The US Department of Veterans Affairs will begin offering abortion services for the first time, opening up new options for veterans and other VA beneficiaries whose pregnancies resulted from rape or incest or otherwise pose a threat to their health. Under a new Biden administration interim rule that takes effect immediately, pregnant veterans and their eligible family members will be able to receive abortion counseling at VA hospitals. Those that qualify will be able to get an abortion, regardless of state laws. 

The VA is preparing to provide abortions services in “as many locations as possible,” the department announced Friday. VA doctors will have case-by-case discretion to decide, along with their patients, when a pregnancy puts a patient’s health at risk. Those who seek abortions under the rape or incest provisions won’t be required to provide a police report; self-reporting will be considered sufficient evidence.

VA secretary Denis McDonough called the policy shift a “a patient safety decision.” Fifteen states currently ban abortion in all or almost all cases, and some states—like Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma—don’t allow exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. People who want or need to end their pregnancies in those states currently must travel elsewhere or seek out abortion medications online, a legally gray area.

“We came to this decision after listening to VA health care providers and Veterans across the country, who sounded the alarm that abortion restrictions are creating a medical emergency for those we serve,” Shereef Elnahal, the VA’s under secretary for health, said in a statement. “Offering this care will save Veterans’ health and lives, and there is nothing more important than that.”

The shift in policy brings the VA in line with the Defense Department, which offers abortions to military service members in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life, according to the Washington Post. But the services are little-used: Annually, fewer than two dozen service members receive abortions at military hospitals, with others seeking care from private clinics. About 300,000 women of childbearing age currently receive health care through the VA.

Arsenal are claimed to be eyeing a move to sign Danilo from Palmeiras come January after failing to bolster their CM role before the summer transfer window closed on Thursday.

The Gunners were strongly linked with Aston Villa’s Douglas Luiz in the final 48 hours of the window, and despite supposedly lodging two offers for his signature, the Brazilian wasn’t permitted a move away from the Midland club.

While we could well return for his services again when the new window opens, the Express claims that we are keen to move for the younger Brazilian in Danilo.

The report by FourFourTwo adds that while the Palmeiras star could be eyed to play the more defensive of the two midfield roles in our side, he has all the makings of a number eight also, and could well be a clever signing due to his versatility to play either option at the base of our midfield.

We have shown a clear preference for younger players in previous windows, but the fact that both Douglas Luiz and Youri Tielemans are into the final 12 months of their playing deals, both could potentially be available for a bargain fee come the new year, and both could well pose as players who would easily increase their monetary value to be sold on at a later date if needed.

In recent weeks we have been focussing in on each of the players in the Arsenal Womens squad, hopefully helping to build your knowledge of this fantastic team.  Today we focus in on Kaylan Marckese.

We only have Midfielder Mana Iwabuchi left to focus in on and we will have covered the whole Arsenal Women squad.  We hope you enjoy this article on Kaylan Marckese and look out for our last ‘Focus In On’ article tomorrow.

Today we focus in on Kaylan Marckese (Goalkeeper No.18)

Born in 1998, in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. St. Petersburg, Florida, USA Kaylan signed to Arsenal in July 2022, from Danish side HB Koge.

Marckese was Arsenals first signing of the 2022 summer transfer window, she was recruited to provide top competition for Manuela Zinsberger between the goalposts.

Arsenal can repeat Saliba trick with this youngster

William Saliba developing into a fine defender is for everyone to see.

The youngster was signed from French outfit Saint-Étienne in the summer of 2019 for a whopping £27 million.

After such a massive outlay, there was expectation among the club’s faithful that the 18-year-old would become a regular started immediately.

However, it became frustrating for the fans, when they saw the Frenchman being loaned out for three successive seasons.

Obviously a lot of Arsenal fans are worried about the team losing their 100 per cent start to the season when we visit Old Trafford tomorrow afternoon, and now those worries have increased dramatically after Mikel Arteta’s injury update.

We now Know that we have both Mo Elneny and Reiss Nelson out with very long term injuries, which wouldn’t matter too much in the great scheme of things if we weren’t already short of Thomas Partey and Zinchenko in midfield as well.

Now, on top of those two, Arteta revealed that both Odegaard and Ramsdale have not been able to train after getting bad knocks in the game against Fulham.

So now Arteta has big selection problems on how to set up the team at Old Trafford, so I am going to see if I can make an educated guess on how we will line up without those players.

First of all, I’m not sure that goalkeepers need so much recovery time, so I am hoping that Ramsdale can start. Although I am sure Matt Turner has potential, I would prefer him to get his debut against Zurich on Thursday than the cauldron of Old Trafford. It’s too big a risk in my opinion…

Arsenal are currently under threat of missing key players Martin Odegaard and Aaron Ramsdale when they take on Manchester United at on Sunday, and Paul Merson is reluctant to see Fabio Vieira come in to replace the Norwegian.

