Joe Biden's administration is going after big corporations with antitrust lawsuits.
It's an aggressive approach that makes Biden stand out compared to his predecessors.
High-profile cases include Live Nation, Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, as well as non-tech companies.
President Joe Biden is really leaning into his pro-labor image.
The Biden administration has launched investigations and antitrust lawsuits against several mega corporations, many in the tech sector, thatit accuses of behaving like monopolies — and it's setting him apart from his predecessors.
"This is definitely a different agenda than previous presidents," Rebecca Allensworth, an antitrust expert at Vanderbilt University, told Business Insider. "I think that Biden is saying … consolidation and the power that large companies have gotten over the last 20, 30 years isn't good for the American consumer or for Americans in general. I think it's very much a deliberate attempt to take away on some of that market power that these big corporations have accumulated."
Here are some of the biggest companies Biden has targeted.
Live Nation
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
This week, the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation Entertainment,which Attorney General Merrick Garland accused of "anti-competitive and illegal" business practices that have stifled innovation and led to worse experiences for fans, artists, promoters, and vendors.
Arguments in the case concluded earlier this month, leaving the future of Google (and much of the tech industry at large) in the hands of a US district judge who may clear the company or find it liable and demand it make changes.
Apple
The iPhone 15 was launched at an Apple event on September 12.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in March, accusing the company of taking over the smartphone market by "delaying, degrading, or outright blocking" the competition. The company has created a "smartphone monopoly," the Justice Department argued, using restrictive policies, accessories, and software.
Amazon
Jeff Bezos.
EMMANUEL DUNAND
The Federal Trade Commission took Amazon to court last year, accusing the company of luring customers into signing up for its Prime subscriptions. The FTC claimed that Amazon "knowingly duped millions of customers." A Business Insider investigation previously found that the company was aware of its confusing sign-up infrastructure for years but did not act on it. Meanwhile, an antitrust suit brought against Amazon by the FTC is set to begin in 2026.
Meta
The Meta logo.
Chesnot/Getty Images
The FTC and dozens of states filed suit against Meta, formerly Facebook, accusing the company of buying up Instagram and WhatsApp to quash competition.
"I think there's a reason why they have one big monopolization case, at least, against each of the four major American tech companies," Allensworth told BI. "Tech is too dominant. Tech has a dangerous level of market power, and it's oppressing competition and creating products that are more dangerous and more expensive than they need to be."
The Biden administration is targeting more than just tech, however. It has also intervened in the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, which a federal judge ultimately blocked, and Kroger's bid to acquire Albertsons Companies, which is still pending following an FTC lawsuit.
Collectively, it sends a clear message to companies that "the problem goes beyond tech,"Allensworth said. "Other sectors, too, suffer from concentration and could do with a bit of antitrust enforcement."
But while the administration can bring investigations and litigation, the outcome is out of its hands.
"It really lies with the courts, and the courts are not immune to political change, but less susceptible to the winds of politics," Allensworth said.
Most readers probably wouldn’t say no to owning a seven-figure investment portfolio. But getting to a $1,000,000 portfolio of ASX shares is no easy feat. It requires years of patience and discipline to be sure. However, the most important factor that will determine if one can get to a million-dollar portfolio is the harnessing of the power of compounding.
Compound interest was not called the eighth wonder of the world by Einstein for nothing. It refers to earning interest on already-earned interest, and is the only real way most of us can effectively and efficiently build wealth on the share market outside of getting lucky on a moonshot investment.
Even the legendary investor Warren Buffett almost entirely credits compounding as the reason why he is worth ~US$130 billion today. Buffett once said “My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest”.
It also explains how his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc(NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) is worth US$876 billion right now.
It isn’t too difficult to understand how the powers of compounding can exponentially grow your wealth over time.
Compounding: How to get to a $1,000,000 portfolio of ASX shares
Let’s say this index fund returns that same rate over the next 40 years (which one should never bank on, as past returns are no guarantee of future success). If one invested just $500 a month into this fund at that rate of return and reinvested all dividend distributions, they would have $97,815 after ten years. Not bad.
But if they just kept at it for another ten years, that $97,815 would grow to $335,660. After another ten, they would have $916,970, which would hit $2.34 million if yet another ten years go by.
That’s compounding in actionâearning interest on interest on interest. The more time it has, the faster your wealth grows. So, using a simple ASX index fund generating a fairly standard return, you can see how this power of compounding, as well as patience and discipline, can get anyone to a seven-figure ASX share portfolio.
Of course, you can do a few things to juice up your returns as well.
It always helps to invest more. If you can stretch from investing $500 a month to $800, you’d end up with $3.74 million after those four decades instead of $2.34 million.
If you learn about active share market investing and manage to pick out a portfolio of individual shares that return a collective 12% per annum instead of 8.97%, you’d have almost $6 million in shares after those 40 years, rather than $2.34 million.
As such, you can see how this one simple concept of compound interest can work wonders for anyone’s wealth and can even get you a $1,00,000 portfolio.
Should you invest $1,000 in Vanguard Australian Shares Index Etf right now?
Before you buy Vanguard Australian Shares Index Etf shares, consider this:
Motley Fool investing expert Scott Phillips just revealed what he believes are the 5 best stocks for investors to buy right now… and Vanguard Australian Shares Index Etf wasn’t one of them.
The online investing service heâs run for over a decade, Motley Fool Share Advisor, has provided thousands of paying members with stock picks that have doubled, tripled or even more.*
And right now, Scott thinks there are 5 stocks that may be better buys…
Motley Fool contributor Sebastian Bowen has positions in Berkshire Hathaway and Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.
