The week's good news: July 20, 2017

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1. Dog rushes to rescue drowning baby deer
2. Strangers are lending wedding dresses to stressed brides-to-be
3. 101-year-old woman sets national record for 100-meter dash
4. 1.2-million-year-old fossil discovered by boy out playing
5. Woman reunited with her long-lost purse — and the priceless photos inside

published 20 July 2017

1. Dog rushes to rescue drowning baby deer

Meet Storm, a very good boy. While Storm was out for a walk Sunday on a New York beach with his owner, Mark Freeley, he spotted a baby deer struggling in the water. Storm sprang into action, swimming out to rescue the deer and bringing it back to shore, with Freeley catching all of this on video. After getting the fawn to shore, Storm began licking and nosing the baby deer to make sure it was alive. Freeley and Storm stayed with the deer until a veterinarian and a representative from the Strong Island Animal Rescue League could get there. Mashable reported that the deer is "being treated and is expected to make a full recovery."

The Alfred Angelo chain of bridal stores went out of business earlier this month, leaving some paying customers without dresses for their big day, but women around the country are rallying to help. On social media, former brides who held onto their wedding gowns are using the hashtag #AlfredAngelo to connect with brides-to-be who weren't able to pick up their dresses before Alfred Angelo filed for bankruptcy. They have been posting photos of their gowns and sizing information, and offering to lend them to brides in need, with most only asking for shipping fees. "I remember feeling like a princess on my wedding day," Ishita Kent of Dallas told Today, adding, "If I can help ease someone else's heartache just with a dress that honestly isn't doing anything but sitting in my closet, then why shouldn't I do so?"

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True to her nickname, Julia "Hurricane" Hawkins, 101, set a new national record for the 100-meter dash last week as she stormed across the finish line at the USA Track and Field Outdoors Masters Championships. The Louisiana great-grandmother was the oldest female athlete to compete in the championships, held in Baton Rouge, and shaved six seconds off the current record for women ages 100 or older — clocking in at 40.12 seconds. The former schoolteacher, who swears by her healthy diet, only took up running after her 100th birthday — and was pretty nonchalant about her accomplishment. "I missed my nap for this," said Hawkins after her heroic sprint.

He thought he tripped over a cow skull, but Jude Sparks actually discovered a 1.2-million-year-old animal fossil. Now 10, Sparks came across the fossil while out with his family near their home in Las Cruces, New Mexico, last November. The Sparks family notified Peter Houde, a professor at New Mexico State University, who went out to the site and confirmed the fossil was of a Stegomastodon, an elephant-like animal. "I was real excited," Houde told ABC News. The landowner gave Houde permission to dig in May, and a team extricated the remains, minus one of the tusks. Sparks' father, Kyle, told ABC News his son went through a huge dinosaur and fossils phase when he was younger, and was "ecstatic" about making such a major find.

A South Carolina woman has been reunited with her purse — 25 years after it first went missing near a lake. Local fishing enthusiast Brodie Brooks, 11, reeled in the waterlogged handbag during an afternoon at Lake Hartwell, near Anderson. In a stroke of luck, one of Brooks' relatives recognized the owner of the purse from an old ID and returned it to her. April Bolt, now 49, no longer needs the bright lipstick or hair-teasing comb that were also found inside — but was thrilled to have her now-adult son's baby photos back. "It's a serious time capsule," she told WYFF TV. "It meant the world to me."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.