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Their back-to-back trials spanned nearly a year, marking the final chapter in a startup that rose to prominence and a $9 billion valuation with the promise of revolutionizing blood testing, only to become a cautionary tale for tech founders and corporations will.

Now the anticipation is turning to their sentencing hearings, which are set to take place weeks apart, with Holmes’ scheduled for late September and Balwani’s scheduled for mid-November.

The former couple were first charged together four years ago on the same 12 criminal charges relating to defrauding investors and patients about Theranos’ abilities and business relationships in order to get money. Her trials were halted after Holmes indicated she wanted to accuse Balwani of sexually, emotionally and psychologically abusing her during their decade-long relationship, which coincided with her tenure as head of the company. Balwani has firmly denied the allegations by his lawyers. The jury largely set aside Holmes’ emotional testimony about the alleged abuse, deeming it irrelevant to the charges against her, but the issue could be considered in their sentencing.

condemnation

Holmes and Balwani each face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine plus compensation per charge. But legal experts say it’s incredibly rare for someone to get the full amount. Any prison sentences related to charges will also likely be served at the same time.

“The charge defines the most a person could get, but nobody ever gets the most,” said Nancy Gertner, a former U.S. federal judge and associate professor at Harvard Law School. She also pointed out that judges sometimes choose to weigh amends more heavily over prison time. “It doesn’t happen that often in the last few years because it can look like someone is buying their way out of prison — but it can happen.”

Judge Edward Davila, who presided over the trial of both Holmes and Balwani, will ultimately decide their fate as he sees fit, using the sentencing guidelines as a reference. Judge Davila will consider a variety of factors, including the amount of money to be scammed. For example, charges of wire fraud involving individual investors totaled more than $154 million.

Between their sentencing and their scheduled sentencing dates, the parole board is conducting an investigation into each of the former executives to take a holistic look at their history — from their family to their finances to their crimes — which will help the judge determine one Sentence. This may also include factors such as her psychological history or trauma, which Holmes’ claims about the nature of her relationship with Balwani, who is nearly 20 years her senior, could play a role. Holmes and Balwani will also be allowed to file sentencing memoranda presenting their arguments in court for leniency in sentencing.

“The crime itself is only one factor in the conviction,” Rachel Maimin, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler LLP, which specializes in commercial defense, told CNN Business. “It’s a very important factor, but definitely not the only factor. … They will each be judged on their own actions and their own life story.”

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Separate juries eventually found both Holmes and Balwani guilty, but they returned different verdicts.

Holmes, who left Stanford to work on Theranos in 2004 at the age of 19, was found guilty of four counts of investor fraud. But she was acquitted of patient-related charges, and the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on three counts of fraud by certain investors. (A charge against a patient was dropped due to a mistake by prosecutors.)

Balwani, who assumed a formal role at Theranos in 2009 and oversaw key aspects of the company, including its laboratory that processed patient tests, was found guilty on all 12 counts, including 10 counts of federal wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to wire fraud.

Both are currently bond-free — Holmes on a $500,000 bond secured by property and Balwani on a $750,000 bond secured by cash or property.

A hearing on Holmes’ request for acquittal is scheduled for later this month.

Meanwhile, Balwani attorney Jeffrey Coopersmith of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe said in a statement Thursday that the defense is exploring avenues to potentially challenge the verdict.

“Of course we are disappointed with the verdicts,” he said. “We plan to review and weigh all of Mr. Balwani’s options, including an appeal.”

Covid vaccine stocks Novavax (NVAX), modern (MRNA) and BioNTech (BNTX) rose to a three-month high on Friday on rising enthusiasm for an Omicron booster campaign in the fall.

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The Food and Drug Administration recently asked vaccine manufacturers to adjust their next boosters for the new dominant subvariants, named BA4 and BA5. Both are offshoots of the Omicron tribe. According to Yale Medicine, they are more contagious than the first members of the Omicron family.

The companies are aiming to launch their next boosters by October. These are bivalent vaccines that can target subvariants BA4 and BA5 as well as the ancestral Covid strain. Previously, vaccine manufacturers were testing boosters targeting BA1. But at the end of June, this subvariant accounted for no cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

All in all, expected demand has boosted vaccine stocks. Novavax shares are up 4.1% to 76.12 in today’s stock market. Moderna shares rose 2.2% to 176.23. shares of BioNTech, Pfizer‘s (PFE) Partner was up 1.3% to 170.13.

