Kai Havertz is a player who significantly divides opinion as he endeavours to establish himself at Arsenal. His unexpected and somewhat unpopular signing in the last summer transfer window raised eyebrows among Arsenal fans, as the move for a player who hadn’t enjoyed a particularly spectacular spell at Chelsea was not anticipated.

Despite the initial scepticism, Mikel Arteta was confident in his choice, believing that Havertz would prove to be a valuable asset for the team. The German player faced challenges in the early stages of his Arsenal tenure, with fans often questioning his impact in each game.

However, in recent weeks, the former Bayer Leverkusen youngster has shown remarkable improvement and has become one of the key players at the Emirates. He has contributed significantly, scoring important goals that have played a crucial role in winning over the fans.

Havertz’s outstanding performances seem to be garnering attention not just from supporters but also from his fellow professionals.

While speaking to Goal.com on TikTok, Manchester United star Diogo Dalot was asked the player he thought had the best football IQ and his answer was simply: “Havertz.”

In red-hot form, Viktor Gyökeres is becoming increasingly hard for Arsenal to overlook, potentially emerging as their next goal-scoring machine. The striker has been in exceptional form this season, registering an impressive 31 goals for Sporting Club across all competitions. Despite joining Sporting Club from Coventry only in the summer, he has quickly become their leading scorer.

Initially considered an alternative option if Arsenal fails to secure Victor Osimhen or Ivan Toney, Gyokeres’ outstanding performances have elevated him to a crucial target on Arsenal’s shortlist. Mikel Arteta’s team is now viewed as a serious contender for his signature. However, reports from Team Talk suggest that securing Gyokeres might pose a challenge for Arsenal, as Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is also interested in acquiring him.

With PSG in need of a replacement for Kylian Mbappe, who is set to depart at the end of the season, they are actively seeking a quality addition to their squad. The French club has expressed interest in both Gyokeres and Osimhen, setting the stage for a potential duel with Arsenal to strengthen their respective teams.

Just Arsenal Opinion

Gyokeres has been fantastic, and most Arsenal fans would be delighted to see him in our colours next season. 

Mikel Arteta has selected his dream five-a-side team from his former teammates, including a controversial name.

Arteta, now establishing a successful managerial career, enjoyed a distinguished playing career with stints at Barcelona, PSG, Rangers, Everton, and Arsenal before retiring.

Choosing a five-man team from his former teammates is undoubtedly challenging, but Arteta has included some intriguing names.

‘Ronaldinho has to be there,’ said Arteta, as quoted by Metro Sport. 

‘I never saw anything like it, he was 19 or 20 years old at that time and I never seen anybody do the the kind of things he could do with the ball at that pace.

Arsenal recently released its financial report for the 2022/2023 season, and it was positive.

Despite not participating in the Champions League last term, the Gunners’ financial outlook remained favourable.

This is encouraging news because they have the potential to generate more revenue by reaching the knockout stage of the Champions League this term.

They stand a chance to increase their earnings further if they defeat FC Porto and progress to the quarterfinals of the competition.

Financial analyst Kieran Maguire has shared insights into what Arsenal can anticipate in terms of their finances at the end of this season.

Arsenal was recently linked with a surprising move for Mykhailo Mudryk, with reports suggesting the Gunners maintained interest in the Ukrainian player. Initially considered favourites to sign him from his former club, Chelsea ultimately secured his services.

However, since joining Chelsea, Mudryk has struggled in West London, leading to speculation that he might be better off playing for Arsenal. Reports even suggested that Arsenal could pursue him if given a second chance to add him to their squad, potentially rescuing him from his challenging time at Chelsea.

Contrary to these rumours, journalist Dean Jones has responded by stating that Arsenal no longer has any interest in Mudryk. Additionally, he mentioned that the Ukrainian player is focused on contributing to his current club and helping them overcome their challenges.

He tweeted:

“Arsenal have been linked with a new move for Mudryk in the summer – but there is no plan for that.

Ben White concurs with Mikel Arteta’s assessment that Arsenal needs to enhance their game to succeed in the Champions League.

