It is a perfectly reasonable assessment of the Montreal Canadiens that they are recipients of a long and lingering tongue kiss from the gods. It is equally rational to remind Habs fans in their moment of glorious triumph that the gods are treacherously profligate trollops wh...

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the defending champions, with a talented roster that should set them up for years of success, so it makes sense that they'd have their share of detractors. A team at the top always does. There are other reasons why a neutral observer might not r...

Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano fought for 17 seconds longer than they should have over the weekend.

Their brief Saturday encounter in a Southern California hexagon, a comeback for both after ridiculously long layoffs yet still promoted by Jake Paul’s MVP outfit as the biggest women’s MMA fight in history, ended as soon as Rousey set Carano up for an arm bar, the ex-judoka’s trademark finishing move from back when she was relevant. Carano, who gave up the cage for acting and right-wing mouthpiecing, tapped quicker than Fred Astaire. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4OWWAEoCY

There are many ways that Donald Trump is currently making your life worse, not to mention generally waging war on the concept of "the future": accelerating the death of the biosphere, doing his best to eliminate the federal government and university as sites of middle-class ...

For tennis fans who do not know how to be normal (i.e. me), rooting for Jannik Sinner is as comforting as it can get. There is an aspirational calmness in Sinner's rituals—not elaborate enough to be Nadal-like, but consistent enough to be a little Nadal-lite—that, though it ...

The Washington Nationals won their Rivalry Weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles. This was their second consecutive series win; they have won eight of their last 13 games overall. The plucky Nats today have the top performing offense in the majors by runs scored, and ...

Solve our Monday crossword, bit by bit. This week's puzzle was constructed by Paul Leistra and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Paul is from Hamilton, Ontario where he works as an instructional designer. Paul first started constructing crosswords for his four chil...

Tom Dundon readily admits his parsimony. I guess no one ever got turbo-rich by being profligate, but few billionaires brag so much about how they pick up pennies from the ground or turn off unused room lights. He claims he does not display this behavior when it comes to putt...

After federal law enforcement officers shot and killed two people in Minnesota earlier this year, Maryland Governor Wes Moore got busy talking and typing. Moore went on Fox News to blast the DHS forces as “untrained, unaccountable, and unqualified—and, by the way, armed.” He brought the same wording and vitriol to MS NOW. He posted…

There was a moment early in the first quarter of Sunday's Game 7 between the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers when James Harden had the ball and was isolated against Tobias Harris. "James Harden, acquired from the Clippers, this was the big move that the Cavaliers mad...

It came in the top of the eighth, with the Dodgers already ahead of the Angels on Saturday night by four. Shohei Ohtani walked to the plate with two outs but runners on first and second, thanks to a Max Muncy single and an Alex Call walk. On the second pitch, Ohtani looped t...

From the Adriatic Sea up into the heart of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the peloton tirelessly chased the breakaway. Stage 9 of the 2026 Giro d'Italia tempted a strong, organized group up the road and away from the bunch, yet Felix Gall's Decathlon CMA CGM team invested hea...

Now that we are one game away from the halfway point (by one metric) of the NBA Playoffs, it is time to review them as a whole, on both aesthetic and competitive grounds. I think this is a useful exercise at this point, as the process of considering the eventual champion's w...

Today is Sean Kuhn’s last day at Defector. Sean has been our Head of Subscription Strategy for the last four years, and in that time he has become one of our favorite dudes. The only reason we’re not furious at him is because he’s leaving us for a dream job: doing fancy math crap for…

Around 59,000 years ago, somewhere in the Altai Mountains of southwestern Siberia, in lands prowling with woolly rhinos and cave hyenas, a Neanderthal had a toothache. The tooth was a molar, rooted in the lower left corner of the Neanderthal's mouth, and it had begun to rot....

This article originally appeared May 11 on The Small Bow.

Early on Saturday mornings, Amy Wallace would be yanked out of bed by her big brother, David. He was determined not to miss the start of the cartoons. At their home in Urbana, Illinois, the siblings situated themselves in front of the television and waited for the color bars to turn to The Road Runner Show, David eager, impatient, full of energy. Eventually, he would splay out on the carpet and Amy would sit behind him on the couch. More than 50 years later, Amy is still haunted by the sensory experience of that couch. It was pea-green and scratchy, yet she dutifully—and gladly—sat there as part of their sibling ritual.  

