Each week, Ben Hopkinson looks back at a serious, crazy, and happy news story from the past week.
Serious News
The government are planning to send asylum seekers to Rwanda in a bid to stop migrants from crossing the channel. The five-year trial would give some asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via “illegal, dangerous or unnecessary methods” like rafts or lorries a one-way ticket. Boris Johnson says the scheme would “save countless lives” from human trafficking. This trial applies to those that arrived illegally since the turn of the year and will have no limit on numbers. Those that get sent to Rwanda would be “entitled to full protection under Rwandan law” with equal access to employment and services. However, many people think that this is immoral because people cross to the United Kingdom for a potential better life, and Rwanda may not offer that. However, it is legal through the new Nationality and Borders Bill and must be safe. The UK also needs to sign the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights too.
Crazy News
Hollywood star and Wrexham AFC co-owner Ryan Reynolds has gifted a commemorative urinal to his partner at the football club, Rob McElhanney for his 45th birthday. Reynolds posted a video to his Twitter account and showed the gold plaque as he opened a bottle of bubbly in the toilets. The plaque reads: “This urinal is dedicated to Robert McElhenney on his birthday – April 14. With love from Wrexham AFC, paid for by Ryan Reynolds” alongside Ryan’s face. I mean, this present is pretty bog standard!
As you know, I take birthdays very seriously. I’m excited to unveil the @RMcElhenney Commemorative Urinal at @Wrexham_AFC Racecourse. pic.twitter.com/iALHZ3Cu8C
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) April 14, 2022
Happy News
An anonymous Frenchman won €200,000,000 in the EuroMillions last week and he gave almost all of it away towards preserving the tropical rainforest in Côte d’Ivoire. The winner created the Anyama Endowment Fund in which the winnings will go towards “the protection and revitalization of forests, the preservation and regeneration of biodiversity and the support of family caregivers”.
Speaking of his win and donation, he wrote on the website “I only played during large jackpots, for one purpose: to devote most of this sum to the creation of a foundation. During my life, I have witnessed in Côte d’Ivoire the incessant passage of trucks loaded with trees cut in the forests of Burkina Faso”.
The French National Lottery have since said: “We have never seen an initiative of this size, but there again, we have rarely seen such high winnings. Often, these things go hand-in-hand”.
It was France’s second-largest jackpot win and the winning individual is only known to be a retiree in Southern France wanting to spread the message of environmental preservation and that giving can make people more happy than having.
