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      Zelensky Says Ukraine Is Unlikely to Survive the War Without U.S. Support

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      His comments came on the first day of the Munich Security Conference, where anxious European officials had hoped to learn more about U.S. plans to broker peace talks.President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an excerpt from an NBC interview published Friday night that Ukraine had a low chance of surviving Russia’s assault without U.S. support.In the excerpt from “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Mr. Zelensky said: “Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have low chance — low chance to survive without support of the United States.”The full interview is set to be broadcast on Sunday, according to NBC.His comments were aired on the first day of the Munich Security Conference, where hundreds of anxious European diplomats and others gathered expecting to hear Vice President JD Vance speak about President Trump’s strategy to broker peace negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.But Mr. Vance mentioned Ukraine only in passing and offered no road map for negotiations or even any strategic vision of what Europe should look like after the most devastating ground war being waged on the continent in 80 years. Instead, he urged European nations to stop isolating their far-right parties, saying the biggest security threat was the suppression of free speech.Earlier in the week, Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, jolted Kyiv and European allies of Ukraine by saying in a meeting with NATO and Ukrainian defense ministers in Brussels that the United States did not support Ukraine’s desire to join NATO as part of a peace plan. He also described a return to Ukraine’s borders before 2014 — when Russia annexed Crimea — as “unrealistic.”Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested trading U.S. aid for Ukraine’s critical minerals, telling Fox News earlier this month that he wanted “the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earths,” a group of minerals crucial for many high-tech products, in exchange for American aid. Ukraine had “essentially agreed to do that,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Vance to meet Zelenskyy as European leaders call for unity over Ukraine

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      The US vice-president, JD Vance, will face calls for greater consultation and coherence when he meets European leaders, including the president of Ukraine, at a security conference in Munich.The timing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with US officials, initially scheduled for Friday morning, remained unclear because the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had to change his flight from Washington when the plane experienced a mechanical fault.The expected showdown came after 48 hours in which senior members of the Trump administration, including the president, unleashed a volley of contradictory positions on how and when negotiations with Russia about Ukraine’s future would be conducted.In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Vance tried to quell criticism that Donald Trump had made a series of premature and unilateral concessions in a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.He said the US would still be prepared to impose sanctions on Russia if Moscow did not accept a satisfactory deal. “There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he said.Vance added the option of sending US troops to Ukraine if Moscow failed to negotiate in good faith remained “on the table”. He said there were “economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” the US could use against Putin.Before being nominated as vice-president, Vance said he did “not really care about Ukraine’s future, one way or the other”.Rubio added that the US had an interest in the long-term independence of Ukraine, remarks intended to imply some form of security guarantee for Ukraine.Trump has also insisted that any deal would be in consultation with Ukraine, but he has been less emphatic about the involvement of Europeans – an omission that has infuriated leaders of the continent, who believe any Ukrainian settlement will have profound consequences for European security.Trump reiterated that it would not be possible for Ukraine to ever join Nato since Putin would not accept it. In his view, Ukraine is aware of this. “I think that’s how it will have to be,” Trump said.Instead, he foresaw Russia rejoining the G7 group of wealthy countries as part of its reintegration into western economies.The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was due to meet his Polish counterpart in Warsaw on Friday, said the US was not making premature concessions.European leaders have long expected Trump would slash US support for Ukraine, but have been shocked by the lack of planning by the administration and the absence of consultation with allies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe French president joined the chorus of politicians demanding the US adopt a more careful and coordinated approach. “A peace that is a capitulation is bad news for everyone,” Emmanuel Macron said.“The only question at this point is whether President Putin is sincerely, sustainably … prepared for a ceasefire on that basis,” he said, adding that Europe would have a “role to play” in regional security discussions.The most angry response from a senior European politician came from Kaja Kallas, the new EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian president.“Why are we giving them [Russia] everything they want even before the negotiations have started? It’s appeasement. It has never worked,” she said, adding that Nato membership for Ukraine was the “strongest” and “cheapest” security guarantee available.She suggested the war would continue with European support if Zelenskyy was cut out of the talks. “If there is agreement made behind our backs, it simply will not work,” Kallas said. “The Ukrainians will resist and we will support them.”Hegseth also downplayed the relevance of European values to security policy: “We can talk all we want about values. Values are important. But you can’t shoot values. You can’t shoot flags and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power.” More

