📰 Gift Feed

Every article here is free to read — no subscription needed.

Trending New Most Shared
📰 Defector ✕ Clear
Defector opinionpoliticsculture
Promises Made, Promises Kept: The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Absolutely Looks Like Shit Now | Defector

If everyone in the United States weren’t living downstream from its consequences, it would be a pretty good tragic flaw that Donald Trump wants more than anything to be seen as a brilliant man who has...

Discussion
Defector sports
Iran Forced Out Of U.S. Immediately After Playing Best Match Of World Cup

For many players, just lacing up the boots and throwing on the national team jersey for a World Cup match marks the pinnacle of their career. Even in an expanded tournament field of 48 teams, the perc...

Discussion
Defector legalsports
The Circus Came To San Antonio | Defector

SAN ANTONIO — “Wow … more Knicks fans?” said a local child, dejectedly, as he rounded a corner on the River Walk, only to encounter a cheerful man wearing a “Nueva York” edition David Lee jersey. Satu...

Discussion
Defector sports
Brandon Bussi Filled The Hurricanes' Last Hole | Defector

The story of the 2026 Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes is that of a team that made a lot of smart decisions over a period of many years and was eventually rewarded. Sebastian Aho, drafted in t...

Discussion
Defector sports
FIFA's Hydration Breaks Break The Essence Of The Game | Defector

Soccer is all about momentum. The distinguishing aspect of its competitive structure is that it’s unsegmented, with a simple, 15-minute halftime bisecting two 45-minute blocks. The neophyte might see a goalless desert stippled with oases distributed seemingly at random and out of nowhere, but the joy of watching soccer is that the shifting sands of…

Discussion
Defector cultureopinion
Whither Wemby? | Defector

Victor Wembanyama is maybe just kind of a corny guy. I think we are all going to have to get accustomed to that. His taste in reading material could scarcely be more embarrassing shy of, like, pickup-...

Discussion
Defector technology
Why Star YouTube Influencer Ingrid Nilsen Quit Her Job | Defector

Despite its apparent ubiquity, the career of “online influencer” is so young that the first generation of people to use that title are not only still working, but still young. Ingrid Nilsen was one of...

Discussion
Defector sports
The Hurricanes' Dominance Required Years Of Disappointment | Defector

For a team that was known for playing yesterday’s hockey for a decade and being punished regularly for it, the Carolina Hurricanes played a lot like a historically elite team. You just didn’t get to s...

Discussion
Defector politics
UFC's White House Fight Night May Have Been An Unforgivable Folly, But At Least It Was Violent And Offensive | Defector

Donald Trump’s 80th birthday weekend didn’t all go well for him, at home or abroad. His name finally got pulled off the Kennedy Center early Saturday, after lots of effort to halt and obscure the remo...

Discussion
Defector culture
The USMNT Won With Flair. Can It Win A Grind? | Defector

There were a number of intriguing discoveries to be made from the first round of matches in Group D of the World Cup, or as it is coming to be known, the Group Of Deaf. Such was the torrent of nearly ...

Discussion
Defector sports
Scenes From The Street After A Knicks Title | Defector

Days of humidity had finally broken with a thunderstorm the night before. Brazilians were all over midtown, getting ready for their World Cup game. Puerto Rican and Pride flags were everywhere. “Knick...

Discussion
Defector culture
It Won't Get Better Than This | Defector

Gotham’s true heroes, its sanitation brigades, are still sweeping up the dazed, delirious, and confused bodies from the streets of the city, and the clean-up will take them well into this evening. The...

Discussion
Defector culture
The Best Things We Read In 2024 | Defector

This is what the Defector staff enjoyed reading in 2024.

Discussion
Defector transportation
The Future Is Too Easy | Defector

LAS VEGAS — There is something unstable at the most basic level about any space with too much capitalism happening in it. The air is all wrong, there’s simultaneously too much in it and not enough of it. Everyone I spoke to about the Consumer Electronics Show before I went to it earlier this month…

Discussion
Defector sports
It's Hard To Find The Feel-Good Angle Of Alexander Zverev | Defector

This past Sunday, Alexander Zverev won his first major title. On the surface, the 29-year-old’s Roland-Garros victory is the story of a player who, after roughly a decade of high expectations, accompl...

