Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced an urgent review of protective security for high-profile public figures, expanding police support to politicians and others currently outside its scope, following the killing of Ann Widdecombe. The Guardian reported that Mahmood told the Commons the UK’s protective security system would be re-examined to combat growing risks of terrorism, extremism, state threats, harassment and intimidation.Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokesperson, was found dead on 9 July at her home in Haytor, Devon, having sustained serious injuries. Joshua Kerry, 28, has been charged with her murder.What the review will coverThe review will…
Author: Marcus Hale
Marcus Hale
Marcus Hale has been filing general news for the better part of fifteen years. He started at a regional evening paper, moved to a mid-sized digital outlet covering UK news, and spent three years as a general assignment reporter before going freelance. He has covered inquests, council elections, infrastructure announcements, and the kind of stories that sit on page five but matter on page one. He writes about public services, housing, local government, and the institutional stories that take six months to develop and thirty seconds to read. He prefers facts to angles and considers that unfashionable. Marcus lives in Bristol. He still reads the local paper and thinks that makes him an endangered species.
The WWD-covered Zankov Spring 2027 collection landed on the New York Fashion Week runway in September 2026, and the context around it is almost as layered as the knitwear itself. Henry Zankov showed the collection while simultaneously settling into one of the bigger gigs in American fashion: creative director of Diane von Furstenberg. Two brands, one season, one building. Since taking that role, he has moved his eponymous label into DVF’s headquarters in the Meatpacking District, running both operations from the same address. That is either a very efficient use of real estate or a scheduling nightmare, depending on how…
Ulla Johnson Spring 2027 ready-to-wear landed on 14 September 2026, staged outdoors beneath the Brooklyn Bridge as part of New York Fashion Week, a setting that did most of the mood-boarding before a single look hit the runway. The location was not incidental. Johnson has long leaned into an aesthetic that feels handmade and place-specific, and the choice of one of New York’s most storied pieces of infrastructure as a backdrop underlined exactly that. Craft front and centre, Manhattan skyline optional. What the Ulla Johnson Spring 2027 Collection Brought to the Runway According to NowFashion, the lineup balanced crisp cotton…
Insight Partners’ diversified strategy is a deliberate choice, not a failure of nerve, according to Deven Parekh, who has co-run the firm for 26 years. Speaking at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in New York, Parekh laid out why he is watching peers write 35–40% of entire funds into OpenAI or Anthropic and choosing not to follow them. The Concentration Bet Parekh Won’t Take Insight Partners holds stakes in both OpenAI and Anthropic, but Parekh was candid about the logic that keeps those positions from dominating the portfolio. ‘I know two funds right now raising their entire fund in a month,’ he…
The Magda Butrym SoHo flagship on Mercer Street opened its doors this week, a move that marks the Polish designer’s most committed bet yet on the American market. And the timing was not accidental: the store launch coincided with the brand’s first-ever New York Fashion Week runway show, which FashionUnited reports took place on 13 September. The space at 170 Mercer Street is not small. The boutique spans over 4,300 square feet across three levels, with 28-foot ceilings achieved by removing the floor between the ground and first storeys. Stockholm-based studio Stamuli handled the design. For a bootstrapped brand, it…
The Zaldy Spring 2027 menswear show arrived at the Chelsea Hotel this season with a pirate ship set, a collection titled ‘Johnny Overboard,’ and a designer who has quietly been one of fashion’s most experienced hands for three decades. This was only his second menswear outing under his own name, but calling it a sophomore effort would miss the point entirely. Zaldy’s official biography lists credits that most designers would trade a limb for: three Emmys, a Costume Design Guild Award, eight prior NYFW namesake runway collections, stage costumes for Lady Gaga’s ‘The Monster Ball,’ Britney Spears’s ‘Femme Fatale,’ Pink’s…
Sandy Liang Spring 2027 arrived at New York Fashion Week with a collection that refused to pick a lane: technical outerwear and performance fabrics sat beside tulle, bows, and cartoon bunnies in a show that managed to be both athletic and utterly whimsical. Sandy Liang has spent years building a devoted following on the idea that grown women can dress like they raided a childhood dress-up box, then went for a trail run. Spring 2027 pushed that premise further than any previous season. Where Sandy Liang Spring 2027 Gets Its Energy The most-discussed pieces leaned hard into gorpcore territory. According…
Fusion startups are chasing defence deals with renewed urgency, and two recent announcements suggest the sector’s national security pivot is accelerating well beyond opportunistic sidelines. The backdrop is familiar. Climate-tech venture funding has stalled, and fusion is an expensive business. When defence budgets start looking like a complementary revenue stream, portfolio companies and their backers tend to notice quickly. Xcimer and RTX: Lasers Built for Power Plants, Wanted for War Denver-based Xcimer Energy has announced a partnership and investment from RTX, the conglomerate that includes defence contractor Raytheon. Under the deal, RTX Ventures provides funding while the two companies have…
Matt Mullenweg returns as CEO of Automattic after an ouster that lasted all of 33 hours and 20 minutes, with the company’s board now apparently back behind him, its composition still unsettled, and a trail of hastily signed severance agreements in its wake. ‘Matt Mullenweg is the chairman and CEO of Automattic, with full support of the board,’ a company spokesperson confirmed via email on Saturday evening, according to TechCrunch. The statement was attributed to spokesperson Megan Fox, sent at 5:05 p.m. on 12 September, per CMSWire. That’s the whole restoration, wrapped up in one corporate non-answer. The board had…
Elena Velez Spring 2027, titled ‘SMITE,’ landed on 12 September 2026 in the lobby of a former bank building in New York’s Financial District, spotlights roving the room, the US Stock Exchange a short walk away. Subtle, it was not.This was the designer’s 10th consecutive New York Fashion Week showcase, and Velez used the occasion to push her political aesthetic further than most of her peers would dare. The collection is officially catalogued by the CFDA Official Fashion Calendar as ‘YR009 SMITE,’ scheduled for 9:00 PM EST during the Spring/Summer 2027 season.Elena Velez Spring 2027: Whistleblowers, Dualities, and a Book…