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      in US Politics

      The heartlessness of the deal: how Trump’s ‘America first’ stance sold out Ukraine

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      In Donald Trump’s world, everything has its price.There is no place for sentiment in his politics. Common values cannot secure loans for military aid. And the US president does not care who controls the blood-soaked soils of east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals that lie beneath.The peace Trump will negotiate is not about justice. There is no deeper moral or morality here except for who “got it done”, and Trump has signaled that he is ready to pressure Ukraine and Europe to provide concessions to entice Russia to sign on the dotted line.All that’s left for him is to hash out a price.“I’m just here to try and get peace,” Trump said in the Oval Office, where he riffs out policy daily. “I don’t care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed.”It is difficult to put into words what an about-face this is for US support for Ukraine, which for years was built on helping the country defend itself, though not win the war.The Biden administration helped manage the symptoms of Russian aggression. Now, Trump says he’s going to provide the cure. But it is an unwelcome one: stop resisting.Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the adage in the Oval Office had been “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”. Biden officials regularly said in public that Ukraine itself would decide when it was ready to negotiate.But that was before the US election. It wasn’t the issue of Ukrainian manpower or the supply of weapons that ultimately brought us to this point; it was the price of eggs in Pennsylvania. The Biden administration’s biggest betrayal of Ukraine may have been to lose the US elections, effectively surrendering Ukraine’s second front to “America first”.“We’re the thing that’s holding it back, and frankly, we’ll go as long as we have to go, because we’re not going to let the other happen,” said Trump, in what may be the only silver lining of his remarks on Monday, indicating he wouldn’t allow Ukraine to collapse completely. “But President Putin wants that peace now, and that’s good, and he didn’t want to have peace with Biden.”Some Ukrainian and Russian observers may believe the US president has a deeper plan here, perhaps to consolidate Europe and then pressure Russia as a united front while sinking the oil price. But judging by his actions in Gaza, or in the United States, there is likely to be no deeper plan.Assigning Steve Witkoff, his go-to dealmaker who negotiated the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal, rather than the hawkish Gen Keith Kellogg, indicates that the process will be maximally unsentimental. Just another real estate deal.Now, much of Europe is wondering whether Trump is about to deliver them a fait accompli on their eastern flank, seeking to commit European troops with no Nato protection to Ukraine in a security agreement negotiated exclusively between Moscow and Washington.“What’s left to negotiate?” read one text message from a European official, who called it a “surrender”.In fact, that was just Trump’s opening offer.Russia has indicated it wants him to go further. In a communique, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said he wanted the deal to address the “origins of the conflict”, which he has previously said include Ukraine’s pro-western stance and the Nato expansions of the 2000s and 1990s.He may seek to turn back the clock, said another European official, and demand that US forces stationed in the Baltics, Poland and other former communist countries return, raising concerns about further Russian land grabs without American troops there to guarantee their defense.Such an outcome seemed even more possible on Thursday, when Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, told his Nato counterparts that a reduction of US troop levels in Europe could be part of any deal.In effect, Trump is negotiating with Europe, not Russia. Europe has issued its counteroffer: treat us as a partner and give us a seat at the table.“We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, before the Nato meeting on Thursday. “It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans, you need the Ukrainians.”That depends what Trump plans to do next, as Hegseth made clear. “Everything is on the table,” he said. “In his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy, what he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world: President Trump.”The question is who is in that free world now, and what is the price of entry. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump proposes nuclear deal with Russia and China to halve defense budgets

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      Donald Trump said that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the US adversaries to cut their own spending.“There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,” Trump said.While the US and Russia have held massive stockpiles of weapons since the cold war, Trump predicted that China would catch up in their capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years”.He said that if the weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion”.Trump said he would look to engage in nuclear talks with the two countries once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine.“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say: ‘Let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”Trump in his first term tried and failed to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks when the US and Russia were negotiating an extension of a pact known as New Start. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty during the Biden administration, as the US and Russia continued on massive programs to extend the lifespans of or replace their cold war-era nuclear arsenals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOutlining his vision for a shake-up in the world order, Trump also said he would “love” to have Russia back in the G7, from which it was suspended in 2014 after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.“I think it was a mistake to throw him out,” Trump said, referring to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.In his first term, Trump also called for Russia to be readmitted, but he found little support among other western countries.Trump revealed Wednesday he expected to meet Putin separately for Ukraine peace talks, in a sudden thaw in relations.In their first confirmed contact since Trump’s return to the White House, the US president said he had held a “highly productive” conversation with his Russian counterpart, who ordered the bloody 2022 invasion of Ukraine. More

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      in Elections

      Maps: Ukraine’s Borders Pre-2014 Invasion to Now

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      The question of where Ukraine’s borders with Russia should be drawn in any peace negotiations came into sharp focus this week after Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to try to regain all of the territory Russia has seized since 2014.Ukraine’s government has long said that its goal is to restore its borders to where they were before Russia launched its first invasion more than a decade ago.Here is a look at Ukraine’s borders and Russia’s advances into its territory:Independence bordersUkraine’s borders were set when it gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. It borders Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania and Moldova to the south. It also borders its giant neighbor Russia to the east. 2014 invasion and Crimea annexationRussian forces invaded Ukraine in 2014, seizing Crimea, a peninsula extending from its southern coast. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia annexed the territory, a move that is not recognized internationally. Ukraine’s government has said that reclaiming Crimea, by force or diplomacy, is one of its most important goals in the war. In 2018, Russia opened a bridge across the Kerch Strait linking its territory with Crimea. Ukraine has bombed the bridge on several occasions.Military experts have long said that winning back Crimea by force is not a realistic option for Ukraine, given Russia’s military strength. Ukrainian forces have made little headway in opening a route toward Crimea.In the 2014 invasion, Russian forces and proxy militias also seized territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, including the capitals of the two provinces it comprises, Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow has held those cities and much of the surrounding areas ever since.Full-scale invasionThe Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian forces failed in their goal of seizing the capital, Kyiv, but they did capture more territory in Donetsk and Luhansk, including the cities of Mariupol and Bakhmut. Russia also won ground in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, in effect gaining control of a land corridor along the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. That connected Russian forces in Crimea with territory they controlled in eastern Ukraine.In the fall of 2022, Moscow illegally annexed Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, just as it had done with Crimea, although it did not control the entirety of those provinces. Over the past year, the fiercest fighting in Ukraine has taken place in Donetsk, where Russian forces have gained control of several cities and towns.Russia now controls around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including areas in the south and east, Crimea and some ground north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. More

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      in US Politics

      Wednesday briefing: Inside the US president’s chaos machine

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      Good morning.Few words can fully capture the first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency. Dizzying? Unrelenting? Disorienting?Trump’s team has described its strategy as “flooding the zone” – in essence, overwhelming the opposition, the media and the public with a torrent of executive orders, mass dismissals of federal staff and the suspension of trillions in national funding. The logic is simple: create too much chaos for the media to cover, and make your critics struggle to keep up.How long the White House can sustain this approach remains uncertain – as does the question of how soon the systematic purge of government employees will translate into real consequences for the public.Dismantling the systems of government with brute force will inevitably yield blunt consequences. Take US foreign aid, which was, in Elon Musk’s words, put through the “wood chipper”: a 90-day funding freeze abruptly halted medical trials for cholera, malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. The department of education recently got this treatment, after Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) terminated nearly $1bn worth of its contracts.If the newsletter catalogued everything Trump has done so far, the scroll bar on your screen would all but disappear. Instead, today’s newsletter focuses on four recent developments. That’s right after the headlines.Five big stories

      Middle East | Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will resume fighting in Gaza if Hamas does not release more hostages by noon on Saturday, endorsing a threat by Donald Trump that could shatter the three-week-old ceasefire between the two sides.

      Economy | Nationwide, Britain’s biggest building society, has waded into a row over whether the government should cut tax breaks on cash Isas, arguing such a move would reduce the availability of mortgages for first-time buyers.

      AI | The US and the UK have refused to sign the Paris AI summit’s declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.

      Assisted dying | The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has said her assisted dying bill for England and Wales will still have the strongest safeguards in the world despite the removal of a requirement for scrutiny from a high court judge. Opponents derided the change as “rushed and badly thought out”.