A mother was fined $88,000 after her family collected 72 clams from a California beach.
People cannot collect clams without a fishing license in California.
A San Luis Obispo County judge later reduced the fine to $500.
A California mother received a $88,000 fine after her children collected dozens of clams they believed were seashells.
Charlotte Russ told news station ABC30 that her family vacationed at Pismo Beach, a coastal city known for its beaches and local sea life, in late 2023. The residents dubbed Pismo Beach the "Clam Capital of the World" in 1947, according to the Pismo Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau.
"My kids, they thought they were collecting seashells, but they were actually collecting clams, 72 to be exact," she told the outlet.
Unfortunately, that mistake cost them.
Pismo Beach, California.
Getty Images/Harri Jarvelainen Photography
Pismo Beach has strict regulations regarding clam harvesting. People must have a valid saltwater fishing license and cannot collect clams under 4 1/2 inches. There are also regulations around what time people can harvest clams and how many they can bag a day.
Authorities issued Russ citations for fishing without a license and for collecting undersized clams, according to court records.
Russ told ABC 30 that the fine totaled $88,993.
"It made me really sad and depressed, and it kind of ruined our trip," she said.
However, Russ said she was able to explain the mistake to a San Luis Obispo County judge and got the fine reduced to $500. The fine can also be fulfilled by completing community service work.
"It was definitely one expensive trip to Pismo," Russ told the outlet. "Unforgettable."
California's Department of Fish and Wildlife representatives did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
A Florida woman has filed a lawsuit against Disney theme parks, according to an Orlando news outlet.
The lawsuit says she went unconscious and experienced brain damage on a Typhoon Lagoon waterslide.
She's seeking $50,000 in damages.
A Florida woman has filed a lawsuit against Disney, saying she lost consciousness and sustained a brain injury after riding a waterslide at Typhoon Lagoon Water Park.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in Orange County, says that Laura Reyes-Merino visited the theme park on May 11 and rode the Humunga Kowabunga, according to the lawsuit, obtained by WKMG, a local Orlando news outlet.
The woman's attorney, Richard Russo, did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.
The Walt Disney World website says the waterslide has a "near-vertical" 214-foot drop with a 60-degree angle.
Reyes-Merino fell unconscious after "banging inside the ride," according to the lawsuit. Her family discovered her limp at the end of the waterslide.
"The attendants told (Reyes-Merino's) fiancé and mother that they were not lifeguards and would have to find lifeguards to help," the lawsuit says. "As they were all waiting for help, blood kept coming out of (Reyes-Merino's) mouth in the water."
Reyes-Merino's fiancé pulled her from the water, but a lifeguard who arrived at the scene told the family not to touch her, prompting them to call an ambulance, the lawsuit says.
"Had (Disney) had lifeguards at the end of the ride to watch and help guests coming off the ride, Plaintiff's brain injury would not have occurred as she wouldn't have been drowning in the water coughing up blood," the lawsuit says.
Reyes-Merino has experienced mental, emotional, and physical ailments following the incident, including brain damage, the lawsuit says. She's seeking $50,000 in damages.
Representatives for Walt Disney World and Reyes-Merino did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Disney has faced lawsuits related to the Humunga Kowabunga waterslide in the past, including in October 2023, when a woman claimed she experienced vaginal bleeding after a hard landing.
That lawsuit said the woman experienced permanent bodily injury following the incident. She also sought $50,000.
Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford at 19 to start the blood-testing startup Theranos.
Theranos' value grew to $9 billion until flaws in the technology were exposed and Holmes was charged with fraud.
Here's how Holmes went from precocious child, to ambitious Stanford dropout, to an embattled startup founder now in prison.
Elizabeth Holmes was born on February 3, 1984 in Washington, DC. Her mom, Noel, was a Congressional committee staffer, and her dad, Christian Holmes, worked for Enron before moving to government agencies like USAID.
When she was 7, Holmes tried to invent her own time machine, filling up an entire notebook with detailed engineering drawings. At the age of 9, Holmes told relatives she wanted to be a billionaire when she grew up. Her relatives described her as saying it with the "utmost seriousness and determination."
Holmes had an "intense competitive streak" from a young age. She often played Monopoly with her younger brother and cousin, and she would insist on playing until the end, collecting the houses and hotels until she won. If Holmes was losing, she would often storm off. More than once, she ran directly through a screen on the door.
Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, attends a panel discussion during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York, September 29, 2015.
It was during high school that Holmes developed her work ethic, often staying up late to study. She quickly became a straight-A student, and even started her own business: she sold C++ compilers, a type of software that translates computer code, to Chinese schools.
Holmes started taking Mandarin lessons and part-way through high school, talked her way into being accepted by Stanford University’s summer program, which culminated in a trip to Beijing.
Inspired by her great-great-grandfather Christian Holmes, a surgeon, Holmes decided she wanted to go into medicine. But she discovered early on that she was terrified of needles. Later, she said this influenced her to start Theranos.
Holmes went to Stanford to study chemical engineering. When she was a freshman, she became a "president's scholar," an honor that came with a $3,000 stipend to go toward a research project.
STANFORD, CA – MAY 22: People ride bikes past Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus on May 22, 2014 in Stanford, California. According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities by China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Stanford University ranked second behind Harvard University as the top universities in the world. UC Berkeley ranked third. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
As a sophomore, Holmes went to one of her professors, Channing Robertson, and said: "Let's start a company." With his blessing, she founded Real-Time Cures, later changing the company's name to Theranos. Thanks to a typo, early employees’ paychecks actually said "Real-Time Curses."