In their recent UCL match against FC Porto, the Gunners suffered a defeat, with Porto appearing more experienced and adept at the tactical aspects of the game.

The Portuguese side demonstrated a mastery of the “dark arts” and showcased a greater streetwise approach compared to Arteta’s team.

This Champions League campaign marks Arsenal’s return to the competition for the first time since 2017, and they haven’t reached the quarterfinals in a decade.

Porto, being a frequent qualifier for the competition and often advancing to the latter stages, displayed a tactical prowess that got under Arsenal’s skin, leading to their defeat.

Mikel Arteta is still in his first stint as a senior manager, with Arsenal entrusting him to lead their team while he was serving as an assistant coach at Manchester City.

While Arteta was performing admirably as Pep Guardiola’s assistant, Manchester City attempted to retain him at the end of 2019. Despite their efforts, the Spanish coach decided to depart.

Taking a chance, Arteta accepted the job at Arsenal, marking a significant risk for the club as they appointed a relatively inexperienced manager.

The former midfielder has demonstrated his coaching prowess, and he recently reflected on his early days at the club, which were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arteta disclosed an unlikely source of inspiration for him during the challenging period of the pandemic.

Former Chelsea and France star, Frank Leboeuf, has bestowed the title of “world-class player” upon William Saliba. The defender has been in outstanding form since making his debut for the Gunners after spending several seasons out on loan.

Initially, when Mikel Arteta assumed the role of Arsenal’s manager, he did not seem overly impressed with the Frenchman, leading to Saliba being sent out on loan at least twice. However, this decision has proven to be remarkable, as Saliba returned to London as a vastly improved player.

Having represented France at the World Cup and played a pivotal role in Arsenal’s return to the Champions League, Saliba has established himself as one of the key contributors to the team’s success. His consistent performances have earned him a spot as one of the first names on the team sheet at the Emirates, solidifying his status as a major asset for Arsenal.

Leboeuf said, as quoted by Express Sports:

“I think William Saliba is already one of the world’s best centre-backs, if not the best. When he got injured last season Arsenal lost the title, not much more needs to be said about him than that. He has made some mistakes this season, but who doesn’t?

Ben White is lucky to have worked with Marcelo Bielsa and Mikel Arteta., two great managers who have played an important role in his career.

He worked with Bielsa when he played for Leeds United and has been under Arteta since he moved to Arsenal.

White came to the Emirates as a centre-back, but the outstanding partnership between William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes means he has been forced to play as a right-back.

He is doing well in that role at Arsenal and has been one of the finest players in his position in the league, even though he is not as technical as most fullbacks are.

The defender was asked about the most demanding of both managers he has worked with and said to The Guardian:

Just a week after saying that “embryos, to me, are babies,” Nikki Haley is now joining other Republicans in suddenly claiming to support IVF access in the wake of rising abortion restrictions and the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos can now be considered children under state law.

“I think there should be federal protection that we allow for IVF places to be able to function…I think the only thing the federal government should do is make sure IVF places are protected or available,” Haley said in an interview on CNN on Friday after host Dana Bash asked if she thought there should be federal protections for IVF and doctors who perform the procedure.  

“We don’t need government getting involved in an issue where we don’t have a problem,” Haley added. “We don’t have a problem with IVF facilities. If you have a certain case, let that case play out the way it’s supposed to, but don’t create issues, and that’s what I feel like has happened with this IVF.” 

Nikki Haley on IVF: "We don't need government getting involved in an issue where we don't have a problem. We don't have a problem with IVF facilities. If you have a certain case, let that case play out the way it's supposed to, but don't create issues" @nikkihaley @InsidePolitics pic.twitter.com/HKexTJTSWn

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) March 1, 2024

Editor’s note: The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Our Land here.

