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It was Sunday night in Los Angeles and streets of the city legendary for its traffic sat empty. Even Trader Joe's—the beloved grocery chain known as much for its tiny parking lots as its low prices—had plenty of spaces. For once, as the Clueless joke goes, you really could get anywhere in LA in 20 minutes. The reason? Mexico was playing England. In the World Cup. In the knockout rounds. In the vaunted home of El Tri, Estadio Azteca. Well before I arrived at my local soccer bar, an hour before kickoff, I had resigned myself to being among those who had to stand outside. As I positioned myself the best I could for a view of the TVs, just another person clad in the signature green, white, and red of El Tri, I announced to no one in particular, "Oh thank God, the television is on Telemundo." I have been far from alone in this sentiment. For the Mexico match, Variety reported that 21.7 million people watched on Fox—while and even larger 23.2 million watched on Telemundo. More than half of the total audience watched the broadcast in Spanish.

The master plan is clear to anyone with eyes. FIFA rigged the World Cup draw so Argentina would become the first team to make the semis without playing a side ranked in the top 15. FIFA has rigged every match in favor of Argentina. FIFA demanded that the VAR take away Egypt's second goal over a much-delayed foul call. In that same match, FIFA instructed the referees to not call a foul by Argentina's Julián Alvarez on Mohammed Salah. FIFA even put an all-Argentine referee crew on the France-Morocco match. And, during Saturday night's quarter-final against Switzerland, FIFA pulled out the big guns, rigging the game in Argentina's favor by forcing Breel Embolo to commit the single stupidest dive I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ttdGtk8eGI

For all of its defensive solidity and possession dominance, Spain has been missing a finishing touch in this World Cup. It hurt the Spaniards in the opening match, the stunning draw to Cape Verde. It made them struggle against Uruguay in an ugly game on the final day of the group stage. The 3-0 romp against over-matched Austria felt like a turning point, but then the dreadful viewing on display in the team's 1-0 victory in the round of 16 over Portugal felt like a regression to the mean. Friday's quarterfinal against a hobbled Belgium was more of the same: A lot of possession, some decent chances, and little to show for it. Then, just as he did in the dying embers of the Portugal match, Mikel Merino showed up and scored Spain into the next round. Not bad for a player who was, for most of his career, nominally a defensive midfielder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRiB7fpsl8Q

BERGERAC, France — The 2026 Tour de France is thus far mostly bereft of big narratives and interesting surprises. The race for the first two podium places seems mostly over. There is no off-bike story that's captivated the race or raised larger-order implications like the saga of Ineos soigneur David Rozman's doping connections. Torstein Træn delighted the race and threatened to upend the back half of the top-10 fight, only to crack on the Tourmalet before falling on the descent and breaking a quartet of his ribs. However, there is still one major piece of intrigue. What the hell is going on with the public spat between the two biggest stars at Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe? The drama kicked off after Stage 6, in which Tadej Pogacar smashed the Tourmalet climbing and descending records en route to a dominant solo stage win and the likely permanent seizure of the yellow jersey. Behind him, Jonas Vingegaard rode in solo for second, and a six-rider pack of contenders for the final podium spot sprinted it out. The finishing sextet featured two pairs of teammates, the stronger of which is Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz, who finished fourth and sixth on the day, respectively. They came into the Tour as co-leaders, a bad idea in general and a particularly nonsensical one for this pair.

Is Plato’s Republic too gay?   This is one of many brave questions posed by the Texas Tech University System’s chancellor and Board of Regents as they implement an “extraordinary system of censorship in higher education,” according to a new lawsuit filed Wednesday in Texas federal court by faculty unions. The American Association of University Professors and the Texas AAUP-AFT said that Texas Tech is violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments by way of sweeping new restrictions on academic freedom.    The Texas Tech University System collectively serves about 64,000 students, and is one of only nine in the country offering programs that span undergraduate, medical, law, nursing, pharmacy, dental, and veterinary education. That’s a lot of curricula to rid of "content that promotes activism on issues related to race or sex," "endorsement of a gender spectrum," and suggestions that "meritocracy or a strong work ethic are inherently racist"! Thankfully, university system Chancellor Brandon Creighton said Texas Tech built an AI tool to scan syllabi, reading materials, and lesson plans for censor-worthy material. 

Cheri Kempf knows exactly how hard it is to sustain a professional women’s sports league. She was the commissioner of the now-defunct National Pro Fastpitch league. During her tenure, the NPF’s league office had two full-time employees, one of whom was Kempf. It launched in 2004 and went through rounds of expansion and contraction, but didn’t have the television contracts or budget to sustain itself long-term. When the COVID-19 pandemic came and canceled the 2020 and 2021 seasons, the league folded. It was around this time that she received a call from Jon Patricof, the co-founder and CEO of Athletes Unlimited, an organization founded in 2020 that has been attempting to establish pro women’s leagues across various sports. Patricof reached out to Kempf for her expertise, and right away she could tell that Athletes Unlimited had advantages that the NPF never did.    “That included it having the financial structure behind all of that as the foundation, so that is something that professional softball in this country has never seen, certainly to that degree,” said Kempf, who is now the AUSL’s chief broadcast officer and executive producer. “The NPF really was just a fraction of any of that, in terms of budget and league office and enablement.”

