Month: February 2026

Rics surveyors report inquiries from new buyers, agreed sales and house prices were less negative in JanuaryThere are “tentative signs” that the housing market in England and Wales is recovering from a months-long slowdown after uncertainty around the autumn budget and economic pressures, estate agents and surveyors have reported.The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said its members were feeling more optimistic about the year ahead than at any time […]

Review says trauma-informed support could help interrupt ‘destructive cycles’ and reduce risk of harm to future babiesParents whose children are taken into care should receive trauma-informed support to reduce the risk of harm to any further babies they have, according to child protection experts.A national child safeguarding review, launched after the death of baby Victoria Marten, said that if “destructive cycles of harm are to be interrupted” there needed to […]

Exclusive: Calls for ‘urgent action’ as study also finds stark ethnic and socio-economic disparities in child mortality and consanguinityOne in 14 children who died in England in a four-year period had parents who were close relatives, according to “stark” figures revealed by the first study of its kind.The figures, published by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD), based at the University of Bristol, analysed all 13,045 child deaths in England […]

Writer made international breakthrough with 1980 novel Rituals and won acclaim for his travel writingThe Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, whose novels, travel writing and translations made him a prominent literary figure in postwar Europe, has died aged 92.Publishing house De Bezige Bij said in a statement on Wednesday evening that Nooteboom had “passed away very peacefully on his beloved island Menorca”. The statement was made on behalf of the author’s […]

Republicans join Democrats in objecting to national emergency US president declared to impose tariffsThe House voted Wednesday to slap back Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare if largely symbolic rebuke of the White House agenda as Republicans joined Democrats over the objections of GOP leadership.The tally, 219-211, was among the first times the House, controlled by Republicans, has confronted the president over a signature policy. Continue reading...Source: www.theguardian.comRead full […]