Holmes soon filed a patent application for a "medical device for analyte monitoring and drug delivery," a wearable device that would administer medication, monitor patients' blood, and adjust the dosage as needed.
Theranos's business model was based around the idea that it could run blood tests, using proprietary technology that required only a finger pinprick and a small amount of blood. Holmes said the tests would be able to detect medical conditions like cancer and high cholesterol.
Theranos Chairman, CEO and Founder Elizabeth Holmes (L) and TechCrunch Writer and Moderator Jonathan Shieber speak onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt at Pier 48 on September 8, 2014 in San Francisco, California
Holmes started raising money for Theranos from prominent investors like Oracle founder Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, the father of a childhood friend and the founder of prominent VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Theranos raised more than $700 million, and Draper has continued to defend Holmes.
Holmes took investors' money on the condition that she wouldn't have to reveal how Theranos' technology worked. Plus, she would have the final say over everything having to do with the company.
That obsession with secrecy extended to every aspect of Theranos. For the first decade Holmes spent building her company, Theranos operated in stealth mode. She even took three former Theranos employees to court, claiming they had misused Theranos trade secrets.
Holmes' attitude toward secrecy and running a company was borrowed from a Silicon Valley hero of hers: former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Holmes started dressing in black turtlenecks like Jobs, decorated her office with his favorite furniture, and like Jobs, never took vacations.
Even Holmes's uncharacteristically deep voice may have been part of a carefully crafted image intended to help her fit in in the male-dominated business world. In ABC's podcast on Holmes called "The Dropout," former Theranos employees said the CEO sometimes "fell out of character," particularly after drinking, and would speak in a higher voice.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York.
Holmes was a demanding boss and wanted her employees to work as hard as she did. She had her assistants track when employees arrived and left each day. To encourage people to work longer hours, she started having dinner catered to the office around 8 p.m. each night.
More behind-the-scenes footage of what life was like at Theranos was revealed in leaked videos obtained by the team behind the HBO documentary "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley." The more than 100 hours of footage showed Holmes walking around the office, scenes from company parties, speeches from Holmes and Balwani, and Holmes dancing to "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes at the company's headquarters.
Shortly after Holmes dropped out of Stanford at age 19, she began dating Theranos president and COO Sunny Balwani, who was 20 years her senior. The two met during Holmes' third year in Stanford’s summer Mandarin program, the summer before she went to college. She was bullied by some of the other students, and Balwani had come to her aid.
Balwani became Holmes' No. 2 at Theranos despite having little experience. He was said to be a bully and often tracked his employees' whereabouts. Holmes and Balwani eventually broke up in spring 2016 when Holmes pushed him out of the company.
In 2008, the Theranos board decided to remove Holmes as CEO in favor of someone more experienced. But over the course of a two-hour meeting, Holmes convinced them to let her stay in charge of her company.
As Theranos started to rake in millions of funding, Holmes became the subject of media attention and acclaim in the tech world. She graced the covers of Fortune and Forbes, gave a TED Talk, and spoke on panels with Bill Clinton and Alibaba's Jack Ma.
Elizabeth Holmes with former President Bill Clinton, left, and Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma.
Theranos quickly began securing outside partnerships. Capital Blue Cross and Cleveland Clinic signed on to offer Theranos tests to their patients, and Walgreens made a deal to open Theranos testing centers in their stores. Theranos also formed a secret partnership with Safeway worth $350 million.
In 2011, Holmes hired her younger brother, Christian, to work at Theranos, although he didn’t have a medical or science background. Christian Holmes spent his early days at Theranos reading about sports online and recruiting his Duke University fraternity brothers to join the company. People dubbed Holmes and his crew the "Frat Pack" and "Therabros."
Holmes was obsessed with security at Theranos. She asked anyone who visited the company’s headquarters to sign non-disclosure agreements before being allowed in the building and had security guards escort visitors everywhere — even to the bathroom.
Michael Dalder/Reuters
Holmes hired bodyguards to drive her around in a black Audi sedan. Her nickname was "Eagle One." The windows in her office had bulletproof glass.
Around the same time, questions were being raised about Theranos' technology. Ian Gibbons — chief scientist at Theranos and one of the company's first hires — warned Holmes that the tests weren't ready for the public to take and that there were inaccuracies in the technology. Outside scientists began voicing their concerns about Theranos, too.
By August 2015, the FDA began investigating Theranos, and regulators from the government body that oversees laboratories found "major inaccuracies" in the testing Theranos was doing on patients.
By October 2015, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou published his investigation into Theranos's struggles with its technology. Carreyrou's reporting sparked the beginning of the company's downward spiral.
Carreyrou found that Theranos' blood-testing machine, named Edison, couldn't give accurate results, so Theranos was running its samples through the same machines used by traditional blood-testing companies.
Holmes appeared on CNBC's "Mad Money" shortly after the WSJ published its story to defend herself and Theranos. "This is what happens when you work to change things, and first they think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world," Holmes said.
In July 2016, Holmes was banned from the lab-testing industry for two years. By October, Theranos had shut down its lab operations and wellness centers.
In March 2018, Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani were charged with "massive fraud" by the SEC. Holmes agreed to give up financial and voting control of the company, pay a $500,000 fine, and return 18.9 million shares of Theranos stock. She also isn't allowed to be the director or officer of a publicly traded company for 10 years.
Despite the charges, Holmes was allowed to stay on as CEO of Theranos, since it's a private company. The company had been hanging on by a thread, and Holmes wrote to investors asking for more money to save Theranos. "In light of where we are, this is no easy ask," Holmes wrote.
