Unfortunately i have a hearing impairment so i cant listen what does she say about the fans?
Ellen: I want to ask Viv what do you guys kinda give as a team as to why you create that community like feeling and atmosphere and encouraging people to come and watch?
Viv: I think over the last couple of years, we've obviously always managed to sell out Borehamwood which in numbers, isn't that hard. But I think our fans have been really good in creating that community within themselves really to like get people to the game. Obviously, when we play at the Emirates right now, they meet up at the pub, they do this walk towards the stadium. It's not just saying like "Oh, here you got tickets, let's just get to the stadium." It's like a whole day. And I think people obviously love being part of a footballing community or like a fanbase, and that's what our fans and the club have obviously really been promoting and been doing really well and I mean I obviously speak to Emma Mitchell and Lisa Evans and I remember them coming to our game against Wolfsburg last year in the Champions League and as ex players and obviously still playing in the league themselves they just said that the atmosphere around it was amazing. Like they made it a day out, and they said, "I can't wait to actually come back to the Emirates and do this again," so I think that says enough on how our fans actually make it an amazing day instead of just a 90 minute game.
Ben: There can be some real negatives and some real positives to social media. But I imagine this is one of the real positives. If you've played in one of those games at the Emirates and there're 60,000 people there, do you ever allow yourself, when you get home or, when you have a bit of time afterwards, to just look at those videos back of the fans arriving for example or the atmosphere in the pubs beforehand and afterwards or them just celebrating together inside the Emirates?
Viv: I think a lot of the girls probably will. I'm not really big on social media, so I don't look at it myself. I think social media can go both ways, if you say, like, I would love to be able to be on it, and be like, "wow I can see all the people here and they've made an amazing day out of it and they've obviously been there to support us" but at the same time like people get scrutinised for nothing really online. So I think also, us as women's footballers we keep saying we don't want to change into the men's game but I think fans need to take responsibility in that case as well because in the end we're now developing into the men's world which I don't think we should be doing as the women's football community.
Ben: Is that do you think the kind of the tonality of the way people approach the game as a fan?
Viv: Yes, I think it's just a bit more like, obviously, there's not really one word for it, but sometimes fans feel quite privileged because I think no one ever really knows what's going on inside an athlete like a footballer or inside a team. So, I always think if I'm a supprter of a team, which I am for Feyenoord like why do I need to like start blaming players for not performing or whatever like, in the end it's tough club love (tough love?) you want to see them do well, you get the privilege to actually go to the stadium and see them play, but that should be enough. The situation we're in right now, when we used to play at Borehamwood, we used to be able to sign everyone's shirt, after the game because there were 300 people there right now we play in a 60,000 stadium so we can't have the same relationship with the fans but they also can't keep demanding that from us. We try and do our best, we try and be as open as possible, and I think we've got a good connection with the fans but we do also need to protect our players from all the negativity that's around them as well.
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“In Full Flight”: an HYH recap
The most delightful Homeland episode since “Two Minutes” picks up with Mike, Jenna (in a chambray shirt), and Alan in Kabul station, observing drone footage of Carrie, Yevgeny, and crew. Jenna deduces that they’re probably going to Kohat, and she is correct for the first time all season.
Mike asks about an exfiltration team from Islamabad but they won’t be there until later tonight. Saul interrupts their pow-wow to ask what’s going on:
Saul: What is this about grabbing Carrie Mathison?
Mike: Oh, hello, sir. Let’s go into my office.
Saul: Fuck your office and fuck you, too. What are y’all talking about?
Mike: No problem, sir. A special ops team is planning to grab Carrie. You know, because she’s a defector.
Saul: FOR FUCK’S SAKE SHE IS NOT A DEFECTOR. Actually she’d be right here telling you that herself if you hadn’t cornered her like an animal three hours ago without telling me.
Mike: Actually actually she was supposed to be back in America like a week ago but then she broke custody and started her adventure with a GRU officer. Now they’re out there doing God knows what. Sir.
Saul: I’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re finding the flight recorder.
Mike: What’s a flight recorder?
Saul: I can’t believe I’m still having this conversation with you. Do any of y’all have brains or critical thinking skills?
Mike: By the way, sir, you’ve been called back to DC.
Saul: Fuck my whole life. Fuck all of you too.
Carrie and Yevgeny are very much on their way to Kohat. It’s been just a few hours since Carrie turned her back on Saul and her loaded expression as she stares out the window is very much “questioning all my past life decisions.” That could take a while, Carrie!
Carrie and Yevgeny arrive in Kohat and begin driving under a series of … I have no idea what they are, basically overhangs in the street so you can’t tell where their car is. It’s very “From A to B and Back Again” when Quinn lost Haqqani in the classic baseball stadium game “Which hat is the ball under?” trick. The team in Kabul is annoyed and prepares for a grid search.
Carrie & Co. are checking into a hotel for the night. Yevgeny makes a very obvious performance of leading Carrie to her room and what ensues is the most sexually tense scene on this show… ever. First he offers her some Ambien and Carrie cracks a joke for the first time in eight years and says she could open up a pharmacy of her own.
She apologizes for not telling him about the flight recorder sooner. At first it was all personal, she needed to find Max, she couldn’t focus on anything else. Yevgeny asks what she thinks actually happened to the presidents’ helicopter, since she certainly doesn’t believe Jalal was involved. She thinks it was probably just a freak accident: pilot error, mechanical failures, shitty weather, any or all of the above. Then she reveals that detail from the fifth episode, that the Black Hawk fleet has had a series of mechanical issues. Oh, I should add that this conversation all takes place in the doorway of Carrie’s hotel room and every fifteen seconds or so Carrie and/or Yevgeny glance back toward the bed. You can cut the sexual tension with a knife.
Yevgeny asks if there are any more secrets she’s been keeping from him. She smiles, pauses… it’s the most interesting moment. Then she says very quietly, “I think I’m fresh out of secrets.” They stare at each other for a long time, Yevgeny probably wondering if Carrie is going to invite him in and Carrie probably wondering if Yevgeny can take a fucking hint. Finally, I exhale, and Yevgeny says to just “bang on the wall” if Carrie needs anything, which at least elicits a laugh.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a Pakistani military officer named Aziz has come to see Bunny to ask just where the fuck Tasneem is. Aziz is pissed because Tasneem was supposed to control the Taliban—first Haissam, then Jalal—and her “incompetence” has led to the Americans threatening to invade. Bunny is the opposite of worried. The Americans are all talk, no bite. They won’t actually invade Pakistan for failing to produce a man they claim they can’t find. I guess he hasn’t met John Zabel. Anyway, he says Tasneem is off to find Jalal somewhere in the mountains.
