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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.
1. The F.B.I. arrested a man who they believe is tied to leaked documents revealing U.S. government secrets.
Federal investigators this afternoon raided the Massachusetts residence of Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old air national guardsman, before detaining him in connection with the leak of hundreds of pages of classified U.S. intelligence documents. The documents have upended relations with American allies and exposed weaknesses in the Ukrainian military. Follow live updates.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Teixeira would soon be arraigned at a federal court in Massachusetts, where he is expected to be charged under the Espionage Act.
Teixeira, whom The Times identified as a member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, is the leader of an online group called Thug Shaker Central, where the leaked documents first appeared. There, Teixeira oversaw about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, who came together over a shared love of guns, racist memes and video games.
Starting months ago, the authorities say, one of the users uploaded hundreds of pages of intelligence briefings to the group, lecturing its members on the importance of staying abreast of world events.
Members of Teixeira’s group said the secret documents were never meant to leave their small corner of the internet and declined to identify him. But The Times linked Teixeira to the leak using a trail of digital evidence, including details of the interior of his childhood home — posted on social media in family photographs — which matched details on the margins of some of the photographs of the leaked secret documents.
2. The Justice Department is seeking to block a court ruling limiting access to abortion pills.
The agency said it was asking the Supreme Court to take emergency action to halt a ruling made late last night by a federal appeals panel. The appeals court ruled that a widely used and safe abortion pill could remain available, but it blocked the drug from being mailed to patients and rolled back other steps intended to make the pill easier for patients to access.
In its order, the appeals court declined to uphold part of a ruling by a judge in Texas, who last week declared that the F.D.A.’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone was not valid, in essence saying that the drug should be pulled from the market.
In related news, Florida voted to ban abortions after six weeks, ending an option for those seeking the procedure later in pregnancy in the Deep South.
3. Donald Trump was questioned under oath in a lawsuit brought by New York State.
Trump sat for a deposition today in a civil case that accuses him and three of his children of a “staggering” fraud. The lawsuit, which claims Trump and his children overvalued the former president’s assets by billions of dollars, was filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in September and is expected to go to trial later this year.
The suit seeks $250 million that it contends Trump and his family reaped through deceptions in his annual financial statements — and it asks for the judge to essentially run them out of business in the state if Trump is found liable at trial.
For more: Trump faces several legal threats in the coming months. Here’s where they stand.
4. The Fox News trial is shaping up to be the libel law equivalent of the Super Bowl.
Jury selection began today in the defamation trial between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News, which is expected to stoke hot-button debates over journalistic ethics and plumb some of the knottier questions of American libel law.
Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages after Fox aired false claims that the company had engaged in a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. Fox is arguing that it is protected under the First Amendment because claims of election fraud, voiced by lawyers for a sitting president, were newsworthy.
For more: A timeline of events leading up to the trial.
5. Dianne Feinstein, under pressure to resign, asked to step down from the judiciary panel.
The 89-year-old Democratic Senator, who has been absent from the Senate for more than a month after being diagnosed with shingles, pushed back on calls for her resignation but asked to step away from the Judiciary Committee indefinitely while she recovered from the infection.
Feinstein, who has memory issues, has faced mounting pressure to resign from Democrats who have publicly vented concerns that she is unable to perform her job. Her recent absence has also been a problem for Senate Democrats because it has limited their ability to move forward with judicial nominations.
6. Dan Snyder agreed to sell the Washington Commanders for a record $6 billion.
Josh Harris, an owner of the Philadelphia 76ers in the N.B.A. and the New Jersey Devils in the N.H.L., agreed to buy the N.F.L. team from Snyder, its scandal-plagued owner. Only one other N.F.L. team — the Denver Broncos — has ever been sold for more than $2.5 billion.
The agreement comes as the N.F.L. continues its second investigation into allegations of widespread sexual harassment made against executives at the Commanders, including Snyder, as well as potential financial improprieties.
7. Mary Quant, the mother of the miniskirt, died at 93.
Quant revolutionized fashion and epitomized the style of the Swinging Sixties — a playful, youthful ethos that sprang from the streets, not a Paris atelier. In the postwar years, she outfitted countless young women who were turning their backs on the corseted shapes of their mothers.
Quant — clad in her signature play clothes and boots, with huge painted eyes, fake freckles and a bob — eventually became a global brand and helped put London fashion on the map.
“I grew up not wanting to grow up,” Quant once said. “Growing up seemed terrible. To me, it was awful. Children were free and sane, and grown-ups were hideous.”
For more: Here’s her life in photos.
8. A website can get you that reservation you’ve always wanted. But it’s going to cost you.
If you’re yearning to try Carbone’s spicy rigatoni vodka or the Polo Bar’s bacon cheeseburger, it could take you months — and some luck — to get a reservation. But a website called Appointment Trader may be able to get you a table tonight, if you’re willing to pay several hundred dollars.
Jonas Frey, the website’s founder, started the platform as a way for people to buy hard-to-get appointments at motor-vehicle departments, but quickly expanded it to include restaurants, hotel rooms, bars and clubs. About half the site’s traffic is from New York City, where reservations at very exclusive spots like Rao’s have become harder to get than Taylor Swift tickets.
9. What to do tonight:
Cook: This crisp and vibrant chopped salad is inspired by the muffuletta sandwich.
Read: “Irma,” a memoir by the magazine editor Terry McDonell, is nominally centered on his mother.
Plan: Bargain lodges can offer rustic comfort for your next vacation.
Listen: Wirecutter tested 150 pairs of wired earbuds. These were the best ones.
Check: That item from your childhood that you never opened might be worth something now.
Hunt: With a $350,000 budget, which lake home in Minneapolis would you pick?
Play: Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword.
10. And finally, when does your workday end?
In this new era of flexible work created by the pandemic, that’s become a difficult question for many of us to answer. Many people have the flexibility to work where and when they’d like, but sometimes it can feel like the workday never truly ends.
We asked nine Americans, including a digital nomad, a supercommuter and an employee on a four-day workweek, to keep video diaries of their lives. Their stories offer a window into freedoms — and burdens — in the age of flexible work.
Have a modern night.
Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.
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