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published the novel It Can’t Happen Here, which told the story of fascism triumphing in the United States. The book was a reaction to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and the spread of demagogic populism in the United States by Huey Long, the strongman governor of Louisiana, and Father Charles Coughlin, the wildly popular antisemitic radio preacher. In Lewis’ alternative universe, a politician named Buzz Windrip, who champions “traditional” values and who promises to restore America to greatness, defeats FDR in the presidential election of 1936 and then through a self-coup seizes dictatorial powers. He establishes a paramilitary force to do his bidding, curtails the rights of women and minorities, and locks up dissidents and political foes in concentration camps. Eventually, his reign leads to civil war. It’s a grim tale.

The title of his book was the proper use of irony (the expression of an idea through language that normally means the opposite). While many Americans at the time looked at the failure of democracy in Europe and thought that the United States would be immune to such retrograde forces, Lewis, whose wife, journalist Dorothy Thompson, had reported on developments in Germany (and was the first American journalist to be expelled from the Nazi state), believed otherwise.

America did not succumb to the fascist wave. Long was assassinated. Coughlin was forced off the air. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II led to the end of the America First movement that might have produced a demagogic alternative to Roosevelt. No Buzz Windrip emerged.

Over eight decades later, the ghost of It Can’t Happen Here haunts American politics. Donald Trump has often been compared to Windrip, and various commentators have harkened back to Lewis’ novel to explain the threat Trumpism poses to American democracy.

Trump is considering Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a potential running mate, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday—even though Abbott has said that he doesn’t want the job. 

When Hannity asked Trump if Abbott was on his short list during a joint interview with the two politicians in Eagle Pass, Texas—the epicenter of the fight between Texas and the feds over control of the border—the former president said yes.

“He’s a spectacular man,” Trump said of Abbott, praising him for endorsing his reelection campaign. 

“Certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider,” Trump added later. 

Abbott, meanwhile, sat there nodding and smiling and presumably feeling awkward given that just last week he told CNN that “there’s so many people other than myself who are best situated” to the role. 

Trans teen Nex Benedict died after an altercation in the girl’s bathroom of his public high school in Owasso, Oklahoma a bathroom he was required to use because of the state’s 2023 legislation forcing students at public and charter schools to use bathroom and changing facilities that match their biological, sex rather than their identity.

The exact cause of Benedict’s death—which occurred less than 24 hours after he was “jumped” by three other students who, in Benedict’s words, were “beating the shit out of me”—remains under investigation. The latest update from police confirmed that the fight has not been ruled out as Benedict’s cause of death. 

Benedict’s grandmother and guardian told the Independent that Benedict had been bullied over the past year for being transgender. Since Benedict’s death, calls to LGBTQ crisis centers from Oklahoma youth have increased by 300 percent. Eighty-five percent of those callers said they had faced bullying and 79 percent feared for their physical safety.

Benedict’s death also highlights the unique struggles that trans youth face under anti-trans policies and laws. In 2023, in addition to the bathroom ban, the Oklahoma legislature stopped trans kids from playing on sports teams that align with their gender and banned gender-affirming care for minors. The Oklahoma education department appointed far-right TikToker Chaya Raichik—of “Libs of TikTok”—to sit on the statewide library advisory board. Raichick promotes the “eradication of transgenderism.”

Many of these same politicians have used Benedict’s death as an opportunity to double down on their anti-trans rhetoric. During a public forum last week, state Sen. Tom Woods (R) said, “I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma. We are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we’re a Christian state.” When pressed on if he was referring to the LGBTQ community when he said “filth” he said “no comment.”

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll are urging the judge in her defamation case against Donald Trump to reject the former president’s last-minute request to avoid paying the $83.3 million Carroll had been awarded as he appeals the ruling.

In a new filing on Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers blasted the request, arguing that it amounted to little more than a “trust me” written on a “paper napkin” by a cash-poor man with a long record of stiffing legal bills, incurring enormous debts, flouting financial deadlines, and inflating his wealth. They also pointed to the other legal battles Trump is mired in—including the civil fraud case in which Trump has been ordered to pay a $454 million penalty—as reason to deeply question his cash position.

“Trump does not even mention, much less address, these developments, which are obviously highly relevant to his ability to satisfy the judgment here,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote in their filing. “Nor does Trump mention the four criminal cases he is currently facing, including one set to go to trial on March 25, 2024.”

Since winning her defamation case against Trump, Carroll has since publicly vowed to use the $83.3 million award for “something good,” hinting that she may dedicate the money to assisting other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. “If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent,” Carroll told George Stephanopoulos in January.

So what happens next? If the judge denies Trump’s request to delay payment, the former president is hoping that he’ll be allowed to post a bond to only partially cover the $83.3 million award. But as the New York Times reports, posting a bond poses its own challenges as that option would require the company providing one to pay up if Trump ends up dodging responsibility. It’s unclear what would happen if Trump simply refuses to pay. But in the situation of his civil fraud case, New York Attorney General Letitia James has already signaled that she is coming for his properties. 

This story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

At a press conference last month, flanked by sheriffs and attorneys, Ohio Attorney General David Yost announced the indictments of two utility executives who allegedly tried to “hijack” state electricity policy for their own corrupt ends by paying $4.3 million in bribes to Sam Randazzo, then chair of the state Public Utilities Commission. The two men stand accused of trying to bilk taxpayers out of $1.2 billion on behalf of their former employer, FirstEnergy.

This was just the latest in an ongoing criminal probe of utility corruption that reached deep into the Ohio statehouse. Randazzo had been indicted previously by the Department of Justice, accused of working secretly with executives for more than a decade to secure favorable regulations for FirstEnergy—which pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in 2021 for its role in the scandal. Last year, three lobbyists, along with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal racketeering charges. (Faced with the prospect of years in prison, one of the lobbyists took his own life.) Another utility operating in Ohio, American Electric Power, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Power is inherently seductive and corrosive,” noted a somber Yost, after laying out the latest alleged plot.

The Ohio scandals are no fluke. They are part of a generational resurgence of fraud and corruption in the utility sector, according to a Floodlight analysis of 30 years of corporate prosecutions and federal lawsuits. And they come at a time when trillions of dollars and the health of the planet are at stake as some power companies embrace—while others seek to block—the transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and battery storage.

Over the past five years, at least seven power companies have been accused of fraud or corruption. Seven industry executives have pleaded guilty or been federally indicted, along with a handful of appointed and elected officials. And a growing number of industry shareholders have sued the companies, claiming executives lied about their alleged misdeeds.

Washington state’s largest private-sector labor union has followed Michigan voters‘ lead, urging its 50,000 members to vote “uncommitted” rather than for Joe Biden in the state’s March 12 primary.

The news, first reported by NBC today, comes as Biden faces growing protests from voters on the left about his support for Israel in its war in Gaza, and concerns about his ability to defeat Trump, the GOP’s all-but-certain nominee, in November.

The executive board for the Washington chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers—which represents more than 50,000 of the union’s more than one million workers, including some in parts of Oregon and Idaho—unanimously voted for the endorsement Wednesday night, just one day after more than 100,000 voters in Michigan, or 13 percent overall, opted to vote “uncommitted” as a protest vote, as my colleague Noah Lanard reported. Enough uncommitted votes can mean some state delegates at the party’s national convention are uncommitted, and can vote for the nominee of their choosing. 

“While Biden has been an ally to workers over the last four years, low-wage workers cannot afford setbacks when it comes to the right to organize and the protections we’ve won during Biden’s time in office,” UFCW 3000’s statement said. 

The Washington union also said it’s “in solidarity with our partners in Michigan who sent a clear message in their primary that Biden must do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war.” As I wrote on Tuesday about the effort in Michigan, a state with large Arab and Muslim populations: 

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

Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.’” 

Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the US conducted Castle Bravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened Indigenous people, poisoned fish, upended traditional food practices, and caused cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today. 

A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors conclude that climate change could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the US Department of Energy,” the report says. 

In Greenland, chemical pollution and radioactive liquid are frozen in ice sheets, left over from a nuclear power plant on a US military research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100. 

Telehealth abortions continue to grow in popularity, even in states where anti-abortion activists try to ban them, according to new data published today.

