They are less hedonistic than their parents’ generation – more likely to be tee-total and less likely to engage in casual sex. 

Now millennials are using dating apps, once synonymous with short-lived flings, to boost their increasingly freelance careers. 

With a growing number of young people are using the online apps for professional networking or promoting their own businesses, companies have caught on to the trend. 

Bumble has launched a business spin off while the team behind Tinder have created professional network Ripple. 

Mixer – a private networking app to connect freelancers working in film, music, art and fashion – has also enjoyed growing success since it began in 2015. 

Figures released this week show Bumble now has 36 million registered users. 

The 20 best dating apps and websites

After launching Bumble Bizz in October, the app now has 17 million new matches a week and 64,000 new users are joining each day. 

Louise Troen, Bumble’s vice president of marketing, says the idea came about when executives noticed people were using their profiles to network with others. 

"We noticed that our users were ‘hacking’ [the app] to connect in business," she said. "So they were saying ‘Hi, I’m Sophie, I’m from Surrey, I’m looking for a part-time producer to help me on this documentary I’m doing’. Someone would swipe on her and say ‘hey I’m actually a producer, I’m a freelancer, let’s get together’. They were forming these friendships that were also business relationships." 

Perhaps such prudent behaviour is to be expected from Generation Y. After all, a study by UCL earlier this year found millennials are waiting longer to have sex, with one in eight still a virgin at 26, while more than a quarter of 16-to-24-year-olds say they do not drink alcohol, according to the Office for National Statistics. 

Millennials are also likely to work harder for less money, with researchers from the Resolution Foundation finding that the post-financial crisis pay squeeze has disproportionately affected younger workers. 

Stephanie Reynders, a former professional snowboarder, launching a sportswear collection and says she spends around 30 to 60 minutes a day looking to connect with people. 

"I’ve been on the app for two years now and kind of grew with it, from dating to Bizz." 

Ms Reynders said she had "met a couple of very interesting people" through the app who have become regular business advisers for her start-up. The trio have formed a close friendship and regularly meet for dinner to discuss how to boost her brand. 

"They have helped me with brainstorming about things like the product launches, which bloggers to contact, and what kind of products to design next. Most of all they have just become great friends. This way you create long term relationships with people who support and help you," she said. 

More traditional professional networks often largely fall short of the needs of self-employed youngsters or those in creative industries. 

According to market research firm Statista, 77 percent of LinkedIn users are 30 years or older, and are typically looking to recruit from large firms. 

The crossover between those using platforms for romance and for climbing the career ladder is clear. Bumble’s dating platform is mostly populated by 25 to 32-year-olds with a gender split of 55 per cent women and 45 per cent men, while those on the business platform typically range in age from 26 to 32.

Ms Troen says the platforms dating apps offer are significantly different to more traditional sites and they have seen a steady growth.

"The whole notion of networking has changed dramatically," she said. "In the past doing business was very formal, it was a very corporate notion. I think in the last ten years with the rise of millennials, the rise of entrepreneurs and opportunity has meant that lots of people are starting their own businesses…there wasn’t an environment where they could do so.

"A lot of freelancers use it, especially in the creative industry because of the immediacy of it. If your photographer pulls out of a big shoot, you can go on straight away and find a photographer. It’s not about uploading a super-hectic CV and waiting, it’s about constant connecting and growing your network on a day-to-day basis."

Adultery is a serious – and expensive – matter in the American state of North Carolina, as one man has discovered.

A court last week ordered Francisco Huizar to pay $8.8 million (£6.7 million) to Keith King, whose wife he had been seeing for more than a year.

Mr King, 48, a businessman, won his case for "alienation of affection" and “criminal conversation” based on centuries-old English common law.

“There isn’t a dollar amount that you can put on it for what I think my family’s worth,” he told the Inside Edition television show.

A Superior Court judge in Durham thought otherwise, awarding him $2.2 million in compensatory damages and $6.6 million in punitive damages.

King married Danielle in 2010. He said he discovered flirtatious texts sent to Huizar on her phone five years later.

At first he tried to keep his marriage together, for the sake their daughter, but then learned of the state’s adultery laws, he told the CNN affiliate WRAL.

"My marriage was murdered. It was destroyed," he said.

Most states have dropped the laws as archaic and for treating women as chattels, but they remain on the books in Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah as well as North Carolina.