Their mother, Sally Foster, described the scene this way: Amy spent her mornings watching David watch TV. But that’s not quite right. 

Donald Trump was in China this week for a series of meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In order to cover the historic summit, major American broadcasters sent their newscasters overseas to broadcast from Beijing. Even the dolts from Fox News managed to get over there a...

Here's a little secret about elite performers: They're always working to get better at their craft. The example I tend to use is Patrick Redford, who hosts both the Nothing But Respect and Only If You Get Caught podcasts here at Defector, but who is also always in the lab. H...

When you lay out the chain of events that have led to Mark Vientos playing first base for the New York Mets every day, it becomes less surprising that the Mets have been one of the worst teams in baseball this season. During the winter, the organization made the decision, wh...

SAN FRANCISCO — Stuffed with dumplings, walking off the 22 bus past my neurologists' office and across Third Street up to the Golden State Valkyries' arena with the sun at our backs, I told my friend that the first thing he needed to know about the Chicago Sky is that they w...

In a move that could shake up the entire league, Pittsburgh and Boston have agreed on a deadline deal: Frankie for Little Joe, straight up. From insider Apedam Schefter:

Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium is set to trade gorillas with Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo.

Frankie, Pittsburgh’s 7-year-old male western lowland gorilla, will head to Boston, and in exchange, Boston will send 33-year-old Little Joe the silverback back to Pittsburgh, according to the zoo.

Insider Elliotte Treedman noted that Pittsburgh has been looking for a wily vet for a while. This is a bold, win-now move: It's not clear how much Little Joe has left in the tank, but Pittsburgh's window isn't going to stay open forever. Little Joe is also known around the league as an excellent locker-room presence, picking nits off his teammates like it's going out of style.

You probably do this, too: When an interesting basketball game is getting down to the end, you look at the scoreboard, you see which team is leading, and you try to figure what score that team can get to that the other cannot. I usually do it right around the five-minute mar...

Earlier this spring, when I saw the trailer for The Sheep Detectives, I had what I have come to understand is a universal experience. When I watched Hugh Jackman, a kindly shepherd named George, read murder mysteries to his impressively realistic animated flock of sheep, I f...

Patrick Radden Keefe is interested in blockbuster stories. He once told The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast that he wasn’t a fan of “true crime.” Instead, he often writes about fraud, gangsters, scammers, and high-powered lawyers. He’s the bad boy at the legacy magazin...

The Washington Post remains in the midst of its weird, cheap transformation into the world's most boring conservative newsletter. This is happening at the behest of owner Jeff Bezos, who decided that he was tired of owning one of the most storied newspapers in America, and i...

Brett Kulak. Brett f'n Kulak. The stay-at-home defenseman, who scored one goal all season long. Who's scored just 29 goals in 12 years in the NHL. Who had such a rough start to his season that he got shipped out by Edmonton, which craves defense like a drowning man craves oxygen. Who got moved again just two months later by Pittsburgh, giving the Avalanche a steady and unspectacular defensive presence on the blue line—the quintessential second-pairing guy you can start and forget about. He won't make any dumb mistakes, but he won't surprise you either. You'll go entire games without announcers mentioning his name. He certainly won't grab anyone's attention with his offensive prowess.

When Brett damn Kulak is scoring huge, overtime, series-clinching goals, it's probably time to start planning the parade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWjRaJhvlps

LAVAL, QUEBEC — The crowd at Place Bell for Game 1 was wound tight, like a guitar string on the brink of snapping. Our Montreal Victoire, who had never won more than one game in a playoff series, let alone a series itself, were set to face the Minnesota Frost, the only team ...

Jason Collins, the first openly gay player in the NBA, has died of brain cancer, his family announced on Tuesday. He was 47. Last year, Collins was diagnosed with a brain tumor and later revealed that it was Stage 4 glioblastoma, a particularly deadly form. As Collins told ...

After a long, grueling regular season, the EFL Championship shrinks down to a four-team playoff to determine which team will earn promotion into the Premier League. In the first match-up of the current playoffs, Hull City won 2-0 on aggregate over Millwall to clinch a spot i...

Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com.

This week, Drew answers a question about strategies for dealing with a picky eater.

Benjamin: