That’s a wrap for the Premier League! Like Weston McKennie, we’re hopping on a train straight out of this madhouse as quickly as possible…

Marcus, Jim, David and Pete relive the last stirrings of the relegation tussle which saw Everton stay up and Sean Dyche have over £3 million to spend on some nice vests.

Elsewhere, Harvey Barnes signs for every club in the Premier League, Dortmund make us tear our hair out, and Marcus turns into a right old hairy troll. So Pete spits on him, naturally.

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It is true that Manchester United and Arsenal had contrasting seasons in terms of their league position and trophy aspirations. While Arsenal led the Premier League for a significant portion of the campaign, they were unable to maintain their form and secure the title. On the other hand, Manchester United may not have reached Arsenal’s level in the league, but they have the opportunity to finish the season with two trophies.

The decision to prioritise the league over cup competitions was a calculated risk for Arsenal, but it ultimately did not yield the desired outcome. While some Arsenal fans may feel disappointed by the lack of silverware, others take pride in the team’s progress throughout the season.

Fans of both clubs have been engaged in debates about which team had the better campaign. Manchester United supporters point to their potential trophy haul as evidence of a successful season, while Arsenal fans highlight their team’s improvement and league performance.

Rio Ferdinand, a former Manchester United player, has expressed his opinion on the matter, stating why he believes United’s season is superior to Arsenal’s.

Speaking on his FIVE YouTube channel, Ferdinand said: “Have Man United had a better season than Arsenal? If you were just laying it down and saying if you’re a player, do you want to finish fourth and win a trophy, whatever trophy that is, or third and win a trophy and qualify for the Champions League, or second, no trophy but be involved in the title race?

In a stunning turn of events, the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives voted Saturday to impeach the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In a 121 to 23 vote, with five others absent or abstaining, the state House approved twenty articles of impeachment against Paxton on grounds including bribery, obstruction of justice, and dereliction of duty. Among other things, Paxton is accused of doing favors for a top campaign donor, then firing whistleblowers in his office—four high-ranking Republican staffers—who raised legal concerns about his actions. He subsequently tried to get the state legislature to cover the cost of a $3.3 million settlement over their claims.

“Attorney General Paxton abused his office and his power for personal gain,” said Republican State Rep. David Spiller, a member of the House Committee on General Investigating. “He put the interests of himself over the laws of the state of Texas.” 

Paxton will be temporarily removed from office pending a trial in the state Senate. Texas’ legislature is one of the most conservative in the country, which makes Saturday’s vote all the more remarkable.

Paxton is best known as a staunch ally of Donald Trump who in December 2020 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state of Texas that sought to invalidate presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the case because Texas did not have standing to challenge the voting procedures of another state.

Arsenal is continuing its tradition of honouring fans who tragically passed away during the season at the end of their campaign. As one of the most popular clubs in the world with a large and devoted fanbase, Arsenal values the strong connection it has with its supporters.

In a heartfelt gesture, the club has announced that it will pay tribute to fans who have lost their lives during the course of the season. Prior to their final home game of the campaign, Arsenal will display the names of these dedicated supporters on a cannon, symbolizing their lasting impact and remembrance within the club.

This initiative aims to bring the fans even closer to the organisation and acknowledges the significant role they play in the success and spirit of Arsenal Football Club. It is a poignant reminder of the enduring bond between the club and its loyal supporters, as they come together to honor those who have passed away.

The club announced through its website:

“This season, we have been contacted by the loved ones of significantly more supporters than previous years – many of whom will have featured as obituaries in the matchday programme. 

Arsenal is actively searching for midfield reinforcements as they aim to strengthen their squad for the upcoming season under Mikel Arteta. Recognizing the midfield as an area requiring improvement, the Gunners have set their sights on players who can make a significant impact.

While Declan Rice has been identified as a target, Arsenal’s ambitions extend beyond just one player. The club has also been linked with the likes of Mason Mount and Moises Caicedo, and they have now added Juventus midfielder Adrien Rabiot to their list.

