Each week, Ben Hopkinson looks back at a serious, crazy, and happy news story from the past week.
Serious News
Historical London landmarks like the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street and the National Gallery are set to be heated by the capital's Tube network and the River Thames.
Part of a new £1billion scheme scheduled to start in 2026 set up by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Westminster Council, it would allow historic listed and World Heritage Sites to use low carbon heating without needing to change their external look.
The minister for energy consumers at DESNZ, Miatta Fahnbulleh, says: “Taking waste heat from the River Thames and London Underground to heat such iconic places as the Houses of Parliament and the National Gallery is a really exciting example of what lies ahead on our journey to low-cost, low-carbon heating.”
The plans will be delivered by South Westminster Area Network (SWAN), who plans to invest £100m within three years, £500m within 10 years and £1bn by 2050 in what they describe as one of the UK’s biggest heat networks”.
Crazy News
Hundreds of people were tricked into attending a Halloween parade in Dublin, only for it to not be an actual event.
A website posted the false news, while further posts across social media further spread the fiction.
Irish police arrived to disperse the crowd confirming the fake news and that “contrary to information being circulated online, no Halloween parade is scheduled”
Some people afterwards commented that it was a “ghost parade” and the “greatest Halloween trick” they had seen.
Happy News
Back in August 2019, Charlotte was laying on the tracks waiting for the next train to end her life, but the driver, Dave managed to slow down the train in time, even disembarking and sitting next to her to talk her out of her plans after nearly half an hour.
She was met by emergency services and Dave went on his way thinking everything was sorted – and it was. Until the next day he received a message from her thanking him for his kindness.
After chatting daily for two months, they then met up and had coffee. Fast forward three years and they married while she was 22 weeks pregnant, and now share two children together.
Speaking of the day, she says: “I once asked him if he’d ever had any de-escalation training, because he was brilliant that day. The conversation was just about mundane things, but it was enough to break the crisis. The next day I made it my mission to find the man who had been so kind to me.”
Dave wanted to know the outcome after emergency services took over: “I felt like I had a duty to make sure she was all right. We’d had that rapport built by the side of the track.”
Charlotte shared her story, in the hope to show that we all are capable of being empathic and present regardless of training and background.
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