In Theranos' final days, Holmes reportedly got a Siberian husky puppy named Balto that she brought into the office. However, the dog wasn't potty trained, and would go to the bathroom inside the company's office and during meetings.
In June 2018, Theranos announced that Holmes was stepping down as CEO. On the same day, the Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury had charged Holmes, along with Balwani, with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, speaks at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live (WSJDLive) conference at the Montage hotel in Laguna Beach, California, October 21, 2015.
Theranos sent an email to shareholders in September 2018 announcing that the company was shutting down. Theranos reportedly said it planned to spend the next few months repaying creditors with its remaining resources.
Around the time Theranos' time was coming to an end, Holmes made her first public appearance alongside William "Billy" Evans, a 27-year-old heir to a hospitality property management company in California. The two reportedly first met in 2017, and were seen together in 2018 at Burning Man, the art festival in the Nevada desert.
Holmes is said to wear Evans' MIT "signet ring" on a chain around her neck, and the couple reportedly posts photos "professing their love for each other" on a private Instagram account. Evans' parents are reportedly "flabbergasted" at their son's decision to marry Holmes.
It's unclear where Holmes and Evans currently reside, but they were previously living in a $5,000-a-month apartment in San Francisco until April 2019. The apartment was located just a few blocks from one of the city's top tourist attractions, the famously crooked block of Lombard Street.
Lombard Place Apartments, where Holmes used to live.
It was later reported that Holmes and Evans got engaged in early 2019, then married in June in a secretive wedding ceremony. Former Theranos employees were reportedly not invited to the wedding, according to Vanity Fair.
Besides the criminal case, Holmes was also involved in a number of civil lawsuits, including one in Arizona brought by former Theranos patients over inaccurate blood tests. The lawyers representing her in the Arizona case said in late 2019 they hadn't been paid over a year and asked to be removed from Holmes' legal team.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves after a hearing at a federal court.
Holmes' lawyers in the federal case had tried to get the government's entire case thrown out. In February 2020, Holmes caught a break after some of the charges against her were dropped when a judge ruled that some patients didn't suffer financial loss.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Holmes' lawyers asked the judge in April 2020 to deem the case "essential" so the defense team could defy lockdown orders and continue to travel and meet face-to-face. The judge said he was "taken aback" by the defense's pleas to violate lockdown.
It soon become clear that the pandemic — and the health risks associated with assembling a trial in one — would make the July trial date unrealistic. Through hearings held on Zoom, the presiding judge initially pushed the trial back to October 2020 and later postponed it further to March 2021.
Passengers wear masks as they walk through LAX airport.
In March 2021, Holmes requested another delay to the trial because she was pregnant. She asked to push back the trial to August 31, and her request was granted. Holmes reportedly gave birth to the child in July.
Nhat V. Meyer/MediaNews Group/Mercury News via Getty Images
The trial kicked off in September. In opening statements, prosecutors argued that, "Out of time and out of money, Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie." Meanwhile, the defense argued that although Theranos ultimately crumbled, "Failure is not a crime. Trying your hardest and coming up short is not a crime."
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes arrives at the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building with her defense team on August 31, 2021 in San Jose, California.
The list of possible witnesses for the trial named roughly 200 people, including the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and Holmes herself.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes leaves the Robert F. Peckham U.S. Courthouse with her mother, Noel Holmes, during her trial.
Over the course of 11 weeks, prosecutors called 29 witnesses to testify — including former Theranos employees, investors, patients, and doctors — before resting their case in November.
Holmes testified that Balwani controlled what she ate and how her schedule looked, told her she had to "become a new Elizabeth" to succeed in business, and forced her to have sex with him when she didn't want to because "he would say that he wanted me to know he still loved me."
Former Theranos COO Ramesh "Sunny' Balwani leaves the Robert F. Peckham U.S. Federal Court on June 28, 2019 in San Jose, California.
Holmes also admitted that she added some pharmaceutical companies' logos to Theranos' reports without authorization. Investors previously said they took some reassurance in those reports because, based on the logos, they thought major pharmaceutical companies had validated Theranos' technology. Holmes said she added the logos to convey that work was done in partnership with those companies, but in hindsight she wishes she had "done it differently."
Holmes also acknowledged on the stand that she hid Theranos' use of modified commercial devices from investors. She said she did this because company counsel told her that alterations the company made to the machines were trade secrets and needed to be protected as such.
In closing arguments, prosecutors argued that Holmes "chose fraud over business failure" while the defense argued she was "building a business, not a criminal enterprise."
Elizabeth Holmes walks into federal court in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Dec. 17, 2021.
After 15 weeks of trial, Holmes' case headed to a jury of eight men and four women on December 17, 2021.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of blood testing and life sciences company Theranos, leaves the courthouse with her husband Billy Evans after the first day of her fraud trial in San Jose, California on September 8, 2021.
Jurors deliberated for a total of seven days over the next few weeks before telling the court on January 3, 2022, that they were deadlocked on three of the 11 charges against Holmes. The judge read off some jury instructions to the group in court before instructing them to go back and deliberate further.
Hours later, the jury returned a mixed verdict for Holmes, finding her guilty on one count of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud. They found her not guilty on four other counts and failed to reach a verdict on the remaining three counts.
The counts Holmes was found guilty of were all related to investments; she wasn't convicted on any of the charges involving patients who received inaccurate test results.
Holmes faced the possibility of decades in prison. Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, a $250,000 fine, and a requirement to pay victims restitution.
