A group of scouts from Aarschot in Flemish Brabant last week made an early return home from camp in Slovakia after one of their leaders died after being struck by lightning while climbing in the Tatra mountains. The group, all aged 17 or 18, were given psychological counselling.

Parents of children attending a pre-school in Ekeren in Antwerp have started a petition against the school’s refusal to prolong the contract of a teacher because she is not a baptised Catholic. The teacher has worked at the school, part of the Catholic education system, for two years. Mieke Van Hecke, head of the Catholic network, supported the school’s decision. “It’s only logical that someone who teaches religion is a member of the club,” she said.

The archaeology department of Ghent University will have the use of an unmanned drone for the next eight years to carry out surveys of archaeological sites, flying at low altitudes to take high-resolution photographs of sites including the Sint-Baafs abbey site, which will then be used to make a 3D model of how the abbey once looked. The drone, provided by Dutch company Dioraphte, will also be available to other university departments.

More than 80 people have volunteered to appear in court to face charges of taking part in a protest against genetically modified potatoes in an experimental field in Wetteren, East Flanders, which led to clashes with police in May last year. Eleven people have been formally charged and the trial is due to take place in January next year. The volunteers include Bart Staes, member of the European Parliament for Groen, as well as representatives of environmental organisations. The application to appear voluntarily on charges is thought to be a first under Belgian law.

Flemish teenagers identify themselves first as Belgian, then according to their municipality and only then as Flemish, according to a study by the University of Leuven among 3,426 14-year-olds. The exception is teenagers from Limburg, who rank their identity as municipality, then Limburger, then Flemish. In all cases, Europe comes last on the list.

A man who climbed on top of a moving train and then threw himself into the water of the Ringvaart in Melle in East Flanders has been committed to a psychiatric institution. Emergency services were alerted by members of the public, but the man refused a lifebelt and was removed by police divers from the water and hospitalised for hypothermia. The reasons for his action are not clear, but investigators are not ruling out a suicide attempt.

Cyclists in Flanders can now use Google Maps to find the best route to their destination, in addition to directions for public transport, cars and walkers. Google stressed the service was in an early phase and invited users to provide more information on routes to improve the service.

Police have suspended digging operations in the garden of a man in Haacht in Flemish Brabant, in connection with the long-running investigation into the crimes of the so-called Brabant Killers, who killed 28 people in a series of robberies in the 1980s. None of those responsible has ever been identified. The man, a self-professed Druid with extremist right-wing views, made several appearances in the investigation over the years, and police were hoping to find clues on his property. Work has been suspended for undisclosed technical reasons but will resume later, the magistrate investigating the case said.

Children in the sixth year of primary at Sint-Lambertus school in Heverlee near Leuven will no longer take part in organised ski trips, out of respect for the families of the victims of the March bus crash in Switzerland, when seven children from the school were among the 28 victims.

Correction: In our article Agricultural exchange in the Living section of 12 June, we described the organisation Veterinarians Without Borders (VZG) as “a spin-off of Doctors Without Borders” (MSF). VZG has asked us to point out that they are an independent organisation with no ties to MSF. In addition, their core mission is “to fight poverty and hunger in Africa by improving animal health and livestock rearing” rather than to arrange visits between professionals from the West and the developing world, as we said. We apologise for any confusion and have corrected the archived article on our website accordingly.