The inquiry into the pandemic is demanding the government release the unredacted messages by Thursday.

The government has until 16:00 BST to pass the unredacted material to the official Covid inquiry.

For months, the West has fretted over the prospect of paying for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Russia’s war has inflicted an estimated $400 billion in rebuilding costs, a tally that rises every day. Western leaders, already alarmed by inflation and the threat of recession, have understandably blanched over the bill.

But many of them are disregarding a solution that would cover most of Ukraine’s costs and help deter future aggression not only from Russia but from dictatorships around the world. A year ago, Western governments froze some $300 billion in state assets from Russia’s central bank. Now they could seize the funds and give them to Ukraine.

The biggest question is whether this would be legal. As critics have noted, a seizure of this magnitude has never been attempted. Moreover, little precedent exists for the United States to confiscate the assets of a nation with whom (despite the Kremlin’s claims to the contrary) it isn’t at war.

[From the June 2023 issue: The counteroffensive]

But Russia has unleashed a kind of rank imperialism the world has rarely seen since the Cold War, committing war crimes and—as manifold evidence suggests—genocide, all against a harmless neighbor. Because of its unjustifiable aggression and atrocities, Moscow has forfeited any moral right to funds stashed abroad.

The reasons to seize them are legion. Confiscating the Russian funds—which are spread across various Western economies—would serve a crucial role in ending the fighting, beating back Russian imperialism, and ensuring a viable economic future for Ukraine. And it would send a clear threat to regimes that might otherwise be willing to breach international law and destabilize continents for their own gain, as Moscow has.

Seizing these assets would also help fix an overlooked issue facing Ukraine: investor hesitancy. Investors remain wary of bankrolling projects that could be targeted by Russian drones and artillery. But the frozen funds could cover nearly 75 percent of Ukraine’s costs and significantly reduce the burden on potential financiers, making the country a more appealing investment destination.

In the U.S., much of the legal debate has focused on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that defines the president’s abilities to regulate international commerce during national emergencies. Although the IEEPA has historically been used to authorize more conventional sanctions—including in Iran, the Central African Republic, and China—some scholars have argued that it could also be used to seize the tens of billions of dollars in Russian assets currently in U.S. reserves.

That proposal has generated legal pushback, although advocates are undeterred. The nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative told me that it plans to examine the “legal foundations for seizing frozen Russian assets and transferring them to Ukraine” and expects to publish its findings in the coming months. (The initiative is chaired by Garry Kasparov, who also chairs the Human Rights Foundation, where I direct a program on combating kleptocracy.)

Even if U.S. law offered clear justification, though, it couldn’t be used to touch any of Russia’s assets frozen in Europe, which are far more valuable than those in the U.S. Fortunately, international law appears to offer such justification.

As Philip Zelikow and Simon Johnson wrote in Foreign Affairs last year, Russia’s obvious culpability for the war entitles Ukraine to claim compensation from Russia. Because “the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wrongful, unprovoked war of aggression that violates the United Nations Charter,” Zelikow and Johnson argue, any state (not just Ukraine) can “invoke Russia’s responsibility to compensate Ukraine, and they can take countermeasures against Moscow—including transferring its frozen foreign assets to ensure Ukraine gets paid.”

Despite many policy makers’ impression that Russian assets are untouchable, Anton Moiseienko, an international-law expert at the Australian National University, recently showed that they aren’t immune from seizure. “To extend protection from any governmental interferences to central bank assets would equate to affording them inviolability,” Moiseienko wrote, which is reserved only for property belonging to foreign diplomatic missions. The protection afforded central-bank assets “is not as absolute as is often thought.”

That is, in the eyes of international law, Russian assets aren’t inviolate. In fact, the only real remaining obstacles to seizing them are debates surrounding domestic laws and domestic politics. As Moiseienko wrote, “Political and economic circumspection, rather than legal constraints, are the last defense against [the assets’] confiscation.”

This is particularly true in the U.S., where plenty of hesitancy remains even after more than a year of war. As The New York Times reported in March, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes that seizing Russian assets could reduce faith in the American economy and the U.S. dollar. Other critics think it would threaten U.S. assets and investments in other countries.

[Eliot A. Cohen: It’s not enough for Ukraine to win. Russia has to lose.]

