Restaurants face one-star reviews and less business in an already precarious industry. Some restaurateurs fear speaking out as immigrants themselvesAmid calls for a national shutdown on 30 January, Anton Kinloch displayed a sign on the sidewalk outside Lone Wolf, his craft cocktail bar and restaurant in Kingston, New York. In large block letters he wrote: “WE LOVE ICE IN DRINKS. WE DON’T LOVE ICE IN REAL LIFE. SOLIDARITY ALWAYS.”Along with his wife and business partner, Lisa Dy, he had made the difficult decision to stay open, electing instead to donate a portion of the night’s proceeds to a local immigrant advocacy group. With frigid temperatures and inclement weather stymying business in the region this winter, he simply could not afford the lost revenue. But he refused to stay silent in the aftermath of the brutal killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Minneapolis. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 19:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Gilston in Hertfordshire aims to be rebuke to cookie-cutter estates with network of 10,000 new homes within country parks and woodlandAfter two decades of legal wrangling and planning bottlenecks, the first bricks will finally be laid on a project being hailed by developers as the blueprint for the future of community building in Britain.Gilston in east Hertfordshire will be transformed into a network of seven interconnected villages, comprising 10,000 new homes nestled within a sprawling 660-hectare (1,630-acre) landscape of country parks and woodland. Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 13:40 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Union to appeal after losing case against historic talent index in battle that could reshape UK acting landscapeFor almost a century it has been the casting directors’ bible, a shopfront for actors from Laurence Olivier, Olivia Colman and Daniel Craig to the 16-year-old Adolescence star Owen Cooper to help land their next theatre, film or TV role.But now Spotlight is locked in a costly legal battle prompted by Equity, the equally venerable union that represents tens of thousands of performers that rely on the casting directory’s services, in an internecine conflict that could dramatically reshape the UK acting landscape. Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 10:06 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Push to restart uranium mining in Patagonia has sparked fears about the environmental impact and loss of sovereignty over key resourcesOn an outcrop above the Chubut River, one of the few to cut across the arid Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina, Sergio Pichiñán points across a wide swath of scrubland to colourful rock formations on a distant hillside.“That’s where they dug for uranium before, and when the miners left, they left the mountain destroyed, the houses abandoned, and nobody ever studied the water,” he says, citing suspicions arising from cases of cancer and skin diseases in his community. “If they want to open this back up, we’re all pretty worried around here.” Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 14:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Hundreds of jobs have gone at the newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal. Was profit or politics behind the decision? Jeremy Barr reportsReporting on a corrupt president made the Washington Post a global sensation with Watergate – and the masthead became a byword for fearless reporting. But last week the news organisation axed about 400 jobs, with some reporters discovering they were being laid off while still in war zones.Media organisations face tough times with falls in advertising revenues and search traffic, and making cuts is not necessarily surprising. But with Jeff Bezos having bought the company, buying the rights to The Apprentice and making a lavishly produced documentary with Melania Trump, critics are asking whether politics, not profits, are really behind the move. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 04:53 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Labour party in Scotland, called on Monday for Keir Starmer to resign, saying the government's failures had 'drowned out' its accomplishments. Calls for the prime minister's resignation have been growing this week after new Epstein files revelations about Peter Mandelson, who was appointed US ambassador by StarmerUK politics live – latest updates Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 15:51 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences. His family has described the sentence as ‘heartbreakingly cruel’, given the 78-year-old’s declining health. Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, after pleading not guilty to all charges. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins – watch on YouTube Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 17:27 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN