Keir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “seismic” win in Blackpool South in a night of local elections that provided further evidence that the party is heading for a large majority at this year’s general election.

The Labour leader called the result in the Blackpool South byelection “truly historic” after the party’s candidate, Chris Webb, won the seat with the third biggest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in postwar history.

Webb, a local and the firm favourite, won with 10,825 votes, followed by David Jones, the Conservative candidate, with a distant 3,218 votes, who finished narrowly ahead of the Reform candidate, Mark Butcher, on 3,101 votes.

Webb’s victory is the latest sign that Labour is winning again in leave-voting areas it lost to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019, with the party also gaining control of the councils in Rushmoor, Thurrock and Hartlepool. However, it was defeated in Oldham, amid signs that it has lost ground in areas with high Muslim votes as a result of the party’s stance on the war in Gaza.

Starmer said on Friday morning: “This seismic win in Blackpool South is the most important result today. This is the one contest where voters had the chance to send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives directly, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change.”

Webb’s win in Blackpool South came on the back of a 26% swing, the third largest from the Tories to Labour since the second world war and the fifth time in the last 18 months it has won a seat from the government on a swing of more than 20%.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told the BBC the results were further indication of a significant Labour majority to come at the general election.

“This is now the fifth parliamentary by election in which we’ve seen swings of over 20% from Conservative to Labour,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme. “The last time we had swings with that size of a degree of regularity was the 1992-1997 parliament. Tony Blair didn’t get as many as that, and we know what happened in 1997.”

Jonathan Carr-West, the chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, said: “Against the backdrop of a steady Conservative decline since 2019, the results so far indicate the trend will not be bucked this year.”

Pollsters said early results suggested the Tories could lose half of the council seats they contested on Thursday night, putting them on course for as many as 500 losses.

Bad results are likely to lead to another attempt by Tory rebels to oust the prime minister just months away from the general election. However, Sunak’s allies have pinned their hopes on retaining the mayoralties in the Tees Valley and West Midlands, where polls show the results are likely to be very close.

While Labour celebrated its successes in Blackpool, Thurrock and Hartlepool, the party suffered shock losses in Oldham where it surrendered control of the council. Several Labour candidates lost their contest to independents amid deep local unhappiness over Starmer’s stance on Gaza.

Carr-West said: “This is the first indication that the party’s position on Gaza may cost it votes in this election and we will be watching how this plays out in other areas. It’s a reminder of how global and local politics intertwine and that local elections are not a straight dress rehearsal for the general election.”

Many in the party believe the Labour leader has been slow to criticise Israel’s actions in the Middle East, and insensitive to the anger it has caused among British Muslims and progressive voters.

Some believe this could cost the party as many as a dozen potential victories at the general election, although with Labour making such large gains elsewhere, experts say this is unlikely to cost the party a majority.

For Sunak’s party, the loss of Blackpool South was not unexpected but may be taken as an indication of how voters in less affluent constituencies are likely to vote in the general election expected later this year.

The constituency includes some of the UK’s most deprived wards, where many would argue the government has not delivered on its promises of levelling up.

The byelection was triggered after Scott Benton stood down in March over a lobbying scandal.

It was discovered in April 2023 he had offered to table parliamentary questions, leak documents and lobby ministers on behalf of gambling companies in return for “thousands of pounds per month”.

He sat as an independent MP after being suspended from the Conservative party, and was later suspended from the House of Commons.

The Conservative candidate faced competition from Reform’s Butcher, a local businessman who runs a soup kitchen being investigated by the Charity Commission over claims it was used to promote his campaign.

Reform ran a strong campaign in which Butcher distanced himself from the wider party, insisting he was “not a politician” and taking aim at the Tories and Labour, which played well in hustings.

Reform recently overtook the Lib Dems nationally to take third place in opinion polls and has led an ambitious local election campaign, fielding 300-400 candidates for councils across England. Meanwhile, those same polls show support for Labour has stayed level since dropping back after peaking during the short-lived Liz Truss prime ministership in 2022.