Discussion
Defector business
The Knicks’ Finals Run Has Even Made Print Media Hot | Defector

Knicks mania is in the air, but how does that affect local businesses beyond the obvious cases, like bars packed out on random weeknights? Beer is a constant, but what about print media? To find out, ...

Discussion
Defector sportsculture
John Tortorella Stands Behind Carter Hart As Hart Fails To Stand In Front Of Four Goals Per Game | Defector

There are very few people on Earth who want to see Carter Hart in net for Vegas. Most of them are Golden Knights fans, but no one cares what they think because they are Golden Knights fans. One of the...

Discussion
Defector politics
Security Theater Looks The Same Every Time | Defector

Blocks of “frozen zones” established by NYPD barricades. Roaming cops and security forces corralling people onto the sidewalk or standing around like an unspoken threat. Leaders’ allusions to potentia...

Discussion
Defector sports
Which Type Of Big Weird Guy Is Your Goalkeeper? | Defector

Consider the perspective of the soccer goalkeeper. Turn the game 90 degrees from how you watch it at home, and observe as the best part of it—your team attacking in the final third—recedes away from you. The players are small, the action muddled. Should your team score, you celebrate alone, distant. When the opponent attacks,…

Discussion
Defector culture
You Should Never Argue With A Crazy M-M-Music Club | Defector

You oughta know by now: This is Defector Music Club, where a number of our writers get together to dish about an album. Today, in honor of Bills Week, Dave McKenna, David Roth, and Lauren Theisen debate Billy Joel’s 1977 smash The Stranger. McKenna: Stunning how few rock and roll Bills are out there! But…

Discussion
Defector sportsculture
One Euphoric Night In The City Of OG Anunoby | Defector

The sounds coming out of me were causing the sleeping baby to stir, so I had to remove myself from the premises. But I had just seen the hand of god steal Game 4 in the greatest comeback in NBA Finals...

Discussion
Defector sportsculture
Try Watching This World Cup In Spanish | Defector

In my childhood, the official language of soccer was Spanish. Watching soccer meant turning on the TV and flipping over to the Spanish-language stations. If you were lucky, Andrés Cantor had the call....

Discussion
Defector sports
How To Watch The World Cup | Defector

With 104 games over the next six weeks, and with the United States (along with Canada and Mexico) hosting, the World Cup will be all-encompassing for the near future. Soccer is a very easy sport to ge...

Discussion
Defector cultureopinion
Can I Point You To The Dew Point? | Defector

So you, too, may learn the ways of dew, I've put together this Handy Dew Point Guide.

Discussion
Defector politicsworld
The State Of Sportswashing | Defector

On Dec. 5, 2025, FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented Donald Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, nominally for Trump’s “tireless efforts to bring people together in a spirit of peace.” I f...

Discussion
Defector sportspolitics
Somali World Cup Referee Denied Entry Into U.S. | Defector

The World Cup is continuing to suck, and here’s the latest reason why: CBP goons denied referee Omar Artan entry into the U.S., where he was set to become the first-ever Somali to officiate a World Cup game. Artan arrived in Miami on Saturday to attend a mandatory training hub for the tournament’s 140 officials.…

Discussion
Defector sports
I Have Been Olivia Miles-Pilled | Defector

On Saturday, the Minnesota Lynx continued their early-season dominance by beating the Seattle Storm for a seventh straight win. Natasha Howard has been excellent, and provided 27 points in the game, b...

Discussion
Defector legalsports
Broncos' Jonathon Cooper, Rams' Alaric Jackson Arrested For Domestic Violence | Defector

Two NFL players were arrested in recent days as part of domestic violence criminal cases. On Monday night, Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of felony dome...

Discussion
Defector opinion
Donald Trump's Birthday Plans Have Made Washington D.C. Hideous And Depressing | Defector

I went by the White House a few times in the last couple weeks to check out the UFC cage and other projects in the neighborhood related to Donald Trump’s debacle of a sestercentennial celebration, called Freedom 250, and his “Safe and Beautiful Initiative,” a relentless plan that will alter and shittify D.C. physically and…

Discussion
Defector politics
Border Security Theatrics Are Rising At History's Stupidest World Cup | Defector

For a World Cup host nation, the soccer is largely incidental. Even more obviously disposable are soaring ideas of bringing the international community together in a peaceful celebration of yadda yadda. In the case of the United States under the Trump administration, the point of hosting a World Cup is security theater. The nation’s ideals…

Discussion