According to Fichajes.net, Arteta is interested in working with Rabiot, who is set to become a free agent at the end of the season. The Frenchman is expected to leave Juventus and is open to discussions with potential suitors, potentially including Arsenal.

Whether or not Arsenal will meet Rabiot’s demands remains to be seen, but he has become one of their primary targets as they seek to strengthen their midfield ahead of the new season.

Just Arsenal Opinion

Tony Cascarino has put forward the suggestion that Mason Mount could be an ideal signing for Arsenal to replace Granit Xhaka, who is set to leave the club in the summer, as Chelsea and the player are reportedly struggling to reach an agreement on a new contract.

Despite Chelsea’s significant investments in the transfer market in recent seasons, they are apparently unable to meet Mount’s demands. Cascarino expressed his surprise and frustration at this situation and was subsequently asked about the club he believes would be a good fit for the midfielder, to which he suggested Arsenal.

He said via Talk Sport:

“I look at Arsenal as probably the best fit for him, because I think he can do the Xhaka role really well.

“Mason will always get goals, he’s got a great eye for the goal, he’s a good finisher and he will always chip in. He’s very capable of getting ten-plus goals a season, and I think he’d fit well in this Arsenal team.” 

Former professional footballer Gabby Agbonlahor has advised Arsenal against taking shortcuts as they aim to rebuild their team and become a strong force in the Premier League once again.

Arsenal showcased their potential in the league this season, coming close to defeating Manchester City and challenging for the title. Mikel Arteta’s side will be eager to maintain this level of performance in the upcoming campaign and have been linked with high-profile signings such as Moises Caicedo and Declan Rice.

Both midfielders are highly regarded in the Premier League and would require a significant financial investment from Arsenal. However, there have been reports suggesting that Arsenal might opt for a more cost-effective option in Southampton’s Romeo Lavia.

Agbonlahor believes that signing Lavia would be a shortcut for Arsenal and may not yield the desired results. Instead, he suggests that the club should focus on making substantial investments in top-quality players to ensure long-term success rather than opting for cheaper alternatives.

He tells Football Insider:

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is planning a squad overhaul at the end of the season, with several players set to be offloaded to make way for new additions.

One player who is likely to leave the club is Granit Xhaka, who has been with Arsenal for a significant period of time. Xhaka is expected to make a move to Bayer Leverkusen in Germany, signalling the end of his tenure at the Emirates Stadium.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is another player who could be on his way out of Arsenal. Despite being a product of the club’s academy, Maitland-Niles has spent the last two seasons on loan at AS Roma and Southampton. Following Southampton’s relegation this season, Maitland-Niles is now considered a free agent and is available to find a new club.

Although Arsenal has the option to trigger a one-year extension on Maitland-Niles’ contract, Football Insider reports they have decided against doing so. This means the player will be able to pursue opportunities elsewhere as a free agent.

By parting ways with Xhaka and Maitland-Niles, Arsenal aims to make room for new signings and bring in players who will enhance the squad’s quality and professionalism under Arteta’s leadership.

Arsenal director Edu Gaspar has rejected the notion that the Gunners “bottled” the Premier League title despite occupying the top spot for a significant portion of the season.

At the start of the campaign, Mikel Arteta’s team aimed to secure a top-four finish. However, as they consistently held the leading position in the league standings, aspirations within the club shifted towards winning the title.

While Arsenal’s fans had high hopes and expectations, the team ultimately fell short of claiming the championship. Some supporters have expressed their disappointment, attributing the failure to “bottling” the title.

Edu, however, disagrees with this assessment telling ESPN Brasil:

“Saying Arsenal ‘bottled’ is a word I wouldn’t use, we created our own frustration. Nobody expected us to fight for the title. You being frustrated about not winning the title is a change of mind. It could even be considered, let’s say, positive, considering times ago. In the past, we celebrated the fourth place, the third. Today, we are frustrated with the second.”

Hours before announcing his 2024 campaign for the presidency on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law allowing him to continue to serve as governor while he pursues the GOP presidential nomination. While that was the headline, the new law contains a series of provisions making it harder to vote in the state, including new restrictions on mail-in ballots, efforts to make it easier to purge voting rolls, and limitations on third-party voter registration groups that could gut community registration drives.

