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Discuss and debate today’s biggest talking points, directly with our journalists. | | Trump hailed America under his presidency as a ‘turnaround for the ages’ |  | Connor Stringer Washington Correspondent | Donald Trump declared the US was “winning too much” as he used his State of the Union address to take a victory lap.
Addressing a joint session of Congress yesterday evening, he reeled off a list of successes from his first year in office, taking credit for tax cuts and declining inflation.
“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it,” Trump said, practically shouting over Republicans chanting in support.
The stakes could not be higher for the president, whose approval ratings are at their lowest since he retook office. Polls show that Americans disapprove of how he has handled what were once his winning issues: the economy and immigration.
With the midterm elections looming, Republicans are now in danger of losing the House, which would empower Democrats to subject him to a wave of investigations and possible impeachment.
As the president thundered towards the two-hour mark of his address, he railed against Iran and taunted Ali Khamenei, Tehran’s supreme leader, who has refused to curb its nuclear weapons programme.
Speculation was rampant in the hours before Trump took the stage that he would use this as an opportunity to announce fresh strikes ahead of a third round of negotiations on Thursday.
Buoyed by a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle, Trump made the case for a potential strike on Tehran.
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon,” he said to rapturous applause.
With the US now amassing the largest concentration of sea and air power in the Middle East since the second Gulf War, the Ayatollah will no longer doubt Trump’s willingness to use it.
Continue reading ➤
Plus, China to send Iran aircraft carrier-killing missiles ➤ | | In images released by Polish police, migrants arrested after using the tunnels kneel on the floor |  | James Rothwell | Picture the scene: a long, dark, dank tunnel, filled with men crawling on their bellies towards a pinprick of light in the distance. It might sound like a scene from The Great Escape, the Second World War film – but this time, the year is 2026 and the men are migrants, not prisoners of war.
This is the strange reality of life on Poland’s border with Russian ally Belarus, which has resorted to sending migrants through underground tunnels to reach European neighbours. Polish officials told The Telegraph that the mainly Afghan migrants had been passing through at least four such tunnels that were discovered and destroyed last winter. They say Polish border security is so tight that the vast majority of the young men are arrested once they emerge. Even so, it is a drastic escalation in Minsk and Moscow’s hybrid war on the West, as they seek to destabilise Nato’s eastern flank through mass migration. Belarus previously pushed waves of migrants over land crossings towards Poland, as was the case in 2021, when around 4,000 people attempted the journey.
Five years on, the Russian puppet state is now hiring what Poland calls “specialists from the Middle East” to help dig the tunnels. However, the identities of those “specialists” remain a mystery.
Read the full story ➤ | | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Are Republicans so deluded that they will sacrifice US democracy for this rogue president? For subscribers only ➤ Philip Johnston Valdo Calocane has proved Enoch Powell wrong Continue reading ➤ Allison Pearson No ‘spares’, no climate preaching: My plan to save the monarchy Continue reading ➤ | | To make sure you don’t miss our newsletters when they land in your inbox, click here. | | Residents said the torrent on Caledonian Road, which was caused by a burst mains, was like a river | | Huw Pill, the chief economist at the Bank of England, has revealed that his own daughter is caught in Britain’s spiralling youth unemployment crisis, writes Tim Wallace, our Deputy Economics Editor. Warning of a “particularly acute” blow to young job hunters, Pill told MPs that Rachel Reeves’s £25bn employer tax raid was pricing an entire generation out of the workplace. Continue reading ➤ | | | When Rosamund Dean’s 11-year-old son started secondary school, his ‘brick’ phone soon proved insufficient for his social life | | When writer Rosamund Dean bought her son, Ezra, 11, a Nokia “brick” phone for secondary school, she had good intentions. However, after a WhatsApp group invitation prompted Dean and her husband to let Ezra use an old iPhone, he fell into the “quicksand” of YouTube Shorts. Dean asks Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and best-selling author of The Anxious Generation, for practical tips on how to limit her son’s social media use. Continue reading ➤ | |  | | In Vladimir Putin’s eyes, Russia’s victory in Ukraine is inevitable – and Donald Trump, it seems, agrees. “They’re [Russia] much bigger, they’re much stronger,” the US president told a reporter in December. “At some point, size will win.” However, Western intelligence officials point out a flaw in the theory: Moscow’s army is currently losing 10,000 more men per month than it can recruit.