Holmes is played by Amanda Seyfried in the dramatized series, which asks the question, "How did the world's youngest self-made female billionaire lose it all in the blink of an eye?"
In a 24-page filing on May 27, Holmes' attorneys argued for her acquittal, saying the evidence was "insufficient to sustain the convictions."
Nick Otto/AFP via Getty Images
They wrote, "Because no rational juror could have found the elements of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud beyond a reasonable doubt on this record, the Court should grant Ms. Holmes' motion for judgment of acquittal."
"Even if Ms. Holmes committed wire fraud against an investor (she did not) and even if Mr. Balwani committed wire fraud against an investor, that does not prove a conspiratorial agreement between them, nor does it prove that Ms. Holmes willfully joined any agreement," the attorneys continued in the filing.
But that wasn't the end: Holmes filed three motions requesting a new trial, one of which centered on the testimony of a prosecution witness who allegedly went to Holmes' house in August and expressed regret that he helped convict her.
The witness was former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff. According to an account of the incident from Billy Evans, Holmes' partner, Rosendorff showed up at their home looking "disheveled" and said he felt "guilty."
David Odisho/Getty Images
"He said when he was called as a witness he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everybody look bad (in the company)," Evans recalled in an email to Holmes' attorneys about their interaction. "He said that the government made things sound worse than they were when he was up on the stand during his testimony. He said he felt like he had done something wrong. And that this was weighing on him, He said he was having trouble sleeping."
In another of Holmes' motions for a new trial, she says the prosecution portrayed her relationship with Balwani differently in their respective trials, to her detriment.
In the final motion, Holmes said she was denied emails showing prosecutors failed to take appropriate steps to preserve a Theranos database that she claims would have helped her defense, even though the government furnished these materials when Balwani was on trial.
Holmes notched a small victory when the presiding judge ordered an evidentiary hearing regarding Rosendorff's testimony and appearance at her home. This hearing meant that Holmes' sentencing was postponed from October 17, 2022, to November 18 of that year.
Dai Sugano/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
The evidentiary hearing proved useless to Holmes, though, as witness Rosendorff said he stood by his initial testimony and only went to her home because he was "distressed" at the idea of Holmes' child growing up without a mother.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
"At all times the government encouraged me to tell the truth and only the truth," Rosendorff clarified at the hearing.
"I don't want to help Ms. Holmes," Rosendorff added. "The only person that can help her is herself. She needs to pay her debt to society."
On November 8, the presiding judge denied all three of Holmes' motions for a new trial, paving the way for sentencing.
Chris Ryan/Getty
Days before her sentencing, Holmes' attorneys asked that she get no more than 18 months, preferably under house arrest. They submitted 130 letters from friends and family — spanning everyone from Senator Cory Booker to even an ex-CDC chief — pleading for leniency.
In the end, Holmes' friends and family didn't get their wish. On November 18, 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 135 months, or 11.25 years, in prison with three years of supervised release beginning on April 27. "I stand before you taking responsibility for Theranos. I loved Theranos, it was my life's work," Holmes said through tears at the hearing.
Meanwhile, Balwani's trial began in March 2022 and also returned a conviction. He was found guilty in July on all 12 counts brought against him, and in early December Balwani was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison with three years of probation. As with Holmes, restitution will be decided at a later date. The judge ordered Balwani to self-surrender on March 15, 2023.
Former Theranos COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani and his legal team leave the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building on July 7, 2022 in San Jose, California.
Holmes appealed her conviction in December 2022, and US prosecutors said in recent court filings that she "continues to show no remorse to her victims" and is currently living on an estate that costs $13,000 a month.
In February 2023, a court filing revealed Holmes recently gave birth to a second child. She also asked the judge to delay the start of her prison sentence to allow her to remain free while she appeals her conviction.
Holmes in a federal court in San Jose, California, on November 18, 2022.
Nic Coury/AP
"Ms. Holmes has deep ties to the community: She is the mother of two very young children; she has close relationships with family and friends, many of who submitted letters at sentencing vouching for her good character; and she volunteers with a rape crisis and counseling organization," the filing said.
But Holmes appealed the judge's decision. In accordance with court rules, since she was on bail when she filed the motion, her prison reporting date was automatically delayed.
Philip Pacheco/Getty Images
Balwani previously used the same tactic and was able to push back his initially scheduled prison reporting date by a month — but still ultimately reported to prison on April 20.
In a May 7 profile in The New York Times, Holmes portrayed herself as a doting mother of two who wears a "bucket hat and sunglasses" and walks about the San Diego Zoo. She also wants to be called "Liz" as this is the "real Elizabeth."
She said that with her partner Evans, she spent six months in 2019 traveling the country in an RV and sleeping in campgrounds and Walmart parking lots.
Holmes admitted in her interviews with The Times that she had built a persona that wasn't "authentic" – wearing black turtlenecks, red lipstick, messy blonde hair, and using an exaggerated masculine voice.
In May, Holmes was again denied her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction, and a judge ordered her to report to prison May 30. She and Balwani were also ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to victims of Theranos' fraud.
On May 30, Holmes reported to Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, a minimum-security women's prison about 100 miles from Houston, where she grew up, to begin serving her sentence.
Elizabeth Holmes arrives at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, on May 30, 2023.
In the time since she's been incarcerated, her prison term has been shortened. Previously, Holmes had her sentenced shortened to roughly 9.5 years compared to her original 11.25-year sentence.
Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, left, is escorted by prison officials into a federal women’s prison camp on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, in Bryan, Texas.
