Thugs in uniform in Copenhagen, Denmark, have viciously attacked peaceful protestors at the offices of criminal shipping giant Maersk. In a video posted on the Arbejderen Instagram account on 14 May, heavily armoured goons can be seen smashing their batons into people lying in the foetal position.

The cowards also rely on dogs to terrorise the anti-genocide campaigners who clearly pose no threat. The legal aid group Ulydig Retshjælp (Disobedient Legal Aid) said:

There are reports of several broken bones and huge bruises after being manhandled by the Danish police officers who quickly arrived at the scene both in uniform and in plain clothes.

The protest formed part of the Mask Off Maersk campaign. Their target is the genocide-enabling Danish shipping and logistics company which, as Mask Off Maersk writes on its website, is:

involved in all aspects of the supply chain of genocide — bringing military cargo to arms companies for assembly and shipping cargo to Israel from the US.

Maersk: a key facilitator of genocide

The company is heavily involved in the supply chain for:

…the Namer Armored Personnel Carrier (APC-MT883), which has been used extensively in the ongoing aggression against Gaza. Another supply chain is that of the Oshkosh Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, with Maersk helping fulfill part of the supply chain related to a $159 million foreign military sale to Israel from the U.S. Department of Defense.

It also has a key role in shipping parts for the F-35 warplane that has been the backbone of the Zionist entity’s mass murder across West Asia. Disobedient Legal Aid say Maersk is:

…single-handedly responsible for the greatest number of weapons shipment to the Israeli apartheid state.

The protestors in Copenhagen were attempting to block the front doors to the company headquarters. Activists had previously staged a spectacular action in 2025, in which up to 1000 people burst through security lines to take over the premises. On this occasion, it seems a much smaller group was present, but that didn’t stop massive police over-reaction. From Arbejderen:

One might almost believe that the police were put on this earth to defend capital interests; it was impressively fast how they managed to summon up to 100 officers to remove the peaceful activists who had reached the entrance and the square, while others stood on the pavement.

It is the defence of capital that police were created for, and that remains their purpose today. If they actually cared about upholding the law, they’d have entered the Maersk offices a long time ago and hauled all their executives off to the cells for their participation in war crimes. Instead, such criminals remain unmolested, while those fighting to uphold the Genocide Convention their own government signed are beaten senseless.

It isn’t far-fetched for corporate reprobates to be dragged into the dock, if the political will exists. The Spanish government has been better than most in their stance towards the ‘Israel’ land theft project, and put steel executives before a judge for trading with the Tel Aviv terrorists.

Law group says cops’ “extreme violence” was illegal

Arbejderen continued:

The officers didn’t hold back. Even Arbejderen – a journalist with a visible press pass – first felt the baton and later tasted the tarmac while I attempted to cover how 20 activists were zip-tied and lined up before being driven to the station.

Denmark is doing its bit to break down the facade of Scandinavian countries being upholders of human rights. As Jacobin reported in June 2025:

When asked whether Denmark would assist in evacuating any of the 4,500 Gazan children in urgent need of medical treatment, the Danish government refused — citing an assessment by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), which deemed medical evacuations of children from Gaza a potential security risk. To date, this assessment remains unpublished and unexplained.

The country has not yet recognised Palestine, lagging even behind Britain, with the latter’s appalling record on assisting genocide.

You wouldn’t need to be an expert in law to know it, but Disobedient Legal Aid say the:

…acts of extreme violence committed by the police, such as the use of batons, and severely stressed out dogs against the demonstrators, is clearly illegal.

They are encouraging anyone involved to document injuries and report them to the organisation for potential legal action against the brutes in uniform doing ‘Israel’s’ bidding. The Mask Off Maersk campaign encourages email campaigns, phone jams and leafleting to pile pressure on this key cog in the machinery of genocide.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

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Reports by Greyhound Action Ireland (GAI) have revealed the shocking level of death generated by the murderous greyhound racing industry in Ireland. The campaigners show that:

3,300 (57%) of the racing greyhounds born in 2021 remaining on the island of Ireland and no longer racing are dead.

The oldest of those dogs would be five and a half, the youngest four and a half.

For those born in the following year, the figures are even more disgraceful:

2,660 (74%) of the racing greyhounds born in 2022 remaining on the island of Ireland and no longer racing are dead.

The oldest of those dogs would be four and a half, the youngest three and a half.

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Greyhounds typically have a life expectancy of around 14 years. The report follows questions GAI submitted to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, enquiring about the status of non-coursing greyhounds for each year.

Quoted by fellow campaigners Ban Blood Sports, GAI spokesperson Nuala Donlon said:

The Irish state is essentially sponsoring the killing of dogs on an industrial scale. This would not be tolerated were it happening to any other breed of dog. It should not be tolerated in the case of greyhounds.