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Vaccine Stocks: Will New Booster Shots Persist?

There is no guarantee that the US will see massive uptake of the new boosters. About half of those eligible have not received boosters targeting the original Covid strain. But these boosters offer something new – a chance to fend off the new subvariants.

Although Novavax does not yet have an authorized Covid vaccine in the US, experts have been impressed by the company’s preliminary booster data. In testing, the prototype protected against BA1, BA2 and BA5 when administered at eight months.

In response, vaccine supplies have exploded. After hitting a bottom in mid-June, Novavax stock was up nearly 118% by Friday’s close. Moderna stock bottomed around the same time and has since risen 52%. BioNTech shares are up 45% over the past few weeks.

Follow Allison Gatlin on Twitter at @IBD_AGatlin.

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In honor of Renée Martel, who died in December, two musicians from the Gaspé region, Paul Daraîche and Laurence Jalbert, presented a light show to a pre-selected audience at the Festival en chanson de Petite -Valley on Friday.

• Also read: Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée: Beauty in simplicity, with Salomé Leclerc and Paul Piché

From the first song “I’m going to the other side of the world” we expected an evening in a much more solemn tone, with Laurence Jalbert not on stage for the entire duration of the song.

But from “If we could start again” the evening took on a much happier tone. About a hundred seats at the back of the Chapiteau Quebecor were removed to make way for a dance floor, and several spectators, sometimes drunk from the alcohol, got carried away by the rhythm, especially during “J’ai un love that does not”. want to die”.

“Renée was my cosmic twin. We were born on the same day at the same time. That means our parents played ass at the same time!” giggled Paul Daraîche.

“But most of all, Renée is someone who stayed calm in all situations, no matter what happened,” he added.

Julie Daraîche, Paul’s sister who died on April 26, 2022, was also commemorated that evening. To commemorate her, the two friends, one from Saint-François-de-Pabos and the other from Rivière-au-Renard, offered him a delicate interpretation of “Que la lune est belle ce soir”.

Émilie Daraîche, Paul’s daughter, offered a touching medley of songs by Renée’s father, Marcel Martel. “We talked to each other about growing up touring, so I want to give him this tribute,” she said.

The particularly noisy dance floor didn’t seem to bother the musicians too much, except when Laurence wanted to get the people who were talking loudly at the bar to sing along to the great “Perce les Clouds”, composed by Paul Daraîche.

For someone “who doesn’t know his own lyrics,” Laurence Jalbert didn’t do badly either with “Le Lumberjack,” a song that made many laugh. The dance evening continued with “Le bateau du bonheur”, a song by Renée Martel that Paul Daraîche had always appreciated.

The daughter of the clan in the first part

It was Émilie Daraîche who opened the evening “in honor of our beautiful Renée”, as she presented it between two songs. The young woman presented two songs from her repertoire, including her first radio hit “Remember”. While she draws much inspiration from lyrical pop, country influence never seems too far away.

The fate of Spirit Airlines’ merger with fellow low-cost airline Frontier Airlines grows increasingly murky.

Spirit this week postponed its shareholders’ meeting for the third time, opening the door for further talks from Frontier and rival bidder JetBlue Airways. The latter two delays each came just hours before Spirit shareholders were due to vote on a merger of Frontier, a cash-and-stock combination now worth $2.6 billion after Frontier recently sweetened the offer to fend off JetBlue’s advances. JetBlue is offering around $3.7 billion in a cash takeover.

Ahead of the last scheduled vote, scheduled for Friday morning, it appeared Spirit didn’t have enough votes to have the frontier deal approved, according to people familiar with the matter.

Spirit would be on the hook to pay Frontier a more than $94 million break-up fee if it decides JetBlue’s offer is superior and abandons its original deal.

“We are working hard to bring this process to completion while we remain focused on the well-being of our Spirit family,” Spirit CEO Ted Christie said in a note to employees late Thursday after the vote was again postponed had been. Spirit declined to comment further on Friday.

For its part, JetBlue applauded the delay. CEO Robin Hayes said in a statement late Thursday, “We are encouraged by our discussions with Spirit and hope they will now recognize that Spirit shareholders have expressed their clear, overwhelming preference for an arrangement with JetBlue.”

Neither JetBlue nor Frontier offered any further comment on Friday.