Odegaard is our new club captain after our previous leader Alexander Lacazette departed to return to Lyon this summer, and he has taken the armband in his stride in north London.

He has been amongst our best players so far in 2022 in fact, and should he prove to be below 100% this weekend, he will be sorely missed, and Mikel Arteta could be forced to decide on who will replace him in the starting line-up.

Vieira and ESR are the two most likely options to come into the AM role in his absence, with Eddie Nketiah or Marquinhos other options to come into the starting XI, but Merson insists that Smith Rowe should be the one to be called upon.

“If Odegaard is injured, I’d go with Emile Smith Rowe,” Paul wrote in his Sportskeeda column.

Arsenal will make the trip north to take on Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, and they could well come up against their new signing Anthony.

The Brazilian completed a Deadline Day move to the Red Devils on Thursday, for what seems to be a crazy price on what he has shown thus far, but he clearly has the potential to be a star.

I personally would have no issue seeing him line-up against us, as I struggle to see him making an immediate impact, but manager Erik Ten Hag will have to make that decision after seeing him train with the squad for the first time yesterday as confirmed on their official website.

The boss did admit that Anthony Martial is one player who will not be available however, as he struggles to overcome an injury picked up against Liverpool.

On both Aaron Wan Bissaka and Luke Shaw the boss was not so certain however, and claimed a decision would later need to be taken on their availability.

So Arsenal’s biggest game of the season so far is coming up tomorrow at Old Trafford, and despite the fact that United lost their first two games, they have bounced back and now won three in a row, including beating Liverpool at Anfield.

But the Gunners are also in a rich vein of form, but Arteta is well aware of the challenge our weakened team faces tomorrow. The boss said in his pre-game press conference: “When you look at the squad that they have, the players that they have signed the amount of money they have spent in the market, it is no surprise – they are going to win a lot of football matches. The history of Manchester United tells you this is going to happen. They are a big rival, we know that and we are going to compete with them.”

When asked if this was our biggest test of the season, he declared: “The test in the Premier League is every single week, every opponent that you play. You see it in every game that will be played this weekend and I don’t expect anything different.”

We have historically got an awful record at Old Trafford, but Arteta is not worried about previous records but the focus is on tomorrow. Does he think it could be a problem? “I don’t think so. We have gone through things like that when we hadn’t won at Stamford Bridge for 20 or something years, but you need to believe that you will do that. If you can play the way you want to play, you will win football matches. We’ve done it, and that’s the belief that we have.

“It’s not something new. We’ve done it, we have to do it again and we have to believe from today, yesterday and straight after the game that we are capable of going there and playing how we want in the match.”

Intermingled with top secret, secret, and confidential documents that federal agents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month were more than three dozen empty folders marked “classified,” according to a court filing unsealed today. Still more empty folders were labeled “return to staff secretary/military aide”—a reference to the White House official responsible for the flow of documents to the president.

The disclosure of so many empty folders raises questions about whether the FBI recovered all the sensitive government documents it was seeking. According to the unsealed filing, agents found classified documents mixed in with news clippings, books, clothes, gifts, and hundreds of other government documents and photos without classification markings. 

Trump’s attorneys are trying to convince a federal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, to appoint a “special master” to decide whether any of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago were subject to executive privilege or attorney-client privilege—even though FBI says its document screeners have already reviewed them. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice and intelligence officials are reviewing the classifications of the recovered documents and starting to assess the potential risks their mishandling poses for national security, according to Politico. The DOJ is investigating Trump for potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act, and obstruction of justice.

Read the list of recovered documents here.



A few hours before President Joe Biden delivered his fiery speech calling former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” representatives of “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Trump went on a conservative radio show and seemingly did his best to prove Biden’s point.

Speaking to Wendy Bell, an independent talk-radio host, Trump insisted, as usual, that he won the 2020 election—the strategic “Big Lie” his advisors planned even before voting took place. He said that if he runs again and wins the presidency, he would look “very, very favorably” at full pardons, plus a government apology, for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol and attacked police officers on January 6 in their attempt to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

In a new development, Trump added that he was financially supporting some of the people prosecuted for their involvement in the mayhem.  “They were in my office actually two days ago. It’s very much on my mind. It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them,” Trump said. 

Later that night, in a speech reportedly motivated by lingering claims of election fraud ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, Biden condemned the Capitol rioters in scorching, abstract language, calling on listeners to defend democracy against the threat posed by Trump and his millions of supporters. “We can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible,” Biden said in his prime-time address. “We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster now.”

Ten times during his speech, Biden singled out Trump’s supporters as “MAGA Republicans,” a group he said was “not the majority of Republicans” but a more extreme faction that threatened US democratic traditions. “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” he said. “They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election…They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fanned the flames of political violence.”