In Depth:  The Telegraph

The new government has renewed its promises to protect persecuted Christians abroad, following a landmark pledge to adopt a new definition of anti-Christian discrimination and persecution.

Last year the former Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, commissioned Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro, to examine the extent and nature of Christian persecution as well as assessing the UK government’s response.

In new pastoral guidance, published on 11 December, the CofE has encouraged its clergy to create baptism-style ceremonies for transgender people to welcome them into the Anglican faith.

The guidance, approved by the House of Bishops, advises referring to transgender people by their new name and also details how elements including water and oil can be incorporated into the service, though it stops short of being a baptism.

It was reported on March 22 that the Birmingham school at the centre of an alleged campaign of ‘Islamisation’ by Muslim radicals, in a self-styled ‘Trojan Horse’ campaign to remove secular heads and install Islamic practices in state schools, is to be placed in ‘special measures’ by the Government’s education watchdog.

This move could see its head teacher and governors removed. Park View, previously rated outstanding by Ofsted, will be downgraded to inadequate, the lowest possible score, in the category of leadership and management, senior education sources said. This enables Ofsted to place the school in special measures, allowing the watchdog, if it wishes, to remove the school’s entire leadership.

According to a report in early April, it has been demonstrated that the design of Noah’s Ark was just right for the job.

A group of Master’s students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Leicester University studied the exact dimensions of the ark as set out in Genesis 6.13-22. They are confident that it would have handled the weight of 70,000 animals without sinking.