Do they worry if this no-questions-asked approach could lead to people taking advantage of the scheme?

Moylan responds with a resounding no. “That’s sometimes the pointy end of running a scheme like this, and that’s just something you have to accept as part of a community fund.”

She has had one customer tell her they used the scheme to buy a book for their friend’s birthday. In another instance, the scheme was used to supply 30 books for a local primary school.

“There’s something nice about the idea that people in Camberwell and Southwark are giving money – that then is going to buy books for kids who live around the corner,” said Gillian Lewis, the parent who saw Lala’s scheme and thought of the school books idea.

Moylan added: “We even get people who might use it one week when they feel like they don’t have just quite enough money to get the book that they want, and then like two months later they’ll come back and say they want to donate into it now.”

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk, external

BTS member Jin has reached a major milestone in his solo career, with his title track “Don’t Say You Love Me” surpassing 1 billion cumulative streams on Spotify as of Aug. 18, according to the streaming platform, marking the most-streamed song of his solo catalog to date.

The achievement comes just one year and three months after the song’s release, according to allkpop, making it Jin’s fastest-growing solo track to reach the billion-stream threshold. “Don’t Say You Love Me” serves as the title track of Jin’s second solo mini-album, “Echo,” which was released in May 2025 through Big Hit Music.

The song is a pop track that captures the conflicted emotions of two people struggling to let go of each other even as their relationship approaches its end. Jin’s calm, restrained vocal delivery blends with the track’s understated production to create a subdued, emotionally resonant listening experience, a signature style that has come to define much of his recent solo output.

“Don’t Say You Love Me” also made a significant impact on global music charts following its release. The song debuted at No. 90 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, marking Jin’s third solo entry on that chart, following “The Astronaut” in 2022 and “Running Wild,” the title track from his debut solo mini-album “Happy,” in 2024. Beyond the Hot 100, the track climbed into the top 10 of several other major global charts, reaching No. 2 on Spotify’s Weekly Top Songs Global chart and No. 6 on Billboard’s Global 200, according to The Korea Herald. The song also placed at No. 10 on the UK Official Singles Top 100 and No. 4 on Billboard’s Global Excl. U.S. chart, according to separate reporting from allkpop.

The success of the single helped lift the broader profile of “Echo,” which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking Jin’s highest career placement on that chart since launching his solo career. According to The Korea Herald, “Echo” ultimately spent more than seven months building toward the billion-stream milestone for its lead single, a pace that established “Don’t Say You Love Me” as the most-streamed K-pop solo song of the calendar year in which it was released.

The track’s momentum built steadily rather than through a single viral spike. According to reporting from Starnews Korea earlier this year, “Don’t Say You Love Me” became the first K-pop song to reach 600 million Spotify streams in 2025, doing so faster than any other Korean pop release that year. The song also achieved a notable milestone specific to the Japanese market, surpassing 50 million streams on Spotify Japan alone in October 2025, described at the time as the fastest such achievement ever recorded by a K-pop solo artist, reached in just 146 days. The track additionally spent more than 100 consecutive days within Spotify’s Global Top 10, a run that made it the first and only song by an Asian artist to achieve that feat in 2025, and it topped Spotify’s Global Chart outright in May of that year, becoming the first Asian artist’s song to reach No. 1 on that ranking during 2025.

Beyond the lead single’s individual performance, the “Echo” album as a whole has continued accumulating substantial streaming numbers. According to Starnews Korea, the full album surpassed 1.2 billion cumulative Spotify streams by late March, with “Don’t Say You Love Me” itself accounting for roughly 890 million of those plays at that point, while other tracks on the record, including “Nothing Without Your Love” and “Loser,” featuring YENA, each individually surpassed 46.7 million streams, reflecting balanced listener engagement across the project rather than reliance on a single standout track.

Jin’s growing solo streaming numbers have coincided with an expanding personal following on the platform. According to Starnews Korea, Jin surpassed 10 million followers on Spotify as of Jan. 31, a milestone the outlet described as evidence of his continually growing global listener base as a solo artist, separate from his standing as a member of BTS.

