Jimmy Lai's lawyers have accused China of torturing a former democracy activist to make him confess to a so-called crime, and have asked the UN special rapporteur on torture to take some sort of action.

I can easily believe that China did this, but I don't understand why the article describes this as an "appeal" to the rapporteur. As far as I know, neither that rapporteur nor the UN as a whole has any power to overturn a Chinese court ruling. Chinese courts take their orders from the Chinese state.

Musk is retaliating against the National Labor Relations Board (for enforcing labor laws) by suing to abolish the National Labor Relations Board.

I wish this were an exaggeration, but it's not. With our partisan Supreme Court it might actually succeed.

*US Department of Justice sues Texas over new state immigration law … allowing police to [arrest] people suspected of crossing the US border without authorization.*

Investigating ways to collect PFAS from waste water (or drinking water) and eventually destroy them.

Starmer reinforced his commitment to let the environment die rather than borrow money to save it.

He is attacking a straw man, which is the idea of getting those funds by borrowing. The real alternative, to get it by taxing the rich, he does not even mention.

The only way to make Starmer Labour prioritize anyone but the rich is to have a Green or Socialist party to keep mentioning it every day.