News has a place.
Start there.
OrbitalView is a visual way to explore world reporting. The globe brings related headlines together so you can move between places, compare sources, and follow the original reporting.
Who runs OrbitalView
OrbitalView is an independent website operated by Liam Hollingdale. It is not affiliated with the news organisations linked here. Contact us about support, corrections, accessibility or publisher rights.
Follow a place, then read the source
A marker’s number is the number of related headlines in our current feed. Select it to filter the news panel. A story can mention more than one country, so the same report may appear in several places. Markers sit at representative country locations; they do not mark an incident’s exact position.
OrbitalView is a news discovery tool. We do not publish original reporting, verify every publisher claim, or provide official emergency alerts. The full article and its later corrections remain with the publisher.
Where the headlines come from
We check BBC World and its Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East, US & Canada and Latin America regional feeds, The Guardian World and Australia feeds, and Al Jazeera. BBC UK and The Guardian UK remain available when you select the United Kingdom. We also connect attributed public releases from New Zealand’s Beehive, India’s PIB in Hindi, SAnews.gov.za, Spanish science reporting from SINC and French environmental reporting from CGDD. Institutional releases are labelled as official sources rather than independent newsroom reporting. Duplicate article links are removed and very similar recent headlines are grouped, keeping links to related reports. Automated grouping may miss duplicates or combine similar wording. The dated feed includes reports published within the last 72 hours; PIB releases with no feed timestamp are explicitly undated and excluded from the briefing and urgency alerts and refreshes every two minutes while the globe is open.
This selection is a starting point, not a complete picture. A quiet country marker does not mean nothing is happening there. Coverage depends on the stories these feeds provide and the places our matching system recognises.
Regional sources and permitted previews
- Beehive · New Zealand · Beehive attributed reuse. Attribution is displayed with the original report. We use short text previews and exclude photos, logos and identified third-party material.
- PIB · India · PIB attributed reuse. Attribution is displayed with the original report. We use short text previews and exclude photos, logos and identified third-party material.
- SAnews.gov.za · SAnews attributed reuse. Attribution is displayed with the original report. We use short text previews and exclude photos, logos and identified third-party material.
- SINC · CC BY 4.0. Attribution is displayed with the original report. We use short text previews and exclude photos, logos and identified third-party material.
- Notre-environnement · CGDD · Licence Ouverte 2.0. Attribution is displayed with the original report. We use short text previews and exclude photos, logos and identified third-party material.
Original languages remain available. Optional machine translation is labelled and supported only where the browser provides a translation model. A publisher’s country is used as context only when the text has no identified location; it is not an incident coordinate.
Daily Orbit, follows and report history
Daily Orbit selects up to six recent source reports, prioritising critical and serious classifications while seeking regional variety. Your saved countries and topics affect selection among reports of similar urgency. Device narration starts only after you press Play; captions and a transcript remain available. The current immersive opening is retained.
My World saves interests in this browser, with optional account sync and explicit import. Following collects new reports in saved events and topics. Background push is still being tested and is not promised while the site is closed.
Event timelines and globe rewind use immutable source previews observed by OrbitalView, retained for seven days. History begins with actual capture; no historical backfill is invented. Sparse histories and capture gaps are shown. The same article is not repeated unless its source preview changes, and correction labels require explicit publisher wording.
What red and yellow mean
Red: critical report. A recent headline describes a fatal attack, accident or disaster, or a major immediate emergency such as a mandatory evacuation.
Yellow: serious report. A recent headline describes a significant incident or disruption, such as severe weather, clashes or a major power outage.
Blue: general coverage. Other reports, older stories, or headlines without a clear recent incident. Blue is not a safety rating.
Categories use headline wording and publication time. We try to exclude historical, hypothetical and court coverage, but automated interpretation can miss context. Colours expire after 24 hours. A country takes the highest category among its current related reports; that is not an assessment of the country’s overall safety. Follow local authorities for safety guidance.
Publisher credits and links do not establish a licence. No additional permission has been obtained for the existing BBC, Guardian or Al Jazeera feeds; their licensing status remains unresolved. The regional sources listed above have specific published reuse terms.
Temperature layer
Select Temperature in the globe layers list to replace news markers with current forecast temperature estimates in degrees Celsius. Locations use capitals from Natural Earth, or a clearly labelled representative point where a capital is unavailable. A point is not a nationwide average, and readings are forecasts rather than station observations. Missing and saved readings are labelled.
Weather data is provided by MET Norway under CC BY 4.0, rounded to whole degrees Celsius. Provider updates are cached, and the layer checks every 15 minutes. Capital coordinates use Natural Earth public-domain data.
Read with context
Our original reading guides explain how to compare sources, identify coverage gaps and interpret country temperatures. The headlines page includes a breakdown of the current feed by region and news organisation.
Make it part of your news routine
Bookmark the globe and return when you want a quick view of international coverage. Share a country view to bring someone directly to the place you are discussing. Shared story previews are available while their report remains in the current feed; the original publisher link remains the place to read the full story.