'He Will Be Our Brother': 5 Brilliant Stories This Week

A young boy's lesson in empathy and an overdue reunion make the list:

• 6-Year-Old Asks to Adopt Injured Syrian Boy: The image of a Syrian boy covered in blood after an airstrike in Aleppo touched many—including 6-year-old Alex. In a letter to President Obama, Alex asks that the president "please go get" 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh and bring him to his family's home in New York. "We will give him a family and he will be our brother," he writes. Obama made sure it got a high-profile audience.
• Couple Forced to Live Apart After 62 Years Reunited: Every other day for months, Wolfram and Anita Gottschalk cried when they were separated and returned to the senior living facilities in which they'd been forced to reside apart. On Thursday, the tears were for another reason. Thanks in part to media coverage and a viral photo, the couple—married 62 years—is once again living together.

• That Bomb-Filled Backpack Turned Homeless Man's Life Around: A backpack full of pipe bombs intended to cause terror and carnage ended up turning a homeless man's life around instead. Lee Parker and his friend, Ivan White, alerted police after they found the backpack in a garbage can in Elizabeth, NJ, Sunday night. After all the attention, Parker, 50, now has a roof over his head, thanks to people who heard about his plight.
• Lost Toddler Survives 3 Days in Forest: A 3-year-old boy in Siberia survived three days in a bear-infested forest as temperatures neared 32 degrees. Tserin Dopchut had wandered into the forest, possibly while chasing a puppy, without a coat and with only a chocolate bar. Amazingly, he was pretty much OK when rescuers found him, though he's got an appropriate new nickname.
• Wedding Ring Lost at Sea 37 Years Ago Is Found: A gold wedding ring lost more than 37 years ago has been returned to its owner after a scuba diver found it in the waters off Spain's eastern coastal city of Benidorm. Finding it was just step one. It took a massive online campaign to reach step two.

Click to read about more uplifting news. (More uplifting news stories.)