Michael Wyke/Associated Press
The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on how Holmes' release date was calculated.
Release date calculations typically take into account factors like a person's surrender date, jail-time credit, the completion of substance abuse programs, and good behavior.
Maya Kosoff, Paige Leskin, and Áine Cain contributed to earlier versions of this story.
Holmes's sentence is reduced again. In May 2024, Bureau of Prisons records showed that Holmes' release date is now scheduled for August 16, 2032.
Elizabeth Holmes.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Prison officials previously moved Holmes's release date to December 29, 2032. Shortening her sentenced by an additional three months brings Holmes' original sentence down by about two full years.
Holmes is still serving her time in Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas. Holmes's appeal is scheduled to go before a federal appeals court on June 11.
Elizabeth Holmes hugging her father, Christian Holmes IV as her mother, Noel Holmes, looks on.
Philip Pacheco/Getty Images
In May 2023, a court denied Holmes' motion to remain free on bail while she appealed her trial, remanding her to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, a minimum security women's prison. Federal appeals courts in San Francisco will hear opening arguments in her appeal and that of her co-defendant, Sunny Balwani, on June 11.
With wealthy homeowners also battling big hotels and businesses for cleaners' services, the typical pay for housekeepers in the Sunshine State has soared from around $25 an hour in 2020 to $45 or $50 an hour in 2024, some agencies said, per CNBC.
Many are also getting health care, 401(k) plans, and benefits, the report said.
"I have been placing staff for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this," April Berube, the founder of The Wellington Agency, a household staffing agency, told the outlet.
"We've seen such a boom from people relocating, especially Palm Beach and Miami," she said. "For housekeepers it's wonderful. For us it's extremely difficult. It's a severe shortage."
Demand has also surged for other roles, including butlers, drivers, and chefs, per CNBC.
The influx of wealthy homeowners has also seen house prices rocket in South Florida, with the average sale price of a home in Palm Beach exceeding $20 million in the third quarter of 2023.
Some of the big names to have made the move include Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who purchased a $173 million estate in Manalapan, a town near Palm Beach, in 2022, and Jeff Bezos, Florida's richest billionaire, who owns three properties on South Florida's Indian Creek Island.
Donald Trump also has his infamous Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
The former president moved his primary residence from New York City to Florida in 2019.
Presidential nominees generally drive voter turnout for their respective parties.
But with many Democrats boasting higher favorability numbers than Biden, their popularity could boost his campaign.
Swing-state Senate candidates like Bob Casey Jr. and Tammy Baldwin could be Biden's biggest assets.
In most presidential elections, the top-of-the-ticket candidates are the top draws for their respective parties, amassing votes that often help down-ballot candidates win close races.
But for several popular swing-state Democrats, their popularity could actually help drive turnout in support of President Joe Biden's reelection bid — a reversal of the usual presidential coattail effect.
Casey, an ex-state auditor general and one-time state treasurer who is seeking a fourth term, has held statewide office in Pennsylvania for decades. Such a track record gives him a connection with many voters that Biden may lack, especially in an era where ticket-splitting has become less commonplace in federal races. (One notable advantage for Biden: his decadeslong political career in Delaware made him a familiar face in the Philadelphia media market.)
"The way I see it, my race is different than the president's because my opponent is not as well known as his opponent," he told the newspaper. "I think in the end we'll probably see similar numbers in both races."
Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania.
AP Photo/Marc Levy
Casey's race is poised to be a major draw, especially for Democratic voters who want to see the party continue controlling the US Senate. McCormick, who ran for the GOP Senate nomination in 2022, is a top recruit for the party this cycle.
And in Pennsylvania, which Biden won by one point over Trump in the 2020 election, the race could be decided by a few thousand — or a few hundred — votes.
Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who has represented a Lehigh Valley swing district since 2018, told the Post that a solid victory in a seat like hers will be critical for the president's chances this November.
"I truly believe that Biden only wins Pennsylvania if the down-ballot people, like me, win. I strongly believe that we push him," she said.
The Wisconsin election
In Wisconsin, where he narrowly won in 2020, Biden is locked in a tight race with Trump: the RealClearPolling average in the Badger State has Trump leading the president by less than half a percentage point.
However, in two major surveys of the state's US Senate race, Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin boasted wide leads over her likely GOP opponent, Eric Hovde. A recent Quinnipiac University poll had Baldwin ahead of Hovde by 12 points, while a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted from late April through early May showed the senator up by nine points.
Baldwin's popularity in Wisconsin could also give Biden a significant lift in the state, especially with renewed enthusiasm among Democratic voters over redrawn state legislative maps, which are poised to afford the party significant gains in the upcoming election.
Of all the glitzy projects Saudi Arabia is embarking on, perhaps the most eccentric is Neom. The kingdom plans to spend over half a trillion dollars transforming the desert into 10 futuristic regions, including a floating port city and a yachting hub.
The most famous of them is The Line, a 0.12-mile-wide and 105-mile-long city with a mirrored facade. Saudi Arabia hopes Neom will become home to nine million people in a "vertical garden city" with daily essentials within a five-minute walk.
It says high-speed rail will take citizens from one end to the other in 20 minutes. It plans to have no roads, traffic, or pollution, with everything powered by renewable energy. And it aims to gather much more data about residents and services than other so-called smart cities do.
A design for The Line.
Neom
It plans to have four airports to connect it internationally. Only one, Neom Bay Airport, is currently operating. London Heathrow is its only destination outside the Middle East.
The route is run by Saudia, the kingdom's flag carrier, which on Monday announced the largest aviation order in Saudi history, to the tune of 105 Airbus narrowbody jets.