Instead, she actually meets (Haissam) Haqqani’s right-hand. She is beyond pissed that he just let Jalal control the shura last week. This is all so fucked. He doesn’t have much of a response, beyond, “well, he was the emir’s son, so I guess so?” He offers to take Tasneem to Jalal but only if she puts a hood over her head and lemme tell ya, Tasneem is none too pleased about that either!
It’s the next morning in Kohat and Carrie and Yevgeny really are going shopping, just like the logline said. They’re winding their way through the bazaars on the street but still no luck finding this flight recorder. Enter A Kid. He’s all “pardon me, excuse me,” and Yevgeny puts on his best Dad Hat and tells him to get lost. It’s very touching. Then he says he knows what they’re looking for, which is enough to get their attention.
He takes them to a shop where Mr. Shop Owner #1 is like, “Hi, do you like flight recorders? Because I’ve got lots!” Unfortunately he doesn’t have the one they’re looking for and he also seems pretty skittish because a) what the hell are a Russian and an American doing together? and b) is this official government business or something private or, like… just generally what the hell?
Saul has arrived back to DC and meets Hayes in the Oval Office with our favorite Odd Couple, Linus and Zabel (this should really be the name of a sitcom). Saul passively aggressively says he knows of Zabel “by reputation.” Aside from that jab, the meeting unfortunately goes from meh to ugh to wtf for Saul. He has to play bad cop and tell Hayes that the video of Jalal is unvetted intelligence, completely lacking in context, and probably just a straight-up lie. Hayes has the expression of someone who’s never followed Thought A to Thought B—which is true, obviously—and Zabel has to jump in to say of course POTUS has already done the Thought A to Thought B exercise, he just arrived at a different conclusion. You know, mine! The best part of all THIS is that as Saul grows increasingly incredulous at the conversation, Linus sits there, silently, looking like he’d like to be swallowed up by an alligator. Afterward:
Saul: Wow a bit of warning would have been helpful. Or maybe just an assist there, Linus.
Linus: I didn’t even know you were coming back. I’m outside the ~information flow~
Saul: God, we’re so fucked.
Linus: I wish I’d get swallowed by an alligator.
Back in Kohat, Carrie has entered another shop, this time sans Yevgeny. This one proves a bit more fruitful. She actually finds Max’s rucksack, which means that flight recorder had to have been here recently. Mr. Shop Owner #2 feigns ignorance, but Carrie is relentless.
Yevgeny enters all of a sudden to let her know that that special ops team from Islamabad is here, so they need to get out of there, pronto. He leaves quickly to lose the tail and instructs her to go back to the hotel and wait. His absence gives her the perfect opportunity to keep grilling Mr. Shop Owner #2, whom I actually love and seems really sweet. Poor guy is just no match for Carrie. He finally reveals the flight recorder was there but he sold it to a broker he works with. Carrie offers him a lot of money to find the broker and get the flight recorder back there for a trade at midnight.
Tasneem gets the black hood off her head in exchange for an audience with Jalal, but homie remains pissed. Jalal is sort of confused at her reaction. A few episodes ago she was plotting to put Jalal in the place he’s currently in. What changed? Well, for starters, now the Americans are threatening to invade Pakistan. She says he’s got to go to ground, but he refuses to run.
Jalal: Who do you think I am?
Tasneem: You’re the loser whom I picked up on the side of the road. I bandaged your feet and listened to you crying about your daddy issues for hours.
Jalal: You think that you control us. Actually it’s the other way around.
He leads her up to a rooftop where hundreds of Taliban fighters have gathered. He says the last time the ISI got in the way, they killed a thousand of their officers on the street. And now they’re twice as strong, so you do the math. Tasneem has a general “oh fuck” expression on her face and… same.
In Kohat, Yevgeny finally shows back up in Carrie’s hotel room. He reveals that eight men are hunting her and they need to leave, now. She says they can’t, as they haven’t found the flight recorder yet. Of course we know Carrie has found it—and in hindsight, at this point Yevgeny probably does as well—but she needs to stick around a few more hours to make the trade. For a split second you think maybe Carrie is going to preoccupy Yevgeny for a few hours in her bedroom but instead she calls Jenna.
Carrie: Hey, how’s it going?
Jenna: OH MY GOD I STILL HATE YOU.
Carrie: Chill for a second. Also I know you’re walking toward Mike and do yourself a favor and pause and just listen to me.
Jenna: Ugh, fine, I’m listening.
Carrie: I need you to give up the location of the exfil team that’s looking for me.
Jenna: Are you high?
Carrie: I am not, but you are if you think this will end up any other way than me convincing you.
Jenna: You’re putting me in an impossible position.
Carrie: You must do this. I compel you.
Jenna: If I give up their location, you’ll turn yourself in there?
Carrie: “Sure.”
Jenna: Ok I’ll call you back.
This entire conversation transpires with Yevgeny sitting on the sofa in Carrie’s hotel room, legs crossed. It’s… I’ll be honest, it’s hot. When Carrie hangs up he applauds her performance and says she was clever and convincing. That’s right, Carrie played Jenna… again. Again! Again again again!
Carrie is kinda down on selling out her own people but Yevgeny says she did it for all the right reasons and in any case, the local police will only hold them for a day (uhhhh yeah right). He starts to compliment her strong instincts. He really respects her for that.
“Why, how do you do it?” Carrie asks.
“Me? I am more of a planner,” Yevgeny answers.
The alarm bells start ringing in her head and Carrie asks him all speaking of which whether he arranged for them to “run into each other” outside G’ulom’s office way back in the season premiere (show time: 10 days???). Before he can answer, Jenna rings back and tells Carrie the safe house location. Carrie says “you did the right thing” and the amount of self-disgust in her expression for this just being too fucking easy is … significant.
A few minutes later, Mike is on the phone with one of the special ops team members in the Kohat safe house. Local police have surrounded the building. Exasperated, Mike tells them to stand down. One by one, they file out and are led into custody. Jenna watches in horror and the amount of self-disgust in her expression for this just being her life is… also significant.