Greyhounds facing cruelty

The sponsoring Donlon refers to is the over €386 million robbed from Irish taxpayers since 2001 to pay for this barbarism. GAI report how the supposed economic benefits of this scrounging have been greatly exaggerated by dodgy accounting by the sport’s administrator Rásaíocht Con Éireann (Greyhound Racing Ireland).

The murderers claimed their killing spree dressed up as a ‘sport’ is:

…worth [€]132 million annually to the Irish economy, and sustains 4,500 full-time and part-time jobs.

However, Preferred Results Consultancy Company saw through this shit, and determined that there were “serious flaws” in Greyhound Racing Ireland’s (GRI) claims. Their analysis showed that GRI:

…exaggerated the value of the industry to the economy by €68 million (238%).

Dogs in the Six Counties (outside GRI jurisdiction) were included, along with those already exported outside Ireland.

GRI’s fuckery with figures extends to their traceability system, introduced by GRI to track dogs following an RTÉ documentary in 2019 that revealed:

…as many as 6,000 dogs were being culled each year for not being fast enough.

As the Irish Examiner points out, this system was:

…meant to bring transparency to the entire industry but campaigners now say the statistics are potentially meaningless.

GRI did not dispute the enormous death toll figures, however.

The Irish Examiner report revealed an enormous discrepancy of 1,613 for 2021 between its own race management system and its Rásaíocht Con Éireann’s Traceability System (RCETS). This is for numbers of greyhounds raced or trialled throughout the calendar year.

Dodgy tracking system keeps murky business opaque

The two systems are not integrated, and GRI did not respond to the Examiner’s questions on why this was the case. RCETS also relies on greyhound owners self-reporting on the current status of their dog(s). Together, this picture looks like something designed to maintain opacity around the horrific so-called sport, concealing the cruelty inherent to it.

GAI’s Donlon said:

The decision not to use that data [from the race management system] to update or validate RCETS was not a technical limitation, it was a design choice.

869 dogs have lost their lives during races in the last six years. Then there’s the figures for what the industry grotesquely refers to as ‘wastage’. The RTÉ documentary used a report that showed:

5,987 greyhounds which were available to race were culled each year. The reasons for the cull were broken down as follows – “those who failed to produce qualifying times”(2,673); “failure to produce desired entry level times” (1,989) and an “unacceptable decline in performance” (1,326).

Dogs have been found in mass graves, having been shot in the head or mutilated. Other horror stories exist, such as the case of:

…a pregnant greyhound, who had been at the point of giving birth, [that] was brutally killed and dumped in a cemetery in Clonmel. The Irish Mirror reported that a woman visiting her mother’s grave at St Patrick’s cemetery in the town was shocked to discover the animal “beaten to death”.

The massive death figures revealed by Greyhound Action Ireland show the continued murderous nature of an industry that claims to have cleaned up its act. As Nuala Donlon says, the recent stats show the opposite is true:

The industry’s own figures prove beyond doubt that nothing has changed in Irish greyhound racing – thousands of young dogs are still being killed every year!

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

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On Wednesday, May 13, singer Nancy Sinatra joined the growing list of celebrities urging mask-wearing to prevent the spread of airborne pathogens.

Her post on X, formerly Twitter, read:

Unsolicited advice:
Wear a mask in public places.#maskup

— Nancy Sinatra (@NancySinatra) May 13, 2026

Sinatra’s post follows other recent examples of celebrities wearing masks or publicly speaking about the reasons they continue to take COVID precautions.

Tom Hanks

In October 2025, actor Tom Hanks was photographed wearing a high-filtration mask on the New York subway.

Hanks, along with his wife, actor and singer Rita Wilson, were among the first major celebrities to publicly disclose a COVID-19 diagnosis in March 2020.

He later addressed the mask during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, describing the choice as a health precaution.

I’m doing a play right now so I cannot get sick… I’ve had COVID enough in my life, I don’t need to do that again. So I’m wearing this for health reasons.

Serj Tankian

In April, Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist of System of a Down, was photographed wearing a KN95 mask while signing autographs at his Kavat Coffee venue.

The photo was shared by the World Health Network and covered by Nu Metal Agenda. The magazine noted that, six months earlier, Tankian was photographed wearing a mask while signing autographs.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

In September 2025, actor Sarah Michelle Gellar, best known for starring in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, shared a behind-the-scenes Instagram carousel from the set of the planned Buffy reboot. One image showed her wearing a high-filtration respirator mask.

The photo followed Gellar’s 2022 public account of a serious course of COVID.

