Spanish actor Javier Bardem has backed a campaign to boycott Adidas after the brand featured a former Israeli soldier in an advertising campaign.

An Israeli campaign for the firm’s single-shoe service featured amputee Shalev Biton trying on an Adidas trainer and then going running in it. He also appeared on a series of posters displayed in Adidas stores across the country.

Biton lost his leg while serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 2021, when Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians, including 71 children, and injured thousands more.

In response to the advert, critics noted that Israel has created more than 5,000 Palestinian amputees throughout its genocide in Gaza. The strip now has more child amputees per capita than anywhere else in the world.

Bardem shared several posts on social media calling for a boycott of the brand. US-Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa was also among those calling for a boycott.

Stephanie Westbrook, a coordinator for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, told Al Jazeera: “This isn’t Adidas being tone deaf or insensitive; it is an absolute affront to the Palestinians who have lost their loved ones, killed by Israel, and who have lost their limbs.”

An Adidas spokesperson said: “We recognise that an image used in a recent local activation by the local team has raised concerns and strong reactions. It was never our intent to cause offence and we apologise for anyone affected.”

Adidas has long been the subject of boycott calls, having previously sponsored Israeli football teams playing in illegal settlements.

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Masked far right thugs gathered in Portsmouth to intimidate a group of asylum seekers last night, organised by a close connection of Tommy Robinson. 

Plus: A shock win for the AfD in German elections has rattled the incumbents, we speak to a climate protestor who helped organise the action at the Reform conference & we stand in solidarity with a great British pint!

With Michael Walker, Ash Sarkar & Isabella Weber.

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CHANCELLOR John Healey was warned against pinning hopes for economic growth on deregulation following his first major speech since taking over the Treasury today.

He promised to “draw a line” under rising costs for businesses and end legal blockages to building infrastructure, while declining to rule out tax rises in next month’s Budget.

Speaking in Coventry, he said: “I dedicate myself to this mission as Chancellor to make Great Britain Growth Britain again with more investment, more innovation, and more jobs.

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THE INDIAN Workers’ Association (IWA) slammed the Central Gurdwara in London today for secretly hosting the head of a far-right paramilitary organisation.

A visit from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat at the historic Sikh place of worship in west London sparked a backlash from community organisations.

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Uber has teamed up with labour unions in two US states to fight off competition from driverless car companies.

The company is working with unions in Washington and New Jersey, the Financial Times reported, as it pushes for “hybrid networks” that would require human drivers to be seated in robotaxis. 

The move comes as the race to expand autonomous cars intensifies. Uber has just launched 15 self-driving cars with British firm Wayve in London, giving it an early lead over future rivals. 

But in the US, Uber is facing competition from Google-owned Waymo, which operates robotaxis in 14 cities. Self-driving cars can be hired on Uber in just four. 

New alliances between Uber and unions mark a departure for the ride-hailing tech firm, which spent years blocking attempts to unionise among its drivers. In Seattle, the company repeatedly challenged laws designed to give drivers collective bargaining rights. 

Following the implementation of new laws in California, Uber also spent $59 million lobbying for its overturn so that it wouldn’t have to pay drivers the minimum wage. 

But with driverless cars threatening to cut Uber and its drivers out of the market, company president Andrew MacDonald says its approach to worker protections has “changed”. 

“Today, we partner with cities instead of confronting them,” he wrote on LinkedIn in May. “We’ve struck dozens of deals with labour groups for worker protections, and we work alongside hundreds of thousands of taxi drivers around the world.”

He acknowledged that Uber’s newfound interest in protecting drivers “might feel ironic”.

Despite pushing for stronger regulations, Uber is still investing heavily in the emerging technology. Last week, Uber announced 3,000 job cuts to redirect funds towards investment in future opportunities, including robotaxis. 

Manny Pastreich, the president of US union 32BJ SEIU, told the Financial Times: “Where Uber for their own strategic reason is opposing deployments, we’ll take it. Am I going to depend on that? No. I’m not.”

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CAMPAIGNERS hailed a “historic moment” as Jamaica filed a petition for slavery reparations to King Charles today.

A delegation of government representatives and legal experts from the Caribbean island travelled to London asking the King to refer three questions about transatlantic chattel slavery to the judicial committee of the Privy Council, which remains the former British colony’s highest court of appeal.

Human rights campaigner Zita Holbourne said the petition is “indeed a historical moment in the ongoing campaign for reparations.

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KEVIN PIETERSEN will rejoin England’s ranks after accepting a white-ball coaching role — a dozen years on from his international playing career ending in controversial fashion.

The former England captain has been appointed as a specialist mentor to the ODI and T20 teams in the build-up to next year’s 50-over World Cup in southern Africa and he will get stuck into his new role in a limited-overs series against Sri Lanka from next week.

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As Naomi Osaka parades her latest line of flamboyant outfits in New York, LINDA PENTZ GUNTER wonders what the notoriously eccentric tennis designer would have made of it all

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BUS drivers have won a groundbreaking agreement after striking over hot weather conditions, Unite announced today.

Around 1,500 Union members at Arriva North London walked out last month over the dispute.

They were poised to strike again today but the action was called off after they voted to accept a new deal when Arriva and Transport for London confirmed they will fit air conditioning to Arriva London North buses by May next year.

They will also no longer be expected to “carry on and sweat it out” if air-conditioning is not working on a diesel or hybrid bus.

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Speaking optimistically, it’s been a mixed bag for the far right this weekend. Speaking realistically, they’re perhaps this Monday morning more emboldened than ever. Yes, Reform UK is looking battered by toe-curling undercover footage of key officers allegedly displaying a healthy appetite for illegal overseas donations. But over in Germany, its counterpart Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) – also no stranger to dodgy foreign funds – has won big time in a state election in the country’s east.

Meanwhile, a masked, black-clad vigilante group took to the streets of Dover on Saturday, blocking traffic, chanting “stop the boats” and pledging England til death. This morning, they turned up in Portsmouth too. 

In the relatively small eastern-German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the country’s AfD has won its biggest victory yet. For the first time since the reign of the Nazis, a far-right party looks set to take control of one of the German Federation’s states. ‘Federation’ is important here: Germany’s national political structure gives great power to state governments, including control over policing, culture and education.

The AfD is already the second largest party in Germany’s federal government, where it won 125 of 650 parliamentary seats last year, doubling its power on its previous general election result. The same has now happened in Saxony-Anhalt, except the doubling this time means 44% of the vote and power very close to hand. 

Although it has nothing to do with the state’s name, in German the word ‘Anhalt’ means, in some contexts, a clue. Like I say, Saxony-Anhalt is small, representing only around 2.2 million of the country’s 84 million inhabitants. But of those who could vote in this election – and the turnout was an extraordinary 77.8% – the hint is in the electoral breakdown. Women, young people, folk of all educational levels, whether rich or poor, voted in extraordinary numbers for the far-right.       

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s photogenic leader in the state, can take much of the credit. With almost 900k followers on TikTok, he’s mastered the Mamdani: big eyes, great smile, keep it local and talk directly to the people. It’s long been a maxim of some parts of the left that social media cool, as well as women and young people as a broad demographic, are inherently theirs. This election shows the emptiness of that approach, as well as the AfD’s success in concealing its connections to right-wing extremism in Germany. 

The AfD’s victory comes at great expense to the country’s governing party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), which leads the country in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). In this state election, the CDU saw its vote halved, while its coalition with the Greens and SPD lost power. Germany’s unpopular chancellor, the CDU’s Friedrich Merz, is said to be holding a crisis meeting this morning as voices internal to his party calling for him to be replaced grow louder. 

But the AfD’s victory can’t simply be explained by online vibes nor hostility to the CDU, either. Many voters in the state will have seen the party’s policy slate, and said yes please. The AfD’s promises include a pledge to limit women’s reproductive rights, mass deport immigrants and establish so-called “citizen patrols”, seen by some as street militias, as a part of the state’s security apparatus.  

And while the party has tried to cleanse itself of its more extremist elements, prominent members have used Nazi slogans, diminished the significance of the Nazi dictatorship, and allegedly joined with neo-Nazis to plan the remigration on non-German citizens. 

While the AfD has won this election, it’s still three seats short of the majority of state-parliamentary seats needed to govern single-handedly. Until now, the AfD has been kept out of power in states like Thuringia, where it won the state election (though much less decisively) in 2024. There, the informal ‘firewall’ agreement between all the country’s other parties to prevent a far-right party holding power kicked in, causing the CDU and the SPD to enter government with the much smaller Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

In Saxony-Anhalt, the left-conservative BSW – formed by former Die Linke (the Left) party MP Sahra Wagenknecht – has won five seats. It’s also the only national party that hasn’t ruled out governing with the AfD. Following this weekend’s election, it said it was open to governing with the AfD but only if a neutral premiere is chosen, while ruling out entering a coalition with the CDU. 

The AfD, though, will likely go it alone. The math isn’t mathing for a ruling firewall coalition of other parties without the BSW, and Siegmund has said he’s prepared to call fresh elections to take majority power in the state.   

It’s too soon to say whether the AfD’s victory portends a wider transformation of Germany’s political culture. Governing, after all, is hard, and keeping populist promises even harder. Some, though, are celebrating, with US president Donald Trump posting the election results of a relatively obscure German state on Truth Social last night.

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The far-right could take control of a German state for the first time since World War 2, after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday.

The party, which has threatened mass deportations and echoed Nazi propaganda, secured 43.8% of the vote, well ahead of the 17.2% won by the Christian Democratic Union, which is part of Germany’s ruling coalition.

But it is not yet certain that the AfD will be able to govern; it fell short of the absolute majority needed to run the state on its own, and some parties have ruled out going into any form of partnership.  

​The AfD, which is leading in national polls, first won a state election in 2024 in Thuringia, but it only secured a third of the vote, meaning opposition parties were able to govern by coalition.  

​Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt, has raised the prospect of a new election to secure an absolute majority,  but has also said he is willing to work with individual MPs or parties.

“If necessary there’ll just be new elections, then we’d just get 50 or 55%,” he told public-service broadcaster ZDF.

Saxony-Anhalt, in the country’s east, has a population of around 2.1 million.  

Based on preliminary results, the AfD will take 39 of the state parliament’s 83 seats, meaning it would need the support of at least three more MPs to govern.

The AfD has been accused of echoing Nazi propaganda on multiple occasions. In 2018 then-leader Alexander Gauland was accused by historians of paraphrasing one of Hitler’s speeches in an opinion piece for a rightwing newspaper.

The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, meanwhile, has attacked the Bauhaus school of design, calling it an “aberration of modernism”. The modern art school was forced to close in 1933 by the Nazis.  

​Isabella M Weber, author of Anti-Fascist Economics, blamed the AfD’s victory on Sunday on the failure of mainstream parties to build an economy for working people.

“Democratic parties have lost the working class,” she wrote on X. “In Saxony-Anhalt, a staggering 61% of workers voted for the rightwing extremist AfD. We need an anti-fascist economics to win workers back. And we need it now.”

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BUSES are being brought under public control in Liverpool City Region in a move PM Andy Burnham hailed as “putting power in the hands of communities.”

The government pledged to provide £86.3 million of funding until 2029 and a share of a £3m pot to help mayors take control of their services.

The money will give Liverpool City Region’s combined authority more power over route planning, branding and fares as well as more frequent journeys and better connections for passengers, the Department for Transport said.

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MINISTERS aren’t doing enough to help roll out clean energy infrastructure and keep power prices under control, said a Prospect union report today.

It set out a raft of measures on how PM Andy Burnham should put his vow for greater public control of the utilities into practice.

It said that the government should take direct responsibility for building grid-scale battery storage, rather than leaving this to the private sector.

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EVEN improved palliative care would not stop legal assisted suicide being a threat to the disabled and people in poverty, a disability rights campaigner warned today.

