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In the News

  • Guardian: More than 15,000 same-sex couples have married, says ONS
    October 20th, 2015
    More than 15,000 same-sex marriages have taken place in England and Wales since it became legal to do so.
     
    The Office for National Statistics confirmed a total of 15,098 couples had legally married after the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 came into force on 29 March last year. Of those, 7,732 were conversions from civil partnerships.
     
    This meant that the number of civil partnerships formed in England and Wales fell by 70% – from 5,646 in 2013 to 1,683 in 2014. In December 2014, only 58 civil partnerships were formed compared with 314 in the same month in 2013, a fall of 84%.
     
    Of the 7,366 same-sex marriages that took place from 29 March 2014 to 30 June 2015, 55% (4,059) were between women and 45% (3,307) were between men. Those who chose to convert their civil partnerships into a marriage were roughly evenly split between male and female couples.
     
    Gianna Lisiecki-Cunane, a family lawyer with JMW Solicitors, said the figures appeared to suggest that gay women shared the preference of their heterosexual counterparts for the security and stability of marriage.
  • Guardian: Britain's most dangerous prisoners to get meditation lessons
    October 20th, 2015
    Prison staff are to teach meditation to Britain’s most dangerous criminals in an attempt to aid their rehabilitation and quell their violent impulses.
     
    About 60 of the most violent men held in segregation units in the country’s eight highest-security prisons will have access to one-on-one training by psychologists and prison officers, the Guardian has learned.
     
    A prisoner in HMP Wakefield’s close supervision centre (CSC), where the armed robber and hostage taker Charles Bronson is being held, is the first to undertake a mindfulness-based stress reduction course, derived from a 2,400-year-old Buddhist meditation tradition.
     
    The move represents an ambitious new frontier in the application of the technique, which is already prescribed on the NHS to treat depression and is gaining traction in schools to help pupils concentrate and to regulate their emotional responses.
  • Telegraph: IVF women third more likely to develop ovarian cancer
    October 20th, 2015
    Women who undergo IVF are a third more likely to develop ovarian cancer, the biggest ever study of fertility treatment in the world has discovered.
     
    Scientists at University College London said underlying health problems in infertile women may be driving the increased risk, but warned that the research 'leaves open the possibility' that the procedure itself might be to blame.
     
    Previous studies have suggested that ovarian stimulation methods used to harvest eggs could fuel cancer, but most specialists dispute the dangers and a 2013 Cochrane review found no strong evidence of a link.
  • Gatestone Institute: Christians persecuted by Muslims even in the West
    October 20th, 2015

    Last April, police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants hurled as many as 53 Christians overboard during a recent boat crossing from Libya. The motive was that the victims "professed the Christian faith while the aggressors were Muslim." Another report cited a boy seen praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Muslims commanded him to stop, saying "Here, we pray only to Allah." Eventually the Muslims "went mad," in the words of a witness, started screaming "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"] and began hurling Christians into the sea.

  • Guardian: New DNA test for embryos could boost IVF success rates
    October 20th, 2015
    A test that checks for abnormal amounts of DNA in IVF embryos has raised pregnancy rates at US fertility clinics that have started to offer the procedure.
     
    Scientists in Oxford who helped develop the test claim it can boost the chances of an IVF pregnancy by 10 percentage points, leading to success rates of about 75% in 35-year-old women.
     
    The test does not improve the quality of IVF embryos created at fertility clinics, but gives doctors a new way to identify the healthiest and most likely to produce a pregnancy.
  • Times (£): MSPs already divided over abortion law
    October 20th, 2015
    Deep splits over abortion law emerged in the Scottish parliament last night, 18 months before Holyrood is given the power to legislate in the area.
     
    David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, announced last week that control over terminations, including the setting of time limits, would be handed to the Scottish parliament. He said the transfer of power would be included in the Scotland Bill, which is currently before the Commons, with Holyrood expected to gain control over abortion in 2017.
     
    Nicola Sturgeon has already made it clear that she has no plans to introduce different time limits for abortion in Scotland. However, the split in views even within her party was exposed yesterday when John Mason, one of her MSPs, tabled a motion calling on MSPs to protect “fundamental rights of babies” both “before and after birth”.
  • TES: Pupils being targeted by extremists while working online in schools, survey suggests
    October 20th, 2015
    Pupils are being cyber-bullied and targeted by extremist groups while working online in school classrooms, where children also looking at inappropriate content, according to a new survey of parents.
     
    The research also suggests that most parents believe it is teachers who are responsible for educating children about the dangers of the internet.
     
    The survey of more than 2,000 UK parents indicates that one in 14 children has been cyberbullied in school, one in 20 has accessed inappropriate content, and one in 33 has been targeted by extremist groups.
     
    But the research also suggests that the inclusion of online safety education into the IT curriculum last year has resulted in parents sitting back, rather than taking responsibility for ensuring their children are properly equipped to safely navigate the online world.
  • News Week: British values linked to security threat, Muslim educator warns
    October 19th, 2015
    The teaching of British values in schools is now so linked to security concerns any discussions surrounding it are “really screwed-up”, Muslim educator and journalist Abdul Rehman-Malik has warned.
     
    Mr Rehman-Malik, who works with young Muslims on change and social justice via the organisation Radical Middle Way, told the Battle of Ideas audience at the Barbican yesterday that the country was “getting excited” about British values because of “a Muslim threat, an Isis threat, a terrorist threat, a violent extremist threat”.
     
    The session closed the two-day debating festival and asked a panel of experts: ‘Should schools teach British values?’
     
    Panel members included founder of Muslim Women in Education Rania Hafez, history lead for the Harris Federation, John Blake, and social theory lecturer Toby Marshall.
     
    Mr Rehman-Malik, also on the panel, said schools had been teaching values for decades but that concerns since 9/11 had changed attitudes.
  • Life News: 14 People are euthanized in the Netherlands every single day
    October 19th, 2015
    The Netherlands killing bureaucracy likes to keep track of who doctors euthanize in that country, and why.
     
    In 2014, the total was nearly 400 a month, for a total of 5306. That’s an increase of 10% over 2014.
     
    And yes, psychiatrists still killed mentally ill patients, 41 according to the report.
     
    If the USA had the same kill rate–it takes time for a culture to follow and digest euthanasia’s hemlock–the total would be over 80,000 annually.
     
    The culture of death grows like a cancer.
  • Guardian: Trojan horse headteacher 'allowed pupils to be put in stress positions'
    October 19th, 2015
    The former headteacher of an academy at the centre of the Trojan horse scandal is alleged to have allowed pupils to be placed in stress positions as a punishment, a misconduct panel has heard.
     
    Monsoor “Moz” Hussain is facing allegations alongside four other former senior Park View academy staff, including executive headteacher Lindsey Clark. Also accused are Hardeep Saini, the former headteacher of sister school Golden Hillock; Razwan Faraz, the former deputy headteacher of another linked school, Nansen Primary; and Arshad Hussain, who was an assistant headteacher at Park View in Alum Rock, Birmingham.
     
    All are accused of unacceptable professional conduct but are facing different allegations being heard by a National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) panel.