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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.

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Defector

The Defector Crewneck Sweatshirt Is Back In Stock

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Merch v3

Investigations Editor. You can reach her at diana@defector.com or, if you prefer protonmail, dfmoskovitz@protonmail.com. If security is a concern, download the Signal app and send her a text at 929-251-8187.

DFM New Headshot

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.

Eaton Fire aerial view

Journalismism

We Need A New Deal To Save Local Journalism

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Typing

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)

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Climate

The Future Of West Coast Wildfire Is Whiplash

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Barry Petchesky

A wide-angle view of the total eclipse of the Moon of November 8, 2022, with the red Moon at right amid the stars of the northern winter sky and Milky Way, plus with bright red Mars at top. Above and left of the Moon is the blue Pleiades star cluster, while below it and to the left is the larger Hyades cluster with reddish Aldebaran in Taurus. The stars of Orion are left of centre, including reddish Betelgeuse, while at far left are the two Dog Stars: Procyon, at top, in Canis Minor, and Sirius, at bottom, in Canis Major. So this is a gathering of many red stars, planets and the rare red Moon. I shot the frames for this scene beginning at 3:50 am MST, 10 minutes before mid-totality during this 1h25m-long total eclipse. . (Photo by: Alan Dyer/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Red Moon in the Winter Sky (Nov. 8, 2022)

Life Lessons

Look Up!

Germanic warrior taking stimulants imagined by Stanislav(Stanisław) Kontny,

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History

Veni, Vidi, Snorti: I Came, I Saw, I Did A Bump

A gif of a green fruit that looks like a cucumber shooting out many small wet seeds.

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Science

The Secret Lives Of Squirting Cucumbers

WASHINGTON, DC - May 23: Laura Helmuth of The Washington Post via Getty Images poses for a portrait on Tuesday May 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Post Staff Portraits – Washington, DC

Do Not Accept An Unscientific American

A black-and-white photo of a partial skeleton at the bottom of a rocky well

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This Week In Skeletons

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.

Hurricane Milton Barrels Into Florida

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

Europa

Let’s Go See What’s Swimming Around On Europa

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Rachelle Hampton

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

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

A drone image shows the dome of Tropicana Field which has been torn open due to Hurricane Milton in St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 10, 2024. At least four people were confirmed killed as a result of two tornadoes triggered by Hurricane Milton on the east coast of the US state of Florida, local authorities said Thursday. (Photo by Bryan R. SMITH / AFP)

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Tropicana Field Shredded By Hurricane Milton

BROOKS FALLS, ALASKA - AUGUST 11: A brown bear shakes his fur while fishing for sockeye salmon on August 11, 2023 at Brooks Falls, Alaska within the Katmai National Park and Preserve. The bears feast at the falls between July and September, as millions of salmon swim upstream to spawn. Many of the same bears return to the falls annually, gorging on salmon to fatten up before hibernating for winter. The bears have become something of an internet sensation, as "bearcams" livestream bear activity at and around the falls to viewers worldwide. Commercial salmon fishing in Alaskan waters has often pitted business interests against wildlife conservationists in Alaska, which has more national park and wilderness land than anywhere in the United States. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Brown Bears At Brooks Falls Gorge On Sockeye Salmon In Alaska’s Katmai National Park

Animals

Bear Wins Fat Bear Week By Defeating Bear That Killed Her Cub

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

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Nicholas Russell

26 March 2024, Baden-Württemberg, Rottweil: Cowslips grow in a wooded area near a stream near Rottweil. Photo: Silas Stein/dpa

Spring in Baden-Württemberg

What Is The Human Composting Industry Trying To Grow?

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Albert Burneko

A wide view of the desolate Martian landscape, captured by the Perseverance rover.

Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars

In this illustration, a Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is shown in low-Earth orbit. NASA is partnering with Boeing and SpaceX to build a new generation of human-rated spacecraft capable of taking astronauts to the International Space Station and expanding research opportunities in orbit. Boeing's upcoming Orbital Flight Test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with the goal of returning human spaceflight launch capabilities to the United States.

Boeing CST-100 Starliner Banner

No Need To Worry About Eerie, Mysterious “Pulsing” Noise Coming From Janky Boeing Starliner, NASA Insists

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5, 2024. Boeing launched its very first astronauts bound for the International Space Station aboard a Starliner capsule, which joins a select club of spacecraft to carry humans beyond Earth.

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Boeing Starliner Astronauts Electively Spending Five More Months In Space To Hitch Ride In Different Vehicle Due To Preference For Not Dying

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, circa 2015. General view at dusk with the Moon above the stones. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Stonehenge

Extremely Heavy And Incredibly Far; Or, The Saga Of The Strangest Rock At Stonehenge

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Kathryn Xu

Vintage color photograph of a chimpanzee in a skirt, stupid blouse, wristwatch and boots seated at a cluttered desk in a faux office, typing on a red typewriter. (Photo by Found Image Holdings/Corbis via Getty Images)

Typing Chimpanzee

Point/Counterpoint: Monkeys Typing Shakespeare

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft appears as a blazing meteor with a long trail of vapor as it launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5, 2024.

Boeing Starliner

This Is So Stupid

Do Not Say The Boeing Starliner Astronauts Are Stranded In Space, Which They Cannot Presently Return From Due To Problems With Their Spacecraft

biscuit basin

Don’t Bury Me At Biscuit Basin

Amy Schneider is a software engineer, cat owner, and Jeopardy champion who posts about her experiences on Twitter @Jeopardamy. She used to have a podcast, and odds are she will again some day.

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Amy Schneider

380357 05: Orville Wright flying over Dayton, OH in September of 1910. (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)

Orville Wright flying over Dayton

Wings Week

You Motherfuckers Forgot About Dayton

NASA Must Put Me On The Simulated Mars Mission, To Test The Astronauts’ Patience

The mated Russian-built Zarya (left) and U.S.-built Unity modules are backdropped against the blackness of space over Earth's horizon shortly after leaving Endeavour's cargo bay December 13, 1998. After being released from the shuttle Endeavour, the international space station was orbiting the Earth on its own today -- ``a bright new star'''' not to be visited again until May. (photo by NASA)

Space Station orbiting earth following release

What If We’re Stuck Down Here?

Earthrise - Apollo 8, December 24, 1968. This view of the rising Earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts as they came from behind the Moon after the fourth nearside orbit. The photo, by&#xa0;astronaut&#xa0;William Anders, is displayed here in its original orientation, though it is more commonly viewed with the lunar surface at the bottom of the photo. Earth is about five degrees left of the horizon in the photo. The unnamed surface features on the left are near the eastern limb of the Moon as viewed from Earth. The lunar horizon is approximately 780 kilometers from the spacecraft. Height of the photographed area at the lunar horizon is about 175 kilometers.