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Mia Bieniemy, the wife of Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, was hospitalized after being shot Sunday night. The couple's son, Elijah Zion Bieniemy, 27, was arrested after the shooting and charged with malicious wounding, using a firearm in a felony, and discharging a firearm inside a home, according to law enforcement. The shooting happened in Ashburn, Virginia, a few miles away from the Washington Commanders practice facility. Eric Bieniemy served as Washington's offensive coordinator for the 2023 season, then coached for UCLA and the Chicago Bears before returning to Kansas City, where he was O.C. from 2018 to 2023. According to the Loudon County Sheriff's Office, law enforcement got a call shortly after 7:30 p.m. Sunday reporting a shooting in the 20000 block of Northpark Drive. Deputies who responded to the call found a woman who had been shot multiple times. Paramedics took her to a nearby hospital.

I have become an anxious mother, and I have adopted Jacob Misiorowski as my son. I don’t know how this happened, and I would like it to stop, because it’s taking a toll on me. Life used to be so simple. I used to watch his outings with a detached amazement. Back when I had a normal relationship to his pitching prowess, Misiorowski had already thrown 79 of the 100 highest-velocity pitches since tracking began. As of Sunday night, he holds all 100 spots. Now he is my son, and let me be the first to say, it is really difficult being a parent to a child who you have never met and who is also older than you. I am so proud of and so worried for my boy.  I spent last night in a cold sweat as I fought off the urge to join Facebook, just so I could tell everyone how wonderful and successful my beautiful son is. They must know how impressive his outing was, I whispered to myself as I clawed at the drawer where my husband (wait, when did I get a husband?) had locked away my laptop. They must know that he broke his own record for most 100-mph pitches in a game. He threw 66 fastballs, and every single one of them was more than 100 miles per hour. I frantically searched for the key. They have to know that only three were hit hard and into fair territory, and that Jakey struck out 12 batters, including seven in a row to begin the game. I took a hammer to the wood. But I can’t let it slip that he was pitching against the Rockies. Susan from knitting club would have a field day with that. As if HER kids have 185 strikeouts and a 1.58 ERA! Speaking about the history he had once again made, Mis said, “I had no idea. I’m just throwing to Gary.” My humble boy! Someone has to brag about him if he won’t. Maybe I should send Susan that video. 

One of the great joys of friendship is getting to see your friends evolve into the person they were meant to be all along. In our 10 years of friendship, I've gotten to watch Jazmine Green reinvent herself a few times, including the development and eventual birth of her alter ego, CMD+Jazmine. In the latest Try Hard episode, I'm talking to Jazmine about how going to all-day raves in Brooklyn helped unlock parts of her physicality as she was transitioning, and how all of that culminated in the creation of CMD+Jazmine as her musical identity and alter ego. As a certified indoor cat, this conversation is probably the closest I'll get to going to a rave, but I particularly loved Jazmine's story because it reminded me that it's never too late to turn your life upside down (or at least nocturnal) to become the person you were meant to be.

Some people are fans of the Arizona Cardinals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Arizona Cardinals. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. Your team: “Oh my goodness.” https://twitter.com/NFLFrance/status/1974969244019491007

DUBLIN — Misery loves company, but ecstasy attracts it. And so it was that Irish football fans by the tens of thousands shed happy tears together inside Croke Park on Sunday during the All-Ireland Final, as historically downtrodden Mayo vanquished both mighty Kerry, 1-20 to 1-17, and oh-so-many demons. It’s impossible to make up for 75 years of pain and suffering caused by all the brutal championship-game losses in one afternoon, but the outpouring of joy among Mayo players and the green-and-red clad faithful that packed one of the biggest (capacity: 84,000) and holiest sporting grounds in the world was as close to an equal and opposite reaction as anybody could have conjured. I’d never experienced anything in sports nearly as emotional before. And, yeah, I was crying like a baby and smiling as wide as could be, as was everybody around me.  I’d fallen hard for all things Mayo, but mostly the football team, during a work trip there in 2023. I learned lots about the supposed "curse" that was placed on the county after the 1951 All-Ireland championship. The legend holds that while on their way home from their second Sam Maguire Cup in a row, Mayo players who were either riding on the back of a lorrie or in a bus (depending on the teller of the tale), were so caught up in their victory celebration that they paid no mind to a funeral taking place in the town of Foxford. A peeved local priest then decreed that Mayo would not get another Sam Maguire Cup until every member of the championship panel had died.  And Mayo, by coincidence or bad luck or divine intervention, started losing big games, and kept on losing them. Since the 1951 placement of the mythical or ecclesiastical hex, the team played in 13 All-Ireland Final games, including two replays, and went 0-fer. 