In Rawalpindi, Tasneem is at Bunny’s house and freaking out. Jalal has consolidated power extremely quickly. She’s concerned, but Bunny says they just need to take him out, root and branch. Bunny is offended by the prospect of being ordered around by a smarmy teenager but Tasneem thinks they need to protect him. If Pakistan protects Jalal, they’ll protect themselves too. And they need to respond to the Americans not with concessions but with threats just as strong. Remember when they were three minutes away from a generation-defining peace agreement?
Back in her hotel room, Carrie is growing restless. She decides to get some fresh air and by that I mean she jumps out the window to get the show on the fucking road. On the way she calls Saul, to whom she is apparently still speaking. She asks if their protocols for transferring money over the dark web are still a go and he says yes. She says she’s got a lead on the black box and he promises to arrange the funds ASAP.
Carrie winds up back at Mr. Shop Owner #2’s shop. Mr. Shop Owner #1 is there, too! Plus the broker. They do a little thing, Carrie says she won’t pay any more than $999,999, she is very In Charge and it’s pretty great to see. Not that we needed any more convincing, but the kind of instincts and improvisation Yevgeny admired just a few hours earlier are on full display here. She knows exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. It’s breathtaking.
What’s also breathtaking is Carrie doing something correctly with a computer. Apparently the black box just hooks up to her Macbook with a USB-C cord… whoulda thunk?! After pulling a gun on Mr. Broker and telling him to beat it, she starts listening to the cockpit recording.
Then Yevgeny arrives! She starts to apologize but he stops her—he just wants to listen. They each share an earbud like goddamn Jim and Pam and continue listening. Turns out, Carrie was right. No one shot down that helicopter. A freak mechanical malfunction, “brace for impact,” etc. “Fucking helicopters,” Yevgeny says.
Carrie attempts a segue and says, “So… what now?” She wants to get this to the embassy in Islamabad. He wants to do the opposite of that. Then Carrie starts on him. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Maybe he’s actually… good.
Carrie: Plus, I’d owe you a favor.
Yevgeny: Carrie, if I drop you off at the embassy I’ll literally never see you again.
Carrie: Not true. I won’t betray my country, but I’d still move to Scottsdale with you.
Yevgeny: I still don’t believe you.
Carrie: Why not? You’ve already helped me a ton, and it’s cost you nothing! There has to be a way where we can make a “mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Yevgeny: Is that what they’re calling it these days?
Carrie: What?
Yevgeny: What?
Carrie: …anyhow, aren’t you sick of all this bullshit? Shitty bosses, shitty politicians, clearly the current way of business isn’t working for us. We could do better. You and me. We could chart something new here. You and me. God, we’re already halfway there!
Yevgeny: Our own private network, huh? That would be nice, but it’s a pipe dream. Also, I like what you’re saying, but you still lied to me.
Carrie: Technically, I just withheld the truth. Which is exactly what you did to me.
Yevgeny: Heh?
Carrie: The asylum, Yevgeny. What actually happened? We just took long walks in the woods and shared our life stories and you just happened to be the there the day I tried to hang myself? Give me a fucking break.
She moves closer and mentions the whole “picking up where we left off” thing. Well, will he or won’t he? Because she’s already decided.
There is a long pause and then they start making out. It’s exactly what you’d expect it would be, by which I mean it’s really hot! The scene is fraught with the unknown. How much are they playing each other? How much are they being genuine? Like Carrie says, they’re living in the grey areas. And who’s the first to blink?
Evidently it’s Carrie. After a few moments she breaks away and says they need to wait until after Islamabad. “Ok,” he says quietly. She tries to kiss him again, but he pulls ever so slightly away.
She hops off the table and begins to pack up the flight recorder. At that moment, he stabs her in the neck from behind with a tranquilizer. “Sorry, baby,” he says as she falls unconscious.
In DC, Saul is waiting anxiously by the phone. It rings. It’s not Carrie, but Linus. Everyone’s in the situation room, there’s some sort of activity in one of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. Saul’s day goes from bad to worse.
In the situation room, resident hottie Scott Ryan is giving a PowerPoint presentation about said activity. Hayes is trying to understand literally anything that’s happening. Zabel explains that Pakistan only has the nukes in the first place to defend against a possible invasion from India. They’ll never actually use them. Saul growls that that’s because India isn’t fucking stupid enough to invade Pakistan. Hayes is beginning to understand the whole concept of “consequences” but before his mind can dwell on that for too long, he decides to just up the ante. More troops, more preparations for war, more of the same.
Saul’s day is not possibly as bad as Carrie’s has wound up. Yevgeny carries her, still unconscious, back into the hotel room. He places her gingerly on the bed and then kisses her forehead. He shuts off the lights as the camera moves in slowly on her her peacefully sleeping face.
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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/live-coronavirus-news-updates-and-analysis/
Live Coronavirus News Updates and Analysis
A national teachers’ union says its members can strike to ensure schools reopen safely.
The second-largest teachers’ union in the United States announced on Tuesday that it would support its 1.7 million members if they choose to strike in districts and states that move to reopen classrooms without adequate health and safety measures.
The union, the American Federation of Teachers, said strikes should be a “last resort.” But the resolution approved by the organization’s executive council gives educators and their union representatives additional muscle in negotiations over what would constitute adequate protection for teachers and school employees.
The union is pushing for schools to wait to reopen classrooms until coronavirus transmission rates in a community fall below 1 percent and average daily test positivity rates stay below 5 percent — something that very few places have achieved. A recent New York Times analysis found that only two of the nation’s 10 largest school districts could reopen under the latter threshold.
The union also wants effective contact tracing in place in regions that reopen schools, mask requirements for students and teachers, updated ventilation systems in school buildings and procedures to maintain six feet of distance between individuals.
“We will fight on all fronts for the safety of our students and their educators,” the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, said in a speech at the organization’s annual convention, which is being held online this week. She said that if the federal government can support the cruise industry and hedge funds during the coronavirus crisis, “they sure as hell can help working families, and can help educators ensure our kids get the education they need.”
Some online activists have been pushing for even stricter guidelines than those recommended by the A.F.T., with some educators demanding that schools stay shuttered until there are no new cases in a region for 14 days.
