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There will probably be some voters who give the National League MVP ballot a hard look and pore over all the possibilities, or just vote for Shohei Ohtani out of pure reflex. Which is fine enough as it goes. This is one of the quirks of democracy: Sometimes you have to let people be wrong for their own reasons, at least until we expand the vote to children above the age of birth, family pets, and animals who live in national parks. But it's far more likely that when those votes are counted, the MVP will be Pete Crow-Armstrong. If performance trumps celebrity, the ballots won't have any other name on them. It's OK from time to time to let the obvious be obvious, and if Shohei Ohtani is still Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong is just as plainly the MVP. This is not preaching, mind you, and there's no need for advocacy on the Cubs center fielder's behalf. Crow-Armstrong was having a better season than anyone else even before Ohtani's body started looking into the process of aging, and even today the statistical differences between Crow-Armstrong and the second- and third-most effective players in the league—by WAR, that's pitcher Cristopher Sánchez of the Phillies, and Milwaukee second baseman Brice Turang—are in some cases wider than in any other campaign since Roger Clemens lapped the field in 1997. Indeed, the only argument you can muster, if this is the sort of thing you go for, is whether Crow-Armstrong is having a better season than Houston left fielder Yordan Alvarez, and astonishing as Alvarez's has been—he is slugging an even .600—his season nevertheless might end on Sunday afternoon in the lonely prairies of Yolo County, California. The AL West weighs on a curve in singular ways.

After Ed Sheeran went through all that trouble to appease New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, he'll end up not playing at his stadium anyway. The musician's shows, scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Foxborough, Mass., have been canceled because of the incoming nor'easter expected to hit the East Coast this weekend. At least one good thing's coming out of this storm. "Due to the severe weather warnings in place in Boston and across New England throughout the weekend and following consultation with local officials, the promoter and tour have made the difficult decision to cancel the Ed Sheeran concerts at Gillette Stadium," the venue's statement read. "The decision was made with the safety of fans, staff and everyone involved in the shows as the top priority." Those who bought tickets will be refunded, and free to spend their money on something equally as compelling, like going to the dentist. This weekend's shows were the original reason why Kraft strong-armed (really, weak-armed) Sheeran last week into dropping Macklemore as an opening act on the U.S. portion of his tour. The Patriots owner, a billionaire who has routinely donated money to groups that support Israel and its military, took issue with the rapper's support of Palestine. After Sheeran obliged, then blamed his promoter, the rest of his openers and his backing band ditched him on principle. Many people made fun of the musician for having no spine or scruples. Sheeran's subsequent show was this past Saturday in Philadelphia, where he recited a meaningless statement then cried.

Sofia rises early to drive from Brooklyn to the Manhattan production office where she works as a location scout. She’s tasked with finding spots in which to film an upcoming television pilot: a few apartments and, randomly, a fish store. Her day brings her around the city and in contact with a variety of people—a tech guy who shows her how to hack the system to avoid parking tickets, an old friend she hasn’t seen in years, a man who insists on dinner as recompense when she shows up late to scout his store, whereupon he will not shut the fuck up about his Moby-Dick ripoff novel. This is The Scout, a loosely plotted but deeply resonant portrait of modern New York as related through its inhabitants and their spaces.  Writer/director Paula González-Nasser based the film on her own time in the trenches as an NYC location scout for TV series like High Maintenance, Broad City, and Search Party, as well as movies like Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Appropriately, she served as her own scout for this film, which has raked in plaudits since premiering at last year’s Tribeca Festival. Ahead of The Scout’s theatrical release, I sat down with González-Nasser over Zoom to discuss her time as a location scout, how it informed the film, and how she charted a realistic journey through New York. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for time and clarity.

