Two glowing brides in matching white gowns and four other same-sex couples made history in Mexico City as they wed under Latin America's first law that explicitly approves gay marriage.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was a guest of honour at the weddings of Judith Vazquez and Lol Kin Castaneda and the other couples who tied the knot in a city building, despite harsh criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and a campaign against the measure by President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party.

Foreign labourers employed in the meat and poultry industry face physical and racist abuse by British staff, an investigation has found.

Many workers reported being pushed, kicked or having things thrown at them by line managers, said investigators from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The head of the German Bishops' Conference, Robert Zollitsch, met with the pope in the Vatican to inform him of the abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic church in Germany.

"I want to repeat here in Rome the apology that I made two weeks ago," Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg said at a news conference following the meeting.

The pope has not commented himself on the allegation of both sexual and physical abuse that are to have taken place at Catholic schools across Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

The church has come under heavy criticism after an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted to the systematic sexual abuse of its pupils by two Roman Catholic priests. More alleged victims have since come forward, including a former member of the prestigious all-boys choir in Regensburg led from 1964-1994 by the pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger.

Germany's four largest Muslim associations debated a potential boycott of the German-Islam Conference in Cologne on Friday after the Interior Ministry excluded one of the groups from attendance.

The four groups were unable to reach a collective decision after nearly eight hours of discussion. Talks could though resume next Friday.

"It was a very intense discussion - which proves the importance of this matter," spokesman Bekir Alboga told reporters after the meeting. "All options are still on the table."

The four groups were the Council of Islam; the Central Council of Muslims; Ditib, which constructs mosques for the Turkish Religious Affairs Ministry; and the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers.

The groups represent only five of the 30 members of the German-Islam Conference, with the remaining seats reserved for individual Muslims of various backgrounds and federal, state and local community representatives.

Bing, Microsoft's search rival to global giant Google, filters sexually explicit words in versions used across the Arabic world, an online research organisation has found.

The so-called "cursed bread" incident was a mysterious poisoning that struck the small picturesque southern town of Pont-Saint-Esprit. In the summer of 1951, the "curse" resulted in five deaths, 300 illnesses, and 30 severe psychiatric cases leading to the victims being locked up in mental asylums. Nearly 60 years on, a US journalist, Hank Albarelli, claims that the CIA was behind the poisoning. However, US historian Steven Kaplan says Albarelli's theory lacks "solid evidence".

In an investigative book entitled "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments" published in 2009, Albarelli claimed that the CIA conducted large-scale chemical tests in Pont-Saint-Esprit without the knowledge of the town's inhabitants. Albarelli's also accused the CIA - in cahoots with the US Army - of poisoning bread with LSD so as to test its effects on the unsuspecting local populace.

An`early day motion¹ (EDM 908) has been tabled in parliament which opposes the conclusions of the science and technology committee report on the evidence for homeopathy. After two weeks it has been signed by an amazing 55 MPs. That is 8.5% of all 646 MPs.  Nothing shows more clearly the scientific illiteracy that prevails in the House of Commons (and, perhaps, the results of the mass mailing of MPs by homeopaths, who are clutching at straws)..

These MPs are all people who have difficulty with the idea that pills which contain nothing can have no effect above placebo.  It isn't rocket science.

Those of us who spend quite a lot of unpaid time trying to communicate the joy of science to the public, rather resent having our efforts undermined by these members of parliament.  But at least we now have a handy list of them.

Almost a year after writing my first column for this site, I would like to welcome you to my final article.

At first I was able to deliver my monthly column on time, but my submissions have become increasingly delayed, and this is my first since November. The problem is that I have spent the past two years being sued for libel, which has taken up huge amounts of time. And now all my remaining spare time is being devoted to campaigning for libel reform.

The crippling and prohibitive financial cost of defending a libel case is often highlighted, but the equally terrible cost in terms of time and stress is rarely mentioned.

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

Fox repeats this as gospel. But as a matter of historical context, usually in short supply on Fox News, this assertion ranks somewhere between debatable and untrue.

"2,000 bugs taking a ride in every train compartment" said the Daily Mail. "Cockroaches cluster on trains", scuttled the Telegraph. "Commuters share trains with 1,000 cockroaches, 200 bedbugs and 200 fleas" said the Evening Standard. The figures were all very specific and very frightening.

"Rentokil say they also discovered that a bus was home to 500 cockroaches, along with dozens of fleas and bedbugs," explained the Standard. Those disgusting trains are even worse. "Research by pest controllers Rentokil shows that, on average, a single train compartment houses a staggering 1,000 cockroaches, 200 bed bugs, 200 fleas, 500 dust mites and 100 carpet beetles," said the Mail.

These figures are very specific, and they do all sound a little bit on the high side. Where did they come from? "Staff at Rentokil sprayed insecticide throughout the carriages of a train and a bus and then counted the bodies of insects." said the Standard. Savvas Othon of Rentokil explained in the article: "The bus we studied was within the M25″.

We've read about the troubles of Eurostar, Toyota et al. So how do large companies deal with crises? Mostly they go for spin by calling in their PR company.

The public has become increasingly sceptical of company spokespeople and there is now greater scrutiny of those at the top. Many celebrities, including recently dropped England football captain John Terry, have found themselves punished for trying to silence the media through legal routes. The internet has allowed everyone to speak out about a story, and can make an issue globally accessible in an instant.

Making sure your crisis plans will work in today's society is crucial to dealing with a crisis successfully. Here are five ways to ensure your crisis plan is still relevant.

* 1. IGNORE THE INTERNET AT YOUR PERIL
'Digital has changed everything,' says Alex Woolfall, head of issues and crisis management, Bell Pottinger. 'Our starting point for clients is now finding out where an issue is going to break online.'

* 2. ALL STORIES ARE NOW GLOBAL
'There's no such thing as a little local difficulty if you're an internationally known brand,' says Regester Larkin director Eddie Bensilum.

* 3. THE DEATH OF THE SUPER-INJUNCTION
Bell Pottinger's Woolfall adds: 'Every time someone attempts to suppress information, it has the effect of increasing speculation online. What bigger signal could you sent to the media that there's a story than if you get an injunction? In the long term, online will make the legal route untenable for clients.'

* 4. MAKE FRIENDS WITH THIRD PARTIES
'Do not overlook online communities. Regester Larkin's Bensilum says firms should understand how these communities operate and how they can make contact with you.

* 5. GET YOUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER
'Take your internal communications seriously. Avoid getting caught out when a staff member interviewed by the media does not know the story. 'It's one of the cheapest ways of doing the story. Don't let staff in one market find out about a problem in another through the media,' advises Woolfall.

(selected quotes used above)

Knowing these potential actions makes it easier to resist them...

You can't be me, I'm taken

Here's a not-in-the-least-bit-biased headline from the Mail website: