Hey Granit Xhaka fans! Spoiler alert! This article is not for you. by Darren

It is fairly obvious that Arsenal have plans to let go of some of their key stars this season as improved replacements are being tageted by Arteta and Edu. Granit Xhaka, who has made 32 league appearances in this campaign already, has been named as one star who could be on his way out.

After seven years at the Emirates, the club wants to cash in on him. Apparently, Mikel Arteta has decided it’s about time to move on from the Swiss international. Sometime back, many wouldn’t object to the 2016 Wenger signing leaving.

Before Arteta joined, many Gooners had issues with him. However, the Spaniard found a way to get the best out of him by switching him from defensive to attacking duties. Xhaka has been impressive in his performance as the No. 8 player; this season, he has five league goals and five assists. Even so, it now seems that at Arsenal, he has run his course.

Arteta wants someone fresh with younger legs in his position, and maybe someone who is more able to control their emetion.

Arsenal may fail to reach their biggest ambition of winning the Premier League this season. After failing to win their last four games, they threw away any leverage they had to lift the league.

Now their chances of winning the league depend on Manchester City dropping six points and them not dropping any. It is a tough ask, but we will have to see if things go their way.

Anyway, amidst the last few disappointing weeks, they have bagged their first success of the season as we have certainly secured our first objective for this season. The Gunners are back in Champions League football after Nottingham Forest’s 3-1 win over Brighton guaranteed Arteta and his boys to finish in the top 4.

As per ex-Arsenal star Shokdran Mustafi, that’s a big win for Arsenal. Mustafi argues that it is important for Arsenal to return to playing in Europe’s top competition. He sees that as rewarding. More rewarding than Arsenal winning the PL and ending up being a one-hit wonder.

“I think Arsenal have already won a title insurance, and they will play in the Champions League again next year, because that’s where the club belongs,” the ex-Gunner told Sky Germany.

The Gunners most critiical pundit, Gary Neville, has identified four senior players at Arsenal who he believes are responsible for the team’s recent dip in form. The Gunners had a promising start to the Premier League season, but their momentum has significantly slowed down in recent weeks, allowing Manchester City to catch up in the title race.

The team surrendered a two-goal lead at Anfield and drew with relegation-threatened teams West Ham and Southampton, which only weakened their grip at the top of the league. Their defeat to Manchester City further paved the way for the Cityzens to be left in the driving seat to retain their title.

Neville spoke on The Overlap, saying that the Gunners that the team’s poor run of form at such a decisive point in the season is due to the failures of senior players and a lack of leadership.

He identified that senior talents are not stepping up and taking responsibility during games. He highlighted that Arsenal’s issues stem from a lack of leadership on and off the pitch, and that the team’s struggles are not solely the manager’s fault. Neville emphasized that for Arsenal to remain competitive in the Premier League, their senior players need to start performing at a higher level and take accountability for the team’s results.

‘I look at Martin Odegaard, fantastic professional. Oleksandr Zinchenko, great professional. But when you actually get to the highest pressurised moments in the biggest matches in the crux of the season, are they leaders then?

Could a blossoming kinship, forged in the fire of unceremonious dismissals on the same day, be developing between Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon? 

Maybe. That’s one of the big takeaways from Brian Stelter, who reports for Vanity Fair that the two men, in addition to retaining the same entertainment lawyer, have reportedly exchanged several texts in the last few days. The content of those messages isn’t yet known, but I have a feeling they hit the same notes as the statements the two men put out since getting canned: stunned, chaotic, and fuming.

At first blush, Carlson and Lemon don’t seem to share much in common. Carlson helmed one of the most racist, toxic, and hateful programs on cable TV, and is someone of genuine evil. Lemon, though irritating and sexist, during his career as one of CNN’s top personalities, is not. In fact, as Stelter notes in his report, Carlson and Lemon have bashed one another on air: Carlson has deliberately mispronounced Lemon’s name; Lemon once called Carlson’s claim that white supremacy is a “hoax” one of the “dumbest things” he’s ever heard.