A law firm in Raleigh said 200 claims were made in the state each year. Successful cases must show that plaintiff and spouse were happily married until the “malicious conduct of defendant was a cause of the loss and alienation of such love and affection”.

“Criminal conversation” covers extramarital sexual acts – and was abolished in England and Wales in 1857.

However, Huizar’s attorney said the marriage was already in decline and that her client would appealing against the decision.

"My client became embroiled in a very unfortunate situation. He never sought to air the details of this situation in public," said Cheri Patrick in a statement. "The alienation of affections law in North Carolina is archaic, demeans the obligations of spouses in a marriage and should be stricken.

“Verdicts like these ignore the realities of how and why marriages fail and remove personal responsibility for a person’s own marriage."

Still glistening in the residue of toxic mercury solution, the metallic flake looks more like a silvery fish scale than a precious metal. 

But for Emmanuel Sithole, the toe-nail sized scrap of gold in the palm of his hand is a modest contribution to his monthly income. 

“That’s about $15 right there. Not much – it’s always a matter of luck, but you should be able to get that from a shovel full of earth,” he explains.  

Weary, covered in dust, and in his mid-twenties, Mr Sithole is a typical "makorokoza" – one of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans driven by a catastrophic economic crisis to literally scraping a living out of the country’s dark ochre landscape.

Zimbabweans have mined gold since…

Two children, aged nine and 11, have become the world’s youngest to be euthanised, according to a report.

The unnamed minors were administered lethal injections in Belgium, which has the world’s only law allowing terminally ill children in “unbearable suffering” to choose to die. 

Their deaths, which occurred in 2016 or 2017, were revealed in a report from the CFCEE; the commission that regulates euthanasia in Belgium, and their ages were confirmed by a Belgian official. 

It confirmed that Belgian doctors had given lethal injections to three children over the two-year period, including to a 17-year-old who was suffering from muscular dystrophy.

The nine-year-old, who had a brain tumour, and the 11-year-old, who was suffering from cystic fibrosis, were the first children under 12 to be euthanised anywhere, a member of the CFCEE told The Washington Post. 

One of the most permissive countries in the world, Belgium amended its euthanasia law in 2014 to make it legal for doctors to terminate the life of a child, however young, who makes the request.

They must be judged to have the mental capacity to make the decision and receive parental consent. 

Supporters of the law say a child should not be made to suffer against their will but opponents say children are too young to make the decision to die.

The July 17 report notes that three minors were among thousands of people to have died under Belgium’s radical euthanasia regime between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017.

It merely describes all three as under 18 but a Belgian official has now disclosed their ages to the Washington Post.

Luc Proot, a member of the CFCEE, defended the decision to authorise the young euthanasia cases, saying: “I saw mental and physical suffering so overwhelming that I thought we did a good thing.”

For euthanasia to proceed in Belgium, doctors must first verify that a child is “in a hopeless medical situation of constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be eased and which will cause death in the short term.” 

Once a child has expressed a wish for euthanasia in writing, child psychiatrists conduct examinations, including intelligence tests, to determine their level of discernment and ensure they were “not influenced by a third party.” Parents can, however, overuse their request.

Belgium’s decision to extend its euthanasia laws to all minors provoked outrage in the country and abroad.

Belgium’s bishops called the law “a step too far”, while a group of 162 Belgian paediatricians wrote: “We are today able to perfectly control physical pain, choking or anxiety at the approach of death.”

Prof Stefaan Van Gool, a child cancer specialist in Belgium, said: "There is, in fact, no objective tool today available that really can help you say ‘this child has the full competence or capacity to give with full understanding informed consent’."

Wim Distelmans, head of the Belgian euthanasia commission countered: “Thankfully, there are very few children who fit the criteria, but that doesn’t mean that we should refuse (them) the right to die with dignity.”

The annual number of euthanasia cases across all age groups has multiplied almost five-fold in ten years in Belgium. 

Of the 4,337 to opt for assisted dying in Belgium in 2016 and 2017, most were cancer patients.

However 710 were mainly elderly people who suffered from comparatively minor complaints such as blindness and incontinence. Some 77 chose to die because of unbearable psychiatric suffering. A further 19 young people between 18 and 29 decided to end their lives. 

Last year, neurologist Dr Ludo Vanopdenbosch resigned from the CFCEE, in protest at the failure to prosecute when a dementia patient’s life was terminated without her prior consent.

Since then, 360 Belgian doctors, academics and others have signed a petition calling for tighter controls on euthanasia for psychiatric patients.

