US agencies investigate Navy fuel leak's effect on civilians
HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. public health officials on Tuesday began investigating how civilians have been affected by the leakage of petroleum into Pearl Harbor's tap water from a Navy fuel storage facility.
The Hawaii state Department of Health said it asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to conduct the study.
The department said the officials will survey civilians living in homes served by the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam water distribution system. They will also try to reach people who may have been exposed to contaminated water at work or school.
The Navy's water system serves some 93,000 people in residential homes, offices, elementary schools and businesses in and around Pearl Harbor.
Starting in late November, about 1,000 people complained that their tap water smelled like fuel or reported physical ailments like nausea and rashes after ingesting it.
Shortly after the Navy said it detected petroleum in a drinking well that serves its water system. Navy officials say they believe leaks from its Red Hill tank farm near Pearl Harbor polluted the well.
Dr. Diana Felton, the state toxicologist, said it’s vital that authorities track how the incident affected all Hawaii residents.
Meanwhile, Hawaii's congressional delegation urged the Navy to comply with a Monday order from the Hawaii Department of Health to drain fuel from the tanks to protect Oahu's drinking water.
“Defueling safely will require a coordinated effort, and the delegation will do everything possible to support this effort,” they said in a statement. "Clean drinking water is essential to our health and safety, and our future — we all agree this cannot be compromised for anything.”
The delegation consists of four members, all Democrats: U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and U.S. Reps. Ed Case and Kaiali‘i Kahele.
So far only the Navy's water system has been affected by the contamination. But Honolulu's water utility draws from the same aquifer as the Navy, and Hawaii officials are concerned leaks will contaminate its water too.
The Red Hill facility holds 20 giant underground tanks built into the side of a mountain during World War II. Each tank is roughly the height of a 25-story building. Collectively, they can hold up to 250 million gallons (946 million liters) of fuel, though two of the tanks are now empty.
The tank farm sits just 100 feet (30 meters) above the aquifer shared by the Navy and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. It supplies petroleum to all branches of the military.
Audrey Mcavoy, The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Experts puzzled by continuing South Carolina earthquakes
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Yet another earthquake has struck near South Carolina's capital city, the ninth in a series of rumblings that have caused geologists to wonder how long the convulsions might last.
Early Wednesday, a 2.6-magnitude earthquake struck near Elgin, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Columbia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was measured at a depth of 0.5 kilometers, officials said.
That area, a community of fewer than 2,000 residents near the border of Richland and Kershaw counties, has become the epicenter of a spate of recent seismic activity, starting with a 3.3-magnitude earthquake on Dec. 27. That quake clattered glass windows and doors in their frames, sounding like a heavy piece of construction equipment or concrete truck rumbling down the road.
Since then, a total of eight more earthquakes have been recorded nearby, ranging from 1.7 to Wednesday's 2.6 quake. No injuries or damage have been reported.
According to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, the state typically averages up to 20 quakes each year. Clusters often happen, like six small earthquakes in just more than a week last year near Jenkinsville, about 38 miles (61 kilometers) west of the most recent group of tremors.
Earthquakes are nothing new to South Carolina, although most tend to happen closer to the coast. According to emergency management officials, about 70% of South Carolina earthquakes are located in the Middleton Place-Summerville Seismic Zone, about 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) northwest of Charleston.
In 1886, that historic coastal city was home to the largest recorded earthquake in the history of the southeastern United States, according to seismic officials. The quake, thought to have had a magnitude of at least 7, left dozens of people dead and destroyed hundreds of buildings.
That event was preceded by a series of smaller tremors over several days, although it was not known that the foreshocks were necessarily leading up to something more catastrophic until after the major quake.
Frustratingly, there's no way to know if smaller quakes are foreshadowing something more dire, according to Steven Jaume, a College of Charleston geology professor who characterized the foreshocks ahead of Charleston's 1886 disaster as “rare.”
“You can't see it coming,” Jaume told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “There isn’t anything obvious moving or changing that you can put your finger on that you can say, ‘This is leading to this.'"
Typically, Jaume said that the recent quakes near Elgin — which lies along a large fault system that extends from Georgia through the Carolinas and into Virginia — would be characterized as aftershocks of the Dec. 27 event, since the subsequent quakes have all been smaller than the first.
But the fact that the events keep popping up more than a week after the initial one, Jaume said, has caused consternation among the experts who study these events.
“They're not dying away the way we would expect them to,” Jaume said. “What does that mean? I don't know.”
___
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Yet another earthquake has struck near South Carolina's capital city, the ninth in a series of rumblings that have caused geologists to wonder how long the convulsions might last.
Early Wednesday, a 2.6-magnitude earthquake struck near Elgin, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Columbia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was measured at a depth of 0.5 kilometers, officials said.
That area, a community of fewer than 2,000 residents near the border of Richland and Kershaw counties, has become the epicenter of a spate of recent seismic activity, starting with a 3.3-magnitude earthquake on Dec. 27. That quake clattered glass windows and doors in their frames, sounding like a heavy piece of construction equipment or concrete truck rumbling down the road.
Since then, a total of eight more earthquakes have been recorded nearby, ranging from 1.7 to Wednesday's 2.6 quake. No injuries or damage have been reported.
According to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, the state typically averages up to 20 quakes each year. Clusters often happen, like six small earthquakes in just more than a week last year near Jenkinsville, about 38 miles (61 kilometers) west of the most recent group of tremors.
Earthquakes are nothing new to South Carolina, although most tend to happen closer to the coast. According to emergency management officials, about 70% of South Carolina earthquakes are located in the Middleton Place-Summerville Seismic Zone, about 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) northwest of Charleston.
In 1886, that historic coastal city was home to the largest recorded earthquake in the history of the southeastern United States, according to seismic officials. The quake, thought to have had a magnitude of at least 7, left dozens of people dead and destroyed hundreds of buildings.
That event was preceded by a series of smaller tremors over several days, although it was not known that the foreshocks were necessarily leading up to something more catastrophic until after the major quake.
Frustratingly, there's no way to know if smaller quakes are foreshadowing something more dire, according to Steven Jaume, a College of Charleston geology professor who characterized the foreshocks ahead of Charleston's 1886 disaster as “rare.”
“You can't see it coming,” Jaume told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “There isn’t anything obvious moving or changing that you can put your finger on that you can say, ‘This is leading to this.'"
Typically, Jaume said that the recent quakes near Elgin — which lies along a large fault system that extends from Georgia through the Carolinas and into Virginia — would be characterized as aftershocks of the Dec. 27 event, since the subsequent quakes have all been smaller than the first.
But the fact that the events keep popping up more than a week after the initial one, Jaume said, has caused consternation among the experts who study these events.
“They're not dying away the way we would expect them to,” Jaume said. “What does that mean? I don't know.”
___
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press
Scientists taught goldfish how to drive a tank on land
Joshua Hawkins
Joshua Hawkins
© Provided by BGR Glass fishbowl on table
A new study from researchers has proven that goldfish are capable of learning how to navigate on land. No, they haven’t suddenly grown legs and started parading around in people’s backyards. Instead, the study showcases how researchers taught goldfish to traverse the land in a tank on wheels. The idea behind the study appears to have been an attempt to better understand animal navigation, including how animals change strategies to overcome certain obstacles.
Scientists made a fish operated vehicle
The tank that the researchers made is called a fish-operated vehicle, or FOV for short. It’s essentially just a tank attached to a wheeled terrestrial platform. The platform also has a LIDAR sensor, computer, and camera attached to it, to help process the animal’s navigational movements.
Basically, the platform works by moving in a direction based on where the fish is in the tank. Once they had it set up, researchers used color-coded environments to teach the goldfish how to navigate around a room. The results of these animal navigation tests are honestly intriguing.
Previously, researchers learned that goldfish are able to orient themselves using both allocentric and egocentric maps. Egocentric and allocentric are often used to help differentiate between two types of spatial information. For example, egocentric framing is when you frame the location based on the individual’s location in the environment. Allocentric framing, then, has to do with the general spatial information of the area, without taking the individual into account.
With this study, the researchers were able to dig a bit deeper into animal navigation as a whole.
To teach the fish how to drive, the researchers used visual targets. These targets were easily observable through the walls of the tank. Using those targets, the goldfish were able to successfully navigate terrestrial environments. Scientists even tried starting the fish out in different parts of the room. Each time, the goldfish were able to successfully navigate to the target. This showed that animal navigation can continue even when the target has to overcome certain obstacles.
But what does it all mean? That’s a great question. The researchers set out to study how animals navigate the world around them. Using the information that they’ve learned; they can dig a bit deeper into how those animals learn and change their navigation habits based on their environment. In this instance, the fish had to overcome several challenges. First, it had to learn the motor skills needed to drive the vehicle.
This meant that the fish had to be taught how the tank worked, and how its movements in the water could correspond with the tank’s movements. Furthermore, the fish had to learn how to navigate the world through its distorted view. Because the fish lives within the water, it sees the world in a distorted vision due to refraction in the water. So, the fish had to overcome this obstacle to navigate the world correctly.
Despite those challenges, the researchers were able to get the fish moving around the room quite well. As such, they say these behavioral results suggest that the fish has a level of universality in space representation, and its navigational strategies.
The post Scientists taught goldfish how to drive a tank on land appeared first on BGR.
A new study from researchers has proven that goldfish are capable of learning how to navigate on land. No, they haven’t suddenly grown legs and started parading around in people’s backyards. Instead, the study showcases how researchers taught goldfish to traverse the land in a tank on wheels. The idea behind the study appears to have been an attempt to better understand animal navigation, including how animals change strategies to overcome certain obstacles.
Scientists made a fish operated vehicle
The tank that the researchers made is called a fish-operated vehicle, or FOV for short. It’s essentially just a tank attached to a wheeled terrestrial platform. The platform also has a LIDAR sensor, computer, and camera attached to it, to help process the animal’s navigational movements.
Basically, the platform works by moving in a direction based on where the fish is in the tank. Once they had it set up, researchers used color-coded environments to teach the goldfish how to navigate around a room. The results of these animal navigation tests are honestly intriguing.
Previously, researchers learned that goldfish are able to orient themselves using both allocentric and egocentric maps. Egocentric and allocentric are often used to help differentiate between two types of spatial information. For example, egocentric framing is when you frame the location based on the individual’s location in the environment. Allocentric framing, then, has to do with the general spatial information of the area, without taking the individual into account.
With this study, the researchers were able to dig a bit deeper into animal navigation as a whole.
To teach the fish how to drive, the researchers used visual targets. These targets were easily observable through the walls of the tank. Using those targets, the goldfish were able to successfully navigate terrestrial environments. Scientists even tried starting the fish out in different parts of the room. Each time, the goldfish were able to successfully navigate to the target. This showed that animal navigation can continue even when the target has to overcome certain obstacles.
But what does it all mean? That’s a great question. The researchers set out to study how animals navigate the world around them. Using the information that they’ve learned; they can dig a bit deeper into how those animals learn and change their navigation habits based on their environment. In this instance, the fish had to overcome several challenges. First, it had to learn the motor skills needed to drive the vehicle.
This meant that the fish had to be taught how the tank worked, and how its movements in the water could correspond with the tank’s movements. Furthermore, the fish had to learn how to navigate the world through its distorted view. Because the fish lives within the water, it sees the world in a distorted vision due to refraction in the water. So, the fish had to overcome this obstacle to navigate the world correctly.
Despite those challenges, the researchers were able to get the fish moving around the room quite well. As such, they say these behavioral results suggest that the fish has a level of universality in space representation, and its navigational strategies.
The post Scientists taught goldfish how to drive a tank on land appeared first on BGR.
How climate change primed Colorado for a rare December wildfire
Elizabeth Chuck
Sun, January 2, 2022
The rare December blaze that tore through Boulder County, Colorado, at frightening speed this week may not be that unusual in the future, wildfire experts warn, as climate change sets the stage for more.
Wildfires do not historically happen during the winter, particularly in areas like Boulder County, where the ground is normally moist from snow.
