Prisoners will be allowed to request assisted suicide in Switzerland, prison system officials announced earlier this month.

This follows a request made in 2018 by a convict behind bars for life, which exposed a legal vacuum in a country that has long been at the forefront of pushing euthanasia.

Switzerland’s cantons, which implement prison sentences, have agreed “on the principle that assisted suicide should be possible inside prisons,” the Conference of Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police said.

Euthanasia is generally legal in Switzerland, with the only laws prohibiting assisted suicide being those performed with “selfish motives”. In the year 2014, a total of 752 assisted suicides (330 men, 422 women), compared to 1,029 non-assisted suicides (754 men, 275 women); most of the assisted suicides were of elderly people suffering from a terminal disease.[2]

Euthanasia organisations have been widely used by foreigners, in what critics have termed ‘suicide tourism’. As of 2008, 60% of the total number of suicides assisted by the organisation Dignitas had been Germans.

A Catholic priest was kidnapped in Nigeria last Friday.

Fr. Nicholas Oboh of the Diocese of Uromi was abducted by gunmen in the state of Edo in the southwest region of the country.

Local news outlets have also reported that several children were kidnapped at the same time.

The kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions and killings in Nigeria which have involved Catholics and other Christians; clergy, seminarians, and lay people.

Earlier in the week, suspected Islamist militants in Borno state staged an arson attack which killed 30 people, including a pregnant mother and her baby. The attack also destroyed 18 vehicles filled with food supplies for the region.

Gunmen have killed 24 people and wounded 18 in an attack on a Protestant church in a village in northern Burkina Faso, the regional governor has said.

A group of “armed terrorists” entered Pansi in Yagha province and “attacked the peaceful local population, after having identified them and separated them from non-residents”, Col Salfo Kaboré said.

The incident took place on Sunday during a weekly service, security officials said. “The provisional toll is 24 killed, including the pastor … 18 wounded and individuals who were kidnapped,” Kaboré added.

Burkina Faso is on the frontline of a jihadist insurgency advancing in the Sahel. Since 2015, about 750 people have been killed and about 600,000 people have been forced from their homes.

Christians have become frequent targets in the north of the country.

The constitution’s special protection for marriage came in for criticism at Saturday’s meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality with claims made that it excludes the recognition of non-traditional families.

Single mother Adele O’Connor and separated father Dave Saunders, from Tallaght, Dublin, gave personal testimonies on how the Constitution affected their lives.

Mr Saunders, an unmarried father and CEO of the From Lads to Dads focus group, said he had moved out of his family home 15 years ago after a relationship breakdown. He felt the Constitution had not recognised his or any other separated fathers’ rights.

Paula Fagan, CEO of LGBT Ireland and in a same-sex partnership raising two boys, said that Article 41.3.1 of the Constitution did not recognise her family even though it permits same-sex marriage.

She and her partner Denise “planned our family together and were lucky enough to have our gorgeous boys, who are the centre of our world”.

But Ms Fagan said, “only one of us is legally recognised as a parent”.

“Once there is a donor involved, it is a problem as far as the family is concerned. We ask you to recognise and protect our family by broadening the definition of family.”

The couple can both avail of guardianship rights for the children’s medical care but this entitlement “runs out at 18”. Ms Fagan said the Constitution “needs to recognise, protect and uphold what matters in a family”. But currently it’s “a barrier to recognising our family. Marriage equality didn’t fix this”.

Jonathan Lewis, of Peterborough City Council, said: “Meeting local need is always the priority.”

It will open to 90 children in 2022, growing to accommodate 630 pupils.

The government will pay 90% of the estimated £11m-£15m cost, with the city council contributing between £1.1m and £1.5m.

Plans for the primary school were approved on Wednesday night, despite an 11th-hour challenge from three city councillors. If the school is oversubscribed, it will make selection 80% Catholic faith-based, with the rest chosen by proximity. Critics said it was “discriminatory” for a Catholic school to prioritise children of the Catholic faith.

Joseph McCrossan, head teacher of St Alban’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Cambridge, said faith schools across the diocese were largely mixed.

“In my experience Catholic schools look at the wider community, at global issues, at other faiths, cultures and values. We celebrate that.”

A Department for Education spokesman said voluntary-aided schools were “among the best-performing in the country and are valued by parents for their strong and positive ethos”.

“Priority was given to schools that support integration and inclusivity when considering applications to help fund new voluntary aided schools,” a statement said.

People of different political persuasions are pursuing marriage in the US at noticeably differing rates.

Professor and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Brad Wilcox, calls it a “striking ideological divide” and said that it is large and growing.

Sociologist and Demographer, Wendy Wang, of the Institute of Family Studies, examined the rates of marriage of adults between the ages of 18 and 60 using data from the General Social Survey, 1974 -2018.

In 1974, 81% of self-described conservatives were married; 78% of moderates; and 66% of liberals. However, by 2018 the figures showed 59% of conservatives married; 46% of moderates; and 40% of liberals. The last decade in particular showed the rate of marriage among conservatives actually rose two points, while it continued to decline among moderates and liberals, thus widening the gap even further.

One of the most unlikeliest wins of this year’s General Election may have been down to a network of pro-life prayer groups.

Carol Nolan was first elected to the Dáil as a Sinn Féin candidate in 2016. However, she resigned from the party after campaigning against Repeal and voted against the Government’s abortion legislation. Without the support base, resources and political infrastructure of Sinn Féin, and with her 3 seat constituency in Offaly becoming a five-seater that included all of Laois as well, the odds of her reelection were quite low.

Writing in Laois Today, political commentator, John Whelan, said that a network of pro-life prayer groups, however, came to her aid and rescued her campaign. In the space of a few weeks her team galvanised support for her by phoning non-stop to a network of contacts that shared their Christian family values and pro-life stance.

She ended up winning the fourth seat in the constituency by a comfortable margin.

Researchers in the UK found that having 10 or more sexual partners over a lifetime almost doubled the risk of a woman developing cancer, and raised it by two thirds for men.

In addition, the study reported women with a higher number of sexual partners have heightened odds of a chronic health condition, though the same was not found in men.

The study, published in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, draws on information from almost 6,000 respondents to an English longitudinal study on ageing.

As an observational study, it cannot establish cause. Nevertheless, the authors say their findings chime with those of previous studies implicating sexually transmitted infections in the development of several types of cancer and hepatitis.