The kingdom hopes more investment in aviation — including the launch of a new airline, Riyadh Air — will help promote it as a tourist destination.
Boom Supersonic, an American startup designing an airliner that could cross the Atlantic in 3.5 hours and use only sustainable aviation fuel, announced last November an investment from Neom. It didn't disclose the size of the investment.
Since 2021, Neom has worked on a joint venture with Volocopter, a German company designing electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, better known as eVTOLs or flying taxis. Powered by batteries, they wouldn't emit any carbon.
Neom, which has ordered 15 of its aircraft, invested $175 million in Volocopter's Series E funding round in November 2022.
Borja Blond, the CEO of the Neom-Volocopter joint venture, described its ambitions last November during a presentation at the Dubai Air Show, which Business Insider attended.
The plan is for Neom to operate three kinds of Volocopter's eVTOLs: the VoloCity, the VoloRegion, and the VoloDrone. Neom aims to have a fleet by 2025, though it's not clear how many aircraft that would entail.
"We really believe that Volocopter is close to getting their aircraft certified," Blond said.
Volocopter is aiming to be certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in time for the Olympics next summer in Paris, where it plans to run its first service.
Volocopter's VoloCity in flight.
ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images
The drone, designed to carry up to 330 pounds, would be used for some cargo.
Since the VoloCity is designed to travel only 35 kilometers, or about 22 miles, at a time, it'd function as a flying taxi to take people around a region like The Line.
Neom plans to use the VoloRegion, with its top speed of 137 mph and range of 220 kilometers, to take passengers between regions, though the presentation said it could also work intraregionally.
"We need to think about connecting all those regions within a seamless manner and being very well aligned with the vision that we have here," Blond said. "Basically we want to operate with 100% renewable energy."
Neom plans to leave 95% of the region untouched, serving as one of the world's largest nature reserves. The Line is designed with huge mirrors partly to reflect the vast natural landscape.
Blond said Neom does not "have the opportunity to build big runways, a lot of airports," adding that that makes eVTOLs a good solution for Neom's transportation needs.
He said the goal is to create safe flight routes for the VoloRegion aircraft over less populated areas.
"We want to bring a blueprint to the rest of the world: This is what we have done. This is how we can progress to future cities," Blond said.
Saudi Arabia won't phase down fossil fuels
But while the country is pushing renewable energy at home, it's pushing for huge profits from fossil fuels abroad.
Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 plan — which includes Neom and The Line — aims to make its economy less reliant on oil, but the kingdom recently suggested it won't decrease its exports of the fossil fuel.
Asked at December's COP28 summit whether he'd agree to phasing down fossil fuels, the country's energy minister said, "Absolutely not," Bloomberg reported.
An investigation by Channel 4 and the Centre for Climate Reporting published last November said officials from Saudi Arabia's Oil Sustainability Program acknowledged the country had a state-backed plan to target Africa and Asia with oil products.
Speaking about the dissonance between Saudi Arabia's green-energy plans and its status as the top oil exporter, Jim Krane, an energy-geopolitics expert at Rice University, told Time last year: "They like to have their cake and eat it.
"The Saudis' ambition is to be the last man standing in the global oil market," he added. "They want the last drop of oil drilled to come from a Saudi field."
Political researchers say some voters are worried Trump would not leave the White House if reelected.
The thought is pushing some voters toward President Joe Biden, Bloomberg reported.
That's despite concerns over Biden's age, inflation, and continued US support for Israel.
President Joe Biden has consistently claimed that Donald Trump is "determined to destroy American democracy," and it appears that such a fear is slowly spreading among some voters in crucial swing states.
They are worried that the former president would refuse to leave office at the end of a second term if he were reelected to the White House in November, Bloomberg reported, citing political researchers.
Anxiety appears to be building over the former president's often charged, authoritarian rhetoric and incidents such as the January 6, 2021 riot, when Trump supporters — with his encouragement — stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to keep him in office following his defeat in the 2020 election.
Russell Wheeler, a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies program, told Business Insider that it seemed unlikely Trump would be able to get a repeal of the 22nd Amendment if he's in office — which would require either a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate or legislatures of two-thirds of the states to call for a convention.
He said that the "greater worry" was Trump "declaring a national emergency and refusing to allow the transition," particularly if the Democrats were to win the 2028 presidential election.
Trump has toyed with the idea of a three-term presidency
Jacob Chansley.
Brent Stirton/Getty Images
In a quip on Fox News in December 2023, Trump said he wouldn't be a dictator "except for day one" of his presidency.
"I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill," Trump said, before characteristcally later claiming in an interview with Time that the comment "was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically."
The former president has also continually made inflammatory comments over extending his presidency past two terms, a move prohibited by the 22nd Amendment stipulating that "no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."
In 2020, Trump told a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin: "We are going to win four more years. And then after that, we'll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years."
Despite seemingly dialing back such aspirations last month, when he told Time he intended to serve just the four years, Trump again hinted that he might take a different approach at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting last week: "You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?"
Concerns over the possibility that he could violate the 22nd Amendment appear to be very real, leading some toward the idea of voting for Biden despite of significant apprehension about his age, rampant inflation, and the US's continued support for Israel in the Gaza conflict, the Bloomberg report said.
Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist and CEO of the communications firm Longwell Partners, told the outlet that her company had come across such worries in focus groups.
In a video shared by Longwell, Bloomberg said a moderator asked a group of undecided swing-state voters: "Does anybody think he may not abide by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution and leave office after the 2028 election? Anyone worried about that?"
