Category: News

  • Constructions in Taylor see Greenlight for controversial upcoming plans

    Constructions in Taylor see Greenlight for controversial upcoming plans

    Chemical Planters Soulbrain was present at city council meeting that included unanimous approvals for surrounding area constructions that all held the same agriculture, constructor for the community – including Soulbrain plantation facilities – within and around the city of Taylor.

    The Korean company has been making rounds throughout the city as they are preparing for the initial groundwork to begin for their new location in Taylor, with many promises from the city that Soul Brain needed to confirm including the stability of contracts, in addition to 50 jobs that had been added onto the employment roll.

    “This is a minor change to the agreement that the city has with Soul Brain, their company was a miscommunication about when the 50 jobs would be established, agreement hadn’t matched and we called knowing that people ramp up to the job application,” said Ben White, Austin City Councilman.

    In addition, residential staff had the backings to say an absolute inaccurate flaw was happening with the building of a 300-foot cell tower being placed as a replacement located at 118 Cratis Lane that would be “very close to residential” putting many for risk public health, safety and general welfare within the community.

    Scott Dunlop, Development Services Director, explained that part of the special use permit is the approximate reimbursement, the way, our cold reads for this area, the distance residential reset the distance is four times the height.”12 hundred feet , the closes house 100 and 13 feet away should the tower bucket, should collapse as one bid piece,’ with no effect.

    Much of the concern is that the 10,000 worth of trees that will help in the surroundings of the 300-foot cell tower would be something that residents would have to considering manually and according to representatives that is not the case, “This is a self-supporting tower that has no guide specifics,” said Brian Sullivan, Craft and Communications. The 300-foot tower is set to be all automated.

    Boxwood two-site development plan that would be located at 2002 w. Second St. was almost completely knocked down heavily by residents with an asked for fee in lieu of the unfulfilled trees. A development that could keep residents safe from risk of loss due to unsafety seriousness due to old guided, manual improvisations, a plan that included agricultural renovations. 

    “There was some trees that were removed, some trees that got credit for and some trees they were planting , further plan they had about 33 trees to plant however when we were out to the cite inspection and we were and we were wrapping up the planting that did not match how they were approved,” said Dunlop.

  • Planned Parenthood helps women — and men too

    Planned Parenthood helps women — and men too

    Texas Tribune

    Planned Parenthood can be added to a long list of groups that the Trump administration has verbally condemned and threatened for expressing their First Amendment rights. 

    Since one of their services goes against his pro-life beliefs, President Trump handed the women’s health care organization a hefty ultimatum, saying that Planned Parenthood will continue to see government funding only if the abortions stop. 

    Trump wishes to block Planned Parenthood from federal assistance in order to prevent abortion, but the Hyde Amendment of 1976 already took care of that. The law allows government funds to go toward abortion only in the cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. 

    After it was passed, the amendment was challenged in the Supreme Court where it was upheld that “The funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment do not impinge on the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment held in Roe v. Wade…to include the freedom of a woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy…” 

    The government aid Planned Parenthood receives goes not toward funding abortions but instead toward funding critical health care services — such as pap smears, birth control, family planning and HIV testing — for 2.5 million Americans annually. 

    Activists in pink shirts listen to speeches. Activists and
    Men and women alike march in support of Planned Parenthood. via. Getty Images.

    The $500 million cut that Trump has cautioned would injure countless lives of both women and men alike. Certainly, Planned Parenthood serves men, too — the very people Trump swore to protect when he took office. For men, the nonprofit provides vasectomies, condoms and cancer screenings, among other gender-appropriate services. 

    Whether it’s through information sharing, surgery or examinations, Planned Parenthood’s supply of sexual and reproductive procedures and education saves lives. And it is the low-income patients, men and women, who rely on Planned Parenthood because often they cannot afford their own health care insurance, that would suffer the most were federal dollars to be discontinued. 

    If Trump follows through on his threats, that will only increase the rates by which Americans are at risk of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and several types of cancer. 

  • Dark sides of the digital age

    Dark sides of the digital age

    Life as we know it began 48 years ago when scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles transmitted a message — Lo — to a server 350 miles north at the Stanford Research Institute (they were going for Login, but the system crashed at g). The researchers wanted to collaborate with one another without knowing where, or even who, the other person was. It was this essential network that would become the Internet, and later, the spark to a global information age.

    A plaque at the birthplace of the Internet on campus at UCLA in Los Angeles.
    A plaque at the birthplace of the Internet on campus at UCLA in Los Angeles.

    We are now in a situation where we can evaluate what impacts the Internet has had on society.

    Certainly some of them are good — transcendent and transformative, it adds new perspectives. It empowers science, foreign commerce and humanitarianism. It brings convenience, connectivity and truth. And best of all, it’s all yours…

    But not without cost.

    The Internet doesn’t deliver benefits without peril — with convenience comes security risks, with truth comes convoluted information, with global dialogue comes divisive rhetoric, with a focus on the self comes too much focus on the self.

    Online, people lie. They say hurtful things. They share things they shouldn’t. They pose as others. They steal. They spy. They hack.

    In this way, researchers most original intentions of anonymity might just be the Internet’s modern day pitfall. It lacks accountability, and with that, many of the physical interactions that typically restrain behavior vanish when one acts through a screen.

    Taking advantage of obscurity, many use it as a platform to propel false information. Such lies push ideological ends, damage reputations and, as the fake news torrent has shown us, fallaciously influence public opinion.

    Despite this negativity, our lives continue to become more and more engulfed in and reliant upon technology yet we never stop to question it.

    A digital you 

    The line between the real you and a digital representation of you is becoming less and less distinct. Though connectivity promises to make life more convenient, it also jeopardizes the security of information — anything stored digitally can be stolen, manipulated or destroyed.

    Though cyber criminals hack with a variety of motives, profit is typically the driving force. Similarly complex are the many ways by which one could carry out a hack. The term has become synonymous with a range of actions and can refer to anything from taking advantage of flaws in software to making a phone call to convince someone in an organization to do things they shouldn’t to seizing control of machinery used to run industrial complexes.

    Whereas computer viruses only affect disks, cyber hacks affect objects. Regardless of circumstance, cyber is the perfect weapon — any person can remotely and inconspicuously take over digital information that controls physical objects, be it a computer, train, plane, power plant or an entire infrastructure system.

    Me, me, me 

    I wonder about the relationship between the Internet and morality. Has it improved morality for the way it exposes users to a diverse marketplace of ideas? Or has it hindered common decency for the mental state it provokes in us?

    A 2015 study by the Pew Research Center found that most agree with latter, though they did say the Internet has benefitted the realms of education, relationships and the economy.

    From Hollywood to social networking to politics, you don’t have to look far to see evidence of narcissism in our culture.

    Dr. Jean Twenge has spent years studying the societal rise of narcissism. A core finding of the psychologist’s work is that today’s culture is far more focused on the self — and less on social rules — than we were 50 years ago. Moreover, she argues that a culture of individualism is counterproductive to achievement and happiness.

    Dr. Jean Twenge
    Dr. Jean Twenge

    One of the many factors Twenge investigated was the presence of individualistic language in American books. Looking for phrases such as “You can be anything,” “I am the best” and “You are special,” and words like personalize, me and mine, she found that individualistic language is much more prominent in today’s literature than it was in the past. This deviation indicates that a rise in narcissism goes beyond generational differences and is instead part of a broader cultural shift.

    Our affection for building self-esteem and maintaining positive self views are good things, but only to a certain point. Most of us take for granted that in order to succeed you must have high self-esteem, but that’s not true — people who score high in self-esteem aren’t necessarily more successful than anybody else, according to Twenge’s research.

    We often tell kids that they are unique and special, but they are the ones most susceptible to having their abilities impeded by an overload of self-esteem.

    Those who build it up without actually experiencing the accomplishments and effort required to build self-esteem in a genuine fashion could become dissuaded from doing the things that would lead to achievements, since what psychological incentive do you have to work hard (and build self-esteem) when your self-esteem is sky-high to begin with?

    Dr. Jim Taylor elaborates in a Huffington Post blog: “Certainly, the shift in societal values away from collectivism and toward individualism, away from civic responsibility and toward self-gratification, and away from meaningful contributions to society and toward personal success have also contributed to the cultural messages of narcissism in which children are presently immersed.”

    Repercussions of the shift have already manifested in millennials. Despite no generational improvement in performance, millennials are much more likely than baby boomers to think they are above average compared to the rest of people their age.

    Twenge’s studies show that millennials’ buoyant expectations for the future are often not met by the time they hit their 30s. It used to be that people over the age of 30 were happier than those in their 20s, and though they still are, it’s by a much smaller margin. Sky-high self-impressions collide with reality, and in that way act as a disillusionment, ultimately causing depression and other mental health issues in adulthood.

    To avoid a self-serving life, Twenge recommends focusing not on how you feel about yourself but on what you do.  It’s good to have faith in oneself, but there’s a fine line between confidence and overconfidence. To be overconfident is to have no careful reflection, self doubt or caution.

    Technology like Apple’s iCentric Internet of me panders to the idea that It’s my world and you’re all just living in it — iMac, iMovie, iTunes, iPad, iMe, iEverything. It makes sense to associate self-centeredness with our becoming more and more accustomed to having all of our most trivial needs met by the net.

    Via: (Pinterest)
    Via: (Pinterest)

    Ego aside, the Internet also does us a disservice for the way it endorses group think and echo chambers.

    Humans filter evidence through our own biases and preconceptions. In having control over the information we receive, we are likely to gorge on what confirms our ideas and snub what does not. “Then we all share what we found with our like-minded social networks, creating closed-off, shoulder-patting circles online,” writes the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo. We can see this manifesting in, for example, the intersection of politics and news media — the very same lines that divide voters now divide audiences.

    I don’t know if technology has all the answers.

    What I do know is that the Internet is an imitation of humanity; as Werner Herzog says, a representation of what is deeply embedded in ourselves.

    In this way, it acts as a platform to propel both good and bad. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance that we maneuver carefully in virtual reality.

    Set strong passwords, and don’t open emails from people you don’t know. Act as your own filter by being skeptical over the information you receive. Embrace the Internet to your heart’s desire, but not without first embracing the thought that in this digital age of unparalleled potential, unparalleled risk also lurks.

  • The Writing’s on the Wall: Prescription Pills

    By Katherine Powell

    It’s no secret the war on drugs has failed. But there’s more to it than that. The drug war is actively harming an American public it’s supposed to be protecting.

    The first anti-drug legislation in the United States – passed by San Francisco in 1875 – was rooted in anti-immigrant sentiment: it banned opium smoking, a habit unique to the Chinese.

    Comparably, former Richard Nixon administrators have openly confessed racism was one of the reasons for the president’s declaring a war on drugs in 1971.

    “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Nixon’s domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s magazine.

    Nixon launched a war on drugs despite knowing that drug treatment works and incarceration doesn’t, according to Dan Baum in his book “Smoke and Mirrors.”

    Before long, prison numbers skyrocketed. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, America’s incarcerated population in 1970 was 196,441. By 1980, it was 503,600; by 1990, 1.2 million; and by 2014, 2.2 million.

    It was in that shift that police became a militarized, numbers-driven group. Communities came to see police not as protectors but as potential prosecutors.

    Highly incentivized to make arrests, police go after the easiest targets: minorities. According to data from the Prison Population Initiative, blacks in 2010 accounted for 13 percent of the U.S. population and 40 percent of our prison population. Whites, on the other hand, accounted for 64 percent of the country’s population and 39 percent of those incarcerated. Demonstrating a similar trend, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People tells us that blacks are arrested at nearly six times the rate of whites.

    Worst of all, the war on drugs that institutionalizes discrimination doesn’t even address the pills most lethal to society: prescription opioids.

    1eyl66-6

    According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid deaths continued to surge in 2015, surpassing 30,000 for the first time in recent history.

    CDC Director Tom Frieden told the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham, “the epidemic of deaths involving opioids continues to worsen. Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems.”

    Over the last decade, prescription opioid overdose rates have grown exponentially — annual quotas have quadrupled since 1999. Informatively, so have opioid prescribing rates.

    The American pharmaceutical system is unique. In most advanced economies, the government bargains for and buys pharmaceuticals. U.S. law, on the other hand, bars the process from negotiation.

    Capitalizing on the available market, pharmaceutical companies — at the expense of citizens’ health — make drugs readily accessible. Subsequent abundance makes prescriptions ripe for abuse. Because of their effect, opioids in particular have a high probability of being misused.

    But the pharmaceutical industry banks off of you not necessarily knowing that. As a result, drug companies are willing to do whatever it takes — lie, cheat, schmooze — to convince consumers of either requiring or desiring their pills.

    When Purdue Pharma first began to market OxyContin in 1996, it advertised the drug as a non or less addictive opiate, knowing good and well that wasn’t true. They contended that the narcotic, “because of its time-release formulation, posed a lower threat of abuse and addiction to patients than do traditional, shorter-acting painkillers like Percocet or Vicodin.”

    That lie eventually landed the major drug manufacturer in court, where they settled the case with $600 million in fines — a sum equivalent to 21 percent of their profit off OxyContin in the first six years of sales alone.

    A billboard at W. Ben White Blvd. and S. 1st St. in Austin.
    A billboard at W. Ben White Blvd. and S. 1st St. in Austin.

    Guiding these inconsistent systems to how we respond to drugs is similarly incredulous policy.

    Back in 1970, alongside declaring drug abuse America’s public enemy number one, Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substances Act to regulate the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of certain substances.

    As federal law has it, cannabis, which has not once been linked to death, is more hazardous of a drug than benzodiazepines like Xanax, which were involved in 30 percent of prescription drug overdoses in 2013, second only to opioids. Meanwhile, 8.5 million die annually from alcohol and tobacco, according to the World Health Organization.

    This way of inaccurately labeling drugs has blurred the lines of what is right and what is wrong when it comes to drug use. One would think that if a drug is illegal, it must be dangerous; and if a drug is legal, it must be safe. Clearly that is not the case.

    People are going to do drugs regardless of what anyone else says or does. That is not going to change.

    In place of laws that allow corporations to play the American people as pawns in a crooked, real-life game of monopoly, we need accurate policies that keep big pharma and its huge profits in check. Until such regulation is achieved, the self-inflicted war will continue to linger.

  • Can Austin become a top ecosystem for diverse techpreneurs?

    Can Austin become a top ecosystem for diverse techpreneurs?

    By Cassie Smith

    As startup companies like DivInc and Urban Co-Lab develop, it’s becoming evident that Austin’s community is working to cultivate inclusion in the tech field.

    DivInc, a local nonprofit dedicated to championing diversity in the startup industry, launched its 12-week pre-accelerator program in September to help “foster the growth and development of ethnically diverse and women-led tech companies,” according to the organization’s website.

    DivInc’s CEO Preston James told the Urban Post that he believes Austin possesses the infrastructure necessary “to lead the nation in becoming a top ecosystem for diverse entrepreneurs.”

    “The infrastructure and resources for a highly successful ecosystem are here already, still growing and getting better each year,” he said.

    Austin continues to top vitality lists. The Kauffman Index, a site that examines startup activity in major metropolitan areas, ranked the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area No. 1 this year.

    The city can attribute much of those accolades to its much-talked about, community-friendly business mentorship model.

    “Based on what we are experiencing at DivInc there are a lot of influential, sincere and passionate people who want to affect change as it pertains to greatly improving diversity in the tech startup ecosystem,” said James.

    Urban Co-Lab, a shared-work community for urban innovators, examined the startup and tech community’s relationship with minority entrepreneurs in its inaugural Austin Startup Diversity Report.

    The report notes that while Austin is more diverse than the United States as a whole – not one group accounts for more than 50 percent of the city’s racial demographics – Hispanics and African Americans earn $21,000 less per year than Asians and whites.

    Nevertheless, Hispanic-owned businesses continue to pop up in Austin. The city leads in women entrepreneurship and continues to be one of the top cities where minorities are doing economically well.

    taushua-robinson
    Primpii Founder, Dr. Tausha Robertson

    Dr. Tausha Robertson, founder of the beauty-sharing app Primpii, said that as a black female entrepreneur, she has learned to navigate Austin’s small tech community in order “to find out the best practices and where resources are” from like-minded business owners.

    “I do think that in Austin, if you take advantage of some of the meet-ups and events held around town, you can get the ball rolling. I wasn’t a tech person before I started this venture,” said Robertson.

    Access to resources such as investors, workshops and technical experts are some of the key elements that DivInc provides through its classes.

    James acknowledges that it’s more difficult for women and people of color to acquire the capital necessary to fund their startups. “This network will include mostly people who don’t look like them, so they need to get used to that, embrace it and go with it,” he said.

    On a national level, women and underrepresented groups are 2.6 percent and 21.7 percent less likely to raise private equity funding, according to Urban Co-Lab’s report. They are also approximately 20 percent less likely to raise venture capital than their white male counterparts.

    Much of that is due to the majority of the nation’s top venue capital firms being predominantly white and male, according to the report.

    The National Venture Capital Association did however label Austin as No. 12 on their list of the top metropolitan areas in the country. As the Austin American-Statesman reported, a total of 99 Austin-area deals received $740 million in venture capital last year.

    James suggests that strong collaboration – not just locally but nationwide – is key to addressing diversity issues happening across tech communities in the U.S.

