Bears on the loose, a teen’s epic run and more of this week’s uplifting stories

Good morning.

Amid the week’s gloom, two furry escapers in Devon provided a sweet moment.

Mish and Lucy, two European brown bears, broke out of their enclosure at Wildwood Devon on Monday – and made a beeline for the food, helping themselves to a week’s worth of honey. Luckily, they didn’t come to a sticky end: Mish found his own way home, and Lucy was lured back shortly after. The pair were later spotted sleeping off their sugar rush in their enclosure at Ottery St Mary.

More life-affirming tales can be found below in our recap of all the uplifting stories from this week’s First Edition newsletter.

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After forgetting her younger sister’s 40th birthday, Melanie rushed to send her flowers, only to learn that her sister had died before they arrived. Melanie received the devastating news just before boarding a flight to Brisbane. Overwhelmed with grief, she broke down while boarding the plane.

A compassionate flight attendant noticed her distress, she tells Katie Cunningham in this edition of our Kindness of strangers column. Upon learning what had happened, he simply offered quiet support: holding her hand, checking on her throughout the flight and helping her disembark quickly upon landing. His calm presence and acts of kindness stood out as an extraordinary comfort in a moment of raw heartbreak.

“Travelling solo,” says Hannah J Davies, “is a pleasure, a tonic and, occasionally, a character-building experience.” When her social circle started getting married, having kids or moving away, Davies found that solo jaunts were often easier to organise and less stressful. She writes: “I have floated around bars by myself in Barcelona; sampled the best Korean food for one that Toulouse had to offer; gone to the beach solo in Marseille; and almost caused security incidents on various European trains by trailing an illegally large suitcase behind me.”

Though Davies has the occasional challenge, it is all worth it, she writes for The one change that worked: “I’m grateful for the peace – and for Duolingo.”

The Australian experimental rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have shunned the frenetic pace of a typical tour in favour of three-night runs in some pretty historic spots across Europe. The band, who – as the writer Laura Snapes put it – “have gigged their way to becoming their generation’s Grateful Dead or Phish”, have played everywhere from the infamous Lukiškės prison in Vilnius, which is now a venue, to the stunning Lycabettus hill theatre in Athens.

They’re showing how slowing down is a perfect expression of their art. “A lot of the lyrics have stemmed from spending a lot of time away from home, from family,” said frontman Stu Mackenzie, who had his third baby right before the tour started “and trying to figure out how we make sense of all of that.”

When you slow down, they’ve discovered, you can truly notice how the world around us is built on thousands of years of human existence.

Wearing a bright yellow shirt so he’d be visible to drivers, teenager Marcus Skeet set off on an extraordinary mission: to run the length of Britain, from Land’s End to John o’Groats, a distance of roughly 790 miles.

It wasn’t as if Skeet, 17, hadn’t dealt with challenging things before. He has experienced type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he became a young carer after his father was diagnosed with dementia. Skeet got into running by doing just a mile a day at first – and hated every minute. But he soon found that it helped his mental health, and he wanted to help others. He’s done that partly through this epic 58-day run, which has raised £157,000 and counting for the charity Mind.

Finishing the run has been an adjustment, but Skeet is already planning his next challenge. “I’m not going to do anything crazy for a while. I obviously want to do America, things like that,” he said. When asked by the Guardian’s Sam Wollaston what that means, he responded: “Run across, left to right or right to left, 4,000 miles, why not?”

Waymap, a new app-based navigation technology designed to assist blind, partially sighted and disabled people, has been installed at Lord’s cricket ground in London. Lord’s is the first sports stadium in the world to use such a personal GPS system.

England visually impaired cricketer Moshfique Ahmed was among the first to test the app at Lord’s. Using his cane and following the app’s voice directions, he was able to move independently around the ground. Although he encountered a few misdirections, these were attributed to the app still learning his walking style.

Ahmed expressed hope that this technology could significantly improve accessibility for visually impaired sports fans. “I know so many people who are into sports but don’t go. This would push the door completely open for them.”