But in recent months, Colorado has experienced a severe drought. From July 1 through Dec. 29, Denver recorded its lowest amount of precipitation by over an inch, with snowfall at record low levels, too. Meanwhile, Boulder, which typically gets about 30 inches of snow from September to December, got just 1 inch in that period leading up to the day of the fire.
Combine that with an unseasonably warm fall, and the ground had significantly less moisture in it than it normally would — creating perfect conditions for a fire to flourish.
“Everything is kind of crispy,” said Keith Musselman, a snow hydrologist and assistant research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. “In addition to the extreme drought, just 1- or 2-degree warmer days can really dry out the landscape quite a bit more, so everything is that much drier and flammable.”
Officials say wind gusts up to 105 mph fanned the flames, rapidly destroying 500 to 1,000 homes and giving residents barely any time to evacuate.
While gusts of that magnitude are somewhat out of the ordinary this time of year, they cannot be directly tied to climate change, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the nonprofit Nature Conservancy.
However, he said, climate change was definitely the reason the ground was primed for the wind-whipped fire to take off, and wildfire seasons could lengthen similarly in other areas.
“Climate change is clearly making the pre-conditions for wildfires worse across most fire-prone regions of the world,” he said.
In addition to the time of year, Colorado’s fire stood out for another reason, said Philip Higuera, a professor of fire ecology at the University of Montana. Very few burn as many structures.
“Unfortunately, this illustrates one of the worst-case scenarios,” he said of the fact that the blaze burned through densely populated neighborhoods. “These are these high-wind events under these extremely dry conditions, and you’re basically crossing your fingers and hoping there isn’t a human-caused ignition in the wrong place.”
Addressing the problem
The solution, the experts say, is two-pronged: Attack climate change through actions and discussions within communities and households in the long term and, in the short term, do not assume that certain areas are immune from fires.
“We as a society need to recognize that wherever we’re living in the West with vegetation is a fire-prone environment,” Higuera said. “This can happen anywhere.”
That might mean changing how homes are built or reinforced to make them more fire-proof or changing infrastructure so power lines are buried or shut off during high-wind events, he said.
Officials initially suspected that a downed power line caused the blaze Thursday in Colorado but said later that the investigation had revealed that there had not been any. They said they were still investigating.
While fires are likely to become more common year-round, Swain said, winter still would not be a time of high fire activity.
“I still don’t think winter is ever going to be peak fire season in the West,” he said. “But it used to be a fire non-season, and I really don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
Elizabeth Chuck
Sun, January 2, 2022
The rare December blaze that tore through Boulder County, Colorado, at frightening speed this week may not be that unusual in the future, wildfire experts warn, as climate change sets the stage for more.
Wildfires do not historically happen during the winter, particularly in areas like Boulder County, where the ground is normally moist from snow.
But in recent months, Colorado has experienced a severe drought. From July 1 through Dec. 29, Denver recorded its lowest amount of precipitation by over an inch, with snowfall at record low levels, too. Meanwhile, Boulder, which typically gets about 30 inches of snow from September to December, got just 1 inch in that period leading up to the day of the fire.
Combine that with an unseasonably warm fall, and the ground had significantly less moisture in it than it normally would — creating perfect conditions for a fire to flourish.
“Everything is kind of crispy,” said Keith Musselman, a snow hydrologist and assistant research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. “In addition to the extreme drought, just 1- or 2-degree warmer days can really dry out the landscape quite a bit more, so everything is that much drier and flammable.”
Officials say wind gusts up to 105 mph fanned the flames, rapidly destroying 500 to 1,000 homes and giving residents barely any time to evacuate.
While gusts of that magnitude are somewhat out of the ordinary this time of year, they cannot be directly tied to climate change, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the nonprofit Nature Conservancy.
However, he said, climate change was definitely the reason the ground was primed for the wind-whipped fire to take off, and wildfire seasons could lengthen similarly in other areas.
“Climate change is clearly making the pre-conditions for wildfires worse across most fire-prone regions of the world,” he said.
In addition to the time of year, Colorado’s fire stood out for another reason, said Philip Higuera, a professor of fire ecology at the University of Montana. Very few burn as many structures.