In this analysis, Memphis Barker, Senior Foreign Correspondent, takes a closer look at the surging casualty figures and speaks to Ukrainian commanders who are exacting tolls as high as 25 to one. This exclusive coverage is only available to subscribers. Click below and sign up to read it. Continue reading ➤ | | | | | When he stayed at Paracelsus Recovery, William Sitwell’s apartment offered stunning views over Lake Zurich | | When news broke that Sarah Ferguson had sought refuge at a secretive Swiss sanctuary, I knew exactly what awaited her, writes William Sitwell. Having checked into the £75,000-a-week Paracelsus Recovery Clinic myself, I experienced its gloriously gratuitous regime firsthand. Whisked away in a Bentley to an apartment where I was the sole client, I endured live-monitoring implants and intravenous therapies as well as sobbing over my prep school trauma. It offers a relentlessly lavish rebuild – provided you can stomach the invoice. Continue reading ➤ | | | | | These are the characters that make being bad look so good, according to our writer | | After Sean Penn’s triumph at the Baftas for his mesmerising turn as a comic-tragic racist in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, the cinematic villain has a newfound respectability. What better time, then, to revisit the greatest ever baddies, from Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West to Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber – though Hannibal Lecter has failed to make the list. Who would you add to our writer’s pantheon? Have your say in the comments. Continue reading ➤ | | | A clinical trial has shown that computer game-like exercises, aimed at honing your brain’s processing speed, can significantly reduce dementia risk. According to one of the study’s authors, even “a relatively short burst of cognitive speed training” can have ripple effects for more than 20 years, resulting in fewer dementia diagnoses. In the second instalment of our three-part series, health expert David Cox dives into the various games, sports and puzzles that can keep your mind sharper for longer. Continue reading ➤ Below are two more helpful articles for you this morning: - Whether it’s the backband or cup size, the majority of women wear ill-fitting bras. We’ve put together the ultimate guide to bra shopping, for every age and dilemma.
- Premium Bonds are Britain’s most popular savings product, with the thrill of a potential windfall. Yet, many win nothing at all – and it’s about to get worse. To help you weigh up your options, read our guide.
| Swansea Every week, one of our writers argues that their hometown is the best in Britain – but will their case convince you? This week we’re in Swansea, which despite its industrial past, deserves praise for its rich history and leisurely pace of life, according to Shauna Brown...  | Shauna Brown Senior Comment Publisher | How do I even begin to sing the praises of little Swansea, my “ugly, lovely town”, when it has already been done so eloquently by the poet Dylan Thomas? I spent my youth by the side of a “long and splendid curving shore”, drinking lukewarm cans of beer on the beach, hoping the bonfire smoke would later conceal the scent of alcohol and rebellion.
The joke was always that there was nothing to do in Swansea. It was years behind the flashy, metropolitan cities with their sushi restaurants and high-end makeup counters. Now over £1bn has been invested into Swansea Bay, and a golden (though arguably, very yellow-looking) bridge erected to lead visitors to a gleaming digital arena.
Brunch has entered the collective consciousness, through cafés with charming names like Haystack and Hoogah, while The Swigg serves music, vibes and Barti rum cocktails by the marina. It is coastal, cultured and cool – what more could you want?
However, it’s not these new bells and whistles that call me back today, but what has always been there. The indoor market is an unmappable, labyrinthine museum holding more than a thousand years of history; cockle stalls that began with women schlepping there daily from the Penclawdd estuary before the railway opened in 1867. Mumbles is my childhood suspended in amber; the same rainbow-painted houses, rudely named boats, Verdi’s ice cream parlour and the pier where my nana worked as a girl, always unchanged. | The Telegraph’s Shauna Brown in 2002, in Swansea | “This sea-town was my world.” Only after leaving did I miss its slower pace, the splendour of walking amongst its rolling hills, and truly understand Thomas’s words. If you still don’t agree with him, perhaps the endorsement of a more modern poet will sway you. Snoop Dogg is now a minority owner of Swansea City FC – croeso i Abertawe, Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Is Swansea the best hometown in Britain? If not where is? Let us know your thoughts here and your response could feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here. | Toy stories While Orlando Bird, our loyal reader correspondent, is away, Kate Moore is on hand to share an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Kate writes...
As anyone who’s made the acquaintance of the engineering section on the Lego website will attest, playtime is serious business. For us children of the 90s, the height of technological sophistication was the Tamagotchi, with its incessant demands on the owner’s time. I left mine outdoors for four days and, like Beth’s poor canary in Little Women, it died of neglect.
It was with a pang of recognition, therefore, that I read the replies to Jane Shilling’s piece on digital childhood. In it, she put forward the question: “Is the connection between child and beloved toy a lifelong bond, as it always was?”
I am inclined to wonder. It is certainly easier to feel nostalgic for the worn fur of one’s favourite stuffed animal. “I still have the teddy bear bought before I was born,” Vicki Lester told us. “All the other things were transient, age-related, and disposed of without reference by my parents – those Airfix historical figures I assembled and painted, the Apollo rocket and so on.”
Meanwhile, David Sandison is still hanging on to his teddy after 70 years together: “Fortunately, he can’t speak. Only makes chiming sounds when you squeeze his tummy.”
Then again, children are infinitely adaptable, able to master new tools and incorporate them swiftly into their world. As Mike Page pointed out: “It’s natural to use more complex and abstract play as we age – and as it becomes available.”
Robert Frazer put it more forcefully: “A screen is often a springboard for a highly imaginative and connective mind... I myself made lasting friendships that endure to this day over designing custom campaigns for the strategy game Starcraft.” Are you a strategist, like Mr Frazer? A would-be nurturer, like me and my doomed Tamagotchi? Or are you a puzzle solver, like the 520 million-strong tribe of Tetris players? Send your responses here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. | | Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was OBTAINING. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor
P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here. | |
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