She wrote on her Instagram Story:

After two and a half years COVID finally got me. Thankfully I’m vaccinated and boosted. But to those out there that say ‘it’s just a cold’ … maybe for some lucky people it is. But for this (relatively) young fit person, who has struggled with asthma and lung issues her entire life, that is not my experience.

Gellar continued:

Even with therapeutics and all my protocols it’s been tough. I know I’m on the road to recovery, but it’s certainly not been an easy road … To quote a friend of mine – ‘I will wear a mask in my shower if that means I don’t get this again.

Morgan Fairchild

There are also celebrities who have consistently supported mask wearing and COVID awareness.

Morgan Fairchild, the veteran television actor known for Flamingo Road, Falcon Crest, Friends, and General Hospital, has been a vocal advocate of mask wearing.

After the death of her longtime partner Mark Seiler in 2023, Fairchild wrote that Seiler had Parkinson’s disease, but that Long COVID, after a third infection, seemed to have taken his life:

Hold your loved ones close and please consider wearing a mask.

Matt McGorry

Matt McGorry, the actor and activist known for Orange Is the New Black and How to Get Away with Murder, has spoken publicly about living with Long COVID after two COVID infections.

He has described debilitating fatigue, dysautonomia, depression, Raynaud’s disease and brain fog, while urging people to wear masks in shared essential spaces. He has also warned that Long COVID can affect multiple organ systems and that avoiding or reducing repeat infections is central to prevention.

Wil Wheaton

Actor and writer Wil Wheaton, best known for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stand by Me, has also been public about mask wearing. In 2023, Wheaton wrote that he continued to mask in crowds and indoor spaces because, since making that choice, he had avoided colds, flu, and COVID.

That changed in 2025, when he said he caught COVID after Rose City Comic Con.

Hey friends, bad news. I am extremely disappointed that I am not able to sit down with @debbiegibson tonight to talk about her memoir. I’ve been looking forward to this for months, but I’m in no condition to be on stage or in public, because after being so careful for so long, I let my guard down at Rose city comic con last weekend, and I caught Covid for the first time.

Wheaton continued:

Wow Covid sucks. It sucks so much. Do whatever you can to prevent yourself from catching it.

I’m so annoyed, because it was so avoidable, and I’m extra pissed at myself for allowing the people who never stopped complaining about my choice to continue masking to influence my decisions about my health and my family’s health. Never again.

To everyone who was looking forward to seeing us chat tonight, I’m so sorry that I can’t be there. Knowing Debbie like I do, though, I know that she’s going to give you a magical show.

Stay healthy everyone.

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Andes hantavirus

The visibility around celebrity mask-wearing is occurring during the Andes hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged cruise ship. The outbreak was first reported on May 2, after severe respiratory illness cases were identified aboard the ship. The vessel had 147 people on board, including 88 passengers and 59 crew members, and had departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that, as of May 13, the outbreak had reached 11 reported cases among passengers, including three deaths. WHO’s latest formal count listed eight laboratory-confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case still undergoing testing. All confirmed cases were Andes virus infections.

Several passengers have required hospital care. Four patients were hospitalized as of May 8: one in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa; two in the Netherlands; and one in Zurich, Switzerland. A French passenger is critically ill in Paris and receiving life support, while a Spanish passenger who tested positive was quarantined at Gómez Ulla Central Defence Hospital in Madrid.

In the United States, the CDC has reported that: 18 passengers from the cruise were being monitored at US medical facilities; 16 at the University of Nebraska Medical Center; and two in Atlanta, including one person experiencing symptoms. A total of 41 people in the United States are being monitored for possible exposure.

Andes virus is an RNA orthohantavirus driven by infection of the endothelium, the lining of the blood vessels, especially in the lung microvasculature. The WHO reports that case fatality for hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas can reach 40% to 50%. Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to spread person to person.

Airborne transmission occurs through respiratory secretions, especially in the early, or prodromal phase, before the onset of cardiopulmonary symptoms, when patients may still be interacting with others. Andes virus infects the cells lining the respiratory tract. Those infected cells then release the virus back into the airway, so it is incorporated into the fluid particles people generate when they breathe, talk, cough or exhale.

This is supported by the weight of research. A 2022 systematic review of 22 studies found evidence for person-to-person transmission of Andes hantavirus. A Chilean pathology study found Andes virus in alveolar epithelial cells, airway macrophages and salivary glands, concluding that these findings support respiratory person-to-person transmission. Argentine sequencing studies documented person-to-person transmission, including a 2014 cluster confirmed by viral sequencing, concluding that spread likely occurred around the early/prodromal period.

Like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, Andes virus is an endothelial infection spread through airborne transmission. For this reason, celebrities like Nancy Sinatra calling for mask wearing during the Andes virus outbreak shows why airborne infection precautions remains essential. When public health communication about infectious disease remains contested, celebrity mask wearing helps normalize prevention.

Featured image via X

By Protect the Heart of the Arts

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Liverpool’s title defence under Arne Slot has collapsed into a season of frustration: boos at Anfield, creativity drained, and a squad riddled with injuries and set-piece failures. The supporters are restless, and they have many reasons to be.

Arne Slot didn’t duck the reaction after the Chelsea draw; he admitted he heard the boos and insisted he knows what needs changing. “I know what we need to get that done,” he said, adding he’s “100 per cent convinced we will be a different team next season” if the summer goes to plan.

That’s a start, accountability matters but words only buy time. Slot must translate intent into visible, immediate action on three fronts: defend set pieces, restore attacking identity, and get the recruitment right.

Arne Slot overseeing slump

Liverpool have been punished repeatedly from set plays this season, 18 goals conceded from set pieces is a glaring structural failure. That’s not a one-off; it’s a recurring pattern that undermines confidence and invites pressure. Fixing it requires a forensic coaching reset: dedicated set-piece drills, clearer marking responsibilities, and a defensive leadership voice on the pitch.

If Slot wants to silence the crowd quickly, he needs to make Anfield a fortress again. Especially on dead-ball situations. Clean sheets buy patience.

Fans are bored because the team is predictable and low on chances. Liverpool’s expected-goals rank is the worst in a decade. And, the problem isn’t just finishing, it’s creating. Slot’s forwards have been starved of quality service and movement; the new attacking signings have barely had time together, with Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz, and Alexander Isak combining for only 119 minutes this season. That lack of cohesion has to be addressed tactically and practically.

If there is a short-term solution, it will be, free up the front line with clearer patterns, quicker transitions, and more aggressive positional rotations. Long-term solutions will be assessed at the end of the season, but as a minimum a preseason that builds chemistry, not just fitness.

Targeted changes

Last summer’s spending was huge, but injuries and mismatches have left gaps. Jamie Carragher’s blunt prescription, a right winger, a right back and a central midfielder, is a useful shopping list: targeted, not wholesale. Slot and sporting director Richard Hughes must prioritise quality over quantity and buy players who fit the system and the Premier League’s physical demands.

Crucially, they can’t do a complete rebuild and alter the entire identity. Keep the best of what won the title and plug the holes that made the team “easy to play against,” as pundits have put it.

Fans want to see momentum. That means clear, measurable steps: improved set-piece record in pre-season friendlies, a visible tactical tweak in the first competitive game, and early transfer moves that signal intent. Champions League qualification is non-negotiable, it funds the rebuild and calms nerves. Slot must make the first two matches after the break feel like a reset, not a continuation of decline.

Uphill battle

The reality is, the boo’s are a symptom, not the disease. Slot’s words, that he knows what’s wrong and how to fix it, are necessary but not sufficient.

It’s okay to talk the talk, his team has far from walked the walk this season.

To win fans back he needs rapid, tangible improvements in defence, creativity and recruitment, plus a summer that turns stop-gap fixes into a coherent plan. If he delivers that, the noise will fade. If he doesn’t, patience is already wearing thin. He won’t be coaching Liverpool FC if this continues.

Featured image via the Canary

By Faz Ali

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Georgia Democrats are worried their front-runner will fumble a “once in a generation” chance to win the governor’s mansion this year.

Keisha Lance Bottoms has what should be an enviable résumé: former judge, city council member, mayor of Atlanta and senior White House adviser. She’s dominating public polling in the primary, bolstered by high name recognition in the Atlanta metro area.

But a third of the Democratic electorate remains undecided, and her most high-profile endorsement is from former President Joe Biden, who left office deeply unpopular among Americans.

The wariness from Georgia Democrats stems from a simmering concern about Bottoms’ ability to win a general election, conversations with more than a half-dozen strategists and officials revealed. They warn that the crown jewel of Bottoms’ work experience — leading the state’s biggest city — will be a major drag to her campaign. Her tenure was marked by turmoil as Atlanta, like other major cities at the time, grappled with the onset of the pandemic, social unrest and spikes in crime.

Now, they worry, Bottoms could upend their best opportunity to flip the governorship for the first time in two decades.

“Keisha, because she’s so strongly identified with the city of Atlanta, obviously faces a very high hurdle,” said Howard Franklin, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist who is unaffiliated in the primary, but briefly worked for one of Bottoms’ competitors in 2013. “I don’t think there’s anybody who’s paying attention to this race who thinks that Republicans are anything less than prepared to criticize and to pile on to the criticism of the four years that she was in office.”