It is an unfamiliar pleasure of this Chicago White Sox season that, in the two months when big slugger Munetaka Murakami did not hit a home run for them, the team improved from 3.5 games back in the AL Central, to first in their division with a 1.5-game lead. But you know what's even cooler than winning games? Winning games in blowout fashion when big slugger Munetaka Murakami smashes two dingers on his very own bobblehead day. The Sox had lost their first two in a weekend series against the Astros, though their sliding rivals in Cleveland could not gain any ground on them. When Chicago loses games, as they've done a little less than half the time in their 55-49 campaign, it's easy to slip back into "Well, they're the White Sox" fatalism. But when they're firing on all cylinders, it's worth marveling at just how many contributions they're getting from so many different guys on the roster. Hitters like Miguel Vargas, Tristan Peters, and Sam Antonacci shouldered the load when Murakami injured his hamstring at the end of May (and then had to shake off some apparent rust upon returning two weeks ago). But it's also hard to deny that this team carries a clear-cut superstar when you see him crush dongs as part of his walk-strikeout-or-blast approach to hitting. The crowd in attendance on Sunday—including Murakami's parents, who threw out first pitches (first and second pitches, maybe?)—didn't have to wait long to witness his mighty power. Batting second and facing Ronel Blanco, Murakami worked a 1-2 count full and then went opposite field on a slider outside to give a fan a second souvenir, after the bobblehead. It was only the beginning of a commanding day where Murakami's other at-bats went as follows: RBI groundout; productive out that moved the runner over; RBI single; and another home run as Part II of eighth-inning back-to-back jacks that delivered the Sox their 12-3 final.

It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This puzzle was constructed by Jack Hatchett, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Jack is a Washington Wizards fan who, for the first time in 10 years, is excited to watch his favorite team play a game of basketball. In addition to crosswords, he enjoys playing ultimate, golfing, and cycling. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. The AVCX, an independent puzzles and games outlet, invites you to subscribe, or sample the goods with a two-month free trial: "With an AVCX subscription, you get access to weekly themed and themeless crosswords, minis, cryptics, and trivia, by email or in your favorite app. We have no corporate overlord, and we publish top-flight stuff only. We also pay our people fairly, always. Check us out."

UNC football general manager Mike Lombardi has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to a statement released by the school Monday morning. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has placed Michael Lombardi, general manager for the Carolina football program, on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. As is standard procedure with personnel matters, leadership, staff, and student-athletes are prohibited from addressing this topic further, and has no reflection on the merits. Lombardi, whose $1.5 million salary makes him the highest-paid general manager in college football, joined the UNC staff prior to the 2025 season as a member of Bill Belichick's coterie of advisors and yes men. Lombardi helped Belichick put together one of the more uninspiring rosters in college football, as the Tar Heels finished 4-8 and didn't beat a single team that finished with five or more wins.

