As Ukraine remains under Russian bombardment and the election of Trump adds a new level of fear, its residents are turning to the power of literature to console and inspire in even the darkest days

As a film-maker and a poet, I like strange, whimsical contrasts, and as a Ukrainian I often feel that our daily routine exclusively consists of them. For example, the day starts with news about the election of a new US president, and we are in the hotel in Zaporizhzhia sadly singing along to Summertime Sadness on the radio. Who are we? The Ukrainian poet and soldier Yaryna Chornohuz ; the German writer and journalist Ronya Othmann , who has come to Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion; and me. We are travelling together with a legendary Ukrainian poet, Yuri Izdryk , and the head of the literary corporation Meridian Czernowitz, Svyatoslav Pomerantsev who has organised this tour to the frontline cities in southern Ukraine.

Yesterday, a ballistic Russian missile hit Zaporizhzhia and killed eight civilians, but tonight we have poetry readings here. The event is not cancelled, because such tragedies occur in Ukraine almost every day, and people need some consolation – and even fun. Nonetheless, today is full of anxiety. “What do your Ukrainian friends write about Trump?” Ronya asks me while I’m scrolling the feed. “They darkly joke about world war three. And what about your German friends?” “They write: ‘ Oh, what will happen to Ukraine now?!’”

• Race remains on F1 calendar after six-year deal agreed
• Contest has been part of motor sport scene since 1950

Formula one’s iconic Monaco Grand Prix will remain on the calendar until at least 2031 after a six-year extension was announced on Thursday, with a date change to June that also avoids future clashes with the Indianapolis 500.

The race around the streets of Monte Carlo was part of the first world championship season in 1950 and has been present since 1950, with the exception of 2020 during the global pandemic.

Louise Haigh says she hopes to ensure a repeat of the air traffic control failure of August 2023 never happens again

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Airline passengers will benefit from tougher enforcement of consumer protection laws following an inquiry into the August 2023 air traffic control meltdown, transport secretary Louise Haigh has said.

She said she wants to ensure “all passengers feel confident when they fly”.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

When the Thursday quiz was first mooted, it was pitched as being a bit like a pub quiz, with topical questions and some general knowledge, but it would be at a lunchtime and everybody would be sober. Unfortunately, since that original lofty ideal, it has now turned out to mostly be a string of obscure in-jokes hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope down the pub on a Wednesday night. Still, here we all are. Have fun, and let us know how you get on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 186

Advocates implore Biden to ‘commute the row’ of prisoners sentenced to death before Trump restarts executions

Calls are mounting for Joe Biden to use his presidential clemency powers before he leaves office to spare the lives of 40 federal death row inmates who are at peril of imminent execution when Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Lawyers for many of the condemned men are appealing to the president through official clemency channels, urging him to commute their death sentences to life behind bars. Major advocacy groups and individuals affected by capital punishment are also making urgent pleas for Biden to act in the 10 weeks he has left in the Oval Office.

The lesson of this election is that Democrats must attack inequality – and not cede working-class voters to Trump

A political disaster such as what occurred last Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.

This is known as the Lesson of the election.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Kathlina, 28, and Adriana, 30, met in college in Florida. Despite a rocky start, they became best friends and have supported each other through the past decade

As a college freshman in the autumn of 2015, Kathlina was excited about what lay ahead. “I was studying political science and Spanish in Jacksonville, Florida, and I was having a great time meeting people,” she says. She soon struck up a friendship with a man in one of her classes and began joining him and his friends at campus events. “I was dating my childhood sweetheart from home, so I definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I was keen to meet new people,” she says.

One day, she was invited to her new friend’s apartment, where she met his girlfriend, Adriana. “She was in her third year studying psychology and I thought she was a bit intimidating because she was a senior,” says Kathlina. Adriana admits she was “frosty” at first. “Kathlina was so pretty and smart; I felt a bit threatened,” she says. “I wasn’t a very secure person at the time.”

Republicans express shock and concern after far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz nominated by Trump

The Pentagon has been stunned by Donald Trump ’s pick for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth , a national guard veteran and Fox News presenter who has called for a purge of generals for pursuing “woke” diversity policies.

Hegseth has questioned whether the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Charles Brown , was given the top job because he is black and accused him of “pursuing the radical positions of leftwing politicians”.

Whether doing King Lear with students or performing soliloquies in complete darkness, the great actor was driven by curiosity

• Timothy West dies aged 90
• Modest maestro embodied the best of British theatre

Tim West was the ultimate theatre-lover. I had the great good fortune to spend a decade as artistic director of his favourite theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, and that enabled me to get to know this giant of British theatre from a slightly unusual point of view.

Tim had grown up in Bristol, watching his father, Lockwood West, performing with the Rapier Players at the Little theatre, now part of the Beacon concert venue. When I met Tim and Pru [his wife, Prunella Scales] to talk about the refurbishment of the Bristol Old Vic, he took me on a tour of the city, unravelling the architectural monstrosities of the 1960s and 70s and revealing the city as it was when he had wandered it as a child in the 1930s. He took me through the old Horsefair towards the Empire theatre in the Old Market (forbidden territory for young Tim) and back through Victoria Street to the Old Vic where he had always longed to perform, where he had served as a board member and leading actor in the 1980s, and where he finally agreed to return to perform King Lear for the theatre’s 250th birthday in 2016. At every step of the walk, enthusiasm bubbled from him like a fountain.