Schools this week will be on their half term break. Their kitchens will be closed. Nearly two million children rely on free school meals as their only hot meal of the day. MakeLunch is a network of churches working to fill the holiday hunger gap. Volunteers based in churches, community centres or sometimes school buildings believe that one meal for one child makes a difference. Not daunted by the scale of the issue, they focus on providing what they can when they can, offering a free hot meal to children from low-income families, and seeking to ensure that the families that need it the most get invited. Just one example is St Mark’s Church in Milton Keynes which will provide 300 children with meals this half term, in three primary schools and a children’s centre. Rev’d Paul Oxley talks about how his church’s involvement in meals provision for children has grown over the last year. Listen to the story at:

For almost 75 years it has been a reassuring weekly fixture following an unchanged format, part of the fabric of the nation. But the pace and reach of social change appear to have left Desert Island Discs behind. A new poll suggests that only 31% of people in the UK would like a copy of the Bible to take to a desert island. The Radio 4 programme’s imaginary castaways are given a Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, along with their choice of eight pieces of music, another book and one luxury item. With increasing secularity and diversity of British society, the poll found that 56% of respondents would not choose a Bible, and 13% were unsure. Fewer than one in three welcomed the inclusion of a Bible in their musical and literary accompaniments to a solitary existence. There was a noticeable generational difference: 18% of 18-to-24-year-olds would choose a Bible, compared with 39% of over-65s.

Migrants have had to leave the ‘Jungle’ camp as the French government is about to bulldoze the area. They were given free suitcases to pack up their belongings and leave. Some queued for food handouts, while one man was pictured receiving a haircut by another migrant. On the fringes of the camp a coach-load of refugee families, including young children, left Calais ready to start new lives in the south of France. Among the first to claim a seat were Naqeebullah Noorzada from Afghanistan, his three children (aged eight, six and ten), and his sister-in-law. He paid people-smugglers £24,000 to get his family out of his war-torn country via Iran and Turkey before reaching Europe by boat. Mr Noorzada said, ‘There are many problems here, particularly if you have children, so we are moving to the south near the Spanish border. We had to escape the Taliban. I want my children to have an education.’

Russia Today (RT) UK news channel has its offices in England and covers global, political, business, sport and current affairs. On Monday they were told that their bank accounts will be frozen. John Laughland, Director of Studies at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris, believes this decision is politically inspired. He said, ‘My suspicion is that it's part of a coordinated and Europe-wide policy of harassment against organisations associated with Russia’, adding that a decision made six months ago at an EU summit to restrict ‘Russian propaganda and disinformation’ is being implemented. The EU has established a special unit specifically designed to combat Russian disinformation - particularly RT, which they say has irritated people in the West because of its strong editorial policies.