Author: NY TIMES

The attorney general for the District of Columbia reached a $40 million settlement with Michael Saylor and the software company he founded, MicroStrategy, in what the attorney general’s office said was the largest income tax fraud recovery in Washington history, The New York Times has learned.The settlement, which is expected to be announced on Monday, stems from lawsuits filed in 2021 and 2022 accusing Mr. Saylor of evading more than $25 million in income taxes in Washington. Mr. Saylor enlisted MicroStrategy’s help to file fraudulent forms from 2005 through 2020 claiming that he lived in either Virginia or Florida, states…

If you are going to make a documentary about danger, you have to take your camera to daring places. You have to point it at nefarious subjects, doing brazen things, and capture a level of authenticity essential for a credible film.That was the case for the crew on “State of Silence,” which explores the existential threats faced by journalists in Mexico. For the documentary’s tense opening segment, the team accompanied the reporter Jesús Medina on a nighttime search for illegal loggers cutting down trees in a remote forest in the state of Morelos. When Medina, with his camera in hand,…

In Georgia, protesters waving European Union flags have rallied against what they see as their pro-Russia leaders. Moldova’s government is pushing to join the bloc, enraging citizens hoping for closer relations with Moscow. Armenia, too, has reached out to Europe, angered that Moscow, a longtime ally, is courting its enemy, Azerbaijan.Fueled in part by the Ukraine war, tensions have been mounting within some of the former lands of the Soviet Union, pitting those favoring closer relations with Russia against those orientated more toward Europe.Many of those tensions predate the war, rooted in longstanding domestic struggles over power, money and other…

Why do men get so many more sizing options than women, especially when it comes to pants? They get a large variety of lengths, but women just get petite, regular and long, even though there are as many different sizes of women as men. Please explain. — Amy, Hunterdon County, N.J.The question of men’s and women’s sizing is a much more complicated question than it may appear, in part because the whole concept of sizing is not standardized. It is, in fact, so fungible that it would send Hamlet around the bend.If we take the Gap as a sample subject,…

Toyota Motor, Honda Motor and other top Japanese automakers said on Monday that internal investigations found they had mishandled vehicle testing on dozens of models over the past decade.Toyota said it failed to gather proper data when doing pedestrian and occupant safety tests for three models, including its popular Yaris Cross sports-utility vehicle. Honda and Mazda Motor said they had identified problems related to the testing of several models, too.The automakers, which had been told by the Japanese government to open the investigations, said the testing failures would not affect the performance or safety of their vehicles and that customers…

The 1980s: when the hair was crimped, the pants were parachute and the movie stars were as fresh-faced as could be. The decade produced a surprising volume of hit coming-of-age movies, featuring actors often in their late teens and early twenties. Some of these charismatic stars would come to be known as the Brat Pack, a term coined by the writer David Blum in a 1985 New York magazine article about the youth movie phenomenon.At the time, the stars who were considered a part of the Brat Pack were offended by the term, one that seemed dismissive of their work…

The National Pest Management Association, a trade group, defends backyard spraying, citing the importance of controlling diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks.“Trained pest control professionals understand the specific challenges of each property and have the required expertise to create a targeted plan that effectively reduces mosquito and tick populations while minimizing impact on nontarget insects and the environment,” the association wrote in a statement. For example, technicians can avoid treating areas around flowering plants, which attract pollinators.Beyond spraying, there are devices like bug zappers, which lure flying bugs to their death. But research shows they overwhelmingly kill the wrong ones.There…

The billionaire owner of the yogurt company Chobani said on Friday that he had acquired Anchor Brewing Company, the San Francisco brewer that went out of business last year after 127 years.Hamdi Ulukaya, who is also Chobani’s chief executive, said in a video posted on social media that he looked forward to bringing Anchor Brewing “back to life.” The price Mr. Ulukaya paid to acquire the brewing company’s assets from a liquidator was not disclosed.Anchor, said to be America’s oldest craft brewer, announced it was shutting down in July 2023, citing the effects of the pandemic, inflation and a highly…

The other camp faces bigger hurdles. You might not have even heard of the original, and so the productions can’t rely upon the audience’s memories. These shows also take for granted that fans who do know the underlying story are ready to encounter it in a new way. “The Notebook,” based on a weepie classic that fans rewatch endlessly, opted to reimagine its material, leaving the basic plot and emotional core intact while significantly mixing up how it’s presented. The result works powerfully, even if you’ve never seen the movie; if you have, it’s like a fresh lens, a cover…

Russian forces struck several of Ukraine’s energy facilities with drones and missiles early Saturday, in a major air assault that targeted cities across the country, including some near the borders with NATO members.The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had fired 53 missiles at its territory, that it had shot down two-thirds, and that some had been heading toward the western Zakarpattia and Lviv regions, which border Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, countries that are part of NATO. The Polish Army said its fighter jets and those of other allies had been scrambled to protect their borders in case a Russian…