Abortions obtained through virtual providers accounted for 15 to 16 percent of all abortions conducted between July and September of last year—amounting to about 14,000 abortions each month—up from 11 percent of abortions, or about 8,500, in December of 2022, according to the report, prepared by researchers from Ohio State University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the Society of Family Planning. The increase is partly thanks to the rise of shield laws, which protect providers who virtually prescribe and mail abortion pills to people in states with abortion bans, according to one of the report’s co-authors, Ushma Upadhyay, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Five states—Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, New York, and Vermont—passed laws last year that protect telehealth providers who help people elsewhere in the country get abortions, according to Upadhyay. California enacted its shield law last month. As the New York Times reported last week, while these laws have not yet faced legal challenges, many expect them to. But in the meantime, they’re serving as the key to abortion access for people across the country: The Times reports that Aid Access, one of three main organizations providing telehealth abortions, serves about 7,000 patients a month, about 90 percent of whom are in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Advocates say telehealth abortion can also be particularly significant for low-income people and those in rural areas who may otherwise have difficulty accessing abortion clinics. 

The new data from Upadhyay and her colleagues—part of a recurring study known as #WeCount, aimed at providing quarterly updates on abortion access post-Dobbs—comes just weeks before the Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in a case brought by anti-abortion activists arguing against the FDA approval of mifepristone, one of two pills taken in a medication abortion. That case—billed as the biggest abortion case since Dobbs, since medication abortions account for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute—will go before the high court despite the fact that more than 100 studies have shown that medication abortion is safe and effective. One of those studies was also conducted by Upadhyay, and was published in the journal Nature Medicine this month; it showed the pills are just as safe when prescribed virtually and mailed as when they’re prescribed and obtained in-person, as I previously reported. As I wrote then: 

If the court restricts the accessibility of mifepristone through telehealth, it could have a significant effect. With abortion restrictions on the rise, obtaining abortion pills from virtual clinics has continued to grow in popularity. After the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision in June 2022, abortions obtained through telehealth increased drastically—from 3,610 in April 2022 to 8,540 by December of that year, according to research published last year by the Society of Family Planning. And as I reported last month, a study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine shows that more Americans are using telehealth to stockpile abortion pills in case they need them in the future. 

This week’s episode of Reveal features WNYC’s Kai Wright and the Nation‘s Lizzy Ratner, hosts of New York Public Radio and the History Channel’s Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows. Wright and Ratner take on the history and politics of the early AIDS crisis, surveying contemporary media coverage, community responses, and the enduring waves of activism that followed the dawn of HIV.

Wright’s look at some of the first reporting on HIV and AIDS brings him into conversation with Lawrence Altman, physician and author of a groundbreaking 1981 New York Times article that brought the little then known about HIV to wider attention; veteran AIDS activist Phil Wilson, and Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases and a leading HIV researcher. Then, through interviews and archival recordings, Ratner sketches the life of Katrina Haslip, whose activism and educational work around AIDS began in the 1980s at New York’s Bedford Hills women’s prison and continued, in conjunction with ACT UP, until her death in 1992 at the age of 33. 

Special thanks to Blindspot, all three seasons of which can be heard at WNYC.

A Democratic candidate for the Ohio Senate is a transgender man who has long gone by the name Ari Faber, but a 1995 law will require the state’s upcoming March primary ballots to use the name he was given at birth: Iva Faber.

Title 35, Section 3513.271 of Ohio Revised Code requires that “[i]f any person desiring to become a candidate for public office has had a change of name within five years immediately preceding the filing of his statement of candidacy, both his statement of candidacy and nominating petition must contain, immediately following the person’s present name, the person’s former names.”

Additionally, the statute says, people who are “elected under the person’s changed name, without submission of the person’s former name, shall be immediately suspended from the office and the office declared vacated.”

According to the New York Times, which published a feature story on Faber and the Ohio law on Saturday morning, the law originated to prevent candidates from deceiving voters. There is an exception to the law for candidates who changed their names through marriage.

Faber, who is running for a state senate seat in southeast Ohio and has not legally changed his name, told the Times he is “concerned that supporters might be confused when they see my deadname on the ballot.”