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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

Patrick Redford

LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 13: A view of dense fog over Interstate Highway 580 (I-580) and wind turbines in Livermore, California, United States on December 13, 2025. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Climate

What Is The Tule Fog, And Will It Ever Go Away?

<div dir="auto">
<div dir="auto">Corbin Smith is a writer and photographer from Vancouver, Washington. His work has appeared in Deadspin, The Daily Beast, and Rolling Stone. He is also the host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pacific-northwest-insurance-corporation-moviefilm/id1712416222">The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast,</a> a podcast about movies.</div>
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Corbin Smith

A booth at The Materials Show in Portland, Ore. in February of 2025. It's an empty couple of tables with a big banner behind it with the word BLOOM on it and some stuff about sustainability.

Capital

The Future Of The Sneaker Business First Requires A Future

Kelsey McKinney

Albert Burneko

A barren Dust Bowl wasteland with a single fencepost standing in the foreground.

Life Lessons

Now Let Us Survey Our Summer’s Gardening Bounty

The Floodwaters Are Rising

A canyon and waterfall in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

The Great Outdoors

What Are Public Lands For?

Eva Holland is a freelance writer and editor based in Whitehorse, Yukon. She&#8217;s a correspondent for Outside magazine and the author of the books Nerve and <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-sleep-til-fairbanks#/">No Sleep &#8216;Til Fairbanks</a>.

Eva Holland

What’s The Yukon Quest Without The Yukon River?

Heather Chen is a former Defector intern and the managing editor at the Columbia Daily Spectator. She loves hockey, photography, and the good ol’ state of Michigan.

Heather Wei-Xi Chen

DETROIT, MI - SEPTEMBER 14: A worker cleans a RAM truck at the 2022 North American International Auto Show on September 14, 2022 in Detroit, Michigan.The NAIAS opens to the public on September 17 and features the latest state of the art electric vehicles, vehicle rides, the world’s first battery-powered Monster Truck, an Air Mobility Experience featuring flight demonstrations of jet suits, hoverboards, and vertical take-off and landing aircraft, a Dinosaur Encounter featuring 80 life-like and life-size dinosaurs, and the world’s largest rubber duck. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Arts And Culture

The Detroit Auto Show Used To Be The Future

Margin Of Error

Policing

The Machines

Politics

Diana Moskovitz is Defector&#8217;s investigations editor. You can contact her at diana@defector.com or dfmoskovitz@protonmail.com. She&#8217;s also on Signal @dmoskovitz.99

Diana Moskovitz

An aerial view of a street in the Eaton fire. The entire street is burned and decimated. It looks like a bomb went off. A sole person walks down the empty steet.

Journalismism

We Need A New Deal To Save Local Journalism

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Sabrina Imbler

A fire fighting helicopter drops water as the Palisades fire grows near the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood and Encino, California, on January 11, 2025. The Palisades Fire, the largest of the Los Angeles fires, spread toward previously untouched neighborhoods January 11, forcing new evacuations and dimming hopes that the disaster was coming under control. Across the city, at least 11 people have died as multiple fires have ripped through residential areas since January 7, razing thousands of homes in destruction that US President Joe Biden likened to a "war scene." (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

The Future Of West Coast Wildfire Is Whiplash

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 7: Flames from the Palisades Fire burn a home on January 7, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

The Future Of Fire Cannot Look Like Its Present

Rachelle Hampton

Firefighters take a break from battling a series of brush fires on November 9, 2024 outside of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey.

It Was Too Warm This Week

In this aerial view, a person walks through flood waters that inundated a neighborhood after Hurricane Milton came ashore on October 10, 2024, in Punta Gorda, Florida. The storm made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in the Siesta Key area of Florida, causing damage and flooding throughout Central Florida.

What Can We Learn From Back-To-Back Monster Hurricanes Helene And Milton?

Northern lights are seen across a night sky; in the foreground, there's a telephone tower

Science

It’s Totally Cool That I Didn’t Get To See The Northern Lights. Seriously! I Promise!!

Justin Ellis

Bad Bunny performing on stage in Philadelphia in 2022, wearing an outfit with red shorts while sitting on a beach chair while enjoying a beverage.

Fellas, Our Horrible Climate Future Demands You Wear Short Shorts

Kenny Moll rips through an impromptu finish line to mark the end of his seventh marathon. Michael-Luca is running to his right, with a crowd of runners behind them. There are trees in the background, and the area is both shaded and sunny.

If You Run Seven Marathons In Seven Days In Central Park, Does It Make A Difference?

