The week's good news: October 3, 2019

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1. Fishermen pull 11,000 pounds of metal from Spokane River
2. Kids help California police officers locate missing 97-year-old woman
3. 9-year-old runner accidentally wins adult 10K
4. Cousins reunite 75 years after being separated during the Holocaust
5. On his way to receive an award for outstanding service, airman saves child's life

published 3 October 2019

1. Fishermen pull 11,000 pounds of metal from Spokane River

This is a win-win for Spokane, Washington. Since June, the H20 Magnet Fortunes group has pulled 11,000 pounds of metal from the Spokane River, KXLY reports. The magnet fisherman have spent their weekends at the river, hooking everything from manhole covers to cell phones. They will now turn in the metal for recycling money, with all proceeds going to SOAR, an organization that provides in-home care and therapy for children with autism and special needs. H20 Magnet Fortunes founder Paul Swanson said they'll continue to go magnet fishing until the river is clean. To give SOAR an added boost, a local recycling facility will pay double the usual price for prepared iron, and Swanson said he's contacted Guinness World Records, as this is likely a record for most metal collected by a magnet fishing club.

When a group of five young friends learned a 97-year-old woman was missing in their neighborhood, they decided they would be the ones to find her. Police in Roseville, California, shared on Facebook Monday a woman had wandered away from her care facility, and asked people nearby to be on the lookout. A large search party soon formed, which included Makenna Rogers, 10, and four of her friends who wanted to help. "Kids can make a difference just as much as parents can," she told KCRA. After hours of searching, they spotted the woman, who was safe, and called police. "Our dispatchers were a little surprised to hear a 10-year-old on the other line telling us they had found this missing person," officer Rob Baquera said. Baquera praised the "junior detectives," and suggested they call the police department in 10 years. "Maybe we can give them a job," he said.

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Kade Lovell didn't set out to win a 10K for adults, but that's exactly what the 9-year-old did last month. The St. Cloud, Minnesota, resident loves to run, and his mom, Heather Lovell, entered him in the St. Francis Franny Flyer 5K. She kept waiting for Kade to run by her, and became concerned when he didn't appear. It turns out Kade had listened to someone who said go straight when he should have turned, and he wound up on the 10K course. After reaching the finish line, he was greeted by his relieved mother. They thought he came in last because no one else was around, but he actually was first, running the 10K in just over 48 minutes — a minute faster than the 40-year-old man who came in second. Now, Lovell told the St. Cloud Times, "we laugh about it. ... It's one we'll never let him forget: Remember that time you accidentally won a 10K?'"

Morris Sana and Simon Mairowitz both spent 75 years believing they would never see each other again. Sana, 87, and Mairowitz, 85, are cousins, and were best friends while growing up in Romania. After the Nazis invaded, their families escaped separately, and Sana's daughter, Carmela Ofer, told ABC News her dad was always searching for information on his relatives, but "they were listed as perished in the Holocaust." Ofer's cousin placed an ad on Facebook nearly a decade ago, saying she was looking for people with certain last names, and Mairowitz's granddaughter finally saw it this year and got in touch. In late September, Mairowitz, who lives in England, flew to Israel, where Sana resides, for a reunion decades in the making. "Seventy-five years you waited," Mairowitz told his cousin. "I know, it's a long time. We've got each other now. And we can see each other."

While collecting an award for being an outstanding airman, Air Force Tech Sgt. Kenneth O'Brien did something else deserving of accolades: He saved a baby's life. On Sept. 11, O'Brien, a member of the 320th Special Tactics Squadron, was on a flight from Japan to Texas. Selected as one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year, he was headed to the Air Force Association's conference, where he would receive the award. O'Brien saw that one of his fellow passengers, a 1-year-old baby, was unconscious and unresponsive, and ran to help. The baby had a blockage in its airway, and O'Brien conducted several back thrusts and finger sweeps of its mouth, soon clearing the blockage. He gave the baby CPR for a minute, until the child regained consciousness. O'Brien said he was "thankful" the baby survived and he "happened to be in the right place at the right time."

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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.