A graduation at age 79, and more

A graduation at age 79

Tomasa Herrera of Fort Worth, Texas, was struggling to help her great-grandson with his homework when he issued a wake-up call. "He told me, ‘You need to go back to school, Grandma,'" said Herrera, 79, who started working at age 13 and never went to high school. After three years of study, the wheelchair-bound woman overcame eye surgery, appendicitis, a broken leg, and the challenges of math to finally earn her GED certificate. “To this day I don’t know what to say about it,” Herrera said. “Deep down inside me, I’m excited.”

Ardent fan returns historic ball to Jeter

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When Yankees fan Christian Lopez caught shortstop Derek Jeter’s historic 3,000th hit at Yankee Stadium last week, he could have sold the ball on the memorabilia market for an estimated $250,000. Instead he returned the ball to multimillionaire Jeter. “I just really wanted to give it back for everything the guy has done for us,” said Lopez, 23, who works for Verizon. He was rewarded with tickets to the rest of the Yankees’ 32 home games this season, but for Lopez, that wasn’t the point. “The experience is just priceless,” he said. “It’s Jeter’s day, but I’m right there with him. It can’t get any better than that.”

Couple saves stranded cat

Clotilde Testa was walking along the East River in Manhattan when she spotted an oil-stained cat stranded on a barge. Testa and her boyfriend, Robert Walker, eventually connected with an animal rights activist, Christine Berk, and Joseph Newman, who owns an animal rescue farm. The animal lovers boarded the barge on a floating plank, and after five hours finally cornered the cat, which they nicknamed Skipper. “We really risked our lives for this cat,” said Berk.