Good News

BULLETIN 9 January

Good afternoon, here is your Good News:

# Charity Begins With Me has set an ambitious target of distributing 40-thousand fresh snacks across various informal settlements. This forms part of its plan to help promote healthier snacking options for underprivileged children. Moved by reports of children dying from unsafe snacks, founder Stephan Ferreira, plans to distribute 750 fresh fruits and vegetables weekly, aiming for 40-thousand this year to mark his 40th birthday. He highlighted the importance of providing children with safe and ready-to-eat snacks.

# The Addams Family Musical has taken Cape Town by storm since its opening in mid-December at the Homecoming Centre. The production is a tale of unlikely connections as the dark and mysterious Wednesday Addams falls for a boy from an ordinary family, Lucas Beineke. The stellar cast includes Samantha Peo, Tiaan Rautenbach, and Yahto Kraft. The reviews have been positive with the Daily Maverick describing it as a blast of feel-good wholesomeness, while Netwerk24 said the musical proves South Africa’s theatre industry is world-class. The production runs until the second of February.

# Universal’s Broadway musical adaptation, Wicked, has been nominated for five Screen Actors Guild Awards. The nominations include Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo, Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande, and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Bob Dylan’s biopic A Complete Unknown scored four nominations, including one for its lead actor Timothée Chalamet. FX/Hulu’s Shogun, scored the most TV nominations with five, while The Bear has four. The SAG Awards will stream live on Netflix on the 23rd of February.

# Singapore has retained its spot as the world’s most powerful passport. This is according to the 2025 Henley Passport Index, which ranks passports by the number of destinations that holders can access without needing a visa. Singapore’s passport offers visa-free access to 195 of 227 global destinations. Japan is second in the ranking, with an open door to 193 destinations. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, and South Korea are tied in third with access to 192 destinations with no prior visa needed.

# And finally: US president Joe Biden has welcomed his first great-grandchild after his eldest granddaughter gave birth to a baby boy in California on Wednesday. Thirty-one-year-old Naomi Biden Neal, and her husband, Peter Neal, welcomed their first child, a son named William Brannon Neal The Fourth. The newborn shares a name with Neal’s brother, who was killed in 2009 by a distracted driver. Biden is the first sitting president to become a great-grandfather while in office.

Stay tuned for more news………….