The atriums of Mexican Catholic churches will be used for the voluntary surrender of weapons in exchange for economic and legal incentives as part of a plan announced on Tuesday by the government to reduce violence.

According to the Mexican government, there is a link between the illegal trafficking of weapons—almost entirely coming from the United States—and the spiral of criminal violence that has plagued the country since late 2006, when a controversial military anti-drug offensive was launched.

“The idea is to set up areas in the church atriums where people can voluntarily surrender their weapons, and in return, they will receive financial resources based on the weapon they are turning in,” explained President Claudia Sheinbaum during her regular press conference.

The left-wing leader emphasized that the program, called “Yes to Disarmament, Yes to Peace,” guarantees that those who surrender their weapons will not face any “investigation.”

“What we want is to disarm. This will be implemented next year. We also did it in Mexico City, and it had significant results,” added the former mayor of the capital, with a population of 9.2 million.

The disarmament plan is part of the government’s “comprehensive security strategy,” one of whose pillars is promoting a culture of peace, especially in regions severely affected by organized crime violence, Sheinbaum pointed out.

More than 450,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since the government launched its military-led anti-drug operation, alongside about 100,000 people who have gone missing.

Despite being a secular state, the Mexican Catholic Church has played a key role in efforts to contain violence, with priests acting as mediators between citizens and criminals. Several clergy members have been killed for this cause.

Just last week, the Catholic hierarchy called on cartels to declare a truce in their violent actions during the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12 and the upcoming Christmas holidays.

Two U.S. astronauts stranded since June on the International Space Station (ISS) will not return to Earth until at least “the end of March,” NASA announced.

Originally planned as an eight-day mission, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have already been on the ISS for six months due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that transported them in June.

After several weeks of testing on the Starliner, the U.S. space agency decided during the Northern Hemisphere summer to return the spacecraft without crew members and bring the two stranded astronauts back with SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.

The Crew-9 mission launched at the end of September with two passengers aboard—rather than the four originally planned—leaving two seats empty, and it docked with the ISS, where it now awaits its replacement with the Crew-10 mission.

However, NASA announced on Tuesday that the Crew-10 launch, scheduled for February, would be delayed until at least “the end of March” to allow NASA and SpaceX teams to complete the development of a new Dragon spacecraft.

This delay also postponed the return of the two astronauts to Earth, as well as the Crew-9 crew’s return.

If they return in March, Wilmore and Williams will have spent more than nine months in space instead of the planned eight days.

They were conducting the first test flight of Boeing’s Starliner when propulsion system issues arose.

Begoña Gómez, wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, appeared before the courts on Wednesday, where she denied any wrongdoing in her professional activities. This statement comes amid several investigations that have created a tense atmosphere around the president.

The investigations focus on whether Gómez, 49, used her relationship with Sánchez to lead a master’s program at the Complutense University of Madrid and secure private funding for it.

Additionally, it is being assessed whether, in exchange for this funding, she facilitated a businessman’s privileged access to public contracts.

Gómez’s lawyer, Antonio Camacho, defended his client, stating that “my client has always acted correctly, always in coordination with Complutense University, and at no time has she mediated in any way for a businessman to obtain public tenders.”

Camacho also emphasized that his client had wanted to testify from the beginning of the process but was prevented from doing so due to the lack of clarity regarding the investigation.