The singer’s solo career has also been recognized through a series of awards over the past year. According to Starnews Korea, Jin was named Best Solo Artist at the inaugural Kstyle Awards, hosted by Japanese Hallyu media outlet Kstyle, and won the Best K-POP Performer category at the 2025 Global Fan’s Choice Awards, co-hosted by Spotify News and Stardom. He additionally won the Male Popularity Award at the 40th Golden Disc Awards and received both Record of the Year and a spot on the Top 20 Songs of the Year list at the 2025 Asian Pop Music Awards.

News of the billion-stream milestone spread quickly among fans following its confirmation. According to KpopStarz, the phrase “JIN HISTORY MAKER” began trending on social platform X as fans celebrated the achievement, with one fan writing, “Congratulations to Jin on reaching 1 BILLION streams on Spotify for Don’t Say You Love Me.”

The milestone arrives as BTS, the seven-member group Jin belongs to, continues its ongoing “Arirang” world tour. According to allkpop, the group is scheduled to perform in Toronto on Aug. 22 and 23 as part of the tour’s continuing itinerary. Separately, BTS released “Keep Swimming,” a remix collection tied to the group’s fifth studio album “Arirang,” earlier this year, featuring genre reinterpretations of the album’s lead track “Swim” from each of the group’s seven members; Jin contributed an alternative rock version of the song as part of that release.

With “Don’t Say You Love Me” now standing as his most-streamed solo track and “Echo” continuing to accumulate plays well beyond its initial release window, Jin’s latest milestone adds to a steadily growing body of individual achievements that have accompanied BTS’s continued group activities, underscoring the commercial staying power of his solo material even as the full group remains actively engaged in international touring and other collaborative projects throughout 2026.

DOVER, Del. — A confirmed tornado tore through Dover, Delaware, on Thursday evening, ripping roofs from two motels along North DuPont Highway and downing trees and power lines across the city, prompting Dover’s mayor to declare a local state of emergency as officials worked to assess the damage.

The tornado struck around 6:18 p.m., according to a report from a trained storm spotter cited by the National Weather Service, who observed a rain-wrapped tornado on the ground with flying debris near East Division Street close to William Henry Middle School. The state of emergency took effect at 6:20 p.m. and remained active while authorities worked to secure damaged buildings and clear affected roads.

The worst damage occurred along North DuPont Highway near Route 13, where the storm tore into the Days Inn and Super Lodge motels, ripping off sections of their roofs. Both properties were evacuated safely, and no serious injuries were reported anywhere in Dover, according to local authorities.

Guests staying at the two motels described terrifying moments as the storm intensified. Kuimonie Goins, of Greensboro, North Carolina, said she was staying at the Days Inn with her family when conditions rapidly deteriorated. “When it started raining, we started seeing like pieces of buildings flying, and then we started to see the tornado form, and then we ran in the bathroom because we were scared,” Goins said. Jiana Hall, of Dover, who was also staying at the hotel, said she immediately moved her children to safety once the danger became apparent. “We immediately grabbed the kids and ran in the bathroom,” Hall said, recalling how she tried to reassure the children while the family waited out the storm. “Everything gonna be OK. Praying,” she recalled telling them.

Randall Butler, a longtime resident of the Superlodge, said he had no warning the storm would strike his home directly. “I didn’t think it was going to hit here. I thought I was going to come home and get some sleep,” Butler said. He was forced to find alternative housing following the damage to the property. “It’s unbelievable. Thank God I wasn’t there,” Butler said.

Dover Police Department spokesperson Lt. Mark Hoffman described the scale of the destruction and the fact that no one was seriously hurt as remarkable given the severity of the damage. “Honestly, it’s a miracle. I don’t know how we made it out of this without anybody being injured,” Hoffman said. He also detailed the dangerous conditions facing utility crews working to restore power in the aftermath of the storm. “As you can see there’s power lines down, significant damage to poles. We have a roof structure hanging over power lines, so it’s creating a dangerous situation for our power crews,” Hoffman said.

Dover Police identified the Division Street and Lockerman Street corridor, along with portions of North DuPont Highway, as the hardest-hit areas of the city. In a social media post, the department urged residents to stay off the roads given the scale of the disruption. “We are also dealing with significant power outages and numerous intersections where traffic signals are not functioning, creating extremely dangerous travel conditions. WE NEED EVERYONE TO STAY HOME AND GET OFF THE ROADS,” police said.

