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News in Brief

Number of weddings falls
THE number of weddings in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since 1895, new figures say. Data released by the Office of National Statistics showed that there were 275,140 marriages in the whole of the UK in 2006, a drop of four per cent from the previous year. A spokesman for the Church of England said the number of marriages solemnised in the Church had held up as a proportion of all religious weddings, but fallen overall because of the widening choice of venues for couples.

Carlisle SPCK bookshop closes
THE SPCK bookshop in the lodge at Carlisle Cathedral closed last weekend. It is believed that four part-time staff lost their jobs, as well as the manager. A spokesman for the diocese described the closure as “very sad”. The shop within the cathedral will not be affected.

Christian website celebrates ten years
THE SHIP of Fools website celebrated its tenth anniversary this week. It attracts more than 150,000 visitors a month. Its editor, Simon Jenkins, who founded the site with Steve Goddard and Iwan Russell-Jones, rates the “Laugh Judgment” competition as one of its highlights. “We opened the site as a genuine experiment, and were surprised by the response of the readers, and how quickly they warmed to being ‘shipmates’,” he said.

Correction: In our report of a letter about prayers before council meetings in Devon (News, 28 March), we omitted to say that the letter had also been signed by Methodist, Baptist, Salvation Army, and URC leaders.



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