Education leaders have said they need hundreds of billions of dollars to implement measures that would allow schools to reopen safely. On Monday, Senate Republicans introduced a stimulus package that fell far short of what Democrats and organized labor have proposed. The legislation would provide $70 billion for K-12 education, but condition two-thirds of that money on schools reopening at least partially in person, a priority for President Trump, who sees it as key to reviving the nation’s economy by allowing parents to work.
The A.F.T.’s authorization vote leaves it up to local chapters to make the decision on whether to plan a strike. The Florida Education Association has already sued Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials to prevent school buildings from reopening in that state, where virus cases are surging. On Tuesday, Florida again broke its daily record for deaths, reporting 186 fatalities. It also reported 9,230 cases.
Senate Republicans, under pressure from the White House to embrace an obsession of President Trump’s, have included in their latest emergency pandemic aid proposal $1.75 billion for the construction of a new F.B.I. headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
The proposal drew outrage from Democrats, who charged that it was an attempt by Mr. Trump to use the economic stabilization package — meant to help struggling Americans weather a pandemic and a recession — to enrich himself.
They have long charged that Mr. Trump intervened to make sure the F.B.I. scuttled plans to erect a new headquarters in suburban Washington and instead chose to refurbish its existing building, in order to make sure that the site was not redeveloped with a project that would compete with his company’s luxury hotel across the street. The Justice Department’s top investigator last year launched an inquiry into the decision.
“They managed to have enough money for $2 billion for the F.B.I. headquarters that benefits Trump hotel, and they say they have no money for food assistance?” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Monday. “What the heck is going on?”
Some leading Senate Republicans, who included the F.B.I. building money in the $1 trillion recovery package they rolled out on Monday, appeared not to know themselves.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, at first said he did not believe the funding had been included in the measure, and then told reporters to ask the administration “why they insisted on that provision.”
Asked about how the construction of a new F.B.I. building related to the pandemic, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said, “Good question,” and stressed that it was “an administration proposal.”
The line item is just one of a long list of differences between Republicans and Democrats who are staring down a Friday deadline to strike a compromise on a new round of federal virus aid before enhanced jobless benefits expire.
Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, planned to go to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to begin negotiating with Democrats, who are pushing a $3 trillion aid bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to hold another meeting with the two men and Mr. Schumer in her Capitol Hill suite at 4 p.m. Tuesday, the third such meeting in the last two weeks.
The Yankees’ game against the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday has been postponed, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly before the official announcement.
The teams’ game on Monday night was also postponed following news of an outbreak within the Miami Marlins, who had played three games at the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park over the weekend. Phillies’ players and staff members received additional testing on Monday but the results of those tests has not yet been announced. The visiting clubhouse at the ballpark was also being disinfected.
On Monday, the Marlins’ scheduled games against the Baltimore Orioles for that day and Tuesday were also postponed. The Marlins have at least 18 confirmed positive cases among their players and coaches, according to another person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the results.
The Yankees, who arrived in Philadelphia on Monday, have been sequestered in their hotel and were not allowed to go to Citizens Bank Park on Monday. To stay active, some worked out indoors.
But after Tuesday’s postponement, the Yankees plan to leave town. They were expected to return to New York on Tuesday afternoon and work out at Yankee Stadium. The last time they played was on Sunday in Washington, defeating the Nationals, 3-2.
Hajj during the pandemic: Sterilized pebbles, bottled holy water and no kissing the sacred stone.
In any other year, Muslims undertaking the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca that observant Muslims are obligated to perform at least once, would drink from a holy well. They would kiss the Kaaba’s sacred black stone as they thronged the Grand Mosque. Before they left Mecca, they would collect pebbles to ritually stone the devil.
During the virus edition of the hajj that begins on Wednesday, the black stone is off limits. Authorities in Saudi Arabia are issuing bottled water from the Zamzam well instead of letting pilgrims drink from cups at the source. Also in the pilgrim packages: sterilized pebbles to hurl at the devil, personal prayer rugs and other items intended to prevent an outbreak from marring the hajj.
But the chief public health measure the Saudi government has taken is to limit attendance, shrinking one of the world’s most famous crowds to a select few. About 2.5 million Muslims from around the world performed the hajj last year; this year, Saudi Arabia said it would allow just 1,000 pilgrims, all of them from within the kingdom, though it has not released the final number.
Across the Middle East, celebrations for Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice that marks the end of the hajj this weekend, will likewise be paler this year.
In Oman and Bahrain, where the unchecked spread of the virus among low-paid foreign laborers living in crowded conditions has contributed to two of the world’s worst outbreaks, officials have urged residents to forego the large celebrations that usually mark Eid, and Oman has reinstituted a domestic travel ban and curfew. In Egypt, new cases have fallen as the country resumes normal life, but a live broadcast will replace communal Eid prayers.
In the United Arab Emirates, where it is common for residents to buy sheep or other livestock to sacrifice and donate during Eid, the authorities were encouraging people to use apps to reduce crowding at slaughterhouses and markets.
Countries across the region are reopening despite lingering hot spots. While Persian Gulf countries including Oman and Bahrain continue to struggle with large outbreaks, smaller ones in Yemen and Syria — where years of war have decimated health care systems and mired the population in deepening poverty — are rapidly metastasizing.
Trump shares a video containing misinformation about hydroxychloroquine. Social media platforms respond.
Mr. Trump shared on his Twitter account Monday night a viral video containing a series of false or misleading medical claims about the coronavirus, as social media companies scrambled to halt the video’s rapid spread.
Facebook and YouTube removed versions of the video, and Twitter later removed the post shared by the president. At least one version, which was shared on Facebook by the right-wing Breitbart news site, had garnered over 13 million views before it was removed. Other versions of the video, including shorter, edited clips, were still online Monday night.
The video featured what appeared to be a group of doctors in white coats, standing in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in what appeared to be a news conference. The doctors made a series of misleading claims, including that hydroxychloroquine could be taken as a preventive measure.
The use of the drug to treat or prevent coronavirus has been widely disputed by the medical establishment. The Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency authorization in June after deeming it “unlikely to be effective” while carrying potential risks, and the National Institutes of Health halted clinical trials of the drug in June. But Mr. Trump repeatedly boosted the drug in the early months of the crisis, and said in May (not in June, as an earlier post said) that he was taking it himself.