VARIOUS CITIES AND TOWNS, France — The Tour de France is over. I hope you enjoyed my 16 dispatches from France, on topics such as the race's impossible future, how cycling solved sleep, the unforgiving life of a photographer, France's vibrant unc ecosystem, and the chaotic frenzy of Alpe d'Huez. It was a privilege to be able to cover all three weeks of the race, and we couldn't do it without your support, so thank you. This is the final dispatch before I go sit in the ocean for a week and try to become normal again. As I wrote at the end of last year's Tour, covering the race is both incredibly fun but also somewhat daunting, since there is simply so much to see and experience. Not everything can fit comfortably into a blog post, though I took copious notes every day on little stuff I saw, blog ideas that never quite panned out, and NBA jerseys worn by people. Here are some highlights: Every team brings 50 bikes to the Tour: eight race bikes, 16 spares, eight time-trial bikes, eight spares, and 10 backup frames in case of emergency. This means there were 1,150 bikes at the Tour de France. Alex Baudin rides with a sticker of his cat on his stem. He said her name is Arya, but her nickname is Nini. You can learn a lot by how teams treat the crowds at the start and finish paddock. Some teams, like Caja Rural, Astana, and Picnic, are extremely accessible because they're not doing anything at the race and therefore have basically no public interest. Some teams, like EF, Uno-X, and, surprisingly, Red Bull, are super welcoming. Some teams, like Visma, Ineos (more on them in a second), and Jayco want nothing to do with the public. The vast majority of attention was focused on UAE and Decathlon. UAE mostly regard the attention as a burden, though they do let the public hang out by the bus and their press officer is actually a reasonable guy. But Decathlon openly court the public's attention, giving away hundreds of logo flags every day to the gathered crowd. Because there's a battle underway for Paul Seixas's signature, and the core of their pitch is "We're French," they want to show him that he'll always have the love of the public as long as he's on a French team. Speaking of Decathlon, they hired the best working sports photographer, Pauline Ballet, away from the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) to work this Tour for them. They also hired an extra press officer just to handle the Seixas attention. After I talked to the Italian backpackers who hiked over the Pyrenees and straight into the Tour de France by accident, I ran into at least three other groups of backpackers who were similarly stranded. None of them were as charming or friendly as my Italians, though. Some stories I wanted to do but either didn't have the time or didn't get the access: an interview with Derek Gee about why he went to Denver in January on his honeymoon to watch the Nuggets; a day on a motorbike in the race (my Shimano connection left the company); a day spent eating the same diet as a Tour de France rider (access to gels was tricky, and also I would have experienced immense pain); and obviously even more ham truck coverage. Best town: Évian-les-Bains. Worst town: Aurillac. Netcompany-Ineos has a miserable vibe, with sports director David Brailsford looming over everyone like a hawk. The team doesn't talk to the press unless they have to, and the one time I budged in to ask a director a question, he got all pissy with me. This adversarial posture is a hangover from when they used to win Tours de France as Team Sky, and it's embarrassing to have maintained it under a new identity. I mean that both in the sense of having new sponsors, and in that they don't win anymore. Congrats on Egan Bernal's 20th place, guys! Something I learned at the Barcelona Grand Depart is that the closest restaurant to the Sagrada Familia is a KFC. The second-closest is a Burger King. In Bordeaux, I met an Ilan Van Wilder superfan from Japan. I wondered, how did this person get into the seventh-best rider on something like the ninth-best team in the peloton? She said it was simply because Van Wilder raced the Japan Cup in 2024. Among the several new additions to the publicity caravan this year, M&Ms stand out for the quality of trinkets and the considered design of the floats. It's a little much. Don't they know the caravan is for obscure and mildly janky French products? Best meal: dinner at the Gite du Bois in Orcieres-Merlette, homemade vegetable lasagna. Worst meal: a bite of Iain's andouillette in Grenoble. Ass, in the figurative and literal senses. Here is a non-comprehensive list of the best NBA merch I saw in France: bootleg Brooklyn Nets shirsey with the word "BASKETBALL" on the back; Oakland Steph Curry Warriors jersey in Pau; Dylan Harper Spurs at the start in Aurillac; guy unsuccessfully trying to hitchhike off of Alpe d'Huez in an all-star Joel Embiid jersey; an entire family in Gavarnie-Gedre in Knicks logo hats. The most popular jerseys were Curry, Victor Wembanyama, and LeBron James. Everyone kept trying to do World Cup tie-in stories, and other than Uno-X cheekily doing the Norwegian rowing chant thing, basically every cyclist and DS would have to explain to whoever was asking them questions that they were too locked in to watch the World Cup. We stopped for lunch in some crappy French town during Stage 15, and came across this place: Pearl Arb'Or sushi, which featured a huge, wall-sized mural of a plane diving into a warship. We stood basically right behind the podium celebration in Paris. If you saw me, Joshua Robinson, and Caley Fretz lurking, please email me a photo. I am going on vacation now. Goodbye!

This is not really a blog about trains. A blog about trains in Los Angeles, and my experience with them across 10 days, would ultimately be very short: Despite its notorious gaps in coverage, LA Metro was perfectly functional. If there were any calendar window during which it would be easy, relatively speaking, to visit Los Angeles without a car, it would be during the World Cup, with swarms of European tourists purportedly accustomed to better things. Some of the World Cup's influence was directly in LA Metro's hands: Subways still bore advertisements for the D Line Extension which opened on May 8, connecting the Miracle Mile and a large stretch of museums to the rest of the network. Getting to Inglewood had never been easier. A noticeable population of Metro workers wearing high-visibility vests answered questions at stations, particularly on World Cup match days. An equally noticeable population of Metro police gathered in packs ranging from two to six. Other impacts were more abstract, but no less important: There were simply more people riding the subway. There are very few ways that combining 10-minute frequencies with a $1.75 fare can go wrong. Ten minutes is just fine enough to never have to check schedules or run for a train or even fret overly much about delays or cancellations. Pair that with two lines running along the same stretch, particularly through the more trafficked areas of Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA)—most importantly, for me, to and from Union Station—and that wait time effectively halves. $1.75 a ride is, as a friend of mine declared, "basically free," though she is from Munich, which is comfortably the most expensive transit city I've ever visited. Factor in free transfers within two hours, a $5 daily cap and an $18 weekly cap, and taking the Metro is really, truly, basically free.