The news at a glance . . . Europe

Belfast, U.K.

‘Mrs. Robinson’ scandal: A sex scandal involving the wife of a key Protestant politician in Northern Ireland threatens to derail the province’s power-sharing accord. Peter Robinson, head of the Democratic Unionist Party, temporarily stepped down as first minister this week amid reports that his wife, Iris, took money from developers in 2008 to help her then-19-year-old lover start a business. Iris Robinson, 60, is also a member of the British Parliament. She checked into a mental facility last week after the BBC reported the affair, and her husband said he was taking a six-week leave to care for her. It’s a bad time to be away: The province’s government is close to collapse because the unionists and Sinn Fein, the main Catholic party, can’t agree on policing and justice issues.

Wootton Bassett, U.K.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What’s in a name? The British government has outlawed an Islamist group that was planning to march through Wootton Bassett, a town that receives recent British war dead. Wootton Bassett is next to the air base where the soldiers’ bodies arrive, and the town stages elaborate mourning ceremonies carried live on national television. The group, which wants to protest the ceremonies and the war in Afghanistan, was already banned under the Terrorism Act of 2000. But it has continued to operate under new names, including Islam4UK and Al-Muhajiroun, which have now also been banned. “We’re not going to stop,” said the group’s leader, radical imam Anjem Choudary. “If that means setting up another platform under another label, then so be it.”