It was the most recent example of misinformation that has spread about the coronavirus, at times being shared by Mr. Trump and others in the White House. A YouTube spokesman said in a statement that the video had been removed for “violating Covid-19 misinformation policies.”
On Tuesday, Twitter put limits on the account of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, after he also shared the widely circulated video. Twitter said he was required to delete the tweet with misinformation, and the platform said it would also limit his account’s functionality for 12 hours.
“The tweet you referenced was in violation of our Covid-19 misinformation policy,” a Twitter spokesman, Ian Plunkett, said. “We are taking action in line with our policy here.”
The Venice Film Festival announced the lineup on Tuesday for its 77th edition, setting out precautions including temperature checks and new outdoor screening sites for one of the first large international festivals held since the pandemic began.
The festival will run from Sept. 2 to Sept 12, with a reduced schedule. Between 55 and 60 films will be screened, as opposed to last year’s 80.
“The show must go on and the world must go on,” said Roberto Cicutto, the president of La Biennale di Venezia, which runs the festival, in a phone interview, adding that it was important “to watch and to discuss movies together, to live this art the way we used to live it.”
Films in contention for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, include Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” starring and produced by Frances McDormand; Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come,” starring Vanessa Kirby and Casey Affleck; and “Pieces of a Woman,” directed by Kornel Mundruczo and starring Shia LaBeouf.
Screening in the festival’s nonfiction section will be “Salvatore Ferragamo: The Shoemaker of Dreams,” a documentary directed by Luca Guadagnino, as well as “City Hall” from Frederick Wiseman, a look at Boston’s administrative center.
Though Shanghai’s international film festival went ahead in July, the pandemic has forced the cancellation or postponement of most of the gatherings that traditionally structure the year for filmmakers in Hollywood and elsewhere in the West, including Cannes and the Tribeca Film Festival.
Here are other developments from around the globe:
Spain’s prime minister said that Britain had made “an error” by imposing a quarantine on everyone arriving from his country, a decision that blindsided British vacationers and dealt another blow to Spain’s tourism industry. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in an interview with the news outlet Telecinco on Monday, said that Britain should have taken into account the regional divergences in Spain’s coronavirus cases and not issued a blanket order.
Data released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization on Tuesday showed that leisure travel fell by 98 percent during the first five months of the year, compared with 2019. The group said that globally 300 million fewer people traveled, representing a loss of $320 billion for the tourism industry.
Vietnam suspended domestic flights into and out of the tourist destination of Danang for 15 days after discovering at least 14 coronavirus cases, according to Reuters. International travel was halted months ago, but domestic tourists still traveled to Danang, a coastal city. About 80,000 people, mostly tourists, were ordered to evacuate on Monday after the discovery of the country’s first local transmissions in 100 days.
China recorded 68 new virus infections on Monday, its National Health Commission said on Tuesday, including six in Liaoning Province and 57 in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where a flare-up since mid-July has shown little sign of abating. As China battles the surge, the authorities in the northeastern port city of Dalian, in Liaoning, have said they will test all 6 million residents after an outbreak. Samples have been collected from about 1.68 million Dalian residents as of Sunday night, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, closed all bars and banned the sale of alcoholic drinks in restaurants for 30 days to try to curb the spread of the virus. In a speech Monday, Mr. Kenyatta said recent reopening measures had given “some Kenyans false comfort that this is not a serious health risk to them and their families.”
A concert in the Hamptons is being criticized for a lack of social distancing.
A charity concert Saturday night in the Hamptons that featured performances from the chief executive of Goldman Sachs and the D.J. duo the Chainsmokers drew outrage and a state investigation after video footage showed attendees appearing to ignore health precautions.
The concert, called Safe & Sound, was supposed to involve guests sitting outside near their vehicles in spaced-out areas to watch the performances, including one from the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David M. Solomon, also known as D.J. D-Sol.
Tickets cost up to $25,000, according to Billboard.
The event generated angry social media posts and on Monday, criticism from state officials. In a letter to the supervisor of Southampton, where the concert was held, New York’s health commissioner, Howard A. Zucker, wrote that he was “greatly disturbed” by reports of thousands of people standing close and “generally not adhering to social-distancing guidance.”
“I am at a loss as to how the Town of Southampton could have issued a permit for such an event, how they believed it was legal and not an obvious public health threat,” Dr. Zucker wrote.
The town supervisor, Jay Schneiderman, who was also listed as an opener for the concert, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday night. The event organizers did not answer questions about whether they knew that people were breaking the rules.
Several people who went to the concert told Buzzfeed News that they felt safe and that people were social distancing.
Elsewhere in the New York area:
New York, grappling with how to prevent another large outbreak, will now require travelers from Puerto Rico, Washington D.C. and 34 states to quarantine for 14 days, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday. The new states added to the list are Illinois, Kentucky and Minnesota.
Long Beach Island, a popular summertime destination along the Jersey Shore, is now a different kind of hot spot.
Thirty-five lifeguards from two boroughs on the barrier island — Surf City and Harvey Cedars — recently tested positive, the island’s health department announced on Monday.
Public health officials said that half of the lifeguards had mild symptoms and the rest had none. None were hospitalized, the officials said.
The outbreak was traced to two gatherings on July 12 and July 14, according to the Long Beach Island Health Department, which said it dispatched nurses to investigate cases and issue quarantine orders.
“Based on our investigation so far, the workplace was not the source of transmission and practices likely prevented additional cases,” the Health Department said in a news release. “The youth and young adults should recognize they are not immune to this virus.”
During his briefing on Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey mentioned the outbreak on Long Beach Island and said he was troubled by reports of large gatherings of young people.
“This is among us, folks,” Mr. Murphy said. “Any of us who thinks we can just put our feet up and relax and let this take its course is not paying attention, particularly congregating inside, in close proximity, poor ventilation, without face coverings. You’re looking for trouble. You’re absolutely looking for trouble, no matter how old you are.”
Germany, an early model for containing the virus, is confronting a surge. Its top health experts urge masks.
The German federal agency in charge of disease control sounded an alarm on Tuesday over a rising number of cases across the nation.
Lothar Wieler, the leader of the agency, the Robert Koch Institute, urged Germans for the first time to wear masks outdoors if a distance of 1.5 meters, or about 5 feet, cannot be maintained.