“Unfortunately, this illustrates one of the worst-case scenarios,” he said of the fact that the blaze burned through densely populated neighborhoods. “These are these high-wind events under these extremely dry conditions, and you’re basically crossing your fingers and hoping there isn’t a human-caused ignition in the wrong place.”
Addressing the problem
The solution, the experts say, is two-pronged: Attack climate change through actions and discussions within communities and households in the long term and, in the short term, do not assume that certain areas are immune from fires.
“We as a society need to recognize that wherever we’re living in the West with vegetation is a fire-prone environment,” Higuera said. “This can happen anywhere.”
That might mean changing how homes are built or reinforced to make them more fire-proof or changing infrastructure so power lines are buried or shut off during high-wind events, he said.
Officials initially suspected that a downed power line caused the blaze Thursday in Colorado but said later that the investigation had revealed that there had not been any. They said they were still investigating.
While fires are likely to become more common year-round, Swain said, winter still would not be a time of high fire activity.
“I still don’t think winter is ever going to be peak fire season in the West,” he said. “But it used to be a fire non-season, and I really don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
REVERSE ZOONOSIS
'Very unsettling': Scientists see troubling signs in humans spreading Covid to deer
Evan Bush
Mon, January 3, 2022
Humans have infected wild deer with Covid-19 in a handful of states, and there’s evidence that the coronavirus has been spreading among deer, according to recent studies that outline findings that could complicate the path out of the pandemic.
Scientists swabbed the nostrils of white-tailed deer in Ohio and found evidence that humans had spread the coronavirus to deer at least six times, according to a study published last month in Nature.
About one-third of the deer sampled had active or recent infections, the study says. Similar research in Iowa of tissue from roadkill and hunted deer found widespread evidence of the virus.
The research suggests that the coronavirus could be taking hold in a free-ranging species that numbers about 30 million in the U.S. No cases of Covid spread from deer to human have been reported, but it’s possible, scientists say.
It’s a reminder that human health is intertwined with that of animals and that inattention to other species could prolong the pandemic and complicate the quest to control Covid-19.
Widespread, sustained circulation of the virus in deer could represent a risk to people if mutations in deer create a new variant. A population of wild animals harboring the virus could also retain variants that are no longer circulating among humans now and allow them to return later.
“The sheer possibility that these things are happening and it’s unknown makes this very unsettling,” said Suresh Kuchipudi, a virologist at Pennsylvania State University. “We could be caught by surprise with a completely different variant.”
Early in the pandemic, scientists grew concerned that the virus could jump from humans to other animals. One study found many mammals with receptors that could allow the virus to bind in their cells, with deer among those at high risk.
They began to investigate.
First, in a laboratory study, researchers spritzed four fawns’ noses with infectious coronavirus to test whether the virus could infect them. They also took two uninfected deer into the same room, keeping them separated with a plexiglass barrier that didn’t reach the ceiling.
“We had four inoculated animals and two contact animals. Everybody got infected and shed significant amounts of infectious virus. That was a surprise,” said Diego Diel, an associate professor of virology at Cornell University, who helped lead the research.
The deer most likely shared the virus through nasal secretions that traveled over the barrier by air, he said. The infected deer didn’t exhibit noticeable symptoms.
Deer often travel in herds and touch noses, making transmission a concern.
So federal scientists tested blood samples of wild deer in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. They eventually tested 624 samples, finding that about 40 percent of samples that were collected last year had antibodies that suggested past infection.
The latest studies provide evidence of active and recent infection.
In the peer-reviewed Ohio State University study, 35.8 percent of 360 free-ranging deer tested positive through nasal swabs. The researchers were able to culture the virus for two samples, meaning they could grow live virus.
And after they reviewed genetic relationships among viruses from 14 deer, “we’ve got evidence we have deer-to-deer transmission occurring,” said an author of the study, Andrew Bowman, an associate professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State University. The researchers found six mutations in deer that are uncommon in people.
A preprint study led by Kuchipudi of Penn State found the coronavirus in lymph nodes of 94 of 283 deer that were hunted or killed by vehicles in Iowa in 2020.
Both studies suggest that the virus spilled over from humans to deer several times in several places. The common viral genomes circulating in humans at the time were also circulating in deer, the studies say.
Researchers can’t say for sure how the deer are becoming infected or whether the virus will persist in the species. Deer, ubiquitous in many U.S. communities, are among the most abundant large mammals in the country.
“If they’re maintaining the virus, that’s a whole other host we need to be looking at for future variants to assess whether current vaccines will be affected and how we need to control spread,” Bowman said. “It complicates things considerably.”
If the virus does establish itself long term, scientists say, it presents several potential risks.
Circulation in deer could allow variants that are no longer infecting humans — like the alpha variant, for example — to continue cycling in animals. That would give those strains the potential to reintroduce themselves to people, Kuchipudi said.
In another scenario, widespread transmission could allow the virus to accumulate mutations in deer and evolve differently before it spreads into people with new characteristics.
That’s what happened on Dutch mink farms in 2020. After the virus spread from people to mink, it returned with new mutations to infect humans.
The mink variant shows “spillback is possible,” Diel said.
If deer are hosts to the coronavirus, they could also pass it to other animals.
“Whenever the virus jumps into a different species, that could lead to adaptation,” Kuchipudi said.
And in a scenario some scientists view as unlikely, the virus could recombine with other coronaviruses already established in deer to create a hybrid virus.
“There are endemic coronaviruses in animals, some we know and many we don’t know,” Kuchipudi said. “Recombination could give rise to a completely different variant that can be very different from the parent virus, and it could have altered abilities.”
These are long-term concerns if deer are, in fact, a permanent host. So far, researchers haven’t found the virus moving from deer to people or discovered a new variant in deer alone.
“The greatest risk to people still remains transmission of the virus from person to person,” said Tom DeLiberto, the assistant director of the National Wildlife Research Center, who is helping lead federal efforts to identify the coronavirus in wildlife. “Could that change later on? Absolutely, and that’s why we’re doing these things to get a handle on what’s happening to deer.”
The American Rescue Plan Act provided $6 million for researchers to study the coronavirus in white-tailed deer. DeLiberto said researchers are searching for the virus among deer in 30 states.
Separately, scientists are collecting blood samples from other animals, such as coyotes, skunks and raccoons, to see whether any of them have antibodies.
“If we let the virus continue to circulate among humans, we are not only endangering the vulnerable sector of our population, but we could also be putting our animals and environment at danger,” Kuchipudi said.
Future of prayer site in doubt under Israel’s fragile govt
By TIA GOLDENBERG
1 of 6
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Israel’s new government took office last June, it indicated it would press ahead on an egalitarian prayer site at Jerusalem’s Western Wall — a sensitive holy site that has emerged as a point of friction between Jews over how prayer is conducted there.
But the plan is coming up against the limits of Israel’s fragile government, which is struggling to move forward on the issue due to its own internal divisions. The inaction has disappointed both Israeli groups that promote religious pluralism and their American Jewish allies, who view the issue as an important test of recognition from the Israeli government.
“Anyone can topple the government if they sneeze in the wrong direction,” said Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, a group that advocates for pluralistic prayer at the holy site. “They are very cautious with the temperature of the hot potatoes that come their way and the Western Wall is a special hot potato.”
The Western Wall is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray. Under ultra-Orthodox management, the wall is currently separated between men’s and women’s prayer sections.
Under the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, women and men pray together and women are allowed to read from the Torah, which Orthodox Judaism prohibits. Those streams are a minority in Israel but make up the majority of American Jews. Israel’s refusal to recognize these liberal streams has long been a point of tension with American Jews.
After years of negotiations, Israel approved a plan in 2016 to officially recognize a special prayer area at the Western Wall. The $9 million plan vowed to expand an egalitarian prayer site and make it more hospitable to prayer and religious events held by Jews who don’t follow Orthodox traditions.
The deal was welcomed by Jewish American leaders and seen as a significant breakthrough in promoting religious pluralism in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox authorities govern almost every facet of Jewish life. But then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never implemented the plan due to objections from powerful ultra-Orthodox allies who had initially endorsed it.