As a result, DeSantis is facing three new federal lawsuits from organizations including the NAACP, League of Women Voters, and the Hispanic Federation, which argue that the new restrictions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, including the right to free speech and association, and fundamental protections of the right to vote.

Voting rights groups say the new rules for grassroots voter registration groups are particularly burdensome. According to a summary by Democracy Docket, the new law:

Requires organizations to reregister for every single election cycle,Prohibits prefilled information on registration applications,Shortens the amount of time organizations have to return registration applications from 14 days to 10 and increases the fine associated with late delivery,Bans noncitizens and individuals with certain felony convictions from handling voter registration applications and imposes fines for each violation of this requirement, andIncreases the total aggregate fine that an organization can be levied in each calendar year from $50,000 to $250,000.

Voting rights groups told the GOP-controlled legislature before the bill’s final passage that these measures “create an overwhelming chilling effect, and groups will have to decide between risking fines of magnitude they cannot shoulder, or simply cease undertaking voter registration activities altogether.” The lawsuit by the League of Women Voters said the restrictions will have “devastating consequences” that could lead it to “severely curtail” voter registration drives.

The new law is likely to have a disproportionate impact on voters of color, who are five times more likely than white voters to be registered by a third-party group.

A South Carolina judge temporarily blocked the state’s new six-week abortion ban on Friday, one day after it was signed by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.

“The status quo should be maintained until the [state] Supreme Court reviews its decision,” said circuit court Judge Clifton Newman. “It’s going to end up there.”

The state Supreme Court blocked a similar ban on abortion at the roughly six-week mark, which the GOP-controlled legislature passed in 2021, and which took effect after the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade last June. In January 2023, South Carolina’s Supreme Court called that law “an unreasonable restriction upon a woman’s right to privacy.” That kept abortion legal in the state until around 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In response, Republicans passed a new abortion ban, which Planned Parenthood South Atlantic immediately challenged in court, alleging that it “violates the South Carolina Constitution’s right to privacy and its guarantees of equal protection and due process.”

The composition of the South Carolina Supreme Court has changed since its ruling blocking the first abortion ban. Judge Kaye Hearn, who wrote the 3-2 decision, retired earlier this year and was replaced by Appeals Judge Gary Hill, who was selected by the legislature. That made South Carolina the only state in the country to have an all-male state supreme court.

Arsenal has identified West Ham United’s Declan Rice as their primary transfer target for the upcoming season as they seek to strengthen their squad in the next transfer window.

Arsenal has shown significant progress in the current campaign, establishing themselves as one of the top teams in the league. The team’s performances have highlighted the managerial abilities of Mikel Arteta, and the club is eager to provide him with the right players to further improve their squad.

Declan Rice is seen as a key target for Arsenal, and they aim to make him their marquee signing once the current season concludes. However, they face stiff competition from other clubs, including Chelsea and Real Madrid.

Football London has been closely monitoring the developments surrounding Rice’s career in recent weeks, and while it is not yet a done deal, the report suggests that Rice has rejected offers from Chelsea and Madrid. Furthermore, he has allegedly given his word to Arsenal, indicating a strong inclination towards joining the Gunners.

It is worth noting that transfer negotiations can be complex, and until official announcements are made, there is always a degree of uncertainty. However, the indications suggest that Arsenal is strongly pursuing Rice’s signature and is confident in their chances of securing the midfielder’s services.

It appears that Arsenal’s pursuit of Galatasaray’s Sacha Boey is facing competition from Brighton & Hove Albion. The French right-back has caught the attention of Arsenal, who see him as a potential first-choice option in that position.

Initially, Arsenal made an offer of around £14 million for Boey, but Galatasaray rejected the bid. This rejection has reportedly sparked a bidding war, with Brighton now entering the fray by submitting a £16 million offer, surpassing Arsenal’s initial bid, as reported by the Sun.

Galatasaray is said to be holding out for a fee of £20 million for the talented defender. With Brighton now seemingly leading the race, Arsenal will need to improve their offer significantly if they want to secure Boey’s services.