“It was a cracking good night,” Gawain Towler, Reform’s spokesperson, told the Guardian. “Of course we would have liked to have done better, we always do, but this is the best we’ve ever done. We’ve shown ourselves to be an effective force and success breeds success.”

He said Butcher should be “proud” of achieving such strong results and was now an experienced campaigner with one fight behind him.

“You’re gonna be disappointed because that extra 100 votes would have made such a difference but he knows how well he’s done,” Towler said.

Students at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis reached agreements with administrators on Thursday to peacefully dismantle their Gaza solidarity encampment protest.

Rutgers and the University of Minnesota now join Northwestern and Brown in successfully reaching deals to peacefully end their encampment protests.

The peaceful resolutions are in contrast to the scenes at other universities in the US where pro-Palestinian protesters have been met with police violence after university administrations called on law enforcement to intervene and break up the encampments. More than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested at campuses across the country.

The agreement at Rutgers was reached on Thursday after students met with administration to present their demands, some of which include: divesting from corporations participating in or benefiting from Israel; terminating Rutgers’ partnership with Tel Aviv University; accepting at least 10 displaced students from Gaza; and displaying the flags of occupied peoples – such as Palestinians, Kurds, and Kashmiris – alongside other existing international flags on campus.

Eight out of the 10 demands were met, but Rutgers students, faculty and alumni were still fighting for the remaining two: the actual call for divestment as well as severing ties with Tel Aviv University.

In an email, the RU Muslim alumni group wrote: “Even though most of the demands have been met, there is still much work to be done … These demands will require great effort and continuous pressure to bring to fruition and your continued support is still needed.”

Just like 80 other universities across the country, Rutgers students established their own encampment earlier this week.

On Thursday morning, final exams at Rutgers were postponed due to the encampment protest, and university president Jonathan Holloway in an email threatened student demonstrators with police intervention if they did not “comply and disperse, clearing the area of their tents and belongings” by 4pm.

Shortly before 4pm, students began taking down their tents.

After four days, University of Minnesota students have also dismantled their encampment as of Wednesday, when interim university president Jeff Ettinger agreed to meet with protesters to hear their demands.

At Northwestern, university administration agreed to disclosing university investments, a community house for Middle Eastern and North African/Muslim students, and funding to support admitting Palestinian faculty and students.

Shortly after Northwestern protesters dismantled their encampment on Monday, Brown University followed suit. The Brown Corporation agreed to hold a vote on a divestment measure in October.

Campus encampment protests began taking place across the US after Columbia University students earlier this month pitched tents and began occupying the main lawn, igniting a worldwide movement that calls for universities to financially divest from Israel while it continues its military assault on Gaza and occupation of Palestinian land.

On the docket: a rough day for prosecutors takes a turn at the end

Prosecutors faced their first rough day in court on Thursday – but a bit of tape might have just turned everything around for them.

Late in the afternoon, prosecutors played an audio recording of a phone conversation between Donald Trump and his attorney and fixer Michael Cohen openly discussing in September 2016 the plan to keep former Playboy model Karen McDougal from telling her story about her alleged affair with Trump.

“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David,” Cohen says on the September 2016 tape.

That tape has been out in the public since 2018, but it’s the first time the jury is hearing it. The David in question here seems to be National Enquirer boss David Pecker, who testified earlier in the trial that he bought McDougal’s silence after offering to help Trump’s campaign. And it makes clear that Trump knew about that plot – giving credence to the idea that he was involved in the scheme to keep adult film star Stormy Daniels quiet about her alleged affair with Trump as well.

The phone call, which Cohen had secretly recorded, was played after a chaotic day of testimony from Keith Davidson, the attorney who represented both McDougal and Daniels.

That part of the day didn’t go so great for prosecutors.

At one point, Davidson said he didn’t consider Daniels’ non-disclosure agreement “hush-money” but rather “consideration for a civil settlement”. That sounds a lot more like legitimate legal work, and undercuts prosecutors’ key argument that Trump broke the law by falsifying business expenses when he paid Cohen “legal expenses” to cover the payment transfer.