Germany reported 633 new cases on Monday, and four deaths. Though Germany’s daily death count has been in the single digits for most of this month, there have been more than 3,000 new cases over the past week.
“The new developments in Germany make me very worried,” Mr. Wieler said, adding, “The rise has to do with the fact that we have become negligent.”
When the virus began spreading in March, Germany imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe. It was seen as a model for other countries. Since it began reopening, there have been flare-ups that have spurred local lockdowns, including one in June.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Wieler said he wondered if this latest uptick was a harbinger of something more.
“We don’t know if this is the beginning of a second wave, but of course it could be,” he said. But he added, “I am still optimistic that we can prevent this.”
‘Not sparing anyone’: A Texas funeral home sees the toll of the virus all around.
Johnny Salinas Jr., the owner of Salinas Funeral Home typically handles five funerals a week. But on a recent day, with the virus tearing through his community, he saw that many grieving families in a single day.
A sixth family was waiting, too. His own.
Mr. Salinas changed from a polo shirt into a crisp black suit and left his office for the chapel next door. The light blue coffin of his great-uncle, who died of Covid-19, sat at the front of the room, adorned with white flower arrangements and a wooden crucifix.
“The virus is not sparing anyone,” Mr. Salinas said. “Not even my family.”
In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, funeral homes — like hospitals — are overloaded and struggling to carry out basic services and keep up with the expanding crisis. Local funeral homes, officials said, have not experienced such demand in decades.
About one in 60 residents of Hidalgo County is known to have had the virus, and about one of every 2,000 people has died from the virus, a New York Times database shows. Hidalgo County now has one of the highest per capita death rates in the state.
At the start of July, fewer than 50 deaths in Hidalgo County had been attributed to the virus, according to the database. By Saturday, there had been more than 450.
“It’s like a bad dream,” said Linda Ceballos, a co-director of Ceballos Funeral Home in McAllen. “You want to wake up, but you can’t.”
The death toll is forcing funeral directors to bypass traditional services like velorios, viewings that sometimes last for days and are filled with prayers, hugs and sorrowful Spanish-language songs. Instead, many funeral homes are shortening viewing times and limiting attendance. Some have ordered large refrigerator trucks to store bodies until they can get to them.
When the virus engulfed New York, it pummeled the transit work force: So far, 131 transit workers have died from the virus and more than 4,000 have tested positive, making the Metropolitan Transportation Authority one of the hardest-hit government agencies in New York.
For many, the pandemic has left an indelible mark. Pan Chan, a bus driver, moved out of his family’s home for months to shield his wife and children. Sally Lutchman, a train conductor, worried that she might have infected her husband, who was hospitalized with Covid-19 for months. Cesar Torres Jr., a second-generation bus operator, watched his father die.
Now, as riders trickle back, these workers are facing the prospect of a second wave, even as they are coping with the trauma from the peak of the outbreak.
The advertising industry may see permanent cuts after marketing budgets have dwindled during the pandemic. Agencies will likely be smaller, and work could start going to part-time contractors.
The tightening industry has already led to simpler and more practical ad campaigns, and more clients have asked that their ads be made by and feature a more diverse group of people, while also demanding more evidence that the ads are effective. Agencies have also experimented with digital tools to help brands stay relevant, such as a “tension map” that analyzes online conversations around the country.
“There’s a big correction — a lot of these teams have gotten too big and too bloated,” said Gaston Legorburu, founder of the Florida-based ad agency Glue IQ. “They’re now having the realization that they can do twice as much with half as many people.”
In 2020 and 2021, agencies will shed 52,000 jobs, and half of these will not return, predicted Jay Pattisall, an analyst with the research firm Forrester.
The pandemic takes an extra toll on families with special needs.
Missing social contacts and altered routines can be particularly intense for children with developmental challenges. Disturbed sleep and eating habits, too, can make life more challenging for the children and their families. Here are some strategies to cope better.
Reporting was contributed by Davey Alba, Julia Calderone, Sheera Frenkel, Dana Goldstein, Raphael Minder, Claire Moses, Amanda Rosa, Edgar Sandoval, Anna Schaverien, Kaly Soto, Eleanor Stanford, Daniel Victor, Neil Vigdor, James Wagner, Vivian Yee, Elaine Yu and Mihir Zaveri.
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Five Free Ways Westerners Can Help Women in the Middle East Now
1. Go green. It is not a secret that climate change disproportionately affects poor people and that women are disproportionately poor (go figure) so that is one good reason right away, but I have another one. The Wahhabist Gulf States, which include Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, etc), Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, rely on the oil underneath them for their royal families to function and to spread their patriarchal propaganda, including funding ISIS. So if given a choice between something more fuel efficient or with a different power source and a product that depends on a lot of oil, if you can afford it please try to go green! Even recycling uses less plastic and therefore less petroleum and it is free to reuse things!
2. Boycott the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and its sponsors. This is a venture that Middle Eastern feminists have gotten off the ground but we are having a really difficult time spreading this message. Thousands of migrant workers are dying building that FIFA stadium and the entire system of labor is basically human trafficking:
The name of the current system is kafala, a system forcing all migrants to be sponsored and subsequently tied to an employer. This employer controls housing, wages, travel, and the well being of each employee. The kafala system has been frequently described as modern day slavery due to its exploitative nature. Forced labor, unpaid work, confiscation of documents, and withholding food and water to the migrants are a few of the mechanisms of control the employers enact over the migrants under the kafala system.
Workers mainly from South and Southeast Asia travel to Qatar with the hope of a securing a job in order to send remittances back to their families, but the kafala system traps them under the purview of their employer. The 2022 World Cup announcement has seen a significant rise in migrant workers coming to Qatar, creating a larger humanitarian crisis for the living and working conditions of the laborers. Qatar has not changed its policy of the kafala system since it became host of the 2022 World Cup, even with the additional international scrutiny towards its government. If Qatar does not change its policy before 2022, an estimated 4,000 migrant workers will die, making this event the deadliest in sporting history.