The Democrats interviewed, some of whom were granted anonymity to speak openly about the primary, fear her record will be easily caricatured by Republicans in the general election, leaving her vulnerable to attacks on issues like public safety.

“The Republicans will eat her for lunch. The Republicans are begging us to nominate her,” said one longtime Democratic strategist unaffiliated in the race. “If she’s at the top of the ticket, the whole ticket loses. If she’s not … we can sweep it. The stakes are that high.”

TaNisha Cameron, a spokesperson for Bottoms’ campaign, dismissed the concerns as political hand-wringing and said the Democrat is focused on “standing up to Donald Trump’s candidate for governor.”

“Political insiders have underestimated Keisha Lance Bottoms her entire career, and she has constantly proven them wrong by winning elections and beating their hand-picked candidates. Keisha is leading in the polls in both the primary and general election because voters like her vision for Georgia’s future and her record of delivering for the people of Atlanta,” Cameron said in a statement, going on to highlight how Bottoms attracted nine Fortune 500 companies to Atlanta while in office and left the city with a $180 million budget surplus.

Central to Bottoms’ pitch to voters is a pledge to expand Medicaid in Georgia and guarantee universal pre-K statewide. In mid-May, just a few weeks after the Supreme Court significantly limited the power of the Voting Rights Act, Bottoms released a comprehensive plan to protect access to the ballot in Georgia.

This could be the Democratic Party’s last shot in a generation to grasp all the levers of political power in Georgia. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is set to redraw the state’s congressional and state legislative districts ahead of 2028. And as President Donald Trump revives personal grievances about the 2020 election, the leading GOP gubernatorial candidates are vocal election deniers who continue to sow doubt about Georgia’s voting systems in a state that will be central to the 2028 presidential race.

Each of Bottoms’ Democratic primary opponents is running in their own loosely defined lanes: former DeKalb County executive Michael Thurmond as the steady hand with experience in statewide office, former state Sen. Jason Esteves as the progressive next-generation leader, and Republican-turned-Democrat Geoff Duncan as a moderate trying to appeal to voters in the center.

But those three contenders for runner-up have found themselves in a near statistical tie for second place for months. So far, they’re collectively holding Bottoms below the 50 percent threshold that she would need to win the race outright and advance to the general election.

“It’s unfortunate right now, but in the state of Georgia versus what we saw in 2018 with Stacey Abrams, or what we saw with Warnock — we’re missing the light,” said Cobb County Democratic Chair Essence Johnson, who’s staying neutral in the primary. “We don’t have a true, strong light, because there’s so many differences. It’s great, because that shows what democracy is. But again, there’s a lot of candidates.”

Some Democrats don’t see a major issue with Bottoms’ potential nomination — especially with the GOP in a tougher position, staring down Trump’s cratering approval ratings and struggling to message on voters’ cost of living concerns and an unpopular war in Iran.

“The Republican Party is very underwater. I think the Republican Party is more underwater than Keisha Lance Bottoms is,” said John Jackson, the former DeKalb County Democratic Chair. “At the end of the day, she’s a competitive general election candidate.”

One early general election poll shows Bottoms leading the three top Republicans running for governor, but all within the survey’s margin of error.

A Bottoms win would be historic: She would be the first Black woman elected governor in the history of the country — and the first Black governor of the Peach State.

The increased attention toward Bottoms’ performance with public safety did not happen in a vacuum, as several Black women — including former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and D.C.’s Muriel Bowser — faced extra scrutiny from critics as they guided major American cities through the depths of the pandemic and nationwide protests.

Bottoms’ defenders are confident in her standing with voters.

“I have seen the kind of hand-wringing, and it is predominantly coming from very, very, insider politico Atlanta circles,” said Kristen Kiefer, Democratic chair in Houston County, which is located in central Georgia. Because of her party role, she cannot endorse a candidate.

“What we saw from here, far from Atlanta, was somebody that was willing to stand up to the governor over mask mandates,” she said. “What we saw during social unrest was the city of Atlanta was making space for peaceful protests, but then, too, we all remember the night that Keisha was on TV with Killer Mike and T.I. telling everyone to go home and being ready to shut it down when it got out of hand.”

Still, others remain worried that Bottoms could hurt their chances, even in a midterm year that favors their party.

“Most Democrats who are being honest are nervous about the campaign of Mayor Bottoms, who, to be clear, brings a lot of strengths to the race,” said Andrew Heaton, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist who is unaffiliated in the primary. “[Republicans] are going to have to find messages against the other candidates. They’ve already got the attack ads on Mayor Bottoms written.”