At stake is the chance to become the country’s fifth-largest airline behind giants American, Delta, United and Southwest. A merger of Spirit and Frontier could create a low-cost airline giant, while JetBlue says its takeover bid would “turbocharge” the airline’s growth, whose service includes more amenities and mint business class on some planes.

“Spirit’s board of directors is hellbent on a frontier deal. They’ve never wavered,” said Brett Snyder, a former airline executive who now runs the Cranky Flier travel site. “Your challenge is how do you get the votes?”

When the frontier deal comes to a vote, Spirit shareholders will decide on a Cash and stock deal. Bank stocks could represent a future benefit for shareholders if the travel recovery drives the share price higher. But they risk the opposite in the event of a recession or a slowdown in travel, although low-cost airlines like Spirit and Frontier are less sensitive to the ups and downs of business travel than larger carriers.

JetBlue’s cash-in-hand offering avoids gambling.

“With the frontier deal, you trust what will happen after the merger to make your money. At JetBlue, it’s like, here’s the money, take the money, go away,” Snyder said.

JetBlue has repeatedly sweetened its offer for Spirit, including increasing a reverse breakup fee should regulators block the deal. The airline’s persistence has put pressure on Frontier, which recently increased its own bid to match JetBlue’s reverse break-up fee.

Spirit’s board of directors has rejected each of JetBlue’s proposals, arguing that a takeover would not go through with the Justice Department, which is suing to block JetBlue’s own regional alliance with American Airlines in the US Northeast

The Biden administration’s Justice Department has vowed to take a hard line against deals that threaten competition, even assuming divestitures. JetBlue, for example, vowed to divest Spirit assets in the Northeast to make its proposed Spirit acquisition more palatable.

But that’s only an issue when a frontier deal is dead — and despite delays in shareholder voting, that may not be the case, according to Bob Mann, an aviation analyst and former airline chief executive.

“I see it more as a case where Spirit is just unquestioningly cautious about listening and judging [JetBlue’s offer] and they may ultimately decide for themselves that it doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Should a Frontier deal fail in a shareholder vote and pave the way for JetBlue, Frontier could still come out on top: JetBlue’s plan is to convert Spirit’s densely packed and no-frills Airbus planes into its own, the seatback umbrellas, more Legroom and more legroom include free wifi.

Whatever JetBlue pays for Spirit “is a down payment,” Mann said. “The integration costs will be billions and take years.”

This would make Frontier the largest and preeminent low-cost airline in the US at a time when almost everything is becoming more expensive.

Young center Shane Wright, who many see in the Montreal Canadiens uniform, would have given a sharp look at the Habs table when he heard his name called by the Seattle Kraken at Bell Center Thursday.

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After politely applauding the first-level selection of Juraj Slafkovsky, Wright appeared ready to send a message to CH leaders. However, he had to wait until fourth place before he could catch their attention.

After shaking hands with National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman, Wright had knives in his eyes. However, we don’t know if he was targeting the Canadian’s staff.

The Ontarian later thanked the City of Montreal for the warm welcome, but admitted to the TSN network that he was “a little upset” at being ignored by the CH.

A few months before the draft, Wright said he was very passionate about his goal of being selected first, adding that he thought he was “the best player in the auction and he deserved that honor.”

Musk’s plan to buy Twitter has worried policymakers around the world.

Joe Skipper | R

Less than three months after agreeing to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Elon Musk says he wants out. It’s no surprise — Musk expressed the buyer’s remorse shortly after the deal was announced.

Musk’s lawyers on Friday sent Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s chief legal officer, a letter explaining why the Tesla CEO and richest person in the world has no plans to proceed with the merger agreement.

The lawyers echoed the arguments made by Musk, claiming that Twitter downplays the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Just weeks after Twitter accepted the unsolicited offer in late April, Musk began publicly raising doubts about the company’s number of fake and spam accounts.

“In short, Twitter has not provided any information requested by Mr. Musk for nearly two months, despite his repeated, detailed clarifications aimed at simplifying Twitter’s identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information contained in Mr. Musk’s original.” Inquiries were sought,” the lawyers wrote on Friday.

They added that inaccurate information provided by Twitter in SEC disclosures “could provide additional basis for terminating the merger agreement.”

Back in May, Musk said in a tweet”Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts actually represent less than 5% of users.”