Most of the workers dying building that stadium, but almost all domestic workers in the Gulf States who work under the kafala system are women, and they are treated horribly. Boycotting the 2022 World Cup sends a message that the kafala system is abusive and unacceptable, and it helps women AND men. If you can afford to buy other products instead of these, please help. A list of the current 2022 World Cup sponsors:
Adidas
Anheuser-Busch which includes Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois
Coca-Cola which includes Sprite, Fanta, Dasani, Minute Maid, Powerade, Simply Orange, Glaceau Vitamin Water and Smart Water, and Fuze
Gazprom
Hyundai
Kia
McDonald’s
Sony
Visa
If you can, please encourage your national teams not to play. I know most people do not have any sort of power over this, but if even a few teams boycotted to send a message then it could make a big difference!
3. Be aware of issues that specifically affect Middle Eastern women and be ready to talk to other about them. Some of these issues are very sensitive for some people and nobody is obligated to psychologically torture herself. If you feel safe and comfortable you can consider studying one of these topics and talking to other people who might not be aware. Please keep in mind these are issues in the Middle East or parts of the Middle East but many are also problems in other places and in diaspora communities:
Honor killings (I also wrote on honor killings in Iraq here.)
Female genital mutilation
Modern-day slavery and human trafficking, especially with domestic workers
Laws that protect rapists and force victims to marry their rapists
Child marriage, especially the new trend of taking advantage of Syrian refugees
Extremely unsafe conditions in refugee camps including sexual violence
Bans on women basically being independent in any way in Saudi Arabia
Women jailed for reporting rape in Qatar or in Dubai (and these women are European so imagine how many of these cases are not reported in international news)
Assassinating women who speak out in Bahrain
Forced marriage and the mahr (dowry) system
High rates of domestic and intimate partner violence and no punishments for abusers
4. Let Middle Eastern feminists speak. I will give a short recommendation list here but please explore for yourself and form opinions! Many Middle Eastern women write about our lives but for some reason people do not want to listen to us speak and would rather listen to what other people have to say about us. Of course other people are not always inherently wrong but many times, they ignore us and share their own ideas that aren’t very accurate. Here are some works I enjoy that you might be able to find free online:
The works of Inaam Kachachi. Of course because I am Iraqi I will start with an Iraqi woman! I believe her books and other pieces are translated into many languages and she writes about the rise of religion in Iraq and how it has affected women.
Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
Beyond the Veil by Fatema Mernissi. (She is Moroccan which is in North Africa but I think the piece is very important for everyone to read.)
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal Al-Saadawi.
The poetry of Rafeef Ziadah is available on YouTube and Spotify.
Please stop silencing Middle Eastern women or being condescending if you don’t like what we have to say. If one more Westerner tells me they know more about being an Iraqi woman than I do I am going to lose it!
5. Stay aware and critical of what you read and hear. Countries all around the world are active in the Middle East and this directly affects the women who live here. Of course we understand that people might only have very limited control or no control over their governments and large private companies and most rational people do not generalize Westerners as being war-hungry monsters.
Sometimes Western governments insist they are helping when we are screaming that they are not. For example, did you know that the UN Security Council sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s directly or indirectly led to the deaths of half a million children?
According to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, the death rate of children under five is more than 4,000 a month - that is 4,000 more than would have died before sanctions. That is half a million children dead in eight years. If this statistic is difficult to grasp, consider, on the day you read this, up to 200 Iraqi children may die needlessly. "Even if not all the suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors," says Unicef, "the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivation in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."
Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator but by punishing him this way, the UN also punished many of the most helpless people in Iraq. I understand there are no easy answers in these situations. How can the West fight against ISIS in Iraq? (Cutting ties with the Gulf States would help but nobody listens to Middle Eastern feminists!) These are complicated problems but solutions that cause so many children to die are probably not good solutions.
Please be wary of what you are told about the Middle East and how your government’s actions actually affect the people here. Some questions to ask yourself might be:
Is this news source reliable regarding the Middle East? For example Al Jazeera is Qatar state news. This does not automatically mean all their news is false or propaganda or should not be read, but when you read it you should ask critical questions and stay aware of the source.
Where can I read a different opinion about this topic? What do I think when I read this different idea?
How does this action by my government affect the average person in the Middle East? What are people there saying about this?
How does this issue specifically affect women?
What are the differences in reporting or in ideas between people in the West and people in the Middle East? Where could those differences come from?
Can oppressing women ever be a feminist act? For example some people cheer women soldiers that directly oppress and kill women civilians as feminists for serving alongside men when the entire system is imperialist and deadly.
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Arsenal: Why Atletico tie will make or break Gunners' future - Alan Shearer
People are wondering who Arsenal will go for as their next manager but a more pertinent question is probably, who will want to succeed Arsene Wenger in the summer?
There will be a queue a mile long to get the job, but it might not include the big names the Gunners supporters want.
Two of the biggest factors that will decide how attractive the club is are how much money will be available to spend on players, and whether the club is in the Champions League next season.
That is why getting through Thursday’s semi-final against Atletico Madrid and keeping alive their hopes of winning the Europa League is so important, not just for Wenger in his farewell campaign but for the club’s future too.
Champions League football always makes it easier to sign the better players but for Arsenal it will also help them get the manager they want.
So the Atletico game will not just make or break Arsenal’s season, it will also affect their summer.
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This is a huge week for them but clearly it will not be easy. They need to score to have any chance of making the final and you only have to look at Atletico’s home record in La Liga, where they have conceded only four goals in 17 matches in 2017-18, to see how tough a task they face at the Wanda Metropolitano.
We also saw how solid the Atletico defence is in the first leg at Emirates Stadium last week.
I know the Gunners still had chances in that game against 10 men and should have put more goals away, but it is going to be much harder for them in Spain.
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Arsenal’s away form in Europe, which is where they have been fielding their strongest teams, is much better than it is on the road in the Premier League, where they have now lost six games in a row.
So I would not write off their hopes of making the final – but at the same time I would not be putting any money on them getting through.
£50m will not get Arsenal much in the transfer market
It is a little worrying to read reports that the Gunners will have a transfer budget of only £50m this summer.
I don’t know if that is true or not but, if those figures are accurate, it will not buy them an awful lot.
If they want to start challenging for the title again they will need to sign five or six quality players and, individually and collectively, they will cost a heck of a lot more than that.
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It is not as if the new manager will have nothing to work with in the squad he will inherit, and Arsenal have some talented young players too.
But some areas of that squad need a lot of work – the defence, for example – and they will not be able to fix that on the cheap.
We know what the going rate is for top defenders because we have seen what Liverpool paid for Virgil van Dijk in January, and how much Manchester City spent on full-backs Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy last summer.