    “I would love it if in 10 years there would be no need for a DivInc because the startup ecosystem has changed to be instinctively inclusive and we’ve minimized the biases,” said James.

  • Local artist explores inequality through poetry

    By Cassie Smith

    Since its conception, Instagram has evolved from a photo-based platform to a place where users can freely express themselves in a variety of ways.

    South Asian poet ena ganguly (who prefers her name to be lowercased) is forming a strong social media following as she explores race, class and religion through real and poignant Instagram-based poetry.

    A University of Texas senior, ena spoke with the Austin Urban Post on how her experiences and multifaceted cultural upbringing have influenced her explorative writings.

    ganguly's poem
    ganguly’s poem “Double Standards” can be viewed on her Instagram @enaganguly

    She created the poetry-based platform as a means to connect with others on a personal level.
    I started writing poems on Instagram near the end of my freshman year in college because it was a way for me to feel less alone. I wanted to… recreate this sort of intimacy with people that day-to-day interactions don’t permit. I think poetry — and all art really — has this beautiful way of doing that. There’s this access point that allows many different people with different backgrounds to relate to one another. That’s the real reason why I started making my poems more public, but I’ve been writing since high school.

    Her poetry originates from experience.  
    For a long time my poetry has been about my ancestors and the experiences they had. By ancestors I mean my living relatives and also those who have passed — those who I haven’t had physical interactions with but whose memories are still very much alive. It’s like I have this sense of what to write about and [when I do] it feels like I’m speaking from those memories. Poetry to me is about empathizing with other people; making sure it’s a form of healing and not one that rehashes trauma.

    At six years old, she moved from Northeast India to Sugarland, Texas. 
    I grew up in a predominantly black community and I think that really helped me understand what solidarity and community memory look like… [But] I also grew up in India.

    I feel like most people of color, especially black folks in America, experience this certain thing where we have to code-switch, so to speak, in order to move into another space appropriately. I’ve had to do that growing up.

    In India there is a lot of poverty — very in-your-face, on-the-street poverty. I grew up in an upper middle class household there, which was a place of privilege in India. When I came here [America], I was in a more sort of marginalized space with working class folks.

    Having these multiple lenses of experience has shaped my work because complicating the South Asian identity is what a lot of my writing is about; opening up dialogue that lots of people don’t want to have. Talking about class, religion and anti-blackness in South Asian communities, these are all things I want to address with my poetry in one way or another. There’s lots of multiplicity to it.

    ganguly’s poem’s can be viewed on Instagram @enaganguly.

  • Derek Chauvin found guilty of second-degree murder of George Floyd

    Derek Chauvin, former Minneapolis Police Officer, was found guilty on all charges of murder and manslaughter in a Minnesota court by a jury for the death of George Floyd.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) issued a statement after the verdict.

    “Minnesota mourns with you, and we promise the pursuit of justice for George Floyd does not end today,” Walz said. “True justice for George Floyd’s family only comes from real, systematic change to prevent this from happening again.”

    Chauvin chose to not testify during his trial before the final verdict. “I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today,” he said. When asked by the judge if it was his decision to make that choice, he continued, “It is, your honor.”

    The jury was given two sides of who George Floyd was: a family guy who was working to build a better life and a man who struggled sometimes with wrong decisions while with friends.

    On May 25, 2020, Floyd walked into Cups Food convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes, in which he purchased with a counterfeit $20 dollar bill. Christopher Martin, a 19-year-old store clerk, testified that once he noticed the fraudulent bill he tried multiple times to get Floyd and his friends to return to the store. Martin’s manager then called 911 to report a ‘stubborn’ Floyd.

    In the minutes following, the altercation had escalated with police as Floyd was pinned down to the ground pleading for his life saying “I am not a bad guy.” Video footage proved that Chauvin had Floyd positioned with his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes without oxygen.

    The killing of the 46-year-old African American man caught the attention of thousands of protesters across the nation, igniting a outcry for justice.

    In the months following Floyd’s death, The former police officer pleaded guilty to third-degree murder.

    President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, along with, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with George Floyd’s family following the verdict to let them know that this is not the end.

    Biden and Harris also addressed the nation on the steps forward.

    “Here’s the truth about racial injustice,” Harris said. “It is not just a Black America problem or a people of color problem; it is a problem for every American…It is holding our nation back from realizing our full potential.”

