News Atlas

BBCOct 9Preview

Burnham promises to curb non-compete rules in job contracts

The prime minister says restrictions on what workers can do after leaving roles have "gone too far".

GuardianOct 9Preview

Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream execution puts US in dubious company

Only Iran and Afghanistan routinely carry out sentences in public, with Saudi Arabia appearing to have ended practiceUS politics – live updatesIf the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, goes ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a soldier radicalised to extremist Islam who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas, his country will join a motley assembly of lesser powers and rogue actors who have conducted public executions in recent years.Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International. Continue reading...

Jason BurkeCapital punishmentCapital punishment

NYTOct 9Preview

Why This Election Could Be More Complicated for Democrats Than Polls Suggest

The last two midterms where Democrats surged against an unpopular Republican president were in 2006 and 2018. They had notably different outcomes.

Reid J. EpsteinMidterm Elections (2026)live-detached

GuardianOct 9Preview

Shostakovich Symphony No 8 album review – composer’s cry of despair in a remarkable and resonant new recording

Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Altinoglu(Alpha)Conductor Alain Altinoglu brings weight and purpose while the instrumental solos are piquant and precise. If the Leningrad was Shostakovich’s official response to the second world war, the Eighth Symphony was his answer to the question: “Will you tell us what you really think?” Written while the fighting was still under way, its immediacy remains striking today, a quality reflected in Alain Altinoglu’s purposeful interpretation with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestra.You hear that directness at once in the way the strings dig deep, bringing remarkable colours to a 26-minute Adagio that, in the wrong hands, can sound merely bleak and black. Not that Altinoglu shuns the horrors: his phrasing and textural dynamics bring fearsome weight and a sense of wide-eyed terror to the composer’s protracted cry of despair. The orchestra covers itself in glor

Clive PagetClassical musicMusic

GuardianOct 9Preview

‘My dog’s built her own fashion community’: how canine companions stole the fashion week spotlight

Our four-legged friends are turning heads from Louis Vuitton to Schiaparelli – but what does their presence in the most exclusive of spaces say about the industry’s changing attitudes?• Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe front row at a fashion week show is a known hotspot for celebrities. During the most recent iteration that wrapped up on Tuesday, sightings included Heathcliff, AKA Jacob Elordi, high-fiving the Adolescence star Owen Cooper at Bottega Veneta; Rihanna arriving 63 minutes late to the Matières Fécales show; and Dua Lipa gossiping with Nicole Kidman and Pedro Pascal at Chanel. But peppered in among the Hollywood crowd was another type of guest going head-to-head for the photographers’ attention: dogs.From a cavapoo at Louis Vuitton to a shih tzu at Schiaparelli, four-legged companions – rather than designer bags – sat on the laps of many sho

Chloe Mac DonnellFashionLife and style

GuardianOct 9Preview

Revealed: the ‘black box’ wastewater trade that rakes in millions for UK utility companies

Exclusive: Firms made more than £340m last year from processing industrial and commercial wastewater at sewage works that are unable to remove many chemical pollutantsWater companies in the UK made more than £340m in revenue last year by pouring billions of litres of industrial and commercial wastewater into sewage treatment works that experts say are not designed to remove most chemicals, leaving pollutants to pass into rivers, seas and farmland.Water companies in England are required by law to take industrial wastewater and issue permits called “trade-effluent consents” that allow businesses to send it to sewage works, though water companies can refuse applications. Continue reading...

Rachel SalvidgeWaterUtilities

GuardianOct 9Preview

Firmus pulls biggest ASX float since Telstra amid investor doubt about datacentre company

The $11-a-share offer would have been the biggest debut on the stock market since the telecommunication giant in 1997Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFirmus Technologies has scrapped what was set to be Australia’s biggest company listing in decades after investor demand for its much-hyped AI datacentre business failed to materialise.A Firmus spokesperson said the board decided that proceeding with the offer was no longer in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. Continue reading...

Jonathan Barrett and Josh TaylorDatacentres - AustraliaAustralia news

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