News

Are world leaders telling the truth about saving the planet, or just performing it? By Liv Briens Montero, Staff Writer From the 10th to the 21st of November 2025, over 190 countries gathered in Belem, Brazil for COP30, the 30th annual climate summit. As world leaders gather to shake hands and discuss environmental policies, one question quietly overshadows the official sense of unity and cooperations: How honest are world leaders about climate action?COP30 marks ten years since the Paris Agreement, in which the nations present promised to attempt to keep global warming below 1.5°C. However, in late October 2025, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that overshooting the 1.5°C global warming limit is now inevitable, citing a lack of new climate pledges. The Paris agreement repr...

By Claudia Beal, Staff Writer In September, a settlement was reached between Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch and his four eldest children - Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James - regarding the future of Newscorp, the most influential media company in the world.  Murdoch, who famously founded Sky, also owned 21st Century Fox until 2019 when he sold it to Disney. He retained FoxCorp, where he was chair until 2023 (now chair emeritus), with his son Lachlan as the company's residing chair.  Rupert Murdoch also owns FoxCorp (Fox News), The Sun, The Times, Times Radio, The Sunday Times, New York Post, California Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial News, Collins publishing, Harper Collins, Tubi, Vogue Living, GQ and Vogue Australia, Sky News Australia and New Zealand, 13 st...

By Madeline Sidgwick, Senior News Editor Jethro Robathan is now a Market Reporter at Angus Media but was once the Associate Opinionand Debate Editor at The Orbital Magazine and English Literature student at Royal Holloway.From experience at The Independent, The Financial Times and The Times, Jethro is an exampleof how The Orbital began a journalism career.I reached out to Jethro to talk all thingsfreelancing, financial journalism and his experience at both Royal Holloway and The OrbitalMagazine. Q: Tell me a little about your background and what led you to Royal Holloway?I have always known I wanted to work with words so an English degree felt like an obviouschoice. RHUL had/has a great reputation for creative writing and literature, plus I had a fewfriends already at RHUL so it was...

By Ruby Sharkie, Associate News Editor TW: This article includes references to sexual violence, pornography, and harmful sexual behaviours, which some readers may find distressing. Last month (December 2025), a new government strategy was announced in the House of Commons, its aim; to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).  The strategy’s main focus is teaching boys about healthy relationships and pornography.  This comes after the next regulation under the Online Safety Act in which more ‘rigourous’ age checking systems were implemented for explicit sites such as PornHub, etc.  Pornhub has stated that the number of UK visitors to its website is down by 77% compared to early July, before the regulations were put in place.  According to St...

By: Jessica L. Smith, Senior Opinion Editor 2026 marks a huge milestone for Royal Holloway’s outlet of student journalism - forty years of The Orbital magazine. In light of this, I had the opportunity to interview Gen-Z journalist Lucy O’Brien in January to discuss the importance of young people breaking into the journalism industry.  Lucy O’Brien is currently a Platforms and Social Media Journalist at The Times and The Sunday Times. She runs a successful TikTok account, which has amassed over 6000 followers, where she shares snippets of her life as a journalist and advice for those pursuing a career in journalism themselves. O’Brien previously graduated with a master’s degree in Magazine Journalism from City St George’s, University of London and was the Opinion Editor for Univ...