Trump’s attorneys, during cross-examination, got Davidson to admit he had never personally met Trump. They also did a lot to rough up his reputation and try to paint him as an extortion artist, getting Davidson to acknowledge that authorities had investigated him for extorting wrestler Hulk Hogan over a sex tape in Florida (Davidson was not charged) and highlighting his involvement in salacious cases involving Charlie Sheen and Tila Tequila.

At one point, Trump attorney Emil Bove asked Davidson if his job required “getting right up to the line without committing extortion”.

Davidson did back up his claim that Cohen had made clear to him, beforehand and afterwards, that he was paying off Daniels with Trump’s knowledge and at his request. Prosecutors played audio of a telephone call recorded in 2018 in which Cohen tells Davidson: “I can’t even tell you how many times he said to me, you know, I hate the fact that we did it,” which Davidson says he understood was a reference to Trump paying Daniels.

Davidson also explained his election-night text to National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard. After it became clear Trump had won, Davidson proclaimed: “What have we done?”

Davidson said that the text message, which had been included in the prosecution’s opening argument, was “gallows humor” about the fact that “our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”

You can read a full recap of the day here, and read more key takeaways here. Trial will resume on Friday morning.

The day began with prosecutors requesting that Judge Juan Merchan hold Trump in contempt once again for four more violations of the gag order and fine him the maximum $1,000 per violation for each penalty. Prosecutors said they’re not currently asking for jail time to avoid delaying the proceedings. While Merchan didn’t seem likely to side with them on every example (he seemed willing to let Trump fire back at Cohen, who keeps attacking him online), Merchan made clear that he was unhappy that Trump had gone after the jury.

“He spoke about the jury, he said that the jury was 95% Democrat, and the jury was being rushed through. The implication that this is not a fair jury,” Merchan said.

Later in the day, before trial resumed after a lunch break, he refused a request from Trump attorney Susan Necheles to say whether or not a stack of news articles that Trump hoped to share on social media would violate the gag order.

Merchan wasn’t having it.

“I’m not going to be in the position of looking at posts and determining in advance whether he should and should not post these on Truth Social,” Merchan said. “I think the best advice you can give your client is when in doubt, steer clear.”

Russian military personnel have entered an airbase in Niger that is hosting American troops, after a decision by Niger’s junta to expel US forces from the country.

The military officers ruling the west African country have told the US to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington’s fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.

A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Russian forces were not mingling with US troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani international airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital.

The move by Russia’s military puts US and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the countries’ military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious because of the conflict in Ukraine.

It also raises questions about the fate of US installations in the country after a withdrawal.

“[The situation] is not great but in the short term manageable,” the official said.

The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US and its allies have been forced to move troops out of several African countries after coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, US troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso.

At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African countries, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent.

Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia’s closest African allies; the Wagner group mercenary force has been deployed there to fight jihadist insurgents.

The US official said Nigerien authorities had told Joe Biden’s administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number.

After the coup, the US military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez. It was not clear what US military equipment remained at Airbase 101.

The US built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100m. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen fighters with armed drones.

Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel who may be able to expand without the presence of US forces and intelligence capabilities.

Niger’s move to ask for the removal of US troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior US officials raised concerns including about the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium.

While the US’s message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear American forces could not be on a base with Russian forces.

“They did not take that well,” the official said.

A two-star US general has been sent to Niger to try to arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal.

While no decisions have been taken on the future of US troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to US Africa Command’s home bases in Germany.

Fossil fuel companies will be allowed to explore for oil and gas under offshore wind-power sites for the first time, the government will announce on Friday, in a move which campaigners say is further proof that ministers are abandoning the climate agenda.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates North Sea oil and gas production, will confirm that it is granting licences to about 30 companies to look for hydrocarbons on sites earmarked for future offshore windfarms.

The move has brought renewed criticism of Rishi Sunak from environmentalists, including from the prime minister’s own former net zero tsar, who worry that any future oil and gas production could hamper clean energy generation.