Welcome to the Defector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about. Ray: In case you missed it, the greatest play since the 109-yard field goal return that won the 2013 Iron Bowl is still resonating around Downmarket College Football America, a moment of pure end-game lunacy between Vanderbilt and North Carolina State that serves to remind us all that the best and maybe only reason to still care about this grand swindle is the way that young folks can pull the radiantly ridiculous out of dull-gray ordinary. In doing so, C.J. Bailey, Miles Capers, and Cayden Daniels combined to remind us that the truest way to save college sports, with or without government intervention, is to ban the adults who can, do, and always will ruin everything. This is the same thing that will save all of youth sports, but nobody has yet figured out how to get the kids to stock the snack bar. There were, of course, other things to spice up the weekend, like Ole Miss beating LSU, LSU losing to Ole Miss, and Lane Kiffin having to explain them both. A quarter of the teams are still undefeated, not including Western Michigan, and remarkably no coach has been fired yet. Maybe the athletic directors and donors are too busy worrying about making any expensive purchases while Congress dithers over the Make Players Indentured Servants Again Act, or maybe Bruce Feldman's suggestion that the pool of interim coaches could include Jimbo Fisher and Brian Kelly scares them into paralysis. Or maybe they're all confused that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey didn't hold a press conference to complain that the voters aren't giving Arkansas proper respect for being almost 2-1.

Remember when the Premier League charged Manchester City with over 100 instances of financial maneuvering which ran afoul of league rules? It's possible you've forgotten all about that, since the league's investigation began all the way back in 2019, and the charges were announced in 2023. The long timeline here is owed to City's continued refusal to cooperate with the Premier League and the efforts of their expensive legal teams. But time moves forward nonetheless, and so at long last we hare here, with The Athletic's David Ornstein reporting that City has been found guilty of almost every charge it faced. Since it has been three years since the charges were first announced, a refresher is in order. The case is based on the Premier League's belief that City consistently broke the league's financial rules between the period of 2009 to 2018. The start of this period coincides with City being purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group, which has since funneled billions of petrostate dollars into the club, transforming it from a perennial also-ran into one of the most powerful and successful teams in world soccer history. According to the Premier League, a significant portion of those billions of dollars were improperly spent, and broke league rules. City has been accused of doing things like inflating sponsorship revenue in order to stay compliant with Financial Fair Play rules, to paying former manager Roberto Mancini a second secret salary. These are the sort of things that everyone always assumed the richest clubs were doing, and for a long time it seemed like the Premier League was happy to turn a blind eye. But the charges that were filed against City in 2023 coincided with the league suddenly becoming very focused on tightening and enforcing its financial rules—the threat of government regulation might have played a role in that—and in recent years obeying those rules has become a point of emphasis for clubs throughout the Premier League. Nottingham Forest and Everton were both hit with hefty points deductions for running afoul of the rules in ways that pale in comparison to what City is accused of doing, and the stagnation of clubs like Newcastle and Aston Villa can be partially blamed on their hesitance to spend too much money on players.

At midnight, Taylor Swift released a four-song update to her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, which came out last October and had the cultural impact of a Skechers sneaker drop. Despite juicing its commercial success with several variants on the physical copies for sale, responses to the album from critics and fans alike have been lukewarm at best. Certainly nobody that I know liked hearing Travis Kelce’s dick compared to a redwood tree. One might think that after reaching the economic pinnacle that was the Eras Tour, the accompanying concert film and Disney+ docuseries, three albums in four years, and a single for the billion-grossing Toy Story 5, Swift would maybe consider chilling for a second. But for better and for worse, this woman is a compulsive writer who must metabolize her life into song. The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore is proof that some ideas should just stay in the diary, the voice memos, or the group chat. All four of the new songs on this extended edition land with a thud, with the most egregious of the lot being one called “Cleveland!” It’s an attempted rejoinder at Swift’s ever-present “haters” who criticize her looks, her values, and her dancing ability. But she doesn’t worry, because “you only need to find one person in this entire world who doesn’t find you completely insufferable,” and Swift has found hers in Kelce, whom she married at an intimate ceremony in Madison Square Garden in July. Kelce, she writes, has blown her socks off with a trip to Cleveland exclamation point. Gone is the sardonic self-awareness of singles like “Anti-Hero” and “Blank Space,” as is the storytelling and mathematical rhythm work from folklore and evermore. For someone who just a few short years ago wrote songs like “ivy” and “peace” about people who were apparently not her soulmates, the shallowness of these songs that point to Kelce is shocking. “He already took me to Cleveland / And showed me The Heights, so hate all you like / This is the love of my life, hey, hey, hey,” she sings on the chorus. It’s very much giving “I have never EVER been happier!!!”