But it’s hard to ignore the ominous nature of a potential relationship between the two scorned former anchors, who are all but certain to be plotting their paths back to prominence. That’s especially true when one of the few threads of commonality between Carlson and Lemon, in addition to their high-profile firings, is repeated accusations of misogyny.

Wolfsburg captain Popp may not make UWCL semi-final against Arsenal by Michelle

Arsenal v Wolfsburg will be the biggest match in women’s football on May 1st Bank Holiday. There’s talk that Wolfsburg could be without their captain and star player Alexa Popp for the trip to the Emirates. Apparently she hasn’t been back training two days before the big game versus Arsenal. This is a significant setback to Wolfsburg’s hopes of defeating Arsenal and advancing to the Champions League Final against Barcelona in Eindhoven. But it’s a good thing for the Gunners because they won’t have to worry about man-marking the “busy” Wolfsburg forward.

So, why might Popp be a big miss for Wolfsburg in that game?

The semi-final match between Arsenal and Wolfsburg is square. The opening leg was a 2-2 draw. Because of the draw, the second leg is now an open game in which whoever wins advances to the final. Both sides need someone to step up and do something magical to carry them (whoever it will be) to the final.

While Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, captain Kim Little, and vice-captain Leah Williamson are players Arsenal fans could look to for something magical, if they weren’t injured, Popp is exactly that for Wolfsburg fans. Her versatility as a full-back-turned-forward-turned-midfielder-turned-playmaker makes her a valuable asset. When she’s on the pitch, she is a real captain to her teammates, and Wolfsburg will miss that.

Balogun: Staying or Leaving? It seems he’s on his way out by Daniel O

The Manchester City loss seems to have opened Arteta’s eyes. The Spaniard has decided to be ruthless with his decisions. At this point, you are wondering, Ruthless! How?

Well, as per reports, Arteta has finally made some key decisions about players whose futures were uncertain. Of these decisions, Folarin Balogun’s future seems to have been decided. Caught Offside claim the in-form Arsenal striker is up for sale in the summer. The decision not to keep Balogun will shock many. While on loan at Stade de Reims, the Gunner has been on another level. In 31 games, he has managed 18 goals and two assists.

Looking at his numbers, many would have thought he ought to be on the 2023–24 Arsenal team. But it seems Arteta has thought it wise to sanction his sale. Arsenal could get a boost in their summer transfer kitty from his sale. On the other hand, Balogun could go to a place with guaranteed game time rather than warm the benches at Arsenal.

Did anyone expect Balogun to be a starter at Arsenal next season? I doubt many did. However, with his potential departure, Arsenal should make sure they get a capable replacement. They ought to go out there and sign that physical striker they’ve been crying about.

Arsenal fight for Champions League Final but what’s happening in WSL title race? by Michelle

Manchester City defeated West Ham 6-2 last weekend, moving them to second place in the Barclays Women’s Super League standings, behind Man United, dropping Chelsea to 3rd and Arsenal to 4th, albeit with both teams having games in hand over the Manchester clubs.

Manchester United then defeated Aston Villa 3-2 yesterday in the last bloody minute, putting them on 47 points, 9 points ahead of our Gunners. And Man City play bottom-of-the-table Reading at Academy Stadium tomorrow, with an easy win expected for City, taking them to 44 points, 6 points above our Gunners. Arsenal are only 2 points behind Chelsea, but the Blues have a game in hand over our Gunners.. it’s all VERY CONFUSING!! This is the WSL table Top 4, as things currently stand before Man City v Reading on 30th April:

Man United still have 3 WSL games to play, as well as FA Women’s Cup Final 14th May:

7th May Man United v Tottenham – I predict +3 points for United

Mikel Arteta’s insistence on sticking to one playing style is hurting Arsenal. They say you can’t do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results. Rio Ferdinand and Joleon Lescott (ex-Man City stars) wonder why Arteta insisted on employing the same failed tactics against Manchester City.

Arsenal have already met Manchester City three times this season. They have lost these games. The most recent defeat came on Wednesday night, when they lost 4-1. Arsenal’s game strategy failed again, as it had the previous two times. Arteta should have come up with a different plan for their meeting this week, but he did not. Guardiola was the one who made changes to his system.

“Pep talked about his philosophy; he had to change it from a winning philosophy,” the ex-City defender Joleon Lesccot told the Mirro. “He said we went to the Emirates and I wasn’t happy; they won, and he had to change something.

“Mikel Arteta’s faced Pep three times this season, and they’ve lost every time, and he hasn’t changed.”

Rio Ferdinand also had complaints about Arsenal’s tactics against Manchester City. He questioned why Arteta didn’t tweak things after seeing the Citizens dominate over his team. On Rio’s part, he doesn’t understand why Arteta stuck to his initial game plan even though it failed.

On Friday, Montana joined an alarming number of states to ban gender-affirming health care for minors when its Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, signed a bill that had been condemned as “unconscionable” by the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker.

Gianforte, who catapulted to the national spotlight in 2017 after body-slamming a Guardian reporter, signed the legislation despite protest from his nonbinary son, David Gianforte.

“For my own sake, I’ve chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights, as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends,” David said in a statement that was read to his father last month. Referring to the proposal to restrict transition health care for kids and separate legislation to expressly define sex as binary in Montana code and ban drag performances from public spaces. David added, “I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly a violation of human rights.”

According to an email exchange seen by the Montana Free Press, the governor expressed a willingness to discuss the issue and hear his son’s concerns. But the subsequent conversations, both in email and in person, don’t appear to have swayed Gianforte from approving the bill to block transition health care for minors.

While speaking out against the anti-LGBTQ bills earlier this month, Zooey Zephyr, the state’s first and only openly trans lawmaker, said she hoped that the next time supporters of the bill prayed, they would see “blood on [their] hands.” The remarks prompted the state’s GOP to ban Zephyr from speaking or voting from the floor. 

Gabriel Jesus hasn’t been himself in the last few weeks. He hasn’t been as influential as he was in his initial Arsenal days. This has left many questions about Arsenal’s strike. Many are starting to believe Jesus isn’t the long-term solution to Arsenal’s attack. There are speculations that Arsenal will be keen to recruit a top striker in the summer. Could Lois Openda be this?

According to the Mail, Arsenal have their eyes on him. The Lens striker is having a superb maiden season in Ligue 1. In 32 games, he’s managed 17 goals and three assists. His brilliant season has seen him attract a lot of interest in his services. He’s only been on the French side for a year, but it seems he isn’t going to stay there for long. However, Arsenal will have to buy him at a hefty price, as he still has four years until his current deal expires.

So why is Openda a striker Arsenal could break the bank for? He is young (23 years old), he is dominant, and almost every top club wants him. Other than that, at the start of April, his teammate, Adrien Thomasson, hinted at why after Len’s 2-1 win over Strasbourg.
“He’s so quick! It’s a real weapon for us,” he said via ligue1.com. “But even when he doesn’t have the ball, he keeps opponents busy and helps us move up the pitch; he’s very important to us.”

I am in favour of Arsenal signing another striker. Gabriel Jesus’ fans can crucify me in the comments section, but if Arteta sees fit to sign Openda, we can trust him. His signings have, at most times, been on point.

Darren N

In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito seethed against criticisms of the high court, appeared to mock the abortion pill, and suggested he knew who leaked the draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. 

“I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible,” Alito said, declining to name names, “but that’s different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody.” He then claimed, without providing any evidence, that the leak was an effort to protect abortion rights.

In January, the official investigation into the leak announced that it could not identify a person responsible. But speaking to the WSJ, Alito continued to push unfounded theories that the leak was a left-wing project aimed to “intimidate the court,” before moving on to complain that the leak endangered his life, as well as the lives of other conservative justices on the court.

As for the abortion pill mifepristone, which has been at the center of an incredibly consequential legal battle after a Trump-appointed judge suspended its FDA approval, Alito could barely contain his contempt. “Mifestiprone? However you pronounce the word,” he said. 

All in all, Alito’s comments—unusually loquacious, derisive, and conspiratorial for a Supreme Court justice to air publicly—sure make him sound like someone auditioning to replace Tucker Carlson. That or they’re simply typical of the kind of man, who, shortly after the Dobbs decision, publicly bragged about authoring the opinion to strike down the constitutional right to an abortion. As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer wrote last year, Alito has a particular track record of intellectual condescension and a stunning lack of empathy, characteristics we’ve seen in many of his rulings. Still, even against that history, these new remarks stand out.

Lia Walti: Arsenal are “mentally very strong” and “really hard to beat” by Michelle

Lia Walti looked back on Arsenal Women’s remarkable comeback in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, where our Gunners managed to secure a 2-2 draw against Wolfsburg on their home turf last week.

Despite conceding two goals in the first half-hour, Arsenal showed great resilience and fought back to turn the game around. This result puts Arsenal in a solid position for the second leg, which will take place at Emirates Stadium on May 1st. The capacity at Emirates is 60,704 and there are only 3,000 tickets left – so Arsenal Women will definitely set a new UK attendance record for a Champions League game, and they may even sell out Emirates for the first time ever!

Reflecting on Arsenal‘s 2-2 draw at Wolfsburg last week, Lia said:

“We came here to get as good a result as possible. After being 2-0 down, it was such an incredible shift from the team to come back from that. We did it today for all the girls who have to sit at home and watch us, who got injured in the last months.

Ryan Mason picked his favourite Tottenham hoodie out of the club shop last night and lead Spurs to a credible draw. Today Pete, Luke, Jim and Vish are here to try and work out whether playing The Stone Roses as the players went down the tunnel for half-time was the turning point for Spurs.

Elsewhere, Vish is made to defend his claims that Joe Willock shouldn’t play for England - Spoiler: it doesn’t go well - and we try to work out what song Alexander Isak was singing while he dribble passed Michael Keane three times.

Tweet us @FootballRamble and email us here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In his opening statement in the ongoing civil sexual assault and defamation trial against former president Donald Trump, his attorney Joe Tacopina was aggressive, scathing and snarling in his attacks on E. Jean Carroll, the writer who has accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1997.

By Carroll’s admission, her story contains inconsistencies. She can’t remember the date the assault occurred, for example, and has said she doesn’t know why she went into the dressing room with Trump that day. In his opener, Tacopina told the jury he would expose all of Carroll’s inconsistencies, show that she was indeed the liar Trump claimed her to be, and prove she made up the entire story in pursuit of public attention. 

But on Thursday, when Tacopina, a burly, muscular man with a growling deep voice and a thick Brooklyn accent, had his chance to question Carroll, a former fixture of New York media society, now 79, he hit a brick wall. Carroll parried his initial attempts to unravel inconsistencies in her story, so the lawyer proceeded to grill her on slight inconsistencies between her testimony in a deposition last fall and what she has said on the stand this week. Those efforts left even the judge, Lewis Kaplan, appearing exasperated, and snapping at Tacopina to move on. 

“Women who don’t come forward—one of the reasons they don’t come forward is because they all get asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?'”

But when Tacopina tried to challenge Carroll about why she did not scream when Trump was allegedly raping her violently, Carroll ultimately delivered a strong rebuke.

“I’m not a screamer, I was in too much of a panic, I was fighting,” she responded to his initial query.

When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to go after Disney last spring for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, he was making it an example. He chose a powerful, high profile target that had disagreed with his policy preferences, and he punished that company for crossing him. In doing so, he sent a clear warning to other companies: Disagree and I will come knocking. If he was willing to attack Disney, one of the state’s largest employers and a major tax source, no business was safe.