    President Biden followed with words of solidarity. In addition, he spoke on their combination rally for lawmakers to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

    “No one should be above the law and today’s verdict sends that message,” Biden said. “But it’s not enough. We can’t stop here.”

    The verdict was delivered after 10 hours of deliberations over two days. Chauvin is facing 12 years to life in prison.

  • ‘Dumb Money’ expands cast with Shailene Woodley, Pete Davidson

    Actress Shailene Woodley is set to play in Black Bear Pictures’ film ‘Dumb Money,’ alongside actor and comedian Pete Davidson, both as individuals intertwined in a David-vs-Goliath risk factor where tech-savvy hackers break into the stock market, with GameStop as the best bet.

    The screenplay for the film will come from Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum, also executive producers for the much-anticipated film, based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Antisocial Network, where a struggle for the stock market climate is impacted through internet trolls and Reddit-ers, for a culturally, defining war against one of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street.

    Money cast will also include actors Paul Dano, Matt Reeve, Seth Rogen and Sebastian Stan. This will be the first time Davidson and Woodley will take part in a feature film together. The Fault in Our Stars actress has been busy with her current roles and own endeavors, including HBO’s upcoming show Three Women, and set to star in Robots, a science fiction comedy film, with actor Jack Whitehall from The Bad Education.

    Former SNL host Davidson has been playing dual roles, starring in his own film King of Staten Island and dedicated to his recurring role in ABC’s The Rookie. Ryder Picture Company has partnered up with Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman. Michael Heimler, John Friedberg, and Mezrich are also executive producers, with Andrew Swett, Johnny Holland, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Kevin Ulrich.

  • Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years in federal prison

    It was a decision that would not be settled with easily, however after months of deliberation a jury sentenced Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, a blood-testing company, on Nov 18, to 11 years and three months for fraud charges.

    Once adamantly known as the “girl-version Steve Jobs,” in 2010, the tech-entrepreneur promised a discovery of a crater that would evolve the performance of blood-testing through usage of a small sample rapidly and effectively screened for all diseases. Despite, investors began seeing signs of fraudulency with the company’s failure to provide a higher profit margin, and a continued list of patients who had received misdiagnoses for multiple diseases.

    Holmes was funded over $700 million in capital for her health technology concept from venture capitalists and private investors, with a 9 billion value by 2014, fueling the startup process that included multiple meetups with now former investors and board of directors – Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis, George Shultz, Robert Murdoch, Tim Draper, Larry Ellison, ATA Ventures and Walgreens – with more included partnerships with Cleveland Clinic, AmeriHealth Caritas and Capital Blue Cross.

    In a San Jose court, Holmes, currently pregnant with her second child spoke forthright to a mixed room which consisted of her partner Billy Evans, “I am devastated by my failings,” Holmes said. “Looking back there are so many things I’d do differently if I had the chance. I tried to realize my dream too quickly.”

    In 2014, the company’s founder was in a “secret relationship” with Mandarin program sweetheart and Theranos’ president Ramesh “Sunny” Balawani, who was also trialed on fraud charges in connection to Holmes — lawyers primarily used her tenure relationship with Balawi, whom she referred to as “psychologically and sexually abusive,” even consistently referring to her as a mediocre “little girl” keeping her on stringent diet, resulting in her lapse in judgment over the years. In July, Balwani was found guilty on all 12 fraudulent charges and is scheduled to be sentenced on December 7.

    Early this year, Holmes was convicted by a California jury on four counts of fraud, each with a maximum sentence of 20 years, finding her not guilty on four other charges with failure to conclude on a verdict for three more charges. US District Judge Davila spoke candidly before delivering the final verdict:

    “This is a fraud case where an exciting venture went forward with great expectations and hope only to be dashed by untruth, misrepresentations, hubris, and plain lies. I suppose we step back and we look at this, and we think what is the pathology of fraud? is it the inability or the refusal to accept responsibility or express contrition in any way? Now, perhaps that is the cautionary tale that will go forward from this case.”

    Theranos partnership with Walgreens was praised robustly, including being inducted into Forbes 400: The Freshman, with mentions in comparison to Apple’s Steve Job, and Fortune’s “This CEO is Out for Blood,” and New York TImes “Five Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World,” which praised the eccentricity of the company itself, and partnerships that had been inducted into the startup process, including the pharmaceutical company whose agreement included making testing available for 40 stores, however immediately upon placement and collective research, the deal ended when questions were raised about the authenticity of the test results.

    Holmes has asked for retrial but was declined. She will began her sentence in federal prison on April 27, 2023.