Norway's charmed and charming run to the World Cup quarterfinals has been a good time all around. Erling Haaland is probably the most lovingly memed man on Earth at the moment, and with good reason. The Norwegians are getting really into cowboy fashion. It's all very fun. They seem like a fun hang. And they are rowing. They are rowing after wins. They are rowing in Times Square. They are rowing up the escalator. The Viking Row is the breakout celebration of this Cup, with supporters joining the team after victories in a metronomic pantomime of their ancestors crossing the storm-toss'd seas, possibly to raid some abbey or other. But after Norway's victory over Senegal in the group stage, a photo went viral showing one lone Norway fan refusing to put his back into the oar. Emil Anners Lappen refuses to row! He simply will not. In the silly season of World Cup human interest stories, this has made Emil famous. The news is covering him in his home country. They're covering him in Sweden. And now, ahead of England's final-eight match against Norway, Emil has finally been interviewed in English, by Sky News. https://twitter.com/skynews/status/2075338675114684690

GAVARNIE-GÉDRE, France — Millions of people travel to the Tour de France every year, almost all of them on purpose. This is the story of three people who did so by accident. While waiting for the riders to make their way up to Gavarnie-Gédre for the finish of Stage 6, I took a little stroll out to see the Cirque du Gavarnie. The beautiful glacial amphitheater houses the tallest waterfall in mainland France, and the final climb of Thursday's racing made up for its unselective profile by at least finishing in an incredible atmosphere. After taking a little cool-off dip in a crisp stream made pearlescent by eroded minerals, I spotted three people who definitely didn't belong. Antonio, Teresana, and Federico were decked out in backpacking gear, talking to a local official, and displaying the universal body language of people who have found themselves in a Bit Of A Situation. I knew I had to talk to these guys. They seemed fun, and like they had a story. Both turned out to be correct.

Welcome back to Make It Nice, Defector's best interior design advice column. Today we have a balcony makeover, thoughts on washable rugs, and a plea to please, please not use contact paper on your countertops! Jessica asks: By NYC standards my balcony is HUGE (11' x 5') but I can't seem to make the layout quite work. The two most important things to me are being able to lounge comfortably, and also have a table/chairs for two.  I have a small couch with ottomans and also a gravity chair. Neither are super comfortable to be honest. I like being able to easily move the couch around—at one point I had it against the door instead of under the window—but it's not quite big enough all around to really relax in. The gravity chair is pretty swagless, which I wouldn't mind except it's also not as comfortable as it looked on the website.  I also end up with a lot of dead space in the middle (currently filled by the gravity chair, but I'm thinking of getting rid of the whole setup). Is there an obvious seating arrangement that I'm missing? Should I consider two lounge chairs instead of the couch? The door next to the couch isn't used—the actual entrance is the sliding glass door next to the table.

In September 2025, the NBA hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the Los Angeles Clippers for potential salary cap circumvention after Pablo Torre Finds Out reported that the team had arranged a no-show endorsement deal for Kawhi Leonard with a fraudulent tree-planting company called Aspiration. On June 30, 2026, the Clippers agreed to trade Leonard to the Toronto Raptors. That trade is now on hold because, somehow, the aforementioned investigation is still ongoing. On Thursday, both the Clippers and Raptors released statements saying their trade is being put on pause. The Raptors' statement said that the reason for the delay is that the NBA informed them that they would "assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi." This is an interesting development for a few reasons, the first being that the NBA's warning to the Raptors would seem to indicate that a suspension might be coming Leonard's way before the start of the season. The other reason is that it really makes you wonder what the fuck Adam Silver is doing every day. The Aspiration investigation has been going on for nearly a year at this point, and it has dragged on for so long that it is now fucking up the offseason for teams that had nothing to do with it. The Raptors were well into a summer making plans to go into next season with a team built around Leonard, and now they are stuck waiting around to see if they will A) have to cancel that trade and change their plans on the fly or B) trade for a player who is going to miss a significant number of games. Why couldn't the NBA have tipped off the Raptors about this 10 days ago, when the trade was first reported? For that matter, why didn't the league just issue a warning to all teams about Leonard's status at the beginning of the summer, to prevent an awkward situation like this one? What are Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick, the two players Toronto wanted to send to Los Angeles in the trade, supposed to do now? These guys need to figure out where they are going to be living and working for the season.