Resident Julian O’Neill described the unsettling experience of the storm passing through, particularly the sound it produced as it moved through the area. “I never experienced anything like it,” O’Neill said. “The craziest part was the sound of it. It was like a whistling sound, almost like a train sound. The rain was so bad and the wind was so bad, you couldn’t really see it. All you could see was the trees bending down like crazy.”

Beyond the two motels, the tornado caused structural damage at a Kraft Foods facility in the area, according to a second trained storm spotter cited by the National Weather Service. Damage was also reported at the Dover Little League complex on Electric Avenue, where fencing and poles were knocked down and a fallen tree struck the facility’s scoreboard. Numerous additional trees and large branches blocked roadways throughout other parts of the city, compounding the disruption to local travel.

DART, Delaware’s public transit authority, dispatched vehicles to help relocate residents displaced from the Superlodge, according to Delaware Public Media. The National Weather Service’s Mount Holly, New Jersey, office, which covers the Dover area, indicated it would send officials to conduct a formal survey of the damage in the coming days to determine the tornado’s strength and confirm the exact path it took through the city. As of this report, no official Enhanced Fujita Scale rating had been assigned to the Dover tornado, and the damage path had not yet been formally surveyed.

Thursday’s severe weather extended beyond Dover itself, part of a broader storm system that swept across the mid-Atlantic region. The same system tore the roof off a school building in central Pennsylvania and brought torrential downpours to the Philadelphia suburbs and the Jersey Shore, according to regional coverage of the storm. A separate funnel cloud was also spotted in Egg Harbor Township in South Jersey during the same system. In Pennsylvania, preliminary storm reports documented severe structural damage in the Columbia area, including collapsed walls, a collapsed shed, and shingles torn from multiple roofs, with the National Weather Service’s State College office scheduling its own damage survey for Eastern York County and Columbia beginning at 8 a.m. Friday.

Dover’s storm system triggered two separate tornado warnings for Kent County on Thursday night, reflecting the sustained and evolving nature of the severe weather threat as it moved through the region. As cleanup efforts continued into Friday, city officials, utility crews and displaced residents faced the task of assessing both the structural damage to the two motels and the broader disruption to power and roadways across Dover, even as police continued urging onlookers to stay away from the affected areas to allow emergency crews room to work safely.

Strategy Inc., the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, has swung back into a substantial unrealized profit on its massive Bitcoin holdings, as a sharp multi-day rally in the cryptocurrency pushed the company’s common stock up 10% in Friday pre-market trading to $120, its highest level in two months.

According to CoinDesk, Strategy owns 840,447 bitcoins, acquired at an average purchase price of $75,385 per coin. With bitcoin trading near $77,000 Friday, the company now holds an unrealized gain of roughly $1.4 billion, or 2.4%, marking its first return to profitability on its bitcoin treasury in months. Bitcoin has surged nearly 22% over five consecutive days of gains, a rally that Benzinga described as a 20% jump specifically over the trailing 72 hours, pushing the cryptocurrency’s price up from a low of $58,000 in July, when Strategy’s unrealized loss had reached approximately $13 billion, equivalent to 20.4% of the company’s total bitcoin cost basis at the time.

Strategy had spent much of 2026 underwater on its bitcoin holdings as the cryptocurrency fell roughly 54% from its October all-time high of $126,000, according to CoinDesk. That extended stretch of paper losses had weighed heavily on the company’s stock and financial reporting, given that Strategy’s business model has increasingly transformed the company into what one analyst characterized as less a traditional software business and more a leveraged bitcoin holding vehicle wrapped in a public company structure.

During the period when bitcoin traded in the low to mid-$60,000s, Strategy sold approximately 6,916 bitcoins, according to CoinDesk, while simultaneously building up its U.S. dollar cash reserve to $4.8 billion. According to CryptoTimes, that dollar reserve is intended to provide roughly 2.8 years of coverage for the company’s dividend payments and other financial obligations, reflecting a more measured, risk-managed posture compared with Strategy’s earlier years of continuous, aggressive bitcoin accumulation under Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.

