Not The BBC news: 1 August

Ariel Castro, the Ohio man who kidnapped three women and kept them as sex slaves for a decade, accepted a prison sentence of life plus 1000 years for forced abortion and kidnapping; without this plea bargain, he might have been the first person in the USA to be given the death penalty for killing unborn children. (One child was allowed to live; the girl’s mother has declared her love for her daughter, despite the circumstances of conception). A bus crashed into a ravine in Italy killing 37 people; it seems the bus blew a tyre on the bridge and struck several cars, so the driver steered for the concrete barrier, only for the barrier to give way. Pope Francis’ visit to Brazil culminated in a Mass attended by 3.7 million people. There was a women’s football European Championship; Germany won, as usual, but the main news was that they didn’t win on penalties (although their goalkeeper did save two). In a Soviet-style crackdown, a Christian pastor in Kazakhstan has been arrested and imprisoned for allegedly putting hallucinogenic substances in the Communion wine; he has started a hunger strike to protest against his wrongful imprisonment. Lewis Hamilton won his first Grand Prix for his new Mercedes team, after taking pole position for the fourth time; meanwhile, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, when asked what he wanted for his birthday, replied, “Someone else’s car”. The Archbishop of Canterbury has clarified that his conversations with the gay pressure group Stonewall are about setting up an education programme for C of E schools to tackle homophobic bullying, not about redefining core beliefs. Facebook’s shares finally climbed back above the price that they were issued at. Two female Bank of England officials who put Jane Austen on the new £10 note were threatened with rape and violence via Twitter; subsequently, two Twitter users have been arrested. The UK’s Gay Marriage Bill received Royal Assent this week and so will become law; a wealthy gay man from Essex has already said that he and his civil partner will go to court in an attempt to overturn the Bill’s protections against churches being forced to provide gay weddings. The biggest name football transfer this week involved Doncaster Rovers signing Louis Tomlinson of the band One Direction; his band schedule will take priority, however. Several people were arrested in leafy Sussex for protesting against investigative drilling for shale gas (“fracking”); a senior Tory who lives in the area suggested the Government should “frack the desolate north-east instead” and was swiftly shunned by his party. (When asked to explain himself, he said it had been a stupid mistake; he actually meant the north-west).