The situation remains fluid, and it remains to be seen whether Arsenal will come back with an improved bid to compete with Brighton and meet Galatasaray’s valuation for Sacha Boey.

Just Arsenal Opinion

Arsenal has received positive news regarding the future of Reiss Nelson, as the young attacker is now expected to commit to a new long-term contract with the club.

Nelson had a limited role in the previous season, but his performances and contributions convinced Arsenal to reconsider their initial decision to let him leave in the summer.

Initially, the club offered him a short-term deal, but Nelson declined the offer and garnered interest from AC Milan and other clubs across Europe.

However, according to The Daily Mail, the player has now had a change of heart and is prepared to sign a new long-term contract, indicating his desire to continue his career at the Emirates.

This development will be seen as a significant boost for Arsenal, as they aim to retain their key players while also attracting new talent to the club.

Nearly two months ago, a pandemic-era policy that prevented states from dropping ineligible people from Medicaid ended. Now, we’re starting to see the fallout. According to a recent New York Times report, hundreds of thousands of low-income people have already lost their health insurance, including those who may still qualify for coverage but appear to have been booted for “procedural reasons,” like failing to turn in paperwork. 

At the start of the pandemic, the policy was initially created under the First Coronavirus Response Act, allowing families to preserve their insurance under Medicaid even if they hadn’t filed the necessary forms to re-enroll. As I’ve previously reported, the program saw 20.2 million new recipients over the course of two years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Since the program’s expiration at the end of March, states have begun checking Medicaid eligibility once again, requiring households to file paperwork in order to verify their eligibility. 

While a definite total of those who’ve lost coverage is currently unknown, nineteen states have already begun the process of purging people from the health insurance program. Arkansas, one of the first states to start ending coverage, has already stripped at least 73,000 people of their insurance, including 27,000 children, reports the Times. Unlike other states, Arkansas has aimed to do this at a quicker rate—planning to get it done in only six months, instead of the year president Biden has allotted. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders framed the process as necessary in order to “preserve resources for those who need them and follow the law.” 

Editor’s note: The below article is a preview of the lead item in the next edition of  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. Please check it out.

Imagine I come home and find a crazy man in my house. He is holding a full gas can and a lit match. “If you don’t sign over the deed to your house,” he screams, “I will burn this place down.” I refuse, and we enter a standoff for days. Neighbors gather around my home. The police arrive. It is a major scene. The media show up. The newspaper and TV reporters see this as a big story and slap it on the front page and lead the evening news with it: “Two local residents caught in fierce negotiations. If their talks don’t succeed, a house will go up in flames.”

That seems to be the general media framing of the debt ceiling debate in Washington, DC. In horse-race style, much of the press has covered this episode as a political battle of two opposing forces: President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And there’s been much breathless and up-to-the-minute reporting of the ins-and-outs of the deliberations between the White House and the House Republicans, with each side treated as equal partners in this tale of high-stakes politics.

Earlier this week, the New York Times front-paged a report on how McCarthy was “attempting a difficult balancing act” in the negotiations, trying to cobble together a budget deal that would win enough Republicans without alienating the most extremist members of his caucus, who—thanks to the agreement that landed McCarthy in the top House post—could easily boot him out of the speakership. Meanwhile, Politico focused on Biden’s negotiating stance, noting he has “prioritized deal-making through much of the debt ceiling talks, laboring to work across the aisle even at the risk of alienating the liberal wing of his own party.”

There was nothing wrong with these stories in and of themselves, but this coverage underplayed the core element of the story: GOP radicals, by refusing to sign off on raising the debt ceiling so the US government could pay bills already accrued (many of which were the results of what Congress voted for), were threatening to trigger a financial crisis and blow up the US economy.

On Thursday, a Texas house panel voted to recommend impeachment proceedings for Republican attorney general Ken Paxton. Investigators for the committee concluded that the state’s top law enforcement official broke a number of laws—including felony statutes—by using his office to help a friend and political donor named Nate Paul. (You can read more about the scandal, and the committee’s investigation, here.)