In the week ending Aug. 16, Strategy reported no new bitcoin purchases or sales, according to CryptoTimes, keeping its holdings steady at 840,447 BTC. Instead, the company raised approximately $333.7 million through sales of common stock during that period, directing the proceeds toward preferred stock dividends, preferred share buybacks and further contributions to its cash reserve.

Strategy’s underlying financial results have continued to reflect the volatility inherent in its bitcoin-heavy balance sheet. According to Timothy Sykes’ market coverage, the company reported a massive GAAP net loss driven by roughly $8.3 billion in unrealized bitcoin losses recorded earlier in the reporting period, even as its core enterprise analytics software business remained essentially flat, with second-quarter revenue of $122.4 million landing just under the $122.9 million analysts had expected. That divergence between GAAP accounting losses tied to bitcoin’s price swings and the company’s comparatively stable software revenue has become a defining characteristic of how analysts now evaluate the stock.

Management has continued actively reshaping the company’s balance sheet alongside the bitcoin rally. According to Timothy Sykes, Strategy has cut its convertible debt by 18%, lifted its U.S. dollar reserves to $3.75 billion in one recent snapshot, and has been repurchasing shares of its STRC Series A preferred stock below par value, while signaling support for the preferred shares within a targeted $99 to $100 trading range. The company has also repurchased approximately 288,930 common shares for roughly $25 million, according to a separate Timothy Sykes report, part of broader efforts to reinforce investor confidence in the stock alongside its ongoing 12% dividend commitment.

Despite the recent volatility and multiple price-target reductions from analysts, Wall Street sentiment toward Strategy has remained largely positive. According to Timothy Sykes, firms including Clear Street, Benchmark and B. Riley have all cut their price targets on the stock in recent weeks but maintained buy ratings, with a consensus price target sitting near $258.50, well above the stock’s current trading levels.

Strategy’s stock has shown a consistent pattern of tracking bitcoin’s price movements closely, a dynamic that has led some analysts to describe the company’s shares as carrying an unusually high sensitivity, or “beta,” to bitcoin’s underlying price. According to TS2.Tech, Strategy’s stock recently demonstrated a bitcoin beta exceeding 2.6 times, meaning the shares have moved more than 2.6 times as much, in percentage terms, as bitcoin itself during certain trading sessions, reflecting the leveraged nature of the company’s business model built around its massive cryptocurrency holdings.

Regulatory developments have also factored into recent trading in Strategy shares. According to Yahoo Finance, a proposed rule change affecting non-operating companies with large treasury asset holdings, a category that includes Strategy given its substantial bitcoin reserves, could potentially force investment funds tracking certain MSCI benchmarks to sell their MSTR shares if the change is finalized. A final decision on that proposed rule change is expected by October, with any resulting changes planned to take effect in November 2026, according to the same report, representing an ongoing source of uncertainty for the stock independent of bitcoin’s own price movements.

Michael Saylor, Strategy’s executive chairman, has continued to publicly reaffirm the company’s long-term commitment to its bitcoin-centered strategy. According to TS2.Tech, Saylor stated the firm “remains committed to Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset,” even as the company has more recently balanced that stance with a more measured approach to active bitcoin trading, including periodic sales aimed at funding dividends, debt reduction and share repurchases rather than pursuing continuous, uninterrupted accumulation.

Technical indicators have also pointed toward continued near-term strength in the stock following Friday’s rally. According to Benzinga, Strategy shares extended a three-day breakout that finally cleared resistance near $105 after four separate failed attempts to break through that level since July, with the stock’s relative strength index climbing sharply to 61.84 and a bullish divergence flagged earlier in July now playing out in the stock’s price action. The 100-day exponential moving average, sitting at $122.16, was identified as an immediate technical test for the stock at Friday’s premarket trading levels.

With bitcoin’s five-day rally having erased months of accumulated paper losses on Strategy’s balance sheet, investors are likely to continue closely monitoring both the cryptocurrency’s ability to sustain its recent gains and Strategy’s upcoming weekly disclosure filings, which have become a closely watched indicator of the company’s ongoing bitcoin trading activity and broader capital allocation strategy heading into the remainder of 2026.

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