Despite the controversy, there is widespread backing for Belgium’s euthanasia legislation, polls suggest.

Assisted Dying 

 

The arrival of North Korea’s foreign minister in Tehran just hours after Donald Trump had reinstated sanctions against Iran was “no coincidence”, analysts believe, and is designed to send the message that Pyongyang is reinforcing its alliances as denuclearisation talks with the US stall.

Ri Yong-ho held talks with Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, on Tuesday, the same day that economic sanctions went back into force against Tehran. The meeting was held at North Korea’s request, Iranian media reported, and the two officials used the two-day visit to express their “satisfaction” with existing bilateral relations and seek better ties in the future. 

“The fact that they are meeting at all…

The world’s most coup-prone state risks renewed turmoil this week as a contentious referendum threatens to destabilise the Comoro Islands and draw France deeper into a migrant crisis that has bolstered its nationalist right.

The archipelago of Indian Ocean islands off south-east coast of Africa had seemed to have shaken off an era of chronic instability that saw 20 coups and coup attempts after independence from France in 1975.

But after 17 years of relative calm, a power-sharing agreement that restored peace between the state’s three bickering islands is facing deep strain after Azali Assoumani, the Comoran president, called a vote that could extend his hold on power by a decade.

For the opposition,…

A priest accused in the Pennsylvania abuse scandal was given a reference by his diocese and went on to work at Walt Disney World for 18 years, it has emerged.

Rev Edward George Ganster was one of 301 "predator priests" identified in a huge report into abuses by Catholic clergymen in the US state stretching back 70 years.

According to the report the diocese knew about his "sexual transgressions" in 1990 but still gave him a reference to work at the "happiest place on Earth".

Following one allegation he was moved to another parish and, when there were further accusations, he was place on sick leave.

He then left the priesthood and applied to work at Walt Disney World in Florida, securing the job with a reference from his Pennsylvania diocese.

The reference letter said: “I am quite sure that the Diocese will be able to give you a positive reference in regard to the work you did during your years of service here as a priest.”

The former priest went on to operate a train for families visiting the theme park. He died in 2014.

Following the release of the landmark report by a grand jury victims told their stories of abuse.

Carolyn Fortney, 37, one of five sisters abused by the same clergyman, said: "It’s very lonely. Especially when it’s your word against God’s."   In a statement her family said: "While five sisters were the first victims, our family and second generations continue to be impacted. The depth of this abuse has been life-altering for this and future generations."

James VanSickle, 55, who has accused a Pennsylvania priest of abusing him as a teenager, said: "I think that all of us will have a hole in our soul for the rest of our lives. Healing is impossible.”

Robert Corby, 83, said: "A priest, in 1948, would abuse you. Who would have believed me?” Shaun Dougherty, 48, said: "It doesn’t ever go away. It has an effect on you for the rest of your life.”

A letter from a seven-year-old girl in New Zealand to the transport authority about its “unfair” road signs has prompted the agency to change the wording of the nation’s signage from “Linemen” to “Line Crew”.

During a visit to her grandparents in Eastbourne, a suburb near Wellington, Zoe Carew was angered by the signs, which indicate that people are working on local power lines.

In a letter to Fergus Gammie, the chief executive of the New Zealand Transport Agency, the seven-year-old wrote: “Why does the sign say ‘Linemen’ when the people working on the lines may be men or women? I think this sign is wrong and unfair. Do you agree?”

The letter continued: “I don’t really want to be a line-worker when I grow up because there are so many more exciting things I would like to do, but some girls might want to learn to be linewomen. Can you please change the sign to say ‘Line-workers’ instead, or something else correct and fair like that.”

Mr Gammie responded, saying that he accepted the criticism and that the agency would change its signs. He said the wording would be changed to “Line crew” rather than “Line-workers” because this would not require adjusting the size of the signs.

“I commend you for your suggestion and for taking action where you think something unfair should be fixed. Well done,” he wrote.

“The Transport Agency chose ‘Line crew’ rather than ‘Line work’ because using the word ‘crew’ indicates that people are doing the work and drivers need to be very careful when passing them.”

Caitlin Carew, Zoe’s mother, posted the letters on Facebook, saying she was “so proud of my 7yo”. 

“High 5s all round!” she said. 

Mr Gammie said that replacing the signs "may take some time" and invited Zoe to have her photograph with a new sign once the change has been made.