But it will also give the embattled prime minister a welcome piece of news to sell to his restive backbenchers – many of whom are keen to see more oil and gas production in the North Sea – the day after what are set to be a bruising set of local election results.

Chris Skidmore, the former Conservative MP who recently quit as Sunak’s net zero champion in protest at the government’s climate policies, said: “With a general election just months away, this is a deeply irresponsible and divisive move that goes against all advice from the International Energy Agency or the UN, and regrettably will further set back the UK’s climate reputation.

“Instead of wind powering new oil, the investment should instead be in more wind and renewables. More fossil fuels will only create stranded assets and stranded jobs at a time when demand for oil and gas is falling.”

He added: “This is a political and cynical stunt that will only backfire … We need to stop playing politics with climate and people’s future, and take a grownup position on seeking to find consensus for an end date to new oil and gas.”

A spokesperson for the NSTA said: “The NSTA have worked closely with other regulators to consider matters of co-location with offshore wind and other users.”

Sources say that the oil exploration itself will not involve any drilling, with companies largely using data to decide whether sites have the potential to be profitable for extraction.

Supporters of the scheme add that if any of the sites under windfarms prove suitable for production, oil and gas platforms will be able to use power from the wind turbines to lower their emissions. They will also have to strike an agreement with windfarm operators before they can begin drilling.

Experts say, however, that the emissions from burning any oil and gas produced will far outweigh whatever is saved in the drilling and extraction processes. They add that Friday’s announcement is likely to undermine investor confidence in Britain’s green energy sector as a whole.

The Guardian understands that investors in offshore wind have already expressed concern to the government about the decision, even threatening to pull out of the UK clean power sector altogether.

Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “It’s hard to think of a worse use of clean electricity from windfarms than powering the dirty industry that’s driving the climate crisis. It’s like using a nicotine patch to roll a cigarette.”

Sunak has made a series of announcements since becoming prime minister to roll back the government’s climate policies, including delaying the end of new sales of petrol and diesel cars and giving the green light for the huge new Rosebank oilfield off the coast of Shetland.

The prime minister has said the policies are part of a push to bring energy costs down and improve energy security. But his critics believe Sunak is using them as a dividing issue between the Conservatives and Labour going into this year’s general election.

Last month, Chris Stark, the outgoing head of the Climate Change Committee, accused the prime minister of abandoning Britain’s reputation as a world leader in the fight against the climate crisis.

Sunak, however, is also under pressure from Tory rebels, with the party more than 20 points behind in the polls and heading for heavy losses after Thursday’s local elections. A group of unhappy backbenchers is planning a move to unseat him altogether if the Tories lose the mayoralties in both the Tees Valley and the West Midlands this weekend.

No 10 has been working for weeks on a fightback plan to ward off any potential coup, and sources have told the Guardian the prime minister is likely to put his energy policies at the heart of any offer he makes to get his own MPs back on side.

Friday’s announcement marks the third phase in the 33rd round of North Sea oil and gas licensing. Earlier this year the government gave licences to 17 companies to look for hydrocarbons, including Shell, Equinor, BP, Total and Neo.

This phase differs from previous ones, however, because officials are opening up parts of the sea which have been leased to offshore wind operators for the first time. The government issues about 100 licences a year, only 2% of which go on to receive consent for production.

Dan McGrail, the chief executive of the trade body RenewableUK, said: “Prioritising offshore wind over oil and gas isn’t just the right choice for the planet, but given renewables are the lowest-cost means of generating power, we should be doing this for bill payers.”

Parr said: “Most of the planet-heating emissions from oil and gas rigs come from burning the polluting fuels, not extracting them.

“At best, this will make a small dent in the carbon footprint of a few oil companies’ operations. But more likely than not, it will end up greenwashing the fossil fuel industry’s image just as the government keeps trying to expand extraction against the advice of leading scientists and experts.”

John Cleese said that he decided to cut the N-word from a scene in his West End Fawlty Towers revival because in contemporary Britain there are too many “literal-minded people” who “don’t understand irony”.