The 2026 WNBA playoffs begin on Sunday, following the league’s longest-ever regular season, one in which it felt like any team could win on any given night. (Except the Connecticut Sun.) As an ethical and objective journalist with no real rooting interest, I could be excited on everyone’s behalf. Unfortunately, my objectivity manifests as being nervous on everyone’s behalf for the postseason. Here’s a reason for concern about each team, grouped by first-round matchup. (1) Minnesota Lynx: Is the Lynx defense OK?

There are certain early-season losses, even hefty ones, that you can write off. Especially if they happen overseas or on a Thursday night, where good teams can be afflicted by all sorts of rest/recovery issues that throw them off balance. But man, if you are a Green Bay Packers fan, I'm not sure how you even begin to cope with what happened last night. The Packers lost to the Falcons—the same Falcons who lost their first two games to the Steelers and Panthers by a combined score of 54-16 and did not have a red-zone snap in either of those games—by a score of 35-14. This wasn't one of those games where the bad team wins by multiple scores thanks to fluky turnovers or special teams play, either. This was the Falcons, the Atlanta damn Falcons, the bozos with no good quarterbacks and an inability to get a first down, just destroying the Packers on their own field. Atlanta finished the game with 498 total yards, and gained 7.5 yards per play. Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards on 29 carries. Michael Penix Jr., with his non-functional knees and a general lack of quarterbacking skills, spent his first start of the season just pumping the ball to Drake London, who finished with nine receptions for 194 yards. Kyle Pitts didn't do jack shit.

The Jockey Club, the leading sanctioning body in what’s left of the sport of horse racing in the U.S., sent out a clear message Wednesday to anybody thinking of naming their horse after Hitler: Don’t name your horse after Hitler.  The two-year-old colt Austrian Painter made his racing debut Monday with a win in the third race at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Obligatory: He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.97, and paid $9.00. Afterward, the Jockey Club received objections about the victorious newcomer, but these weren't the standard post-race protests about a jockey’s obstructing or dangerous ride or a horse’s drug abuse. No, these complaints were about the horse’s name. Because, as reported by ESPN in its Austrian Painter story, “Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist.” He was indeed! Austrian Painter’s owner and breeder is Scott Herbertson, a 58-year-old California native now based in Texas. In 2014, he founded the Herbertson Racing Stable. I could find no Kentucky Derby horses or winners of any other graded stakes race in his barn. But while he’s not a major player in the sport and seems more likely to enter his animals at unglamorous tracks like Horseshoe Indianapolis than Saratoga, Herbertson has spent lots of time in winner's circles. In 2014, the Thoroughbred Owners of California named him to their Rookie of the Year roster. According to Herbertson's page in the racing database Equibase, his horses have finished in the money 351 times in 561 starts, with a very impressive 164 wins. Herbertson's total earnings are now just over $2.5 million. Alas, nothing his horses ever did on the track brought Herbertson anywhere near the attention that this has.

Brown County Circuit Judge Marc Hammer ended his temporary seal Thursday on records in Josh Jacobs's domestic-violence criminal case. But that doesn't mean the records, which includes video showing the Green Bay Packers running back throwing his ex-girlfriend to the ground, will immediately become public. Though Hammer unsealed the files, he also had strong words of caution for those who will decide what is released. "Our [state] Constitution provides in part that crime victims are entitled to rights," Hammer said, "to be treated with dignity, respect, courtesy, sensitivity, and fairness." Jacobs pleaded no contest earlier this month to one count of misdemeanor battery and one count of misdemeanor criminal damage to property. Police arrested him in May after they responded to a phone call reporting a disturbance between a man and a woman. When officers talked to the woman, she told them that she and Jacobs had been in a fight and, per police records, he "grabbed her and threw her to the ground and she struck her head, suffering an injury."