Seven of the eight participants are said to have raised a hand, per the report.
Seiji Carpenter, a vice president at David Binder Research with 10 years of experience running Democrat focus groups, also told Bloomberg that his firm had seen the issue cropping up: "We were talking to Latino men and Asian American-Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went straight to the issue of, what if Trump won't give up power?"
"What we've seen so far indicates a real concern there," he added.
Despite such concerns, a swing-state poll last week from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College showed that Trump led Biden in five of six states polled from April 28 to May 9, 2024.
It's not the first time the 22nd Amendment has been an issue in this election cycle.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis previously used the amendment to attack Trump, saying that it takes "two terms as president to be able to finish this job."
"And I don't think he could fix it in one single four-year term," he added.
The first "Big Mac" sold for 45 cents and was named by a 21-year-old secretary.
The first Happy Meal was called a "Menu Ronald."
The first McDonald's franchise opened in 1955, and the chain has since become one of the most iconic food brands in history.
While McDonald's does have a varied menu, the chain is arguably most famous for its burgers. The Big Mac, which was introduced in 1967 and originally sold for just 45 cents, is so iconic that casual-dining chains like Chili's are now attempting to piggyback off its success with a similar burger.
From who invented the Big Mac to how many McDonald's burgers are sold every second, these facts about McDonald's burgers might surprise you.
The first McDonald's restaurant, before it became the chain it is today, wasn't primarily a burger restaurant.
Founder and chairman of McDonald's Corporation, Ray Kroc, stands outside one of his franchises, holding a hamburger and a drink.
Bettman/Getty Images
According to the McDonald's website, in 1954, a Multimixer milkshake machine salesman by the name of Ray Kroc came across a small restaurant in San Bernardino, California, run by the McDonald brothers.
They opened the location in 1940, according to McDonald's. The very first McDonald's Bar-B-Q menu was large and its most famous offering was hot dogs. However, in 1948, the McDonald brothers switched the concept to become a burger restaurant and reduced the restaurant's offerings to just nine items: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips, and a slice of pie.
In 1949, potato chips were swapped with french fries and McDonald's began selling milkshakes.
Due to the restaurant's self-service counter, there was no need for waiters or waitresses. Burgers were cooked ahead of time, wrapped in paper, and kept warm under a heat lamp, which meant customers received their food in record time.
Amazed by the efficiency of the restaurant, Kroc wanted in. He went on to become the first McDonald's franchise agent and the founder of the McDonald's Corporation.
In 1948, you could get a McDonald's burger for just 15 cents.
On the sign is "Speedee" McDonald's original chef logo.
David McNew/Getty Images
At the original McDonald's locations, before Ray Kroc revolutionized the company, a burger cost just 15 cents, according to the company.
McDonald's has reportedly sold hundreds of billions of burgers during its years in operation.
A McDonald's employee preparing burgers.
Nir Elias / Reuters
From the beginning, McDonald's has touted its burger sales in its advertising. Mother Jones reported that in 1955, McDonald's claimed it had sold over 15 million burgers — this was just seven years after the McDonald brothers closed their barbecue stand and reopened it as a burger joint.
Today, it's estimated that McDonald's has served billions and billions of burgers, with the Wall Street Journal estimating the chain sold its 300 billionth burger around 2013.
The first Big Mac sold for 45 cents.
Product shot of a McDonald's Big Mac hamburger in 1977.
Henry Groskinsky/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
According to McDonald's, the first Big Mac-esque sandwich was created by owner and operator Jim Delligatti of Pittsburgh in 1967, but it wouldn't be released nationwide until 1968.
It included two beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame-seed bun.
Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old secretary for the company's advertising department in 1967, came up with the "Big Mac" name.
McDonald's Big Mac.
AP Photo/Diether Endlicher
The Associated Press reported she came up with the name on the fly when an executive running to a board meeting asked for a name nomination for the company's new burger. The name "Big Mac" stuck and went on to become one of the best-known product names of all time.
McDonald's sells roughly 75 hamburgers every second.
A McDonald's employee handing a customer their bag of food.
Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images
USA Today reported that the company sold roughly 75 burgers every second in 2013, or 4,500 burgers every minute.
A simple hamburger from McDonald's can be a good source of protein.
McDonald's hamburger.
Andrew LaSane
According to the nutritional info listed for a McDonald's hamburger, it contains 25% of your daily value of protein. While McDonald's food in general may not be healthy for you in excess, there are some menu items that are healthier than others in moderation.
"The plain burger is only 250 calories," dietitian Bonnie Taub-Dix told Taste of Home in 2019. "Plus, in comparison to other menu items, the sodium here is relatively reasonable."
The first Happy Meal, which included a hamburger, small fries, and a small sundae, was called a "Menu Ronald."
This October 13, 2010 photo shows a McDonald's Happy Meal complete with a "Star Wars" toy.
KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
The original idea for the Happy Meal is said to have come from a McDonald's employee in Guatemala named Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño. Fernández de Cofiño developed the meal deal to cater to kids visiting her restaurant.
In 1979, McDonald's rolled out its first Happy Meal nationwide. The first one was circus-themed. McDonald's advertising executive Bob Bernstein introduced the idea of swapping the small sundae for a plastic toy.
In 2021, McDonald's announced the chain would begin phasing out plastic toys from its Happy Meals in an effort to be more environmentally conscious.
"Making our toys out of renewable, recycled, or certified materials will result in about a 90% reduction of fossil fuel-based plastic in Happy Meal toys [compared with 2018]," McDonald's said in a statement to NPR.
