story homes with screened walls, elevated bedrooms, clean water, no smoke – and moved families in. Three years on, the kids living inside had 44% less malaria, 27% less diarrhoea, and 18% fewer respiratory infections than those in neighbouring mud-and-thatch houses. Three diseases that kill over a million children a year in sub-Saharan Africa. There’s now a push to implement more of the homes. (Read more 👉 Science)

🌍 Worldwide
Amazon Was Tipped to Kill Indie Bookshops. But Independents Are Making a Comeback
In 2025, 422 new indie bookshops opened their doors – a 31% jump on the year before. Turns out readers aren't just buying books - they're buying into somewhere to belong, and a human recommendation over an algorithm. Studies show the indie shops have become community anchors – coffee, chat, and your next favourite novel. (Read more 👉 The Guardian)

🇭🇺 Budapest, Hungary
One Small Company Is Paving Roads With Unrecyclable Waste
Hungarian startup Makropa has worked out how to bake the stuff no one wants – polystyrene, mixed plastics, cigarette butts, furnace ash – into a concrete blend strong enough to pave roads. Every kilometre locks away up to 4,000 tons of waste otherwise destined for landfill. The founder says no one else is doing this at scale. (Read more 👉 Good News Network)

🌍 Worldwide
A Billion People Could Get Safe Water Under Huge New Global Initiative
Two billion people still can't safely turn on a tap. To turn the tide, the World Bank just launched Water Forward, rallying the world's five biggest development lenders behind a single target: safe water for a billion people in four years, starting in 14 of the most water-stressed countries. (Read more 👉 Happily)

🇺🇸 Washington D.C.
NPR Just Got a $113 Million Donation
After Congress clawed back over a billion dollars in federal public media funding last year, NPR's outlook was bleak. Then came Thursday. Philanthropist Connie Ballmer wrote an $80 million cheque. Another anonymous donor added $33 million. The total is one of the biggest charitable gifts in NPR's 56-year history – and it's earmarked for dragging public radio into the digital era. (Read more 👉 NPR)

📍Miami, Florida
He Spent Decades Teaching Kids to Read. At 95, He Finally Wrote His Own Book
Philip Spevak taught fifth and sixth graders at Miami's Coral Park Elementary for 33 years. At 95, he finally published his debut children's book – based on a classroom moment he'd been mulling over for 45 years. Then former students, some now teachers themselves, flooded him with messages about everything he'd meant to them. "Seldom does a teacher realise his influence," he said. At almost 96, he does. (Read more 👉 Miami Herald)

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

Vietnam veteran Melvin Ishcomer had not seen his battle buddy Ronnie in 55 years.

It was a Sunday in late March at Western Sizzlin, a buffet restaurant in Eldorado, Oklahoma – Melvin's favourite spot, and the regular venue for the father-daughter lunches with his daughter Lindsey. He was 75, keen to get to the salad bar, and mildly puzzled that Lindsey kept asking him to wait. Just a minute, Dad. Just sit a second longer.

Behind him, three people were walking toward the table. One of them had driven fifteen hours to be there.

Melvin enlisted in the United States Army at 18. Somewhere along the way – a base in Germany, tours in Vietnam – he met Ronnie Kindred, two years younger. They became best friends instantly.

But then the war ended and they were sent home. Melvin stayed in Oklahoma. Ronnie built a family in Tennessee. Life did what life does.

They never quite lost each other. A Facebook connection years ago had put them back in touch; there were phone calls, messages, old stories traded back and forth. But still, for more than half a century, they had not been in the same room.

Their daughters decided to change that. Jen, Ronnie's daughter, messaged Lindsey out of the blue – her dad wanted to surprise his best friend, and would she help pull it off? They kept the meet up a secret, which they later called the hardest she had ever had to keep. And on March 29, Lindsey asked her father to sit down and wait just a little longer before heading to the buffet.

When Melvin turned around, he knew instantly. The two men hugged. Strangers at nearby tables began walking over to thank them for their service. The restaurant staff even made an announcement and comped their meals. Both daughters, already in tears before Ronnie had even reached the table, filmed the whole emotional reunion

They sat down and picked up where they'd left off – which, for two men who'd once shared a war, turned out to be surprisingly easy.

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

Alexa Ferrer had seven bridesmaids lined up for her first-look reveal. She ended up with eight.

When she slipped out of the room to put on her dress, her golden retriever Charlee – six years old and fully committed to the occasion – quietly shuffled into the lineup with the bridesmaids for the paw-fect photo moment.

When Alexa saw her dog sitting perfectly in formation among her best friends, she burst into tears. Charlee has been at every major milestone – including the proposal – so in it was fitting she was there for this moment, too.

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Beat Hay Fever Before It Beats You

If you're one of the 82 million people whose spring starts with itchy eyes and a streaming nose, here's the allergist-approved secret: play defence, not catch-up. Start your antihistamine or nasal spray now, before symptoms hit as they can take a full week to kick in. Keep windows shut, run an air purifier with a HEPA filter in your bedroom, and shower the second you come inside from the garden (pollen is weirdly sticky). Exercise outdoors early morning when counts are lowest. Your future sniffle-free self will thank you. (Read more 👉 Washington Post)

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

— Booker T. Washington

The longest hiccupping spree lasted 68 years. Charles Osborne started hiccupping in 1922 and didn't stop until 1990 – an estimated 430 million hiccups.

1953 Francis Crick and James Watson's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is published in "Nature" magazine

1954 Bell Labs announces the first solar battery made from silicon with about 6% efficiency

1990 Hubble space telescope is placed into orbit by space shuttle Discovery

2023 India surpasses China as the worlds most populous country according to UN estimates, with 1,425,775,850 people (estimated to reach 1.7 billion by 2064)

By changing the second letter of each of the words below, can you make another valid word?

You have to change each word such that the second letters will reveal a ten-letter word when read downwards.

Therefore, what now reads 'craihruane' will be a real word.

See bottom for answer.

Rebecca Alexander has Usher syndrome – a rare condition that causes both hearing and vision loss. A few years after her first cochlear implant changed everything, she sat in a chair at NYU Langone's Cochlear Implant Center as a second implant was switched on in her other ear. The moment it came to life, her whole face changed.

*Studies show that watching heartwarming videos can boost your mood. So sit back and start your weekend positively - doctors orders!

🧠 Brain Teaser Answer

Rhinoceros