Cleese was speaking at the media launch for the West End theatrical adaptation of the classic comedy, which follows a repressed hotelier trying to control his chaotic staff. The TV show finished in 1979 after two series that are widely regarded to contain some of the best-ever British sitcom writing.

The new two-hour version features scenes from three episodes of the series: The Hotel Inspector, Communication Problems, and The Germans, which originally featured a scene in which a character used racial slurs, including the N-word, while discussing a cricket match.

“Whenever you’re doing comedy you’re up against the literal-minded, and the literal-minded don’t understand irony and if you take them seriously you get rid of a lot of comedy,” Cleese said, explaining the reason for altering the script.

“They don’t understand metaphor, irony or comedy exaggeration … they’re not playing with a full deck.”

He also defended the overtly racist comedies of the 1970s, such as Till Death Do Us Part, which featured the character Alf Garnett, who was played by Warren Mitchell and was known for his racist outbursts.

“People were roaring with laughter at him, not with him, but there were also people saying: ‘Thank God these things are being said at last,’” said Cleese.

In a recent piece for the Telegraph, Cleese said that he yearned for “a return to what seemed to be a happier, friendlier, calmer, more ironic culture”, while admitting that he’d considered keeping the N-word in the adaptation but decided “it’s not worth the trouble”.

Fawlty Towers is the latest sitcom from the 1970s, 80s and 90s to make a stage transfer.

Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening!, The Good Life, Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, The Fast Show and Only Fools and Horses have already been adapted (Fawlty Towers is directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, who also directed Only Fools and Horses).

One critic said “a thirst for nostalgia and familiarity” was behind the trend, while another argued that audiences missed “big, unifying pop-cultural ­television events from the days before ­multiple channels, streaming and the diffuseness of ­content”.

Cleese also said there had been “too much change” in British society over recent years.

“There’s been too much change. Everyone is getting very anxious and people behave in a ratty sort of way and are more likely to become more literal-minded,” he said. “I’m not sure what you do about it, maybe uninvent the internet?”

He also believes that Britain has undergone “Americanisation” and is now too obsessed with earning money and status, while the “lower middle class” people he grew up with in Weston-super-Mare in the 1950s were more content to “do their job well …[and] live a good life”.

“One of the sad things about our culture now is that we’ve been infected by the American view that if you’re not rich or famous you’re a bit of a failure,” he added.

Cleese is also working on a TV revival of Fawlty Towers with his daughter, where Basil Fawlty will end up in the Caribbean helping his estranged daughter, who is also a hotelier. Cleese promised: “He will still be repressed and trapped.”

Fawlty Towers: The Play will open on Wednesday 15 May at London’s Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End, and will run until 28 September.

The high intelligence levels of orangutans have long been recognised, partly due to their practical skills such as using tools to crack nuts and forage for insects. But new research suggests the primate has another handy skill in its repertoire: applying medicinal herbs.

Researchers say they have observed a male Sumatran orangutan treating an open facial wound with sap and chewed leaves from a plant known to have anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.

It is not the first time wild animals have been spotted self-medicating: among other examples, Bornean orangutans have been seen rubbing their arms and legs with chewed leaves from a plant used by humans to treat sore muscles, while chimpanzees have been recorded chewing plants known to treat worm infections and applying insects to wounds.

However, the new discovery is the first time a wild animal has been observed treating open wounds with a substance known to have medicinal properties.

“In the chimpanzee case they used insects and unfortunately it was never found out whether these insects really promote wound healing. Whereas in our case, the orangutan used the plant, and this plant has known medical properties,” said Dr Caroline Schuppli, senior author of the research based at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

The team say the findings offer insight into the origins of human wound care – the treatment of which was first mentioned in a medical manuscript dating to 2200BC.

“It definitely shows that these basic cognitive capacities that you need to come up with a behaviour like this … were present at the time of our last common ancestor most likely,” said Schuppli. “So that that reaches back very, very far.”

Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Schuppli and colleagues report how they made the discovery while working in a research area of a protected rainforest in Indonesia.

The team describe how, while tracking a male Sumatran orangutan called Rakus, they noticed he had a fresh facial wound – probably the result of a scrap with another male. Three days later, Rakus was seen feeding on the stem and leaves of Fibraurea tinctoria – a type of liana climbing vine.

Then he did something unexpected.

“Thirteen minutes after Rakus had started feeding on the liana, he began chewing the leaves without swallowing them and using his fingers to apply the plant juice from his mouth directly on to his facial wound,” the researchers write.

Not only did Rakus repeat the actions, but shortly afterwards he smeared the entire wound with the chewed leaves until it was fully covered. Five days later the facial wound was closed, while within a few weeks it had healed, leaving only a small scar.

The team say the plant used by Rakus is known to contain substances with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antioxidant, pain-killing and anticarcinogenic properties, among other attributes, while this and related liana species are used in traditional medicine “to treat various diseases, such as dysentery, diabetes and malaria”.

It remains unclear whether Rakus figured the process out for himself or learned it from another orangutan, although it has not been seen in any other individual.

Schuppli added that Rakus appeared to have used the plant intentionally.

“It shows that he, to some extent, has the cognitive capacities that he needs to treat the wound with some medically active plants,” she said. “But we really don’t know how much he understands.”

People in Britain and Ireland are being asked to monitor their local rivers for pollution so a leading water charity can measure the scale of the sewage crisis.

The Rivers Trust is this week launching the Big River Watch, asking people to record observations of their local rivers on a free app. The results will be made available through an interactive dashboard, and will help the organisation, as well as individuals and communities who can all access the data, to take action to improve rivers.

Volunteers will be asked to identify sewage pollution, sewage fungus, minewater and silt, along with other indicators of river health, so pollution hotspots can be identified and tackled. The Rivers Trust is hoping for it to be the UK and Ireland’s biggest ever mass participation survey of river health.

Tessa Wardley, director for communications and advocacy at the trust, said: “In September 2023, 60% of Big River Watch participants were new to citizen science, which shows just how important this tool is to help everyone get involved and showing they care about rivers. As well as learning where pollution and wildlife are spotted, we also want to know how spending time near rivers affects people’s wellbeing, so I’d encourage anyone and everyone to spend some time by their river and make their voice heard.”

UK and Irish rivers have been choked by sewage pollution, as the sewer system allows untreated human waste to mix with rainwater and domestic wastewater, meaning that the pipes become overwhelmed. This toxic cocktail of sewage and chemicals is then drained into waterways to prevent it backing up into homes.

Data first revealed by the Guardian found that 2023 was a record year for sewage spills. Raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas in a 105% increase on the previous 12 months.

Water industry figures have admitted that this is due to a lack of investment in pipes and sewers, and as climate breakdown brings heavier rains and the population rises, the system is failing.

Emma Brisdion, marketing campaigns lead at the Rivers Trust, said: “Healthy rivers are essential for our wellbeing and for our wildlife. But rivers in the UK and Ireland have been allowed to get into a desperate state, and there are many people who care immensely about them and want to help.

“The Big River Watch invites communities to get involved. The simple survey is all about using that connection to rivers to record the good, the bad, and the ugly so we can understand our blue spaces better and make informed decisions about how to revive them.”

On a warm morning in March, a group of researchers entered an unassuming chop suey parlor in the Sacramento suburbs for a rare field trip.

The six history enthusiasts affiliated with the University of California, Davis, had gathered at the Chicago Cafe in Woodland, California, with one goal in mind: to determine the exact age of what may be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.

From cabinets underneath the diner counter, they excavated box after box of ephemera that formed a time capsule of 20th century Chinese immigrant experience. Among piles of letters, menus and tax receipts lay such relics as a vintage Chinese-English pocket dictionary, a 1976 Chinese edition California driver’s handbook and black and white polaroids of a newly crowned Miss Chinatown. To the experts’ trained eyes, seemingly any detail could reveal an artifact’s age, be it the digits of phone numbers, the typefaces on menus from decades past, or the clothing and makeup captured in photographs.

Three generations of the Fong family, hailing from an impoverished region in southern China, built the Chicago Cafe into a linchpin of Woodland civic life. Current owners Paul and Nancy Fong, who began working at the restaurant a half century ago, have been serving many of the same customers for decades. Some furnishings, like a pair of private booths and a wooden walk-in refrigerator, predate the couple’s employment, as do menu staples like the pork chow mein and chicken fried steak.

“Clearly, there’s a respect for history,” Jack Chin, a professor at the UC Davis school of law who’s leading the research into the Chicago Cafe, told his team as they perused the documents.

The words “SINCE 1903” are inked on a white board behind the counter, a sight that stayed with Chin on his many visits to eat at the restaurant over the years. In a research paper published in January, he and his scholars from UC Davis verified that the diner had been in operation since at least 1910. After analyzing historical records in the Yolo county archives, including business directories, newspaper clippings and fire insurance maps, they concluded that the Chicago Cafe might have opened earlier than Pekin Noodle Parlors in Butte, Montana, which is widely recognized as the oldest existing Chinese eatery in the US.

In the early 20th century, the restaurant industry provided a legal and financial lifeline to Chinese people. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigration to the US, later exempted merchants, a privileged class that included restaurant owners and managers. The so-called “chop suey” loophole allowed families like the Fongs to open up diners and bring over their kin. At the same time, restaurants remained a target of segregation. Chinese restaurateurs weren’t legally allowed to perform manual labor, including cooking and waiting tables. Later, as the popularity of chop suey parlors took off, officials across the country passed legislation banning white women from entering or working in chop suey parlors.

Woodland’s Chinatown was not immune to the anti-Chinese fervor that swept across California, according to newspaper clips Chin’s team uncovered. A 1910 Woodland Daily Democrat editorial proclaimed that every Chinese or Japanese farmhand “drove a white man out of the orchard”. Businesses boasted of employing “white help only” in ads.

“Chinatown was thought to be blighted, slum,” Chin said. “There was clearly a sense of separation even as the restaurant provided a method of integration.”

Yong Chen, author of Chop Suey, USA: the Story of Chinese Food in America, said Chinese restaurants like Chicago Cafe endured not because Americans were enamored with Chinese food. Rather, they filled a void of “convenient and affordable” offerings missing from the gastronomical landscape, becoming a precursor of sorts to fast food chains.

“The restaurant industry in the 20th century is not an industry people wanted to get into,” Chen said. “It’s so much hard work, the pay is so low, and the hours are so long. But the Chinese had no choice and no jobs in other places.”

Chen noted that the Chicago Cafe’s menus, which have changed little throughout its history, never served traditional Chinese dishes. Few restaurants in China serve Chicago Cafe staples like chop suey and egg foo young, let alone its broad selection of American classics like steak and eggs and hamburger with fries. The culinary choices cater to Americans’ perception and preference of Chinese food, Chen said, which isn’t atypical of popular 20th century Chinese diners whose “main purpose is economic”.

“If they can make a living serving Chinese food, they’ll do it,” he said. “If they can make a living serving french fries, they’ll do it.”

Hints of discrimination were evident in the records unearthed at Chicago Cafe. Harley Spiller, a museum educator and collector from New York City who flew into Woodland the night before, noticed that some Chicago Cafe menus advertised “American food and chop suey” but omitted mentions of “Chinese food”. Other iterations divided American and Chinese dishes into separate columns, Spiller said, which some scholars have attributed to racism. “You wouldn’t mix and match,” he said.

Elizabeth Chin, an anthropologist and the sister of Jack Chin, said the typeface and phone numbers printed on said menus also offer valuable clues to the restaurant’s past. A three-digit number appeared on a few different Chicago Cafe menu sets, and a four-digit number appeared on a stack of order sheets. These types of phone numbers first appeared in the city directory at the turn of the 20th century. Chin, also an ethnographer, said that the Art Nouveau style heading of these menu sets suggested a possible origin date in the 1910s, when the arched, calligraphic fonts became popularized.

