Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is unveiling her sweeping asylum reforms this afternoon. The changes will include UK visa bans for countries such as Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if their governments don’t start taking back illegal migrants; making refugee status temporary, with regular reviews to see if the applicant’s home country is safe for them to be returned; and allowing rejected asylum seekers only one appeal in the courts. Donald Trump has urged Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of the so-called Epstein files, in a sharp reversal of his previous position. Posting on social media ahead of tomorrow’s planned vote in the House, the US president said he had “nothing to hide”. A re-run of a landmark study which found that men have an unfair advantage in scientific careers has found the opposite is now true. In 2012, when science professors were sent identical CVs from either “John” or “Jennifer”, “John” was routinely deemed more hireable; in the new research, “Jennifer” came out on top.

Changing leader won’t help Labour

It’s easy to make the case for deposing Keir Starmer, says Fraser Nelson in The Times. He’s “a victim of his own bungling”, and Wes Streeting, the favourite to succeed him, “radiates the qualities” the PM lacks. But unlike the Tories, “for whom regicide is a form of relaxation”, Labour has always been reluctant to depose a bad leader. Besides, a change in leadership seldom works. Anyone installed after a “putsch” lacks the authority provided by an election win: cabinet rifts are harder to control; backbenchers harder to tame. And whoever’s in charge would face the same problem that has ensnared Starmer: “a structural inability to govern”.

Part of the issue is that the state has “grown out of all proportion to its usefulness” – the UK government spends twice what it did when Tony Blair entered No 10. But the bigger problem is the inability to change the system. Governments used to be held back by trade unions; “now, it’s lawyers”. The mountain of regulations and laws that need adhering to means pretty much any state project can be halted or delayed by activists seeking judicial reviews. This clogs everything up, from increasing our energy capacity to building more houses. Starmer thought the government’s “sclerosis” was down to Tory incompetence but he has instead discovered that “the system genuinely doesn’t work”. As long as that remains the case, it won’t matter who’s in charge. “Starmer or Streeting; Labour or Tory.” They’ll make as little progress as Reform UK has managed at the local authorities under its control. Unless Labour can find a way to reclaim power from the regulators and the courts, “no reshuffle or reboot or replacement will be able to save it”.

Patrick Maguire wrote the definitive book on the rise of Keir Starmer, entitled Get In. When questions arise about a sequel, says Tim Shipman in The Spectator, he has found that the title most often suggested by Labour sources is Fuck Off.

Kim Yong-nam, who has died aged 97, managed to remain a power behind the throne in North Korea for several decades, says The Daily Telegraph. The way he remained in favour – in a country noted for the “capriciousness and cruelty” of its ruling dynasty – was simple. “He never made his own opinions known,” says former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho. “He had no close allies or enemies. He never showed any creativity. He never put out a new policy. He only repeated what the Kim family had said before.” Another former diplomat put it more bluntly: “If Kim Il-sung was pointing to a wall and said there is a door, Kim Yong-nam would believe that and try to go through it.”

The “quiet desperation” simmering in China

Behind the orderliness of life in China, says Helen Gao in The New York Times, “a quiet desperation simmers”. Chinese people live with a strange paradox. Internationally, the country looks strong – it is America’s only great-power rival and promotes a global narrative of a “resilient nation united in the face of external challenges”. But here in China, despair about dimming economic and personal prospects is everywhere. This contrast between the confident state and its weary people is captured in a phrase you hear more and more: wai qiang, zhong gan. “Outwardly strong, inwardly brittle.”

A state crackdown on the private sector that began several years ago is widely blamed for nuking middle class livelihoods, while the government channels cash into industries it deems strategically important, like electric vehicles, solar panels and ships. Consumers, who have seen their net worth tank in an intractable housing crisis, aren’t spending. Youth unemployment has risen so much that the government decided to change its calculation methodology, and “even the new figure remains alarmingly high”. A spate of random knife attacks speaks to deteriorating mental health. Meanwhile, China’s chokehold on the global supply and processing of rare earths has caused air and soil pollution at home. In short, people are angry at being voiceless victims of Beijing’s “obsession with world power and beating the US”. And that sentiment will only grow – the government’s latest five-year strategy, announced last month, makes it clear the plan is to “double down on prioritising national power over the common good”. China has long thrived under an unspoken trade: improving living standards for political obedience. To many Chinese, the state has stopped delivering on its side of the bargain.

Here’s an incredible story from the Ukraine war, says Tom Newton Dunn in War & Peace. A wounded Ukrainian soldier was trapped behind enemy lines for 33 days. Drones had delivered supplies, but four attempts to rescue him had failed. “That’s when the 1st Separate Medical Battalion were called in.” They sent in an unmanned ground vehicle designed to pick up casualties – “essentially an armoured coffin on four off-road wheels”. The first two attempts failed. But on the third, under heavy drone fire and in a mission lasting six hours, the robot made it to the wounded soldier, who was able to clamber inside and be driven to safety. Watch a video here.

If you think grade inflation at British universities is bad, take a look at Harvard, says Roshan Fernandez in The Wall Street Journal. A recent internal investigation found that 60% of grades awarded to undergraduates are As, up from just 25% two decades ago. The report, which included recommendations to address the issue, naturally made the students terribly upset. One said she had been crying “the whole entire day”.

It’s Apple’s latest phone accessory, says Ellie Muir in The Independent: the iPhone Pocket. Made in collaboration with the Japanese brand Issey Miyake, the brightly coloured “designer sock” comes in a “short” and “long” version costing a whopping £140 and £220 respectively. While the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Eva Longoria and Gal Gadot have all been spotted using the natty knitwear, others are less sure. One Reddit user noted that it looks “easier to pick than a regular pocket”; others have compared it to the mankini worn by Sacha Baron-Cohen in Borat.