Leah Williamson voted Arsenal Women’s Player of the Month for March by Michelle

This season, Manchester City’s project might be about to reach its final chapter: lifting the Champions League. Andy headed up to Manchester on Tuesday night for City's clash with Bayern Munich, where he discusses a night of contradictions and Bayern fans’ remarkable protest against City’s ownership during the game with Miguel Delaney.

Where should Andy head to next? 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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Last night’s Europa League debacle leaves us asking: can Harry Maguire be to blame for the size of his head?

Marcus, Luke, Andy and Jim have your weekend preview covered as they also reflect on who has the most beautiful eyes in football (you’ll be surprised), one of Nottingham Forest’s worst ideas yet for a replacement for Steve Cooper, and we figure out how much money we could make through OnlyFans. The pod all goes quite south after that…

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

Even America’s favorite pastime is not immune from climate change. A new study from researchers at Dartmouth College says that a warming atmosphere could be causing more home runs in professional baseball.

The research, published last week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, looked at 100,000 Major League Baseball games and found that at least 500 home runs since 2010 can be attributed to climate change. 

As the planet warms, the authors predict that climate change could be responsible for nearly 10 percent of all home runs by 2100, with each degree of warming associated with 95 more home runs per season. Eventually, the report concludes, several hundred additional home runs per season could be due to climate change. 

The paper was born out of Callahan’s interest in baseball as a Chicago Cubs fan as well as his background in climate science. 

The Florida legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortion after six weeks gestation, before many women know they’re pregnant. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law, ending the state’s status as an abortion destination for women throughout the South and likely forcing many to travel even farther to access care.

As we reported in May 2022, Florida, despite its conservatism, has been a bastion of abortion access since the 1980s, when voters enshrined a right to privacy in the state constitution. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Florida banned abortion after 15 weeks gestation but remained a destination for people who lived in nearby states with even more restrictive—or total—abortion bans. The 15-week ban (and by extension the restriction at six weeks) remains in legal jeopardy as the Florida Supreme Court decides whether the state’s right to privacy extends to abortion care.

The new bill includes exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking up to 15 weeks, but only if women provide documentation proving their circumstances. Seven Republicans broke with their party to vote against the ban.

The law will likely be politically fraught for DeSantis, ahead of his widely expected presidential campaign. Since the overturning of Roe, abortion rights have consistently won elections, even in red states like Kansas. Furthermore, public opinion polls have routinely shown that voters in Florida, like voters throughout the country, oppose abortion bans.

“We have got to stop imposing our personal beliefs on other people and do what’s right for people,” Democratic state Rep. Dianne Hart said on Thursday, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. “Illegal abortions will be on the rise, and we will return to some very, very dark ages where people will die as a result of their inability to get a legal abortion.”

On Thursday morning in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Martin Gliserman, a silver-haired English professor wearing his cap and gown, looked to be an elder statesman of the picket line. But despite having taught at Rutgers for more than 50 years, this was all new to him.

For the first time in Rutgers’ 257-year history, the faculty is on strike.

The story of why 9,000 faculty members represented by three unions decided to go on strike on Monday is a familiar one. “Buildings. A lot more buildings. Administrators. A lot more administrators. Poorly-paid faculty. A lot more of that,” Gliserman said about the changes that led to the strike. “That’s the direction in which it’s going.” The last time he saw the campus so energized was during Vietnam War protests in 1972, his second year on campus. 

Faculty members are bargaining and striking together as they try to not only secure across-the-board pay increases but fix the systemic issues that impact their most vulnerable members. Like schools across the country, Rutgers now relies on poorly paid adjuncts and graduate students to teach many of its classes. The strike is showing what can happen when a relatively privileged group—tenured professors—unite with colleagues who lack the protections they enjoy.

Rutgers’ faculty members have gone more than nine months without a contract. A strike authorization vote passed last month with 94 percent support. Union leaders announced the strike after they failed to secure a new contract.

It’s first blood in the Champions League quarter-finals! Nicky Bandini joins Dotun and Andy from Milan with the sound of a packed San Siro still ringing in her ears!

We pull apart a fascinating all-Italian clash that left us wondering whether this all-action Napoli team are a little too dependent on one missing action man in particular. After a bruising night in Manchester (pun intended), we also ask whether Bayern Munich should already be regretting their spin on the Thomas Tuchel roulette wheel.

And Juventus! Remember them? They’ve got the Europa League in their sights…

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

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By any measure, Stephanie Seneff is an accomplished scientist. A senior researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, she’s been a leader in the emerging field of computer response to human speech. After earning two PhDs from MIT in the early ’80s, in the following decades she paved the way for the scientists who worked on virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri. In 2012, Seneff’s many achievements earned her the honor of being named a fellow of the International Speech Communication Association, a professional society for researchers in the field.

Many of Seneff’s MIT lab mates and former graduate students have continued to make breakthroughs; some have gone on to careers at the many tech companies eager to hire scientists with expertise in artificial intelligence. But Seneff has spent the last ten years going in a different direction, publicizing her theory that exposure to minute amounts of the weedkiller glyphosate—commonly known by the brand name Roundup—causes a host of neurological conditions, especially autism. Known as a spectrum disorder, autism manifests in a range of neurological diagnoses that run the gamut from subtle brain differences and trouble reading social cues to significant communication challenges. In a 2014 conference presentation, Seneff predicted that because of the ubiquity of glyphosate, half of all children born in 2025 would eventually be diagnosed as autistic. Since then, she often has repeated this claim in interviews and speeches, warning a tidal wave of autism cases was just around the corner.  

It doesn’t look like Seneff’s forecast will pan out. Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 36 children are autistic. And Seneff’s theory has been widely discredited: There is no evidence that glyphosate exposure causes autism. But the scientific consensus has not stopped her from airing her beliefs on social media and becoming a sought-after speaker at conferences. In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, she broadened her Roundup theory to include vulnerability to the coronavirus, making the completely unsubstantiated claim that Americans were getting more serious cases of Covid than their international counterparts because glyphosate exposure weakened the immune system and increased the risk of severe infection.

For a quarter of a century, proponents of unproven autism treatments have overlapped with anti-vaccine activists. The vaccine skepticism movement took off after British physician Andrew Wakefield published a study in 1998 suggesting that routine childhood vaccinations caused autism. That study was later found to be fraudulent, the paper retracted, and Wakefield barred from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the myth of vaccines causing autism persisted and has been amplified by organizations like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense and celebrities including Jenny McCarthy, and Oprah Winfrey. Even the largest and most powerful autism advocacy organization, Autism Speaks, which was founded in 2005 and today runs a $50 million budget, did not officially distance itself from vaccine skepticism until 2015. Over the last few decades, many groups and individuals who spread falsehoods about vaccines as the cause of autism began to promote unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments for it—special diets, supplements, cleanses, and pricey medical spa experiences.

This world of dubious autism treatments used to be mostly limited to private social media groups and conferences. Indeed, beginning about a decade ago, the very notion of autism as a disorder began to lose currency among many autistic people and scientists who study autism: They started to view the condition not as an affliction, but rather as an innate brain difference. Autistic people experience the world differently, and that difference, they say, is something to be honored rather than treated.

And so did Todd Boehly, who predicted a 3-0 Chelsea win. Because of course he did.

Marcus, Pete and Andy react to Chelsea’s tricky night at the Bernabéu, where even Pete’s most ardent Frank Lampard fandom cannot hide the fact that they simply can’t score for love nor money – nor even one of Ancelotti’s cigars. We also start our campaign for Dele Alli to be Real Madrid’s next manager and we check in with Neil Warnock, who’s been up to some unlicensed foot bothering.

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If you’re not driving an electric car yet, you probably will be soon. (Provided, of course, that you drive a car at all.)

The Environmental Protection Agency just proposed two ambitious new regulations that seek to cut vehicle emissions dramatically and ensure that two-thirds of new vehicles sold by 2032 in the US are all-electric. That’s a lot faster than many automakers had planned to transition to electric. The EPA anticipates that the rules could save between $850 billion and $1.6 trillion in climate and health impacts.

The rules do not explicitly say that a certain percentage of vehicles needs to be electric. Instead, they set pollution limits under the Clean Air Act that only electric vehicles are currently able to meet. If automakers could figure out some other way to fuel a car without emissions, that’s fair game, too.

Some critics have called the emissions regulations government overreach, and Republican state attorneys general have already sued the EPA for allowing California to set its own emissions standards. But, as I reported last month, government regulations have historically spurred technological change.

When the EPA mandated emissions reductions in the 1970s, “there was a big outcry from manufacturers because they had very limited technology that was available to them at the time,” John Mohr, a historian of technology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told me. But the mandate worked. Cars became more efficient. Automakers were forced to comply, and they invested in creating technology that would allow them to. If you’ve ever had to bring your car in for an emissions test, you can thank the Clean Air Act. And if you live in a city and enjoy good air quality, you can thank the Clean Air Act for that, too.

Days after Nashville officials unanimously voted to reinstate Rep. Justin Jones, one of two Black Democrats expelled last week for participating in a gun control protest, the Shelby County Commission on Wednesday voted to reappoint Justin Pearson to Tennessee’s House of Representatives. 

HAPPENING NOW: @garrison_hayes is on the ground with some exclusive photos and video while we wait as the Shelby County Commission in Memphis votes to reinstate ousted Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson. Take a peek, and follow along pic.twitter.com/3cE5dUP75o

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) April 12, 2023

Pearson, Jones, as well as Rep. Gloria Johnson, were thrust into the national spotlight last month after the three lawmakers, all Democrats, demonstrated in solidarity with Tennesseans demanding gun control after a mass shooting killed six people, including three nine-year-olds, at The Covenant School in Nashville. Johnson, a white woman, was subjected to a similar vote calling for her expulsion but was ultimately spared from removal. When asked why she survived the vote, Johnson suggested that her skin color had likely played a role.

“Is what’s happening outside these doors by Tennesseans who want to see change a ‘temper tantrum’?” Pearson said in a speech responding to Republican complaints that their protest was tantamount to a “temper tantrum.”

It’s a HUGE pod debut for… Sammy Ameobi the dog!

In other news, Franky Lampard’s back! But is it all a bit… cruel? Marcus, Andy, Jim, Pete and Sammy are asking that, plus we go to South America where there’s a new Guy Goma and there’s HUGE news from Forest! They’ve not sacked Steve Cooper. I repeat, they’ve not sacked Steve Cooper.

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What Lionel Messi wants and what PSG want are no longer compatible. But where does this season’s World Cup-winning captain head to next? It really could be the beaches of Miami…

Dotun, Andy and Miguel give you the inside track and ponder on whether the Messi experiment in Paris has worked at all – for either party. 

Plus, we discuss José Mourinho’s realistic future and after reaching the final of the Copa del Rey, we look at how Miguel’s very own Osasuna are showing the way for Spanish football with an organised, community-led approach!

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

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Some said we shouldn’t bother with this episode of Reacts. But if we don’t investigate just how close Chelsea are to hiring Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson or Duncan Ferguson as their new manager, then who will? 

Marcus and Vish hear your takes on one of the worst games of the season at Stamford Bridge, which left both teams with some incredibly harsh truths. Elsewhere, Marcus reveals his plans to tarmac over Anfield for Everton’s new stadium car park and Vish accidentally brings back Jeremy Kyle. Plus, are Nottingham Forest about to contract managerial-merry-go-round FOMO?

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Where were you on the night of April 3rd 1996? Jim doesn’t remember, which is all very suspicious.

Marcus, Jim, Vish and Pete look back at arguably THE most legendary Premier League clash ever, which simply had it all. A terrible 90s pitch. Brilliant attacking football. And the Premier League title on the line. We find out all about it, discover what Marcus gets up to in the pub and stumble across Kevin Keegan’s real truth. Seriously, this one HAS to be listened to right to the very end!

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Third spot was in their grasp, but Spurs let it slip! To ten-man Everton. And then got a man sent off themselves. Oh dear.

Marcus and Luke react to a shaky start to the post-Antonio Conte era and just another day at the office for Michael Roberto Carlos Keane.

Elsewhere, there’s a Fabio Paratici update after he valiantly (and temporarily) falls on his sword while Leicester barely wait until Brendan Rodgers has left the carpark before speed dialling Graham Potter. Plus, what sort of social occasion would force Roy Hodgson’s assistant Ray Lewington into a pair of trousers? Stay tuned.

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Chelsea’s board reportedly ‘admire’ Julian Nagelsmann. We here at the Ramble admire José Mourinho for the job. 

Jules, Jim and Luke react to a dramatic Sunday that saw Potter and Brother Brendy get the boot from their respective pressure cookers! We discuss where this leaves both of their reputations and why Chelsea - in Jim’s view - are giving North Korea vibes.

In more important matters, a referee knees a player in the nads in Mexico, Jack Grealish follows our takeaway advice, and we try to work out how former-player-turned-whaler Wayne Rooney should launch his boxing career.

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A taste of some of our favourite moments from last month on the show!

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Like most Arsenal fans, Piers Morgan enjoyed their win against Leeds United this afternoon as Mikel Arteta’s side storms towards ending this season with the title in the bag.

Arsenal need to win ten games before the term finishes to be sure of the title.

The first opponent was Leeds and after the international break, the players needed to show they have what it takes to get the trophy.

Mikel Arteta’s men did just that and Morgan reckons they showed how much hunger for success they have in them.

Morgan tweeted:

Leandro Trossard continues to show he is the best signing by any club in the January transfer window after he delivered another superb performance for Arsenal in their game against Leeds United.

The attacker joined the Gunners in the last transfer window after they missed out on Mykhailo Mudryk and he has proven to be one of the best buys around.

After his superb game against Leeds United, Darren Bent insists the Belgian is one of the signings of the entire season.

He tweeted:

“Trossard has been one of the signings of the season, I don’t care if he only arrived in January, he’s been Class”