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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Albert Burneko

Country singer/songwriter Johnny Cash performs onstage with an acoustic guitar in Sun Records publicity shot in 1957.

Journalismism

Breaking: Some Guy Now Aware Of Most Revered Country Artist Who Ever Lived

Samer Kalaf

Arts And Culture

Bill Burr Keeps Cycling Through Excuses For Doing The Riyadh Comedy Festival

Jack Hanson

A total lunar eclipse, known as a ''blood moon,'' rises beside the illuminated Parthenon temple at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, on September 7, 2025.

The Pleasures Of Reading Jane Ellen Harrison

Kelsey McKinney

Taylor Swift on the red carpet wearing a red dress with winged eyeliner and looking out of the corner of her eye at the camera

No Good Art Comes From Greed

Giri Nathan

Grim Visions Emerge From The Riyadh Comedy Festival

Dylan Fugel

This Is So Stupid

Name A 28-Year-Old

Becky Ferreira is a science reporter based in Ithaca, N.Y. She writes <a href="https://www.404media.co/author/becky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.404media.co/author/becky/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740083778769000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3_mk31dNhas5lklZb38a6k">The Abstract</a>, a weekly science column for 404 Media. Her book First Contact, about the search for alien life, <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/becky-ferreira/first-contact/9781523527755/">is available now.</a>

Becky Ferreira

National Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, New Mexico (Photo by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Science

A Brief History Of Martian Ruckuses

Nick Sturm

Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’

Israel Daramola

Leonardo DiCaprio's character talks into a payphone, from the movie One Battle After Another.

Paul Thomas Anderson Goes Big Game Hunting With ‘One Battle After Another’

Soraya Roberts

To Artistic Freedom: The Cause Of, And Solution To, All Of Life’s Problems

All Your Favorite Sellouts Will Be At The Riyadh Comedy Festival

The cover of the novel Underspin, by E.Y. Zhao

Interviews

E.Y. Zhao On The Cloistered, Competitive, Slippery-Floored World Of Table Tennis

Patrick Redford

‘HIM’ Is A Non-Starter

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

Nicholas Russell

Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen Talks Old Scenes And A New Tour

David Roth

Holland Roden, Joe Pantoliano, and Matthew Daddario sitting on a very Hallmark movie coach, all admiring a little Buffalo Bills ornament that Pantoliano (in a Bills hat and goatee) has received from an anonymous benefactor. It's from the trailer of Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story.

The Hallmark Channel And The Buffalo Bills Encourage You To “Go For Four”

American actor Robert Redford wearing a grey tweed blazer over a matching waistcoat and a white shirt, with a diagonally striped tie, with a grey fedora, in a scene from 'The Sting', filmed in the United States, 1973.

Robert Redford Made An Art Of The Double Take

Barry Petchesky

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 04: Jimmy Kimmel is seen at 'Jimmy Kimmel Live" on November 04, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

Politics

Charlie Kirk Is A Means To An End

Hannah Smothers

Reality TV Dating Enters Virgin Territory

Brandy Jensen

Not Every Documentary About A Crime Needs To Be A True Crime Documentary

Engraving shows interior of Leiden University library, Netherlands 1610 by Jan Cornelisz Woudanus, approximately 1570-1615.

The Machines

If The Thieving AI Company Can Survive The Legal Settlement, Then It Is Not Big Enough

English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian Melvyn Bragg

Thank You, Melvyn Bragg

Owen Lewis is a former Defector intern and has written for The Guardian, The Second Serve, The Athletic, and other publications.

Owen Lewis

Lucas Schaefer Understands The Brutality, Absurdity, And Transcendence Of Boxing

Sphere lights up with an advertisement for "The Wizard of Oz at Sphere" ahead of the show's premiere