This is an authoritarian tactic. Authoritarian leaders use various means to control the private sector to suppress dissent and bring a powerful segment of society under their sway. But in order to make an example of Disney, DeSantis had to be clear that Disney was suffering as a direct result of speaking out against him.

Unfortunately for DeSantis, that kind of retaliation against speech is a violation of the First Amendment. When Disney finally decided to fire back on Wednesday by filing a suit against DeSantis, the governor had spent over a year doing the company the favor by making myriad comments explaining he was seeking revenge against Disney, strengthening its legal hand. As Disney predicted in its complaint, “This is as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to see.”

“This whole situation highlights one of the hidden benefits of recognizing corporations to have rights.”

“It is a violation of the First Amendment for the government to punish a corporation because of the company’s expressed viewpoints on political issues,” Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA School of Law and the author of We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights told Mother Jones a year ago when DeSantis first passed legislation targeting Disney for retribution.  

As Republican Mitt Romney famously reminded Iowans during his 2012 presidential campaign, “Corporations are people.” And for many legal purposes, he was right. Over the last century, the Supreme Court has extended civil rights to corporate entities, a trend Republicans and the conservative movement generally cheered. In 2010, the Supreme Court granted them the right to spend money to influence elections, ruling that was a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment. In 2014, the justices decided that some corporations also have religious rights.

On Wednesday evening, Tucker Carlson broke his silence on his surprise firing from Fox News.

After saying he’d taken a moment to step back, Carlson lamented that both political parties had cohered around a set ideology endorsed by cable news. But now, after his dismissal, he foretold an end. “This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue,” Carlson said in a video he posted on Twitter. “The people in charge know this. That’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive…but it won’t work when honest people say what’s true.”

That is funny to hear because I’ve spent the last few days poring over hours of Tucker Carlson videos from the archives, listening to what he has previously considered “true.” And, as you can see in five very clear chapters of footage, his truth has often involved promoting Nazi conspiracy theories; broadcasting racist and self-serving propaganda; spewing hate about trans people and children; and pushing the Big Lie. (You can read more about that last part here from our DC Bureau Chief David Corn.)

It’s unclear what will happen next for Carlson. On Monday, when Fox News announced they would be parting ways with the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight—one of cable’s most popular programs—the reasons were unclear. Rumors swirled as speculation about the split began. One theory focused on the legal trouble: Fox News had settled to pay Dominion Voting Systems over $785 million in their defamation trial against the news network following their network-wide promotion of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. One of the most popular perpetrators of promoting those pretenses was, of course, Tucker. Had he been ousted for hurting the bottom line? Or was it the content of his text messages, many redacted, that pushed Fox to act?

Tucker’s announcement implied he would continue broadcasting in some form. “The undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change,” Carlson said in his Wednesday night rejoinder, in what looks like the studio he built in Maine, which residents voted to approve. “When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues?”

In 2011, Robert Regan of Bourne, Massachusetts, stopped working as a forklift operator after being diagnosed with COPD. In 2015, he failed to pay about $900 in property taxes. The next year, the town took the tax title of his home. Bourne would eventually be able to sell it if Regan failed to pay back taxes and other fees—and under Massachusetts law, Regan and his relatives would get nothing from the sale. Bourne stood to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by dispossessing a dying man dependent on disability checks and supplemental oxygen.   

Local governments across the country have the right to take people’s homes when they don’t pay their taxes. In most states, extra money from tax sales go to the former owners. If a family owes $10,000 and the government sells their old home for $150,000, they can get $140,000. But in about a dozen states, the government keeps all $150,000.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could deem that unconstitutional. The question in Tyler v. Hennepin County is a simple one: Should governments be able to keep excess funds after taking and selling the homes of residents who fail to pay their property taxes? The case has brought together disparate groups from across the political spectrum, and justices on the right and left of the Court were unusually in sync during Wednesday’s arguments.