      Housing | Rogue landlords in England will face curbs on how much housing benefit income they can receive if their properties are substandard, Angela Rayner has said as she announced an extra £350m for affordable housing.
      In depth: Four fronts of Trump chaos, and where they go nextView image in fullscreen‘Geopolitical blackmail’ in the Middle EastLate on Monday, Hamas announced a delay in the further release of Israeli hostages, citing violations of last month’s ceasefire agreement. Among the grievances listed are delays in allowing displaced persons to return to northern Gaza and continued shelling and gunfire.However, as this Guardian report highlights, the warning comes amid increasingly hardline stances from the US and Israel regarding Gaza’s long-term future. Last week, Trump’s incendiary remarks suggesting the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinian population should be relocated were widely condemned as an endorsement of forced displacement amounting to ethnic cleansing. His response to Hamas has only heightened tensions in the region, with the president declaring that “all hell is going to break out” if all remaining Israeli hostages are not returned on Saturday.Earlier this week, Trump (pictured above with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in 2018) reinforced his stance on depopulating Gaza, suggesting he could cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused to permanently absorb most of Gaza’s Palestinian population. Both nations, though reliant on US aid and trade, have flatly rejected the proposal, calling it a red line. Experts say, however, that their economic dependence leaves them vulnerable to “geopolitical blackmail”. Jordanian officials, in particular, fear that postwar plans for Gaza could increase the likelihood of West Bank annexation. Jason Burke’s piece delves deeper into these concerns.Jordan’s King Abdullah met yesterday with Trump, becoming the first Arab leader to do so since his comments about forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza. The president continued to double down on his position, saying that the US had the authority to “take” Gaza, despite the king making clear his country was firmly opposed. Trump did seem to slightly walk back his position on withholding aid from countries like Jordan to get his way on Gaza, insisting that he was not using it as a threat: “I think we’re above that.”Bethan McKernan has a helpful explainer on what all of this means for the state of the ceasefire.Ukraine’s futureView image in fullscreenSpeaking to reporters last week about the three-year war in Ukraine, Trump said: “I want to end this damn thing.” He is eager to be seen as the peacemaker, not least because it would mean there is no reason to continue to spend so much on aid for Ukraine. There is also the not-so-small matter of his longstanding ambition to win the Nobel peace prize.In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he had spoken with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over a negotiated settlement and suggested that Russian negotiators are keen to meet with US counterparts.A bit of insight came, perhaps, when Trump cast doubt over Ukraine’s future sovereignty, suggesting the country “may be Russian someday”, a few days before his vice-president, JD Vance, meets with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (above). However, Trump has not ruled out continued US support for Ukraine’s war effort – provided there is a financial return. His price: $500bn in rare minerals. Ukraine is rich in resources such as lithium and titanium, crucial for electronics manufacturing. Zelenskyy has been leveraging the country’s vast natural reserves in diplomatic talks with Trump, though the idea of tying military aid to resource extraction has already drawn sharp criticism.For more on this, read Shaun Walker’s excellent interview with Zelenskyy from Kyiv.Musk, Altman and the AI arms raceOpenAI’s Sam Altman has not only caught the president’s attention but has outmanoeuvred Elon Musk by positioning OpenAI at the heart of the government’s emerging artificial intelligence strategy.Musk, the world’s richest man, responded as he often does: by attempting to buy control. Leading a consortium of investors, he made an unsolicited $97.4bn offer for OpenAI, which was recently valued at $157bn. Altman swiftly rejected the offer, posting on X: “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”The move comes just weeks after Altman and Musk clashed publicly, following Musk’s criticism of Trump’s Stargate initiative – a $500bn project involving OpenAI and Altman.‘Diplomatic love bombing’ in the UKView image in fullscreenIn the UK, Trump’s tendency to hold grudges and wield power ruthlessly against those he perceives as enemies has not gone unnoticed. Over the past few months, the Labour government has taken a conciliatory approach towards his administration, hoping that Trump’s transactional nature will either yield diplomatic and economic benefits – or at the very least, keep Britain out of his crosshairs.Several Labour ministers have softened their stance on the president, as has the prime minister. Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to the US (above), has publicly walked back his previous criticism of Trump, admitting that his remarks describing the president as “a danger to the world” were “ill-judged and wrong”. In a Fox News interview, Mandelson instead praised Trump’s “dynamism and energy”, adding, in an interview with the BBC, that Britain must respect Trump’s “strong and clear mandate for change”.Political correspondent Eleni Courea has written that the UK’s “diplomatic love bombing” appears to be paying off – Trump recently remarked that Keir Starmer “has been very nice” and that the two leaders are “getting along very well”. (Courea’s full piece is well worth a read.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYet the UK prime minister’s reluctance to antagonise Trump has led to a muted response on even the most controversial policies, such as the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. Ultimately, none of these efforts change the fundamental reality that Trump is “fickle and reactive”, as his decisions are seemingly driven primarily by what serves his interests at any given moment.For the latest on Donald Trump – and there will be more – keep an eye on the Guardian’s homepage.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      First Edition’s own Archie Bland and his partner, Ruth Spencer, write damningly about a new Netflix feelgood film that offers astounding but ultimately false hope to families of those with severe cerebral palsy. “Lucca’s World perpetuates the idea that children like our son are broken and must be repaired, rather than whole people who deserve every chance to live full and happy lives,” the pair write. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters

      Mehdi Hasan is blistering on the Republicans and their dog whistling about DEI and the liberal media’s enabling on the issue. The right do not have good faith critiques of diversity policies, Hasan writes: “This is the weaponisation of a three-letter term to denigrate Black people and pretend the political and economic advancement of minority communities over the past 60 years was a mistake”. Nimo

      Jeff Ingold has a unique playlist. Standing (as of now) at 75 songs, the roughly six-hour set list comprises one song for every man with whom Ingold has slept. The result is a meaningful musical extravaganza that transports Ingold through the deep relationships and fleeting romances of his life. “When most people hear Candle in the Wind, they think of Diana. Me? A threesome I had with a couple in south London.” Charlie

      After Kendrick Lamar’s stellar Super Bowl performance, what is left for Drake (besides his millions), many of us wonder. Ben Beaumont Thomas explains that though the rapper has endured a public evisceration, he can still regain his relevance – and perhaps even his cool. Nimo

      “Not so much drifting slowly downwards as nose-diving at a frightening rate.” After last weekend’s galling defeat to Italy in the Six Nations, Robert Kitson is frank about the worrying state of Welsh rugby in this week’s edition of the Breakdown newsletter (sign up here!). Charlie
      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Jude Bellingham put Real Madrid 3-2 ahead with the last kick of the game to give his side an advantage in the Champions League playoff against Manchester City. More Champions League resultsRugby | Wales have appointed Cardiff’s Matt Sherratt as interim head coach after Warren Gatland’s second spell as head coach abruptly ended on Tuesday. Gatland has paid the price for Wales’s dismal recent record, having presided over the worst losing run in the country’s 144-year international rugby history.Football | Sam Kerr has been found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment after calling a police officer “fucking stupid and white” when he doubted her claims of being “held hostage” in a taxi. The captain of the Australian women’s football team and Chelsea’s star striker faced up to a maximum sentence of two years in prison.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“Zelenskyy: Europe cannot protect Ukraine without Trump’s support” – an exclusive interview is the Guardian’s lead story. “Court gives Gazans right to settle in UK” reports the Telegraph while the Mirror says “Left to rot” as it investigates NHS dental care or the lack of it. “Judge tweak hits support for assisted dying bill” reports the Times while the Express insists “MPs must back ‘crucial’ right to die law”. “Absurd we cannot sack rogue cops” is the Metro’s splash while the i has “UK savings rates cut by 30 banks – and first mortgage deals under 4%”. Top story in the Financial Times is “‘Trump trades’ backfire as greenback weakens and bond yields come down” while the Mail splashes on “Labour’s new borders watchdog will WFH … in Finland!”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenWhy giving up the Chagos Islands could cost Britain £9bnEleni Courea discusses the UK’s historic deal to sign sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and why some inside the Labour party are now regretting it. Campaigner Olivier Bancoult outlines why he hopes the deal will go aheadCartoon of the day | Martin RowsonView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenEstablished in 1942, the Women’s Timber Corps saw upwards of 15,000 young women work during the second world war as “lumberjills”. Aged between 17 and 24, they assumed roles traditionally filled by men in Britain’s forests, felling trees to aid the war effort. Joanna Foat’s new book, The Lumberjills, tells their story through stunning archive photography – and this gallery gives an enthralling taste.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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