2026-02-24 23:01:00
For Cherien Dabis, it all comes back to 1948. Her latest film All That's Left of You takes place primarily across three different decades, with a brief visit to a fourth at the end, but for her, this story couldn't be told without depicting the events of the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Palestinians in which they lost their homes and land, the basis of the ongoing fight for self-determination.
All That's Left of You, which Dabis produced, wrote, directed, and starred in, spends time in 1948, 1978, 1988, and 2022 as it follows three different generations of one Palestinian family as history happens to them. Zionists bomb them and drive them out of Yaffa; Israeli soldiers stop and harass a father and son; a teen joins a protest in the streets. None of these acts of violence are shown in particularly lurid ways. Instead, Dabis focuses on how it shapes the lives and outlooks of her characters, played by herself, the late Mohammad Bakri, and two of his sons, actors Saleh and Adam Bakri.
Earlier this month, I spoke with Dabis about the difficulties of filming and selling All That's Left of You, the balance of education versus entertainment in producing a film based on history, and the level of detail within the production design. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
2026-02-24 22:35:44
Now that the Olympics are over and their two most noteworthy gold medals, the men's and women's ice hockey championship, have been clawed by the gangrenous mitts of politics, we can now embrace the awfulness by association of the next two large-scale sporting events to be held in this country, the World Cup this summer and the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The men's team has been savaged for their open canoodling with the administration, all the way down to letting FBI Director Kash Patel behave like a confused assistant equipment manager, and the women's team has caught it for declining an invitation to visit the White House—clear cases of damned if you win, damned if you win again. The Olympics has always been a political windfall for whichever opportunistic swine is in position to exploit its champions, and given our developing taste for walking-and-talking toxicity in an ill-fitting suit, one can only imagine what we're in for in the next 30 months or so. But we're pretty sure you will take a more generous view of tanking when it comes.
The World Cup likely won't offer that level of inappropriate touching from the administration, if only because the U.S. is almost certain not to win, but ICE will be on hand to threaten athletes and citizens alike as part of their homage to the late 1930s, thus making the entire experience unpleasant for everyone while not dependent on where the Americans finish. The Olympics, though, will have its own flavor, and it is bathroom grout toothpaste.
2026-02-24 03:36:17
Ryan Garcia spent most of the last few years sabotaging his fight career. He smoked, drank and drugged during training. He went on a bizarre spree of bad behavior, lowlighted by a series of racist posts sent out to his many million social media followers, earning sanctions from boxing industry powerhouses. While creating such a sad stir outside the ring, he became a boring fighter and a loser inside it. He went down without a fight against Rolly Romero in a Times Square fiasco last spring, a bout that was supposed to reintroduce him as a viable world title contender, and before this weekend had notched only one official win in the last four years, discounting his non-decision over Devin Haney thanks to a banned substance found in his post-fight pee-pee test.
Then, on Saturday night, Garcia threw and landed a big right hand.
2026-02-24 01:59:40
One defining feature of the second Trump administration is the bewildering juxtaposition between various job titles and the people who actually fill those positions. "FBI Director" evokes a commanding presence: someone tall, obviously cunning, and more than a little bit evil. I don't think you would visualize a little weirdo who looks like he has only ever entered a room by accident.
Current FBI Director Kash Patel is precisely that kind of little weirdo. He looked just as uncomfortable and out of place as he always does when he showed up in the Team USA locker room Sunday, to holler, drink beers, and enjoy Toby Keith's music with the players who had just won a gold medal by defeating Canada 2-1 in overtime.
2026-02-24 01:23:48
As the number of powerful, wealthy people revealed to have associated with Jeffrey Epstein increases, so too does the coherence of their collective excuse: They only knew Epstein as a genius of math and science, a polymath who could dispense tax advice worth hundreds of millions of dollars, opine on quantum entanglement, and offer wise counsel on how to navigate choppy political and social waters. They were not sending obsequious emails to Epstein in his capacity as a conduit for shady money, world-historic sex criminal or, uh, shadow representative of Israel. They were simply seeking his considerable breadth and depth of knowledge.
Both the content and style of Epstein's emails undermine the claim of his genius. Check out this excerpt from an incredibly weird, rambling email he sent to powerful crisis PR guy Matthew Hiltzik in 2017:
looling into , can the music produced by the brain give us an insight into how it works. . different cultures have different music. german music is stiff. rigid on the beat. afrom americans flecible ie JAZZ.
2026-02-23 23:58:03
It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This week's puzzle was constructed by Kelsey Dixon and Alex Boisvert, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Alex is a crossword constructor from California who is so uncomfortable writing anything positive about himself that he wanted to do a goofy bio. Kelsey is a gorgeous and brilliant crossword constructor from Chicago who is not plagued by this affliction.
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.