Bottoms touts her wins in city hall on the campaign trail. In interviews, she has highlighted her administration’s success in building more affordable housing in Atlanta and authorizing pay raises for the city’s law enforcement. Still, her abrupt decision not to seek a second term in 2021, following a period of unrest in Atlanta, continues to haunt her.

“She’s got to answer some questions. She’s got to be able to answer these questions well: Why didn’t you run for reelection as mayor of Atlanta? There’s a perception that she ran away from that job,” said Jackson, whose tenure as DeKalb County Democratic Chair overlapped with Bottoms’ time as mayor. (Atlanta extends from Fulton County into DeKalb.)

At the time, Bottoms said in a press conference that it was “time to pass the baton on to someone else,” but did not detail her reasons for giving up the opportunity for another four years in office.

Pressed about her decision in a recent interview with Atlanta News First, Bottoms emphasized that she completed her term and didn’t skip out early.

“I served the entirety of my first term as mayor,” she said. “I was asked to go to the Biden White House three times, and decided not to do it because I wanted to complete the term that I had been elected to serve.”

The decision had followed a pounding four years in office that was dominated by the pandemic, a sharp rise in violent crime and protests over the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. Bottoms’ response to the city’s social unrest drew bipartisan praise — particularly her impassioned remarks at a press conference with law enforcement telling protesters to “go home.”

But Democrats and Republicans alike have already seized on her perceived biggest vulnerabilities ahead of Election Day: that a reminder of her tenure in office will evoke flashbacks of burning buildings and unrest.

Esteves, the former state senator, attacked Bottoms on the debate stage last month over the death of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, who was shot and killed while riding in a car near protests at the site where Atlanta police fatally shot Rayshard Brooks.

“I did not allow gangs to take over blocks. We lived through 2020 together. It was the most trying time in recent history in our country,” Bottoms responded. “I made every decision that I thought was the best decision at that time. But you cannot have the death of a child — of any child — and not wonder what, if anything, you could have done differently.”

Republicans, who have otherwise been mired in their own competitive and rancorous primary, have found time to preview their general election attacks against Bottoms. In an April ad, billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson said the former mayor “abandoned” her city in a crucial moment.

“When the city needed her, she let Atlanta burn,” Jackson says over footage of protests in downtown Atlanta.

That early Republican effort to attack Bottoms’ record is exactly what has some Democrats worried about her strength in a general election.

“This is a strategic choice. Sometimes when we make these choices in voting, some of the choices can be emotional, some of them can be related to personal ties,” said state Rep. Michelle Au, who is backing Duncan in the gubernatorial primary.

“But really the most important thing — or even the only important thing — is: Can this Democrat win? Because we can get a Democrat out of the primary, and that’s all fine, but if they can’t win in November, it does not achieve my goal.”

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Eurovision star Look Mum No Computer has shared that the BBC took measures to make sure he’d be able to cope with the “pressure” of the contest.

Look Mum No Computer – the stage name of musician and YouTuber Sam Battle – is representing the UK at the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest this weekend with his original song Eins, Zwei, Drei.

Given how the UK has fared at the competition in recent years, it’s fair to say that picking up that mantle is not for the faint of heart, and in a new interview with BBC News, the performer opened up about how bosses wanted to make sure he was up to the challenge.

“They gave me a stress test [to see] whether I could deal under pressure,” he explained, with the BBC describing him as flashing a nervous “should-I-be-saying-this” glance towards his press team as he made the revelation.

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“It’s nothing, really,” he added. “Just making sure that you don’t get too nervous and things like that.”

HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for additional comment.

Past UK Eurovision acts have made no secret of the intense toll that the scrutiny and attention associated with the contest can bring.

Back in 2025, Olly Alexander claimed that his number one advice to the UK’s next Eurovision entrant would be to “get yourself a really good therapist because you’ll have a lot to talk about – for years!”.

Meanwhile, Look Mum No Computer isn’t the only Eurovision performer whose delegation took measures to prepare them for the contest.

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Earlier this week, Israeli representative Noam Bettan claimed that, like his recent predecessors, he rehearsed while being booed to prepare for any disruptions that might occur during his performance.

“I had a few people in my crew trying to make it hard for me, to practise for this moment,” Noam told the BBC earlier this week. “But you can’t really prepare for this.”

During Noam’s semi-final performance on Tuesday night, pro-Palestine chants could be heard coming from the audience, with Eurovision later confirming that audience members had been removed for causing disruption.

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (Associated Press/Alamy)

7 min read15 July

The scale of the disruption to the labour market from AI is becoming clear; we cannot leave it to big tech or populists to frame the debate about what to do about it, argues Roa Powell

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If AI is powerful enough to turbocharge Britain’s economy, it is powerful enough to disrupt our labour market. Ministers must reckon with this dual reality.

This government is taking rapid AI progress seriously. They have committed to a world-leading AI Security Institute, invested £500m in the UK’s sovereign AI capability, and plan for the UK to be the fastest AI adopter in the G7. Ministers have described AI as “the defining technology of our generation”, “the engine of economic power” and an “industrial revolution in a decade”.

But the more seriously this government takes AI, the harder it is to justify silence on AI-driven job loss.

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If AI is really going to be an “industrial revolution in a decade,” surely we should expect disruption on a similar scale with backlash akin to the Luddites. If AI is going to help streamline the “flabby” civil service, with government suggesting 62 per cent of the most junior civil servants’ work is automatable, surely we can expect our own bosses to follow suit and cut headcount.

According to Public First, two-thirds of UK adults already expect AI to contribute to unemployment, and as AI’s impact on jobs becomes more prominent in the public consciousness, so does the political cost of doing nothing about it.

One excuse for inaction is that forecasts on AI-driven job loss still vary widely. Our own analysis at the Institute For Public Policy Research (IPPR) imagines scenarios ranging from eight million UK jobs lost to no jobs lost at all. When the International Monetary Fund said that 60 per cent of roles in advanced economies were exposed, economists pushed back, pointing out that AI being capable of performing a task tells you little about whether that person’s job will actually be scrapped. Even the tech CEOs disagree with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei predicting AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs in five years, only for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to push back, claiming “you’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you are going to lose your job to someone who uses AI”.

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But the forecasts are moving in one direction and the evidence that AI will bring significant change to our job market is mounting. AI’s performance at real-world job tasks has more than doubled in a year. Evaluations show AI matching or beating a human at a full-day task – that is a task that would ordinarily take a human eight hours to complete – 71 per cent of the time. At the same time “agentic” AI is taking us beyond the chatbot interfaces most people know.

Given a goal and control of a computer, AI can be left alone to browse the web, draft and send emails, edit files and book meetings. Meta, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft and BT have all attributed significant job cuts to AI and entire disciplines have transformed overnight, with top engineers at Anthropic and Open AI saying AI now writes 100 per cent of their code.

Once the impacts are here it will be too late, risking an outcome where the state is grinding into gear just as millions are out of work, tax revenues have collapsed and techlash has peaked

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We are also starting to get a sense of how uneven impacts will be. New data from the Financial Times shows 60 per cent of high earners use AI daily compared to just 16 per cent of low earners, with women also using AI less. This makes them less equipped to adjust to a world where our bosses expect us to use AI and maybe pay us more as a result. Young people are also set to feel the brunt of this as entry level jobs are most exposed, and without opportunities to learn on the job they will struggle to reach the next stage in the career ladder. Compared to the industrial revolution, the geography of AI’s impact is expected to be flipped, with high earners in cities more exposed to automation while rural areas can look immune on the surface but be left out of the economic upside.

We shouldn’t expect concrete predictions on this to arrive until very late in the day. The sequence from AI getting more capable, to AI getting adopted and then people becoming displaced doesn’t follow automatically from highly capable AI. Adoption and displacement depend on legal certainty, human preferences, and the relative cost of human versus machine labour. But by the time concrete data arrives, disruption could be well under way.

With AI, the timing trap is brutal. It is not realistic for our government to make major spending changes before bigger impacts from AI have arrived, but once the impacts are here it will be too late, risking an outcome where the state is grinding into gear just as millions are out of work, tax revenues have collapsed and techlash has peaked.

The real challenge for a country like Britain is whether we can capture the economic windfall AI brings, either by attracting firms to the UK so they are part of our tax base, or by considering new progressive tax structures for massive AI-driven profits. Across a wide range of AI labour market scenarios, this will determine whether we have the money to help those most in need.

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The UK is especially exposed on this. First, because the sectors most vulnerable to AI disruption, like financial and professional services, currently bring in our biggest tax revenues.

Second, because the companies set to reap the rewards sit largely outside of our tax base. We don’t have any of the technology giants like Google or Microsoft who are already reaping the profits from AI, nor do we have any of the frontier AI companies who are seeing some of the fastest growing revenues ever, like Anthropic which just hit $30bn in revenue, up from just $1bn in January 2025.

In practice, this means we need to lay some serious groundwork now, both politically and practically.

Practically, we need to prepare multiple plans to capture the value from AI. If frontier AI companies hoover up all the profits, we should consider taxes that target them specifically. If the gains spread to any company that uses AI, we will instead need to raise corporation tax to reflect that revenue no longer accrues to workers. And in the meantime, government-backed wealth funds can help us reap some of the rewards whatever happens, by spreading our investment across the AI landscape and redistributing this to workers who need support most.

None of these policies are possible overnight and, for lots of this, the UK won’t be able to go it alone. We already struggle to effectively tax big technology companies, and international co-ordination is essential to allow everybody to take a fair share. For this to work, we need to start detailed scenario planning now.

Politically, our government needs to develop a stronger voice on this issue. The political ground is shifting fast. Just last month, OpenAI published a blueprint promoting robot taxes, a national wealth fund and a four-day working week. Meanwhile, Amodei has written that existing tax systems will no longer make sense and that progressive taxation on AI companies may be needed. These are not the demands of trade unions or left-wing think tanks. When AI’s biggest winners are calling for redistribution, it is beyond time for government to take that seriously.

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The cost of waiting is just too high. Waiting would mean ceding the debate to AI companies designing rhetoric to suit their public image, or to populists who are faster in finding a way of riding anti-AI sentiment but would have our economy stall while other countries race ahead. If government remains absent from this debate any longer, its ideas will arrive just as disruption escalates, public pressure builds and simplistic solutions become dominant. 

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After a two-year wait, Rivals is finally back – and if any fans out there were nervous about whether season two could deliver on the outrageous fun provided by the first run, you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Disney+’s adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novels returned with three brand new episodes on Friday morning, with three more to come in the weeks ahead, and the rest of the season following later in the year.

In the lead-up to the release, these episodes were met with unanimous praise (check that 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes if you don’t believe us), with many of those glowing four- and five-star reviews hailing the new season as even better than its predecessor.

Here’s a selection of what the critics are saying about Rivals’ second season so far…

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“How best to reward such exquisitely knowing escapism? Ten stars? Ten thousand stars? Rivals is beyond earthly praise. Let us instead insert a single rose between its tireless bum cheeks and raise a glass of Cinzano to its naked audacity. Bottoms up!”

“Despite its deliberate corniness, this is also gloriously uplifting television. It is unashamedly celebratory and perhaps even better than the last series, though there is no naked tennis this time.”

“The new series delivers exactly what we need in a week of grim headlines: pure, unadulterated escapism. Its unique blend of utter silliness, seriousness and chaos makes us glad that Rivals is so much more than an illicit affair, it’s a long term relationship we want to keep far beyond the morning after.”

“This is glossy, wickedly funny, politically incorrect and completely unashamed. When it comes to old-school escapist TV, Rivals is unrivalled.”

“[Season two is about] class, petty human jealousy, sex, and love […] of course this is a must watch!”

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“What a romp this is. Any notion of second season nerves for the surprise Disney+ hit Rivals (Jilly Cooper was hardly hot property) are quickly dispelled in a gleeful continuation of the bonking, big hair and hilarity where there’s a belly laugh every 30 seconds.”

“Rivals continues to refresh the parts that other television cannot reach – a heady mix of guilty pleasure, trenchant satire, rambunctious comedy and out-and-out trash. Repeatedly, characters take their clothes off and jump into swimming pools for no reason. Sometimes you just have to go with it and take the leap yourself.”

“Dame Jilly Cooper died last October, a few months after season two of Rivals went into production. But her legacy looks secure: the residents of Rutshire are in safe hands.”

“Rivals [is] such a rare treat in today’s television landscape. It is well-written and well-acted, but it aspires to nothing more than being fun. Real, associable human emotions are kept at arm’s length in favour of stylised bucolic horniness.”

“If it were all about the plentiful sex, the audiences’ hard-on for the thrilling ’80s-set revenge drama would have long softened. As such the hateful feud between Tony and womanising MP Rupert Campbell-Black is even more fiery than the passionate entanglements that run rife in the season.”

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“An unabashedly over-the-top 1980s-set drama that gleefully embraces the idea that there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure, it’s a series that, at its heart, is about indulgence, both for its characters and for those watching along at home.

“Though it boasts a prestige cast, lavish sets, and a story that’s grounded in class tensions among the British society elite, it’s a show that determinedly refuses to take itself too seriously, and one that is deeply uninterested in lecturing its viewers about its characters’ (many, obvious) moral failings.”

“If Rivals’ first season was glam and fun, season two uses that as a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The more complex and morally grey storylines refuse to take the easy way out despite the fluffy packaging.

“You might have found yourself rooting for extramarital affairs in season one, but season two is ready to douse you in some cold water and remind you that all actions have consequences. That’s what makes the series work: you get the good and the bad.”

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The first three episodes of Rivals’ second season are now streaming on Disney+. Check out HuffPost UK’s full review here.

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