These points all have a certain merit. And so, too, do concerns about such a move prompting the Kremlin to escalate. In all likelihood, though, Putin’s regime has already written off these funds, not least because they’ll almost certainly never be returned while he’s in power. Moreover, seizing them is hardly as escalatory as, say, the West sending Ukraine F-16s or long-range precision rockets.

But at a broader level, these criticisms misunderstand the significance of the war and what it may lead to.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an assault on the geopolitical order. A nuclear power launched a militarized annexation, entirely unprovoked, against a neighbor that had long ago given up its arsenal. In the months following the invasion, the Kremlin has been accused of torture, beheadings, and manifold crimes against humanity. And it has been responsible for more bloodshed than any conflict in Europe has exacted since World War II. It is led by a dictator wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court, and who is driven solely by a deranged, messianic imperialism. And it is setting a precedent for other autocrats, who are eager to see whether Putin’s revanchism will work—and eager to emulate any success he finds, especially if his crimes go unpunished.

If this war doesn’t justify seizing a nation’s assets, I’m not sure what would. Repairing the damage it has caused is well worth the risks that have occupied Washington.

Some Western leaders still hold out hope for a negotiated peace and argue that we should keep Russia’s assets frozen to be used later as a bargaining chip. But Putin cannot be negotiated with. And given the alternative—that these funds remain frozen in perpetuity as Russian munitions continue demolishing Ukrainian cities—the argument against seizing these assets gets weaker by the day.

The unprecedented nature of Putin’s crimes, the allowances of international law, and Ukraine’s growing need all point in one, clear direction. Russia’s frozen assets are not spoils of war; they are rightfully Ukraine’s. It’s time for the Biden administration and the rest of the West to put them to use.

Mr Johnson has spoke to a reporter in Washington about his diary entries being handed to police.

The former US president is one of several Republicans Mr Johnson has met on a trip to the US this week.

Allies of the former PM say he has lost confidence in the Cabinet Office after it referred him to police.

The justice secretary says civil servants would have been criticised if they had "sat on" information.

The Cabinet Office has made the referral following a review of the former PM's official diaries.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Good morning, and welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained.

Today’s special guest is the author and Atlantic staff writer Adam Harris. Adam covers education and politics; most recently, he wrote about the impending school-funding crisis faced by public-school students and educators across the United States. (He’s also a not-so-secret soccer buff whose byline you may have spotted in our coverage of the 2022 World Cup.) These days, Adam unwinds by watching—and cracking up at—the reliably hilarious A Black Lady Sketch Show, is revisiting the “propulsive and engaging” writing of the author Charles Johnson, and can’t resist the Creed movie franchise (nor, relatedly, the thrall of a training montage).

First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

Did scientists accidentally invent an anti-addiction drug? The only career advice you’ll ever need ‘Stealth wealth’ is a fake trend. The Culture Survey: Adam Harris

A musical artist who means a lot to me: The Black country-music pioneer Charley Pride’s music has been with me for as long as I can remember. To my mind, he’s the most interesting musical artist who does not have a biopic (yet). He first rose to prominence as a standout baseball pitcher; he played for the Memphis Red Sox and the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro Leagues and made it as far as a tryout for the California Angels. When his baseball career ended, he reinvented himself—or, to put it better, drew once more from his well of talents—and became one of the most popular country singers in the world.

My favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: I’ve watched the movies in the Creed franchise—including the most recent—more times than any one person should. What can I say? There is nothing that quite compares to a training montage. Similarly, I often find myself putting on 5 to 7, the 2014 romance film starring Bérénice Marlohe and the late Anton Yelchin.

[Related: Creed III and the power of a worthy opponent;

Creed lands every punch. (2015)]

A quiet song that I love, and a loud song that I love: Hop in the car, roll the windows down, and put on “Texas Sun,” by Leon Bridges and Khruangbin. It’s almost guaranteed to improve your mood. And as several of my colleagues know, I’m embarrassingly fond of the band Yellowcard and will turn up “Southern Air,” from their 2012 album of the same name, at will.

This southern air is all I need
Breathe it in and I can see
Camera sets behind my eyes
All the colors of my life

The television show I’m most enjoying right now: The one show that I can rely on for a laugh week in and week out is A Black Lady Sketch Show. There’s not much more to say about it. It’s the perfect mix of random and hilarious.

