2025-12-31 22:36:52
We are once again faced with a fake-ass work week, so things will be a little slow around here until Friday. Take this opportunity to amuse yourselves in an open thread!
2025-12-31 22:29:24
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.
The first round of the expanded playoff was, predictably, a bit of a dud. But hey, the second round is here and the games should get better, or at least we hope they will. The potential for blowouts still lurks, and who knows what effect a three-week break from football will have on some of these teams.
2025-12-31 05:58:32
New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs has been charged with one count of felony strangulation or suffocation, and one count of misdemeanor assault and battery, according to Massachusetts court records. The charges were first reported by Boston 25 News. According to a police report, made public Tuesday by a judge and obtained by Boston media, a private chef who had been working for Diggs said he tried to choke her when they got in a fight earlier this month about money the chef believed she was owed.
On Tuesday, Diggs's name appeared on the daily list for Dedham District Court, prompting today's news reports. At the hearing, a lawyer for Diggs, Michael DiStefano, asked a judge to seal the police report, Boston 25 reported, and added that a financial settlement was already in the works. The judge, per Boston 25, said she would make a decision soon and she was true to her word.
2025-12-31 04:48:22
“I think this game is over,” said play-by-play announcer Elise Woodward during Monday night’s Michigan-Oregon women’s basketball game. You’re imagining, maybe, that an electric Syla Swords shooting night gave Michigan a 50-point lead at halftime, leaving Oregon head coach Kelly Graves with no choice but to yank his starters and wave the white flag of over-ness. A likely scenario. But Woodward said these words in a tie game with 5.2 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. This would seem to be one of the least “over” situations ever. When Woodward said the game was over, she suspected this quarter had literally already ended, and that the game needed to be sent to overtime.
After close to 40 minutes of heinous free-throw shooting and long scoring droughts, Michigan and Oregon were tied at 69. The Ducks had clawed back from a 16-point hole at halftime to tie the game with 1:30 left, and it would stay that way as the teams frantically exchanged misses. The Wolverines defended well enough to force a long and doomed Oregon possession so that Michigan got the ball back with 21 seconds left. After they’d dribbled the clock down to 12 and taken a timeout, Michigan began a long and doomed possession of their own. Swords tried breaking down a defender with 5.2 seconds left, to little success. She was left to heave something up with 5.2 seconds left. Her teammate Te’Yala Delfosse grabbed the offensive rebound with 5.2 seconds left, and got her own putback attempt up with 5.2 seconds left, at which point someone finally realized the clock had stopped at 5.2 seconds.
2025-12-31 03:23:00
SAN JOSE, Calif. — When the podcasters arrived, they bypassed the wide talk-show armchairs. Instead they sat at the edge of the stage, heads barely above the crowd of adoring fans in front of them, and let their legs dangle. It was as if we were all hanging out in their living room.
Tobin Heath and Christen Press, the just-retired American soccer stars, were doing a live taping of their podcast, The RE—CAP Show. Following the show, fans would have the opportunity to take a photo with the pair at a meet-and-greet. The show was in an industrial bar and event space in downtown San Jose called the Guildhouse, which the banking brand Ally had taken over for NWSL Championship weekend and dubbed "Ally House." A rotating cast of women's soccer-media figures held free-to-attend events there, and this one, taking place just hours before the match, was packed to the brim.
2025-12-31 02:23:03
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking LLMs, bandwagon fans, and more.
Hello! Drew is still on vacation, so I will be fielding your questions this week. How fun!