Meanwhile, the company’s shares plummeted as investors feared the deal would fall through. A day before Musk said the deal was on hold, Twitter’s market cap fell to $9 billion below Musk’s roughly $44 billion purchase price. It didn’t help that the broader market tumbled, led by a collapse in tech stocks.

Twitter shares fell another 5% to $35.04 after the close on Friday after falling more than 5% in regular trading. They’re now 35% below the $54.20 price Musk was willing to pay.

Twitter isn’t ready to let Musk go. Bret Taylor, the company’s chief executive officer, said Friday that Twitter would be pursuing the case in court.

“Twitter’s board of directors is committed to completing the transaction at the price and terms agreed with Mr. Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Taylor wrote in a tweet. “We are confident that we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

Some analysts viewed Musk’s public statements about Twitter spam accounts as a convenient way to take a hit on the company’s value.

Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he believes Musk is launching a “negotiating tactic” in hopes that Twitter will eventually lower its selling price.

“The market has collapsed,” Sacconaghi said at the time. “He’s probably using the disguise of real active users as a negotiation ploy.”

Musk went on to draw attention to what he believes to be the biggest issue of spam account undercounting, indicating he viewed the issue as an impediment to completing the acquisition.

In mid-May, he again expressed his doubts about Twitter’s accounting for spam accounts to his more than 100 million Twitter followers. He claimed at the time that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal “refused to provide evidence” that less than 5% of the accounts were fake or spam accounts.

“Yesterday the CEO of Twitter publicly refused to provide <5% proof," Musk tweeted. "This deal can't move forward until he does."

In June, Musk again made public statements about the proliferation of fake and spam accounts on Twitter, telling a Bloomberg event, “We are still waiting for a resolution on this matter and it is a very important matter.”

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that Musk and his associates were unable to check Twitter’s spam statistics and that the deal was in jeopardy, causing Twitter shares to fall 4%.

It’s a very different tone from Musk when he was aggressively pursuing a deal earlier this year. In April, he sent a letter to Taylor expressing his belief that the company “needs to be transformed into a private company” and that the messaging platform has the potential to become “the platform for free speech around the world.” be”.

“Twitter has tremendous potential,” Musk said at the time. “I’ll unlock it.”

CLOCK: He probably realized that owning Twitter wasn’t going to be much fun

As handy as apps are, they all share the same kryptonite: glitches. Some glitches seem to cause problems, like the occasional DoorDash outage, resulting in a lot of hungry people. However, on the evening of July 7th, a temporary glitch in the DoorDash app resulted in hundreds of people ordering free food.

The error was caused by a payment processing issue that allowed users to check out without an authorized form of payment. The DoorDash bug went viral on Twitter when people found out about it, causing restaurants across the country to take orders and deliveries en masse. By the time DoorDash fixed the issue, the damage had already been done: people had placed hundreds of orders for free food, drinks, and even Plan B.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Twitter users who placed orders during the glitch are now concerned that DoorDash may now extract the full prices of their purchasesand some say they woke up the day after the glitch to find their accounts gone calculated. People are also calling those who took advantage of the glitch but didn’t tip drivers for large orders, drawing attention to the extra work the restaurant workers have been hit with.

This isn’t the first time users have encountered glitches in a grocery delivery app. In May 2022, a $15 free lunch GrubHub coupon code caused the app to crash entirely, leaving many New York City residents both hungry and frustrated. Likewise, restaurants were bombarded with orders and drivers were often left untipped. DoorDash is currently working to fix the effects of the bug.

“We are actively canceling fraudulent orders and are in touch with affected merchants to ensure they are compensated for any unauthorized orders they may have received,” DoorDash told Mashable. “We work to ensure that we always provide the highest quality of service to the communities we serve, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes.”

The Portland Trail Blazers would do anything to retain star player Damian Lillard for the long term. They proved it by agreeing to a two-year contract extension that will net him about $60 million a season.

The 32-year-old wasn’t scheduled to freelance until 2025, but that hasn’t stopped Trail Blazers top management from offering him the gold medal to possibly spend the rest of his league career in Oregon State. He will be paid an average of $44 million over the next three campaigns before beginning his new contract, which will see him earn about $16 million more annually.

Lillard spent his entire NBA career with the Trail Blazers, making six appearances in the Silver Tour All-Star Game in 10 campaigns. He has averaged 24.6 points per game since turning pro.

The former first-round pick, sixth overall in 2012, only played 29 games last season due to a stomach injury.