Heathrow Airport will be closed all day today after a fire at a nearby electricity substation caused a power outage. At least 1,351 flights to and from Europe’s busiest airport will be cancelled and more than 4,900 homes in the area are still without power. Counter-terrorism agents have been deployed to investigate whether sabotage was involved. The UK’s official economic growth forecast for 2025 will be halved next week from 2% to around 1%, says The Daily Telegraph. The Chancellor is expected to use her Spring Statement to blame the downgrade on the worsening global economic outlook as Donald Trump imposes his tariffs regime. A new Western Forest will be created across Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset. The project, one of three new national forests promised by the government, will create more than 6,000 acres of woodland from the Cotswolds to the Mendip Hills near Bristol by 2030, with 20 million trees planted in the coming decades.

The “ugly realities” facing Zelensky

As the Ukraine war drags on, says Graham Allison in Foreign Policy, Donald Trump is forcing a confrontation with some “ugly realities”. When he told Volodymyr Zelensky last month that he was “not winning this”, it was harsh, but it captured the basic truth that without the lifeline of supplies from the US, the Ukrainian president simply cannot sustain the war. Rather than attempting to deny brute facts, persuade an unpersuadable Trump to change his mind, or “wait for a European Godot”, Zelensky should focus on what he and his brave compatriots have won. They have defeated Vladimir Putin’s attempt to wipe their country off the map and fought one of the world’s most powerful militaries to a standstill. They should now use the few cards they have left to negotiate an “ugly but sustainable peace”.

First, Zelensky must understand that the “most important player at the table is Trump”, and that the US president is unlikely to change his mind. Trump disdains Zelensky, likes Putin and “doesn’t really care about Ukraine”. Were I counselling the Ukrainian president, I would suggest he “practise grovelling”. He must also recognise that his country shares a 1,400-mile border with a great power. It must therefore try to survive within the de facto sphere of influence of its hostile neighbour. That means forgetting about Nato, and accepting that the most likely alternative to a hot war is not a “lasting peace” but a long and tense armistice. Kyiv does have one bit of leverage in ensuring that a peace deal doesn’t just grant Putin respite to rearm: Trump would hate to declare a “beautiful” peace deal only to see it blow up on his watch. It’s not much, but it’s something.