Something I recently rewatched, reread, or otherwise revisited: About a month ago, I started thumbing through the first couple of pages of Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage, which tells the story of the illegal American slave trade and won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1990. The next thing I knew, it was several hours later, and I was nearly finished. I’d forgotten how propulsive and engaging Johnson is as a writer.

A favorite story I’ve read in The Atlantic: About six years ago, NASA’s Cassini, which orbited Saturn for 13 years, ran out of fuel and crash-landed onto the planet. It was a rather emotional event for followers of the project, and afterward, my colleague Marina Koren wrote about the ways in which we mourn space machines. Her writing is stirring, and the article has stuck with me since I first read it:

The spacecraft has no human or animal qualities, and it is not designed to give lifelike cues, like a tilt to signal curiosity or a shudder to suggest fear. But it can communicate in its own language, transmitting data back to Earth. It has ventured into dangerous territory, all alone, to seek answers about the unknown. And it appears, as NASA suggests in its closing narrative, that Cassini has accepted its mortality. Soon its work will be over, and it will no longer exist. That, perhaps, is the most human thing of all.

A poem, or line of poetry, that I return to: I’m actually going to pick two here: The first is “Yet I Do Marvel,” by Countee Cullen—particularly his examination of faith and understanding and wonder. These lines—“Yet I do marvel at this curious thing: / To make a poet black, and bid him sing!”—have been burned into my brain since my undergrad years.

The second is “where you are planted,” by Evie Shockley. It is a poignant ghazal that feels like home, and whose final couplet feels like it came from my own heart:

i’ve never forgotten the charred bitter fruit of holiday’s poplars, nor will i :

it’s part of what makes me evie :  i grew up in the shadow of southern trees.

[Related:

The magazine that helped 1920s kids navigate racism (2021);

“On These I Stand” (1947) ]

Read past editions of the Culture Survey with Saahil Desai, Yasmin Tayag, Damon Beres, Julie Beck, Faith Hill, Derek Thompson, and Tom Nichols.

The Week Ahead The Late Americans, the author Brandon Taylor’s new novel about the coming-of-age—and artistic ambition—of a group of young adults in Iowa City (on sale Tuesday) What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel, in which the actor debunks popular myths about the food we eat (begins streaming Tuesday on Max) The Little Mermaid, the long-awaited live-action remake of the Disney animated classic (in theaters Friday) Essay Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: YouTube.

TV Isn’t About to Get Worse. It Already Is

By Caroline Framke

The moment the Hollywood writer’s strike became a possibility, some TV fans and reporters worried that shows were about to take a turn for the worse. Some predicted an era reminiscent of the 100-day strike in 2007–08: a parade of reruns, reliance on reality shows, and hastily lowered standards on-screen. But it’s way too late to be anticipating TV’s decline now. As streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock have gone from representing the entertainment industry’s Wild West to its inevitable future, television at large has embraced quantity over quality—a fact that striking Writers Guild of America members know better than anyone. The painful truth is that TV isn’t about to get worse. It’s already worse—and the quality might slip even further.

How many times have you watched a new show only to realize that an entire season has passed but barely anything has happened? How many times have you checked an episode’s duration and wondered why it’s doubled since the show started? How many times have you forgotten the details of a show hardly a week after you binged it? I have spent a decade watching as much television as possible for a living—including as chief TV critic at Variety from 2018 to 2022—and I’m here to say: It’s not just you. There is so much TV now, and the impact on storytelling has become unavoidable. The early years of streaming, which introduced shows such as Orange Is the New Black, The Handmaid’s Tale, and BoJack Horseman, felt like an exciting tasting menu. Today, we have an all-you-can-eat buffet that won’t let us stop eating long enough to breathe.

Read the full article.

Culture Break Suga of BTS’s world tour is pop subversion at its finest. The provocative optimism of Master Gardener My novel is a love letter my mother can’t read. When a hapless villain somehow takes down a presidency Fast & Furious and pretty stale The billionaires who are threatening democracy The defining emotion of modern life Writing in the ruins Jury Duty is terrific TV. It shouldn’t get another season. More from The Atlantic The most dangerous Democrat in Iowa Why outspoken women scare Trump Something weird is going on with melatonin. Photo Album Fadel Senna / AFP / Getty

Browse snapshots of a break-dancing championship in Morocco, rally racing in Portugal, and more in our editor’s selection of the week’s best photos.

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The former PM and his wife, who married in May 2021, already have two children aged three and two.