This week's best feel-good stories: From a world-renowned water fight to a Florida mom's fortuitous lottery win

It’s not all doom and gloom out there! Here are this week’s most heartwarming stories from Yahoo News partners.

Thailand celebrates first post-pandemic Songkran water festival

On Thursday, Thailand began celebrating its three-day new year festival of Songkran for the first time since 2019, Yahoo News partner theGuardian reported.

It’s traditional during Songkran “to sprinkle water on the hands of elders to mark the new year,” but with the holiday also falling during Thailand’s hottest month of the year, the celebrations have morphed into massive water fights that attract locals as well as tourists from around the world eager to have some soaking wet fun. Water guns and waterproof phone covers are readily available — and even convenience stores cover their cashiers with plastic in anticipation of the revelries.

“I think everyone is just extremely happy,” a 24-year-old tourist from Canada said of the celebrations. “It’s just so fun, you see people from all walks of life, it brings out every aspect of Thailand.”

Almost 200 locations across the capital city of Bangkok are holding official Songkran celebrations, and festivities in the Gulf of Thailand are already underway. The events typically draw huge crowds, but they had been canceled for the last three years due to COVID-related restrictions. Now officials hope this year’s celebrations will give the country’s tourism industry a major boost as it recovers from the pandemic.

Adult honeybees teach baby honeybees how to ‘waggle dance’

A study published recently in the journal Science found that baby honeybees may not be so different from human infants in their need for adult guidance; like tiny humans, baby honeybees learn to communicate best when instructed by adult honeybees, Yahoo partner Fox News reported.

The "waggle dance," a known behavior among honeybees, enables them to communicate direction, distance and quality of resources such as nectar and pollen from flowers to their fellow bees.

In a recent experiment conducted in Kunming, China, honeybees that attempted to imitate the dance without prior instruction produced “significantly more disordered dances,” the study found, whereas honeybees that had followed the direction of experienced bees from the start showed no impairment.

“Social learning, therefore, shapes honeybee signaling, as it does communication in human infants, birds and multiple other vertebrate species,” the study concluded.

Florida mother wins $2M lottery after withdrawing life savings to care for daughter with cancer

After taking out her life savings to care for her sick daughter, Geraldine Gimblet was thrilled to learn she had won $2 million in a lottery just one day after her daughter finished her last treatment for breast cancer, Yahoo News partner Blavity reported.

According to TV news station WESH, Gimblet won the lottery after buying a $10 scratch-off game at a gas station in Polk County, Fla. She claimed her prize at the lottery headquarters in Tallahassee last Friday, opting to receive a one-time lump-sum payment of $1,645,000, and was joined by her daughter and granddaughter.

“The day before my mom bought this ticket, I rang the bell and walked out of the hospital after completing my last treatment for breast cancer,” Gimblet’s daughter told WESH.

“My mom had taken out her life savings to take care of me when I was sick,” she added. “I’m just so happy for her!”

Alaskan dog reunited with family after surviving incredible journey on Bering Sea ice

A 1-year-old Australian Shepherd named Nanuq has been reunited with his family in Alaska after surviving a 150-mile trek across Bering Sea ice, Yahoo News partner the Evening Standard reported.

Mandy Iworrigan, who lives in Gambell, Alaska, was visiting the Bering Strait community of Savoonga with her family last month when Nanuq, which means “polar bear” in Siberian Yupik, disappeared along with their other family dog, Starlight.

Starlight turned up a few weeks later, but Nanuq was nowhere to be found.

About a month after Nanuq’s disappearance, people in Wales, Alaska, which is 150 miles northeast of Savoonga, began posting pictures of a lost dog.

“I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?’” Iworrigan said after seeing the posts online.

Nanuq was eventually brought back home on a chartered flight. Apart from large bite marks, which Iworrigan said may have been caused by a polar bear, wolverine or seal, the furry family member was reportedly in good health.