Ben Ruilin Fong, a comparative literature PhD candidate at UC Davis who is of no relation to the restaurant owners, said the Fongs seemed to be constantly negotiating with their identity as natives of Taishan, a city in China’s Guangdong province known as the “first home of overseas Chinese”. Like many others from the region, the Fongs fled to British-ruled Hong Kong, then the US, in search of new opportunities. “It’s interesting how they kept emphasizing they’re from Hong Kong rather than Guangzhou or Taishan,” Ben Ruilin Fong said, scanning a 1975 feature in a local paper. Taishanese immigrants, he said, often leverage their connection to Hong Kong, a city of higher status and class, to feel a sense of pride and heritage.

Paul and Nancy have two adult children: Amy, who became a physical therapist, and Andy, a software engineer. Neither will be taking over the reins, but Fong, 75, said he’s not concerned that the business his grandfather built more than 120 years ago might end with him. “I want to retire and spend more time with my grandchildren,” he said.

Amy Fong described the recent media buzz, which drew hordes of new diners to the establishment, as a “blessing and a curse”. Lunch rush is busier than it’s been in decades, with retirees filling every booth and bar seat. The restaurant’s lone waitress, Dianna Olstad, rushed to deliver orders of chop suey, pork chow mein and ginger beef to the kitchen.

Like many Chinese restaurant workers, the Fongs worked punishing hours. Many decades ago, when Amy’s grandfather, John, was in charge, the Chicago Cafe operated from 5.30 am, to serve breakfast to farmers, until 3am, to serve patrons of nearby bars. For most of their adult lives, her parents never took a vacation, Amy Fong said. As they age, she’s increasingly worried about their health – her grandmother died of a heart attack in the kitchen when she was 63.

“They’re very stoic people,” Fong said. “They don’t talk much about their personal desires, hopes and dreams.”

For some regulars who have been frequenting the Chicago Cafe for generations, the restaurant’s historic value is incalculable. Cindy Bueno, 74, started coming to the Chicago Cafe in the late 1950s, when their mother began working there as a waitress. For nearly the entirety of their adolescence, Bueno and her six sisters spent their afternoons at the restaurant, finishing homework or helping their mother wash dishes, chop onions and other simple chores. In 1968, Bueno held her wedding reception there, and everybody ate chicken fried steak. Years later, her children attended high school with Amy and Andy Fong. “Everyone who comes here has a history of Chicago Cafe,” Bueno said. “This place is unforgettable.”

Despite his team’s laborious research efforts, Chin said, it may ultimately be impossible to definitively verify that Chicago Cafe is the oldest in the nation. Official documentation simply doesn’t exist: Woodland city directories excluded Asian residents and businesses until 1939, which Chin said is likely an indication that officials didn’t consider Chinese people important enough to document.

The strongest piece of evidence supporting a 1903 origin date, he said, is a 1940 report from the Woodland Daily Democrat: “For over 37 years, the Chicago Restaurant has served Woodland well with the finest of foods at extremely low prices.” (No living Fong knows the story behind the restaurant’s name, though Jack Chin said that “Chicago” was a common name for Chinese restaurants because the city had a reputation for serving superb Chinese cuisine.)

The date “1904” appeared twice in the trove of artifacts Chin’s team uncovered at the restaurant, on a business card and in a cryptic handwritten letter, but neither amounts to actual proof. But even without documentary evidence, Chin said he’s fairly certain that a 1903 origin date is accurate. Still, he isn’t giving up on his search. “We’re going to explore more long shot research directions,” he said.

Paul Fong, though, had surprisingly little to say about Chin’s quest to solidify his family’s legacy. His mind was more occupied by matters of culinary interest. As the lunch crowd thinned, he began clearing tables and chatting with regulars. When two women praised his chop suey, he gave them a brief overview of how the dish has evolved in the US. The traditional Cantonese version that his family has served for more than a century, he told them, incorporates bean sprouts. But most restaurants today, he said with a shake of the head, make the “New Hong Kong” variety that tastes like spaghetti. “Everyone from Sacramento, Dixon – they all come for our old Cantonese style chop suey,” he said.