John Halligan, S.J., and Beatrice Chipeta, a Rosarian sister, were winners of the Opus Prize on Nov. 11. They will split $1.1 million intended to further their work among the poor in Quito, Ecuador, and Malawi respectively. • Contraception and sterilization should not be included among mandated “preventive services” for women under the new health reform law, the U.S.C.C.B.’s Deirdre McQuade told an Institute of Medicine committee on Nov. 16. • An aggressive brain tumor has forced Archbishop Faustino Sainz Muñoz, the apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, to seek early retirement. • An Indonesian Catholic seminary, used as a shelter for people escaping Mount Merapi’s volcanic eruptions, hosted hundreds of Muslim victims at a celebration of the Islamic feast of Eid al-Adha on Nov 17. • Modern economies must pay more attention to farmers, not out of yearning for a simpler time, but out of recognition that farms feed the world and offer dignified work to millions of people, Pope Benedict XVI said on Nov. 14. • At their general assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 17, U.S. bishops agreed to prepare a policy statement on assisted suicide before their next meeting in June 2011.