Paxton, you may be surprised to learn, is not taking this well. In a statement after the committee’s announcement, Paxton, who was reelected last fall, accused his fellow Republicans of carrying water for liberal Democrats and claimed that the committee was trying “to use their unsubstantiated report to overturn the results of a free and fair election.” It was an “illegitimate attempt to overthrow the will of the people and disenfranchise the voters of our state.”

As the Texas Observer’s Justin Miller noted, Paxton and his team are floating a legal argument that holds that a public official can’t be impeached after an election for actions that were widely established before that election. This idea that all the facts were known, though, would seem to be undercut rather severely by Paxton’s continued insistence that the facts we think we know are wrong, as well as the fact that he was literally trying to get the state legislature to pay the whistleblowers he fired $3.3 million to settle their claims, rather than face a public trial—which is what prompted the legislature’s investigation. It wasn’t as if his reelection slogan was “Yes, I did it.”

But more importantly, this is Ken Paxton we’re talking about. You know, the guy who famously tried to overturn an election.

After the 2020 presidential election, as Donald Trump and his team were scrambling to come up with a way to reverse his loss, Paxton stepped forward. As I recounted in a profile of Paxton last year, his office asked the Supreme Court to throw out the election results in four states that Joe Biden won, claiming, among other things, that “the statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in these four States collectively is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000.” The brief was a disaster, recycling claims that had already been rejected. Even fellow Republican-run AG offices wanted to keep their distance. In internal emails obtained through a records request by the group American Oversight, staffers in the Florida attorney general’s office called Paxton’s brief “batshit” and wondered if “this is Paxton’s request for a pardon.”

Man United secured Champions League football last night and Chelsea were, erm, Chelsea. Marcus, Jim, Andy and Pete try to decide whether Frank Lampard would be a good fit for Inter Miami once Fizzer leaves the job.

We also preview the survival Sunday, aka the best part of the Premier League season, and we give Eberechi Eze some goal celebration advice ahead of his first England call-up. Plus, we hear about Pete’s new role as the McDonald’s Fairy…

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Is the federal government helping companies sell surveillance technology to repressive governments? Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wants to know, but a federal subagency has been cagey about the information. 

In a letter sent on Friday, Wyden asked the International Trade Administration (ITA), a subagency of the Department of Commerce, for details about its role in helping US firms sell their surveillance technology to other countries. In the letter, Wyden—a privacy-minded lawmaker who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance—noted that he had been asking for an answer on the matter since last summer.

In August of 2022, the ITA confirmed to Wyden that it “provides assistance” to companies selling surveillance technology. But when asked, the subagency, Wyden writes, “did not provide details on these activities” or the specific help ITA has offered because of “unspecified legal barriers to revealing more [information].” In theory, this work falls within ITA’s purview of promoting US exports: ITA’s website touts that it will help companies compete in foreign markets on everything from “Steel” to “Aerospace and Defense.” But that does not account for the potential buyer: repressive regimes looking to crack down on civil liberties.

Wyden has good reason for suspicion. When the ITA published posts on its website showcasing arenas that are ripe for surveillance and security technology sales, the countries mentioned include not only obvious allies like the United Kingdom, but also others with a history of abusing surveillance technologies, including Honduras, the Philippines, and India.

Amnesty International has warned of the possible harms of India’s growing appetite for surveillance technology, which is particularly concerning in light of the increased persecution of Muslims in the country. In its market intelligence post on India, the ITA did not mention this repression. Instead, in February, the ITA told US firms that the “surveillance systems market in India is growing” and “provides opportunities for U.S. exporters.” Another post on “India’s surveillance and security market” noted “huge opportunities for U.S. companies,” and that “surveillance systems are in demand across all sectors.” 

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

The scope of a landmark law to protect America’s waterways has been shrunk by the US Supreme Court, which has sided with an Idaho couple who have waged a long-running legal battle to build a house on wetlands near one of the state’s largest lakes.

In a ruling passed down on Thursday, the conservative-dominated court decided that the federal government was wrong to use the Clean Water Act, a key 50-year-old piece of legislation to prevent pollution seeping into rivers, streams and lakes, to prevent the couple building over the wetland beside Priest Lake in Idaho.