Long before he was accused of sexual misconduct in a series of lawsuits, and long before federal agents in military gear raided his homes in Miami and Los Angeles, Sean Combs was unforgivable. That was the name he had selected for his first fragrance, which he sold through a partnership with Estée Lauder. It was…
On Tuesday, the largest credit card companies in the United States reached an agreement with merchants to reduce the so-called swipe fees retailers pay for accepting credit card payments, potentially saving the retailers $30 billion. These fees also help fund the credit card rewards programs that many travelers redeem for things like free flights and…
Two years in prison for tax and securities violations. Eleven years for deceiving investors. A 150-year sentence for the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The country’s most notorious white-collar fraudsters — like Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes — have received a range of punishments for their crimes, from relatively short prison terms to effectively a…
It began as ideas, good and bad, often do: in a bar. My soccer club — a group of mostly middle-aged dads in suburban New Jersey — was enjoying its weekly post-match pint when we began talking about how fun it would be to play against a similar team in Mexico City, where several of…
Ashlee Wiseman, a waitress at a Sizzler in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was 10 weeks pregnant when a nurse phoned with crushing news: a test of fetal DNA in her blood had found that her baby girl had trisomy 18, a catastrophic genetic abnormality, and was unlikely to survive. Devastated, she called her partner, Clint Risenmay,…
The song has stopped in at least one game of fashion musical chairs. Valentino has a new creative director: Alessandro Michele, the former Gucci designer who left that brand in 2022. Mr. Michele, who was known for having transformed Gucci into a $10 billion powerhouse by making it a baroque treasure chest of inclusivity and…
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former cryptocurrency mogul who was convicted of fraud, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the multi-trillion-dollar crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had recommended,…
Hello! It’s Eric Kim, reporting for duty and filling in for Mia Leimkuhler this week. How are we doing today? They say you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, so here’s my pitch for a television show: It’s called “You’ve Been Sheet-Panned!” Each episode starts with a contestant’s cherished family recipe or…
To Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.” She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air holding site in San Diego’s rural Mountain Empire, to provide volunteer medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the United States-Mexico border wall and were waiting to be apprehended by American authorities. Among the throngs at…
Karl Lagerfeld was a mega-collector. Of high-collared white shirts (1,000). Of books (300,000). Of period décor (Art Deco, Memphis Group, 18th-century European). And of homes — at least 20, in Europe and in New York. “He loved buying, redesigning and decorating houses,” said Sébastien Jondeau, the longtime assistant and bodyguard of the fashion designer, who…