He shelved the plan the following year, leading to strained relations with American Jewish leaders that continued until he left office last year. His tight relationship with President Donald Trump further unsettled the heavily Democratic-leaning Jewish community.
American Jews have long lamented that Israel should be as accepting of their religious practices as they are of their financial and political support.
The new government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — the child of American immigrants — brought hope that the plan may be revived.
As Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs at the time, Bennett voted in favor of the plan when it was initially tabled and repeatedly expressed the importance he placed in the relationship with the U.S. Jewish community. That his coalition excludes any ultra-Orthodox parties only heightened the feeling that the time was ripe for the plan to move forward.
Under Bennett’s leadership, contacts between U.S. liberal Jewish leaders and Israeli government officials have surged. Bennett himself met with the leaders in what was perceived as a major step in repairing ties.
But Bennett heads an unwieldy coalition of parties from across the political spectrum — ranging from nationalist parties to dovish liberal ones and even an Islamist faction — that was united behind the goal of ousting Netanyahu and very little else. While the Western Wall plan features in agreements that brought the coalition together, its leaders have generally chosen to sidestep divisive issues that might rattle its stability.
Moving ahead with the Western Wall plan could spark an outcry from ultra-Orthodox opposition parties, which in turn could exert pressure on more sympathetic elements of the coalition to oppose the move. And while the government isn’t likely to fall over the Western Wall plan, a public brawl over the issue within government ranks could wear down the already delicate ties that bind the coalition.
“We need to be careful. The make-up of this government is complex,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai told The Associated Press.
He said that Bennett had decided to hold off on the plan for now. “My bet is that it will happen in the end but it won’t happen tomorrow or the next day.”
Bennett’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, did not disclose his position on the agreement but said the site is “not the place to engage in political struggles.”
Tensions at the Western Wall continue to flare. On Monday, dozens of women arrived to pray wearing skullcaps and prayer shawls — items reserved for men under Orthodox Judaism. In what has become a monthly ritual, they were met by young women shrieking in an attempt to drown out their prayers.
In November, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered to protest the Women of the Wall. They heeded a call by ultra-Orthodox leaders to not have the site “desecrated.” Netanyahu, now in the opposition with his ultra-Orthodox allies, retweeted one such call.
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis strictly govern Jewish practices in Israel such as weddings, divorces and burials. The ultra-Orthodox religious establishment sees itself as responsible for maintaining traditions through centuries of persecution and assimilation, and it resists any inroads from liberals it often considers to be second-class Jews who ordain women and gays and are overly inclusive toward converts and interfaith marriages.
Bennett’s government is taking steps to loosen the ultra-Orthodox hold. It has passed a reform in kosher certifications for restaurants and is attempting to allow conversions to Judaism outside of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate.
The liberal streams have made strides in Israel in recent years, establishing synagogues, youth movements, schools and kindergartens. A former leader of the liberal Reform movement in Israel is now a lawmaker and Israel’s secular majority has become more accepting.
But authorities have generally tended to regard them as a somewhat alien offshoot imported from North America that does not mesh with how religion is typically practiced in Israel. That helps explain why the Western Wall agreement is so important to them.
Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said that if implemented, the agreement would open the door to other steps toward religious pluralism in Israel.
“This is an issue that won’t change everything, but it will change and symbolically shifts things towards more respect or legitimacy,” he said. “I hope this government will find the political will to do it.”
By TIA GOLDENBERG
1 of 6
Members of Women of the Wall gather around a Torah scroll the group smuggled in for their Rosh Hodesh prayers marking the new month, at the Western Wall where women are forbidden from reading from the Torah, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021. When Israel's new government took office last June, it indicated it would press ahead on an egalitarian prayer site at Jerusalem's Western Wall — a sensitive holy site that has emerged as a point of friction between Jews over how prayer is conducted there.
(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Israel’s new government took office last June, it indicated it would press ahead on an egalitarian prayer site at Jerusalem’s Western Wall — a sensitive holy site that has emerged as a point of friction between Jews over how prayer is conducted there.
