Poignant Shoveling: 5 Most Uplifting Stories of the Week

A bartender inspiring Boston, and police going above and beyond highlight the week's list of uplifting stories:

• Bartender Shovels Boston Marathon Finish Line: Boston's blizzard has spawned an instant celebrity, and for a pretty good reason: Bartender Chris Laudani took it upon himself Tuesday to clear off the finish line of the Boston Marathon. He did so anonymously, but some social media sleuthing cracked the case.
• Cops Buy Back Elderly Man's Pawned Wedding Ring: When Ontario police responded to a domestic call, they found an elderly woman with dementia arguing with her husband of 54 years. In talking to the husband, the officers learned that he had recently pawned his wedding ring, a sign of how desperate things were getting as he tried to care for his wife and still afford food. They took up a collection—and got that ring back.

• Site Raises $1M to Send Brooklyn Kids to Harvard: The creator of an popular photography blog about the residents of New York City has helped raise $1 million and counting so kids in a high-crime area of Brooklyn can get a taste of the Ivy League. Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York, set up the Indiegogo page for Mott Hall Bridges Academy to fund visits to Harvard for sixth-graders. Donors demolished the original goal in less than an hour, and now bigger and better things are in the works.
• 'Zombie Cat' Returns From Dead: The owner of Bart the cat in Tampa thought the cat was dead after he got hit by a car. He had a pal bury him, but Bart apparently scratched his way out of the premature grave and returned home five days later. The Humane Society is finding Bart a new home.
• Friendship Nine's 1962 Convictions Are Scrapped: In what's being called a "poetic twist," the nephew of the judge who convicted nine South Carolina black men who took a seat at a whites-only lunch counter in 1961 tossed those trespassing and protesting convictions this week. Eight of the Friendship Nine appeared in court—the ninth died in 2006—to get a "heartfelt" apology from a SC prosecutor, and this from Judge Mark Hayes: "We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history."

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