Ipsos polling this week found 34 per cent of the public feel assisted dying should only be legalised if accompanied by additional investment in end-of-life care.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has suggested he believes improved palliative care should come before any move to legalise assisted suicide. The issue returns to the Commons this week.

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Brian Fallon
Not Bad For New Jersey
(Lesser Known)
★★★★☆

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CAPTAIN Charlie Dean praised clinical England after they wrapped up a series clean sweep against Ireland at the weekend.

Sophia Dunkley scored a century as England made 291 in the third one-day international at Worcester, and Ireland could only limp to 177 all out in response.

England lost their final six wickets for only 31 runs but they quickly established control with the ball and dismissed Ireland with more than five overs remaining.

Dean told Sky Sports: “It was a really good day... Dunks was phenomenal — we probably left a few runs out there.

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ANTI-RACISTS have told of their disbelief that no arrests were made when hundreds of “modern blackshirts,” their faces covered, blocked the Port of Dover at the weekend.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick criticised the so-called “Stop the Boats” protesters yesterday, who marched through the Kent town on Saturday morning, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” and “Stop the boats,” with dozens of police officers in their wake.

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NIGEL FARAGE’S self-styled image as a pint-drinking bloke clashes harshly with the footage of him by undercover activists swilling champagne, shucking oysters and discussing how to facilitate foreign donations contrary to electoral rules.

The footage exposes perfectly the true face of the man and Reform UK as a party.

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But campaigners say more must be done 

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AI is set to take all of our jobs. It will irrevocably transform our relationships – and it might even kill us all. These are some of the big claims made about artificial intelligence today. And they are claims that on Novara, we take seriously. This week’s Downstream guest thinks that giving weight to those grand concerns is a mistake. He believes that by talking up the possibility that AI could replace significant amounts of labour – or develop an agency of its own – only serves to exaggerate the capacity of AI – and therefore just helps tech CEOs drive more investors to buy their already overpriced stocks.

Cory Doctorow is a writer and activist – who’s written 36 books – spanning non-fiction and science fiction. He famously coined the term “ensh*ttification” to describe the modern trajectory of the internet. And he has a new book on AI – it’s called the “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI”. As Aaron Bastani takes time off on paternity leave, Michael Walker, host of Novara Live, sat down with Cory to ask one of the world’s leading tech writers his burning questions about AI.

Is Cory surprised at the speed of AI’s so-called “evolution”? What does the latest AI “Hugging Face” tell us about AI? Does the AI presented to us in 2026 present a threat to life on Earth, or is that just hype? Is it really intelligent, or just a simulacrum of intelligence? Does it matter?

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Joint Council for the Welfare of Migrants hits back as Farage said he would 'take back control of the Channel’

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Some thinkers and authors on the right are openly discussing the possibility that the historically successful party of the British ruling class may be exhausted, writes KEITH FLETT

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AINSLEY MAITLAND-NILES scored a dream stoppage-time equaliser on his Everton debut to earn a 2-2 draw against Manchester United and lift the mood at the end of a difficult week.

Deadline day ended in disappointment for fans of both clubs but the Toffees’ inaction was particularly concerning given Tuesday’s botched business left them with a threadbare squad and an unhappy manager.

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MARCEL REED threw for 233 yards and two touchdowns in just over three-quarters to help No. 8 Texas A&M roll to a 50-0 win over Missouri State on Saturday night.

Reed was replaced by Brady Hart with about 13 minutes left and the Aggies up 40-0.

Isaiah Horton, a transfer who played at Miami and Alabama, had four receptions for 76 yards. His first catch as an Aggie was a 15-yard grab for a touchdown on the opening possession.

“When we’re focused and urgent we’re the best team in the country,” Horton said. “So we just have to continue to work.”

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A JAMAICAN politician has asked why her country should not seek slavery reparations when Britain was still paying off debt linked to slave-owner compensation just 11 years ago.

A delegation from the Caribbean island will file a petition asking the King to refer three questions about transatlantic chattel slavery to the judicial committee of the Privy Council, which remains the former British colony’s highest court of appeal, on Monday.

Delegation members also have a meeting with the British Museum to discuss the repatriation of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica.

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