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Aug. 31, 2021 12:51PM EST
What Elizabeth Holmes jurors will be asked ahead of fraud trial
Jury selection begins today in USA v. Elizabeth Holmes, with the actual jury trial to get underway on Sept. 8.
Why it matters: Theranos was the biggest fraud in Silicon Valley history, putting both hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of patients' health at risk.
Among the questions for potential jurors, per a court filing:
- Do they or anyone close to them have experience in such areas as venture capital investing, finance, blood testing, healthcare or blood testing?
- Have they ever received any form of medical treatment (including vaccinations) in a pharmacy and/or grocery store? You may recall that Theranos had in-store deals with both Walgreens and Safeway.
- Have they commented, liked or otherwise interacted on social media with anything relating to Holmes, Theranos or Sunny Balwani? They'll also be asked if they follow any of 15 listed journalists (via Twitter, podcasts, etc), or if they've seen or listened to a list of programs that have discussed the case.
The potential witness list includes former Theranos board members like Jim Mattis, Bill Frist and Henry Kissinger.
- Others include attorney David Boies, ex-Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, Coatue Management's Philippe Laffont, ex-Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond Hellmann, and journalists John Carreyrou (WSJ) and Roger Parloff (ex-Fortune).
Read the full witness list and potential juror questions.
Go deeper: Silicon Valley's biggest fraud is on trial
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Aug. 30, 2021 01:49PM EST
Afghan family says 10 civilians killed, including 7 children, in U.S. drone strike
The U.S. drone strike targeting a vehicle believed to pose an "imminent ISIS-K threat" to Kabul’s airport killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, family members and witnesses told the New York Times.
Catch up quick: The drone strike was the second carried out by the U.S. military in response to a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and over 170 Afghan civilians last week.
- Pentagon officials said the first strike, carried out on Friday, killed two "high-profile targets" involved in the planning of the airport bombing, which the U.S. has attributed to ISIS-K.
- Sunday's drone strike targeted an explosives-laden vehicle also believed to be linked to ISIS-K, according to U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Bill Urban. Urban said the military was investigating reports of possible civilian casualties and would be "deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life."
Details: Shortly before the drone strike, Zemari Ahmadi, who worked for the Nutrition and Education International charity in Afghanistan, pulled into his street in Kabul where he lived with his three brothers and their families, witnesses told the Times.
- A number of children came outside to greet Ahmadi when the strike occurred, per the NYT.
- The missile hit the rear end of the car, destroying it, spraying shrapnel and killing Ahmadi and many of the children surrounding the vehicle.
What they're saying: "At first I thought it was the Taliban," Samia Ahmadi, Ahmadi's daughter who was inside the house when the blast struck, told the Times. "But the Americans themselves did it."
- “I saw the whole scene,” she added. “There were burnt pieces of flesh everywhere.” Her fiancé Ahmad Naser, a former army officer and contractor with the U.S. military who had applied for a Special Immigrant Visa, was among those killed.
- Steven Kwon, the president of NEI, said Zemari Ahmadi "was well respected by his colleagues and compassionate towards the poor and needy,” and that he had just recently “prepared and delivered soy-based meals to hungry women and children at local refugee camps in Kabul,” per the NYT.
Go deeper: ISIS claims responsibility for rockets fired at Kabul airport
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Jun. 14, 2021 09:41PM EST
Return of Goldman Sachs employees to the office marks a clear inflection point for the industry
Monday was the first day back in the office for Goldman Sachs employees in New York.
Why it matters: The move brings an influx of office workers into lower Manhattan, the second-largest central business district in the country. It also marks a clear inflection point for the finance industry.
What they're saying: Bloomberg's Jennifer Surane was on the scene:
"Early this morning, employees high-fived and hugged each other as they streamed into Goldman’s Manhattan office in the drizzling rain. They’ll be greeted by free food in the cafeteria and an array of food trucks with music blaring all week"
This is all an attempt to get bankers to start physically encountering each other again — a way to kick-start the kind of serendipitous conversations that proponents of working-from-the-office, including Goldman CEO David Solomon, love to extol.
The intrigue: Goldman's decision to reopen sets up a natural experiment vs. Citigroup, which has largely kept its offices closed.
What to watch: Will the office energy give Goldman a competitive advantage? Or will the freedom of work-from-home make Citi the employer of choice for parents, remote workers and people who don't love schlepping to lower Manhattan every day?
Of note: The surprisingly long walk from Goldman's elevators to the food trucks will also force employees to reacquaint themselves with Mural, the 80-foot-long painting by Julie Mehretu that dominates the view of the Goldman lobby from the street.
- The multilayered work includes architectural drawings of banks and mercantile exchanges, as well as references to trade routes, the growth of cities and other indicia of the way in which Goldman sits at the center of the world's most complex financial web.
- The New Yorker's Calvin Tompkins called it "the most ambitious painting I’ve seen in a dozen years." Now it is a symbol of the way in which Goldman is weaving back together its disparate employee base.
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May. 21, 2021 04:36PM EST
Tribune shareholders vote to approve takeover by cost-cutting hedge fund Alden
Shareholders for Tribune Publishing voted to approve a roughly $630 million takeover of its newspaper company by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for cutting journalists at local papers to maximize profits.
Why it matters: A takeover almost certainly means job cuts at many of America’s most storied local papers, including The Chicago Tribune and The New York Daily News.
Between the lines: Journalists have been pleading with their communities to find a buyer to save the papers.
- A last-minute bid from a hotel magnate almost derailed the Alden deal, but ultimately fell apart when the suitor couldn’t pull together enough cash to compete with Alden.
- Unions representing journalists at many of Tribune's newspapers issued a statement on Friday expressing frustration that the shareholders had "voted to put profit and greed over local news in our country."
The big picture: Local newspapers have struggled to find their footing in the internet era, leading to dramatic consolidation. Hedge firms and private equity companies are increasingly consolidating local titles to cut costs for profit.
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