Homeless people played football on the same pitch as some of the world’s greatest ever players last Thursday. The match on Cardiff Bay’s floating pitch was one of the events ahead of Saturday’s Champions League final.

“It’s absolutely huge,” Keri Harris of Street Football Wales told the BBC. “It will be the same field, arena, where the day after a group of legends are going to be on the same pitch. It will help show homeless people are like everyone else, we are all just one step away. Being on the same pitch as famous footballers will help show they are human.”

Twenty players took part, before being whittled down to 16 for the Homeless World Cup in Oslo later this year. Wales will take men’s and women’s teams to the contest after £10,000 of Welsh Government funding.

The Homeless World Cup first took place in Austria in 2003, as a way of inspiring homeless people to transform their futures. About 50 voluntary groups and charities from around Wales then came together to create their own street football programme.

Teams include over-16s, with some that have become socially excluded through things like substance misuse, mental health or cultural issues, and suffered homelessness in the past year. Others had been long-term unemployed or spent time in jail and faced stigma and barriers to being part of society.

Ahead of Thursday’s demonstration match, Mr Harris said that street football has made a “life changing difference” to hundreds of homeless people and the prospect of playing in the world cup has inspired them.

Actor Michael Sheen is a patron, while minister for social services and public health Rebecca Evans said: “I met Street Football Wales recently and saw the difference their projects can make to people’s lives, not only in regards to health and wellbeing, but also in terms of self-confidence and personal development.”

Ironically, homeless people have reportedly been ordered out of Cardiff city centre ahead of the Champions League final. Several people living on the streets of Cardiff said police officers had told them to leave the city or potentially face arrest before the clash between Juventus and Real Madrid on Saturday.

South Wales Police said anyone behaving antisocially or causing harassment to others could be asked to leave the area for up to 48-hours under dispersal powers.

Officers could tell people to leave a certain area under Section 35 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The section allows police to order people to leave a certain area for no more than 48 hours to stop any antisocial behaviour or crime. Failure to comply is a criminal offence and doing so could see people landed with a fine or imprisonment of up to three months, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Homeless Vicky Berry, 29, from Pontypridd, told the Daily Mirror: “I’ve been told that I have to move on, and that we have to go for four days and we are not allowed in. I do understand that with everything going on there is a security problem, but chucking homeless people out isn’t the right thing to do.”

“I haven’t got a clue what I’m going to do.”

Two homeless men have been hailed as heroes after they rushed to help those caught up in the horrific terror attack at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

Chris Parker, 33, cradled a dying woman and wrapped a bloodied child in merchandise T-shirts while Stephen Jones described in harrowing detail how he had to pull nails from a little girl’s face.

Chris was in the foyer of the arena – where he regularly goes to beg for money as the crowd leave – when the bomb went off. He said he was knocked to the floor by the blast but immediately got back up and began trying to help the wounded.

He said: “Everyone was piling out, all happy and everything else. As people were coming out of the glass doors I heard a bang and within a split second I saw a white flash, then smoke and then I heard screaming. It knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead of running away my gut instinct was to run back and try and help. There was people lying on the floor everywhere. I saw a little girl … she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said ‘where is your mum and daddy?’ She said ‘my dad is at work, my mum is up there’.”

Rough sleeper Steve also rushed to help young victims following the explosion at the Manchester Arena. He told ITV News: “Just because I am homeless, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t got a heart and I’m not human still. They needed the help, I’d like to think that someone would come and help me if I needed help. It’s just instinct to go and help … it was a lot of children with blood all over them, crying and screaming.”

He added: “We [had] to pull nails out of their arms and a couple out of this little girl’s face. It had to be done, you had to help. If I didn’t help I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for walking away and leaving kids like that.”

David Sullivan, the owner of West Ham football club, was so moved by Steve’s actions that he has stepped in to help him. Mr Sullivan told BBC Radio 5 Live he wants to help the ‘hero’ by paying for his accommodation for six months and some money to help him turn his life around.

“It looks like he needs some help, so we are desperate to find who he is and give him six months free accommodation and a little bit of money to help him on his way,” he said.

Once granted refugee status asylum seekers have just 28 days to leave their Home Office accommodation, according to a new report. This leaves many to rely on charity as they try to integrate into British society. The report also highlights a two-tier system between refugees who journey across Europe to get here, and those the Government brings to Britain.

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Refugees report calls on the Government to double the length of time asylum seekers can remain in their accommodation before they are kicked out. The report also calls for more money for English language lessons, which more than halved between 2008 and 2015. It recommends the creation of a new National Refugee Integration Strategy and a ministerial post dedicated to resettling refugees.

For example, Syrian families who are brought to Britain under the Home Office’s Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) receive housing and support for 12 months. But refugees who make their own way here and apply for asylum in the UK face a sudden stop in financial support just after they win the right to stay here. There are also delays in processing their paperwork, and minimal English language education and help to find employment and homes. The APPG report cited one refugee from Syria who spent months homeless and jobless because of a spelling mistake in his paperwork

Under the last Labour government, a programme called the Refugee Integration and Employment Service was set up that offered 12 months of support to access housing, education, social security and the job market. However, this was shut down by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition in September 2011. Since then, there has been no official support service for refugees who have been through the asylum system.

Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, who chairs the APPG, said: “Creating a two-tier system for refugees, loading the dice against people who come here to build a new life is not just the wrong thing to do but a costly missed opportunity for Britain. Refugees bring so many talents and skills. They just need the opportunities to unlock their potential.”

Stephen Hale, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “This report is a timely wake-up call. The new Government must seize the opportunity to enable all refugees in Britain, regardless of how they arrive, to successfully rebuild their lives. Refugees are determined to learn English and start contributing to their new communities through volunteering, work and socialising with their neighbours. But as the report highlights, they face huge barriers to integration. This is a shocking waste of their talents.”

There have been a rising number of deaths in Europe and America linked to the use of two opioid drugs – fentanyl and carfentanil – that are reportedly being mixed into heroin.

Now, both fentanyl and carfentanil appear to have arrived in the UK – several people in the northeast of England have died in the past month after using heroin cut with fentanyl and/or carfentanil.

Fentanyl and carfentanil are highly potent, rapidly acting opioid drugs. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine, while carfentanil is 10,000 times more potent than morphine. In comparison, heroin is 4-5 times more potent than morphine.

Some dealers in the UK seem to be cutting heroin with fentanyl or carfentanil, thereby increasing the strength of their product. A small dose of carfentanil is commonly used legally as a sedative for elephants, bears, and other large mammals.

Taking precautions

It is impossible to tell by sight whether heroin has been cut with fentanyl or carfentanil, but there are some precautions that can be taken to reduce the potential for overdose. However – both fentanyl and carfentanil are potent at such low doses that there is a significant risk of death if those drugs are being consumed, even if harm reduction steps are taken.

The following advice should be passed on to people who use heroin, to reduce the risk of harm from consuming fentanyl/carfentanil:

• Do not use alone; make sure that someone you trust is present, and equipped with naloxone.
• Make sure there is sufficient naloxone available. You will need more naloxone to recover from an overdose of fentanyl/carfentanil that you would need for a heroin overdose.
• Smoke a small amount on foil before attempting to use intravenously. You are very unlikely to die from smoking fentanyl/carfentanil-laced heroin as you would fall unconscious before inhaling the lethal dose.
  • This does not apply if you have already consumed depressants, such as alcohol or benzodiazepines.
• Like injecting, snorting fentanyl/carfentanil-laced heroin can be potentially fatal
• If injecting, start with a dose that is one-quarter of what you usually use.
  • Don’t “slam” your hit. Depress the plunger slowly, pausing to allow the familiar dose to take effect. If you feel it is unusually strong or sedating, pull it out.
• Be aware of the signs of overdose:
  • Sudden disorientation, including nodding into unconsciousness
  • Losing muscle control (particularly in the knees or neck)
  • Cyanosis (skin turning blue)
  • Falling unconscious before removing the needle
• Being aware of these overdose signs can help you look after someone who is using heroin, and can help them look after you if you overdose – this is why it’s important to not use alone.
• Also, follow the local news to see if there are reported fentanyl/carfentanil overdoses or deaths in your area.

The bees looked fine on inspection last year

Last November the Bosco bee colony was put to bed for the winter with enough food to see them through the cold months and an extra layer of insulation around the hive. But the season has ended in disaster as the first inspection of 2017 has revealed that the bee colony has been devastated – they had all, sadly, died over the winter.

The reason why the whole colony should die at once is unclear, but it is known as a ‘colony collapse disorder’ or CCD. Scientists reckon CCD might be caused by a combination of factors interacting with one another, including exposure to agricultural pesticides and attacks by bee parasites such as varroa mites.

Bosco volunteer, Linda Van Nooijen, said: “We don’t know whether our bees have been exposed to pesticides, but they were checked for varroa before winter and got a clean bill of health. Our local bee expert, Andrea Ku, thinks it might be down to the weather, as we didn’t have a particularly cold season and they may have woken up too early.”

However, some research suggests the suddenness of a colony’s collapse could to be related to a change in foraging behaviour whereby younger worker bees leave the hive in search of food rather than gaining more experience in the safety of the nest. Clint Perry, a researcher at Queen Mary University, London, said: “Young bees leaving the hive early is likely to be an adaptive behaviour to a reduction in the number of older foraging bees. But if the increased death rate continues for too long or the hive isn’t big enough to withstand it in the short term, this natural response could upset the societal balance of the colony and have catastrophic consequences.”

“Precocious foragers completed far fewer foraging trips in their life, and had a higher risk of death in their first flights. This resulted in a breakdown in division of labour and loss of the adult population, leaving only brood, food and a few adults in the hive,” said researchers. A mathematical model found that as more workers started foraging at an earlier age, the effect had a positive feedback, with the change in behaviour causing more and more young workers to leave the hive, the researchers said.

Colony collapse disorder has caused a 30 per cent average annual loss of honeybees in North America alone over the last decade. A key feature of the disorder is the complete disappearance of worker bees, leaving the hive largely empty of adult bees. “Our results suggest that tracking when bees begin to forage may be a good indicate of the overall health of a hive. Our work sheds light on the reasons behind colony collapse and could help in the search for ways of preventing colony collapse,” Dr Perry said.

But all is not lost. Linda said: “The hive will be thoroughly cleaned and a new colony will be in residence within the month. We go again!”