Each week, Ben Hopkinson looks back at a serious, crazy, and happy news story from the past week.
Serious News
Over the last week or so, there have been many issues regarding commercial flights departing from airports across the country. This is due to the high levels of absences within staff due to Covid, as the Easter break hits, and the number of flights increase since pre-Covid. British Airways have decided to cancel most of the flights and run a reduced schedule until the end of May, while EasyJet cancelled 30 flights at Gatwick alone on Wednesday. On Monday, British Airways cancelled 62 scheduled flights, while 12 were grounded at the last minute. This is all due to the redundancies that took place during the peak of the pandemic from both airports and the flight crew, and the industry is struggling to recruit more staff which is causing “chaos” and many holidaymakers are stranded at airports both outgoing and incoming with many missing their holiday altogether.
Crazy News
A man has been condemned online for what he done for his wife’s baby shower. His wife wanted a smaller celebration, but he wanted to go all out and so he hired a venue and paid for everything, which totalled around £2,000. However, after the event, he collected up all the money gifted and put it back into his bank to cover the costs rather than doing what normally happens and spend it on clothes and items for the baby due. On the forum post, most of the 4,000 comments agreed that he was in the wrong and saying that if he was worried about not having the money, then he should have just had a small party like his wife wanted.
Happy News
Game developers are waving the profits from in-game transactions in order to help the crisis in Ukraine. Fortnite developers Epic Games raised $36million on the first day of their charity scheme, and that has since grown to $144million in two weeks which will be going to Direct Relief, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the World Food Program. Microsoft, Riot Games’ League of Legends have also announced that they will too be helping towards Ukrainian relief. Humble Bundle (a company that organizes themed collections of various games at a discount price to help charities) have a pay-what-you-want model and has also raised more than $200million towards Ukraine, Make a Wish, One Tree Planted, the ACLU, Girls Who Code, and Charity: Water.