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That is how much the top players cost, but it might not be an issue for Arsenal if they don’t qualify for the Champions League because those kind of players might not want to join them anyway.
Wenger’s final Old Trafford visit will not live long in the memory
I can understand why Wenger’s priority is Thursday, and that was reflected in the team he put out in his side’s 2-1 defeat against Manchester United on Sunday.
There were times in the past 22 years under Wenger when Arsenal going to Old Trafford was the most intense occasion of the Premier League season but his final visit there as Gunners boss was very flat, and produced a game of poor quality.
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The warm reception Wenger got from Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson and the United fans before the game was a nice show of respect and the right thing to do but I think Wenger hit the nail on the head afterwards when he said: “It shows that, once you are not a danger anymore, people love you.”
Arsenal are certainly not as good now, or offer as much of a threat to United, as they once did under Wenger.
You could not compare their team on Sunday – or in any other game this season – to the side he sent out to win the Premier League title at Old Trafford in 2002, for example.
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The youngsters Wenger put out did all right, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Konstantinos Mavropanos were probably the pick of the bunch, but it was not a display, or match, that will live long in the memory.
I expected to see a bit more from United because of the type of team they were up against, but instead Mourinho’s side put in a typical sort of performance that we have seen from them this season.
By that I mean they have often got a win without playing particularly well or without it being a very exciting match, and Sunday was a perfect example of that.
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I am not sure they deserved to beat Arsenal but Mourinho found a way of getting that result.
He sent Marouane Fellaini on to get on the end of balls into the box because that is what he is good at and that is what has won them the three points in the end.
Winning games when they have not played well is not a trait we have seen much of from Arsenal this season, but Thursday would be a good time to start – so much depends on them getting the right result this time.
Alan Shearer was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
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Arsenal: Why Atletico tie will make or break Gunners' future – Alan Shearer was originally published on 365 Football
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Here’s a bet you might not want to take: Arsenal to win the league this year.
Such an outcome seems very unlikely requiring as it does not just a major upturn in Arsenal’s results throughout the rest of the season but also a significant decline in the fortunes of Manchester City.
But if we pause for a moment the same could be said for Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool who we managed to draw with last Friday when we came back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 only for Liverpool to equalise and Tottenham. I’m not sure about the last two, but the first two in that list might well have thought that they were in with a chance when the season kicked off in August. Now I suspect they know it’s all over.
And this thinking leads us to another question. If not this year, then what about next year? Given the way Manchester City have been playing, and the finances behind the club, one begins to wonder exactly what has to happen in order for City to slip from their perch.
A complete five year ban on them doing any more transfer business, because of some past indiscretion might help. So might a military coup in Abu Dhabi, or the invention of the anti-gravity drive which ends our dependence on oil and gas, but otherwise it is hard to see what will cause their fall.
Which could then make the League, in future, rather boring, and instead put the focus elsewhere, such as the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and the Europa League.
All are possible for Arsenal, the team that has won the FA Cup three times in the last four years, and has a record number of wins under a manager who also holds the all time record. And of course last season we not only won the cup but also beat Manchester City and Chelsea in the final couple of games.
The Carabao is also certainly a possibility given that Arsenal are no longer out on their own in playing a second XI in the league cup matches. And the fact that Arsenal can change their team totally so that no one who plays in one game then has to play in the next, is a major advantage.
Indeed even with Giroud out for a while, we still have a collection of men who can play centre forward – and the first round of the semi-final isn’t until 10 January. Plus, even if Giroud is not back for that he ought to make the second leg at the Emirates on 24th.
As for the Europa, like the Carabao, it always has some tough teams in it as the competition moves onto the later rounds, but again with two squads, there is every possibility that Arsenal could find themselves in a European final for the first time since 2006.
And yet, it is argued, all of this is second level stuff. Indeed as we heard some years ago, the FA Cup is not a Trophy. Only the League and the Champions League count.
I would disagree however. In a football environment in which one club has all the money it wants, and then some, which was graciously given its stadium by the state (although to be fair the club did pay for the top tier at one end), and which is part of a worldwide franchise of six clubs, with more being added all the time, the competition is over.
Indeed there is a “Manchester City” style dominance in Germany (Bayern) and in France (PSG). We’re just following the trend.
Except…
There might be a glimmer of hope. First there was the shock horror of Arsenal losing Alexis and Ozil at the end of this season. But that horror story has faded because a) Alexis seems to be permanently off form these days and b) Ozil appears to want to sign a new contract.
Second, behind the scenes Arsenal have been moving in some very big hitters to help get new star players to sign, keep existing players happy, keep everyone fit, and find new upcoming players before anyone else does.
Arsenal appointed the Barcelona director of football Raul Sanllehi as the club’s new head of football relations working with incoming chief scout Sven Mislintat, who has arrived from Borussia Dortmund. We also got Team Sky’s legal and commercial expert Huss Fahmy to work on player contracts. … Fitness expert Darren Burgess has also joined.
Which leads me to another point… do you remember all those tales about Arsenal have more injuries than anyone else? They were never accurate of course, just some fake news circulated by an embittered ex-employee, but Arsenal were generally in the top third of the league table of injuries.
Now we’re regularly in the bottom quarter of the list. Some reporters try to enhance our list of one or two players out by adding Santi Cazorla, but the sad fact is, Santi is no longer listed as a player who can play for Arsenal – he is not included in the 25 players list submitted to Uefa and to the Premier League at the end of each transfer window. Most of the time we only have one or two injuries.
Whether these changes are enough to take Arsenal to a position where we challenge again for a league title, I don’t know, and I worry that Manchester City will just go on buying and buying players in an attempt to be just like Bayern Munich (who have won the league five times running, and the league and cup double three times running, and are looking to achieve that double again this season).
Of course Uefa could wake up and start questioning Manchester City from the point of view of FFP regulations, but since they let PSG get away with murder last summer in the transfer market, that seems unlikely.
So, we can only hope that the new background team will do their jobs and persuade the very best players to come to Arsenal. That revolution may take another couple of years to bring results, but in the meanwhile, a Cup Treble could be something to look forwards to.
Of course the Cups won’t be Trophies in the eyes of some, but I think I’d quite like the experience. After all, those recent semi-finals, finals and Community Shield games at Wembley have been quite enjoyable.
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