2026-03-30 03:25:04
Chances are you—and certainly not I—did not need redemption at 21. At that age, I was in college, and my world mostly revolved around working at the student-run newspaper, getting "clips," doing my best to line up another summer internship, hanging out with my friends, and also finding time to do all my classwork. When I did screw up, which of course I did because I was 21, invariably someone would tell me not to worry about it too much. I had the whole rest of my life ahead of me. My future stretched out before me like an endless road, and this was just the beginning.
But I was not an elite athlete in an Olympic sport. Every athlete's time in the arena is short, for some even more so than others. For Olympians, the grandest stage comes just once every four years, always in a different country, never on your own terms. So, yes, at the age of 21, figure skating superstar Ilia Malinin—the self described "quad god" who failed to medal at the Olympics in the men's individual event despite being the heavy favorite—was looking for redemption. He had one last shot at it on Saturday, at this year's world championships in Prague.
2026-03-30 01:39:32
Campy, goofy, stylish, a little chaotic—there is something so college basketball about Olivia Miles. Her decision to forgo last spring’s WNBA draft, where she was poised to be a top-three pick, and use her final year of NCAA eligibility might have surprised WNBA fans, but it also felt fitting. You get the sense that March is exactly where she belongs.
In the two tournaments Miles was healthy for at Notre Dame, March ended at the Sweet Sixteen. But wearing a TCU jersey this year, she finally got over the hump. On Saturday night, she led the third-seeded Horned Frogs to the Elite Eight with 28 points, 10 rebounds, and eight assists in a 79-69 win over pesky 10-seed Virginia. Don’t mourn the two missing assists: Miles can already boast a tournament triple-double, one she earned in the first round against UC San Diego with the absolutely perfect line of 12 points, 16 rebounds, and 14 assists.
Yes, some of what makes Miles the perfect college character is the look. Those goggles. "WHY WASNT I NOTIFIED ABOUT SUCH AN EVENT," she commented on a Notre Dame Instagram post advertising a "Look Like Liv" promotion with "free Olivia Miles replica glasses for students" at a game against Florida State last season. But it’s also that she plays with an unencumbered flair. She’ll attack the rim and take the bravest, most interesting route there. She racks up no-look pocket passes, behind-the-back lobs to the corners, and whatever the hell this was:
2026-03-29 23:44:47
Tiger Woods is out on bail after he was charged Friday with suspicion of driving under the influence and refusing to submit to a drug test on Florida's Treasure Coast. It was the second time the legendary golfer has been charged with suspicion of DUI; police in Jupiter filed a DUI charge against Woods in 2017 after law enforcement found him asleep at the wheel of his Mercedes-Benz, which was stopped partially on the shoulder and partly in the road. At the time, Woods said the cause was prescription medications he was taking, and he ultimately pleaded guilty to reckless driving along with saying he would go into a diversion program.
The Jupiter Island crash also is the third for Woods. In 2009, shortly after Thanksgiving, his SUV slammed into a fire hydrant and a tree near his home in the Orlando area. That crash was followed by the life of the then-top ranked golfer in the world unraveling, as reports of his multiple affairs soon became one of the biggest stories in the country. His wife divorced him, some of his corporate sponsors cut ties, and Woods stayed away from golf for months.
His second crash, in Southern California, happened in 2021 when his SUV rolled over. At the time, law enforcement said Woods was going nearly twice the 45-miles-per-hour speed limited. The crash, as the Associated Press reported, left Woods with fractures in his right leg, and "doctors needed to insert a rod, screws and pins to stabilize Woods’ leg."
2026-03-28 01:04:21
Welcome back to Make It Nice, Defector's best interior design advice column. Today, we have a mirror dilemma, a kid- and guest-friendly bathroom, and dinner plates that feel more dignified.
Margot asks:
My partner and I fell in love with Rejuvenation's Bentwood Rounded Rectangle Mirror (walnut edges, 32" x 48") but— between the price and the required shipping fee—are skittish about paying almost $1k for a mirror. We are just leaving the Ikea era of our 20s and trying to make our spaces feel a little more solid, so we have to ask... is this just what a nice, large mirror costs? We do have a big, non-framed, landlord-grade mirror hanging in our bathroom; do people ever get their own mirrors framed locally? Just spitballing here, since I was really excited about adding a mirror to our big blank wall and am trying to figure out what our options are.
[The mirror] is going onto a large white wall in our living room. We’d plan to eventually put a credenza underneath once we have the budget for one. (The solution of using the bathroom mirror might create more problems than it solves, as we’d then have to find a mirror for the bathroom…)
2026-03-28 00:16:00
It’s two days before Christmas, and my family and I are in Munich. We got here on a red-eye the morning prior, and remain barely functional thanks to jet lag. But we didn’t fly all this way just to sleep, no matter how badly all of us want to do so. And if there’s any city that demands you keep your eyes wide open, it’s Munich in all of its Christmastime splendor.
We arrive at the Marienplatz, where the outdoor Christmas markets are already bustling. I don’t know where to look; everything is so beautiful. The famed Glockenspiel dominates the square, but today it has aesthetic competition from the light-strewn evergreens, the handmade sausages sizzling out on open griddles, the pop-up ornament shops with their eaves lined by boughs and flocking, and a life-sized Erzgebirge Pyramid.
2026-03-27 23:37:59
BRITISH COLUMBIA — Staring up from the base at the high walls of the Montana Bowl, a backcountry ski zone in Revelstoke, British Columbia, feels like gazing upon a deadly cathedral. My eyes naturally gravitate to the dangerous bits, but I realize they're pinballing around wildly, because it's almost all dangerous bits. Front and center is a zone they call Bar Fight, a series of increasingly terrifying cliffs and choke points. The terrain to the west is more inviting, but it's riddled with huge man-made jumps, some of which require a perfect landing in order to avoid becoming mush on a tree. There are two fresh debris fields, evidence of small, naturally occurring avalanches.
My overwhelming thought is that I can't believe they're about to hold a snowboarding contest on that stunning monstrosity.
The Natural Selection Tour is the brainchild of Travis Rice, one of the world's most prominent snowboarders and one of the major pioneers in the discipline known as Big Mountain Freestyle. There are two main types of snowboarding: Freeride and Freestyle. Freeride takes place off-piste (in natural, un-groomed terrain), often in the backcountry, usually in steep, cliffy, rugged faces. There's often an element of alpinism mixed in, as the majority of freeriders have to summit peaks under their own power, and wayfinding while riding down is extremely important to prevent getting hung up over an unmakeable cliff. There's an annual Freeride World Tour that's been going on in various forms since the mid-'90s. Freestyle, on the other hand, is what you see at the X Games and Olympics. It's much more famous, and it takes place within ski resorts, on carefully manicured runs. It includes events like Big Air, the Halfpipe, Park, and, of course, Slopestyle.