Kate Schapira sits at her climate anxiety booth in a public park in Providence, Rhode Island

Interviews

What Do We Do With Our Climate Anxiety?

I am an independent writer/journalist based in New Delhi, India. I mainly work on long-form reportage on conflict, gender, climate, culture, intersection of technology and human agency. Published with the Al Jazeera Journalism Review, Aljazeera Digital, Defector, C S Monitor.

Meher Qadri

Two divers jump into the foamy Yamuna River

The Yamuna River’s Treasure Divers Fight More Than Poverty To Survive

David Roth

A group trying to rescue animals from the massive forest fire around Fort McMurray in Alberta wait at a roadblock on May 6, 2016. The Distraction logo is at top left.

Podcasts

To Live And Die In Petroleum Products, With John Vaillant

Ben Orbison is a writer living in Los Angeles

Ben Orbison

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 15: Tommy Fleetwood of England plays a second shot on the first hole during the first round of the 123rd U.S. Open Championship at The Los Angeles Country Club on June 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

Golf

The Los Angeles Country Club Owes L.A. More Than Just A Good U.S. Open

<a href="https://abshippy.com/">Abdullah Shihipar</a> is a writer and public health researcher based at Brown University.

Abdullah Shihipar

L-R Kyla Bennett, PhD, JD Director, New England PEER and a local resident Tracy Stewart of Medway look over old astroturf piled up in a forested area, where it's apparently leaching PFAS chemicals into nearby water sources.

The Case Against Turf Fields

JERSEY CITY, NJ - JUNE 8: The sun is shrouded as it rises in a smokey sky behind the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt in New York City on June 8, 2023, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

It’s All The Same Fire

Malcolm Harris is the author of Kids These Days: Human Capital And The Making Of Millennials, Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit: History Since The End Of History, and the forthcoming Palo Alto: A History Of California, Capitalism, And The World.

Malcolm Harris

Growth For What: The Shaky Promise Of Green Capitalism

NEUSTIFT IM STUBAITAL, AUSTRIA - AUGUST 25: The Innsbrucker Hütte mountain hut stands in the Stubai Alps (Stubaier Alpen) mountain range on August 25, 2022 near Neustift im Stubaital, Austria. The hut lies on the Stubaier Höhenweg in Tyrol, a challenging alpine hiking trail that is among the most popular in Austria. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Alpine Mountaineering Is Melting Away

<a class="sc-1out364-0 hMndXN sc-145m8ut-0 kGbjEv js_link" href="http://demause.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-ga="[[&quot;Embedded Url&quot;,&quot;External link&quot;,&quot;http://demause.net/&quot;,{&quot;metric25&quot;:1}]]">Neil deMause</a> has covered sports economics for more publications than even he can shake a stick at. He’s co-author of the book <a class="sc-1out364-0 hMndXN sc-145m8ut-0 kGbjEv js_link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Schemes-Stadium-Swindle-Private/dp/1567511384?ascsubtag=c9dca64cfbbd6c35085d286f4423ee39b8350b2f&amp;rawdata=%5Br%7Chttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F%5Bks%7Cgoogle%5Bt%7Clink%5Bp%7C1800657108%5Ba%7C1567511384%5Bau%7C5722120546910826704%5Bb%7Cdeadspinascsubtag%3D4eba2da0f6cc83fe1f221e8d8ca5894cd93bf2a7ascsubtag%3D33f4f2a16c1eda72859c34ee8aa577410b04a0d8&amp;tag=deadspinamzn-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga="[[&quot;Commerce&quot;,&quot;deadspin - Baseball Doesn't Need Collusion To Turn Off The Hot Stove&quot;,&quot;1567511384&quot;]]" data-amazonasin="1567511384" data-amazontag="deadspinamzn-20" data-amazonsubtag="[r|https://www.google.com/[ks|google[t|link[p|1831644811[a|1567511384[au|5722120546910826704[b|deadspin[lt|text" data-commerceready="true">Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit</a>, and runs <a class="sc-1out364-0 hMndXN sc-145m8ut-0 kGbjEv js_link" href="http://fieldofschemes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-ga="[[&quot;Embedded Url&quot;,&quot;External link&quot;,&quot;http://fieldofschemes.com/&quot;,{&quot;metric25&quot;:1}]]">the website of the same name</a>.

Neil deMause

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 01: Construction continues at Allegiant Stadium, the USD 2 billion, glass-domed future home of the Las Vegas Raiders on July 1, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Raiders and the UNLV Rebels football teams are scheduled to begin play at the 65,000-seat facility in their 2020 seasons. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)