The Court appears likely to rule that those laws violate the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against taking private property for public use “without just compensation.” That would prevent states from keeping potentially hundreds of millions of equity in the coming years. Public-interest law groups say the benefits would disproportionately go to low-income Americans who are often elderly or in poor health.

One of the many amicus briefs supporting Tyler was filed jointly by an unusual coalition that included the libertarian Cato Institute, the National Association of Home Builders, and the ACLU.

The named petitioner in the case is Geraldine Tyler, a now 94-year-old Minnesota woman whose home was sold in 2016 for $25,000 more than she owed in taxes. Her case was argued by Christina Martin of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which was founded in 1973 by staffers of then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan. PLF has received support from allies on the right, but progressive organizations have gotten behind the case, as well. One of the many amicus briefs supporting Tyler was filed jointly by an unusual coalition that included the libertarian Cato Institute, the National Association of Home Builders, and the ACLU.

Juventus have got their points back - for now - but are they good enough on the pitch to make it count? Nicky’s not convinced but she does suggest Inter's Simone Inzaghi COULD be the next Carlo Ancelotti.

Today Dotun, Andy and Nicky look to Italy and the ongoing race for Europe, they hear from a listener that took Andy’s advice and saw Jose Mourinho’s Roma play in the flesh. We also ask: Can Dortmund beat Bayern in what is essentially now a 5 game season and why do things feel slightly underwhelming at Barcelona despite their huge lead at the top of La Liga?

Got a question for us? Tweet us @FootballRamble, @dotunadebayo and @andybrassell.

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In late March, I watched as some 300 lawyers, doctors, and activists assembled in the aggressively beige conference wing of the Midtown Atlanta Hilton for the inaugural Covid Litigation Conference. A promotional flier promised that the event would “provide attendees with the resources they need to begin taking on Covid cases for the first time or to expand the range of Covid claims that they currently handle.” An unsuspecting lawyer could have been forgiven for expecting tips on how to help clients who had been disabled by Covid that they caught at their factory jobs, for instance, or those whose medical bills their insurance refused to pay.

But those kinds of cases were entirely absent from the agenda. Rather, the topic was a very particular kind of litigation: How best to advance the movement that organizers called “medical freedom.” In other words, how to sue the people who created and enforced public health measures like vaccine and mask requirements, policies against Covid misinformation, and treatment protocols for hospitalized Covid patients.

The conference organizers wore t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Misinformation Superspreader.” Steve Kirsch, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a main organizer of the event, told me that the slogan was a cheeky reference to what he saw as the unfair labeling of anti-vaccine activists as peddlers of misinformation. “We said, ‘Okay if that’s what they’re calling us,” he explained, “let’s kind of make fun of it.” Indeed, many of the attendees seemed to see themselves as underdogs, scrapping against government and pharmaceutical behemoths.

What those underdogs didn’t mention during the sessions, though, is their friends in high places: specifically, federal judges who seem to be sympathetic to their aversion to pandemic policies. Pointing to some of the victories that medical freedom lawyers have enjoyed in US District courts, Dorit Reiss, a public health lawyer and law professor at the University of California College of the Law, noted, “They’re having some success in the federal system in front of Trump-appointed judges, and they’re very much forum shopping right now.” Adam Winkler, a constitutional law scholar at the University of California-Los Angeles, agreed. “The courts have issued a lot of what were once thought to be outlandish kinds of rulings with regard to any number of issues like abortion and affirmative action,” he said. “I’d expect that encourages people to bind hope to the prospects of lawsuits that they would otherwise seem certain to lose.”

When I arrived, I didn’t think I’d get past the Misinformation Superspreaders and make it into the ballroom where the event was taking place. The media liaison for the conference, Trevor FitzGibbon, asked me if I was there to write about disinformation, and he seemed to balk at my affirmative answer. When I said I worked for Mother Jones, he noticeably brightened. He had come up in the PR business working for prominent progressive candidates and groups, he explained, including Barack Obama, MoveOn, and Planned Parenthood, which I took to mean that he considered us to be politically kindred spirits. And then he let me into the ballroom.