But the plan is coming up against the limits of Israel’s fragile government, which is struggling to move forward on the issue due to its own internal divisions. The inaction has disappointed both Israeli groups that promote religious pluralism and their American Jewish allies, who view the issue as an important test of recognition from the Israeli government.
“Anyone can topple the government if they sneeze in the wrong direction,” said Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, a group that advocates for pluralistic prayer at the holy site. “They are very cautious with the temperature of the hot potatoes that come their way and the Western Wall is a special hot potato.”
The Western Wall is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray. Under ultra-Orthodox management, the wall is currently separated between men’s and women’s prayer sections.
Under the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, women and men pray together and women are allowed to read from the Torah, which Orthodox Judaism prohibits. Those streams are a minority in Israel but make up the majority of American Jews. Israel’s refusal to recognize these liberal streams has long been a point of tension with American Jews.
After years of negotiations, Israel approved a plan in 2016 to officially recognize a special prayer area at the Western Wall. The $9 million plan vowed to expand an egalitarian prayer site and make it more hospitable to prayer and religious events held by Jews who don’t follow Orthodox traditions.
The deal was welcomed by Jewish American leaders and seen as a significant breakthrough in promoting religious pluralism in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox authorities govern almost every facet of Jewish life. But then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never implemented the plan due to objections from powerful ultra-Orthodox allies who had initially endorsed it.
He shelved the plan the following year, leading to strained relations with American Jewish leaders that continued until he left office last year. His tight relationship with President Donald Trump further unsettled the heavily Democratic-leaning Jewish community.
American Jews have long lamented that Israel should be as accepting of their religious practices as they are of their financial and political support.
The new government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — the child of American immigrants — brought hope that the plan may be revived.
As Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs at the time, Bennett voted in favor of the plan when it was initially tabled and repeatedly expressed the importance he placed in the relationship with the U.S. Jewish community. That his coalition excludes any ultra-Orthodox parties only heightened the feeling that the time was ripe for the plan to move forward.
Under Bennett’s leadership, contacts between U.S. liberal Jewish leaders and Israeli government officials have surged. Bennett himself met with the leaders in what was perceived as a major step in repairing ties.
But Bennett heads an unwieldy coalition of parties from across the political spectrum — ranging from nationalist parties to dovish liberal ones and even an Islamist faction — that was united behind the goal of ousting Netanyahu and very little else. While the Western Wall plan features in agreements that brought the coalition together, its leaders have generally chosen to sidestep divisive issues that might rattle its stability.
Moving ahead with the Western Wall plan could spark an outcry from ultra-Orthodox opposition parties, which in turn could exert pressure on more sympathetic elements of the coalition to oppose the move. And while the government isn’t likely to fall over the Western Wall plan, a public brawl over the issue within government ranks could wear down the already delicate ties that bind the coalition.
“We need to be careful. The make-up of this government is complex,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai told The Associated Press.
He said that Bennett had decided to hold off on the plan for now. “My bet is that it will happen in the end but it won’t happen tomorrow or the next day.”
Bennett’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, did not disclose his position on the agreement but said the site is “not the place to engage in political struggles.”
Tensions at the Western Wall continue to flare. On Monday, dozens of women arrived to pray wearing skullcaps and prayer shawls — items reserved for men under Orthodox Judaism. In what has become a monthly ritual, they were met by young women shrieking in an attempt to drown out their prayers.
In November, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered to protest the Women of the Wall. They heeded a call by ultra-Orthodox leaders to not have the site “desecrated.” Netanyahu, now in the opposition with his ultra-Orthodox allies, retweeted one such call.
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis strictly govern Jewish practices in Israel such as weddings, divorces and burials. The ultra-Orthodox religious establishment sees itself as responsible for maintaining traditions through centuries of persecution and assimilation, and it resists any inroads from liberals it often considers to be second-class Jews who ordain women and gays and are overly inclusive toward converts and interfaith marriages.
Bennett’s government is taking steps to loosen the ultra-Orthodox hold. It has passed a reform in kosher certifications for restaurants and is attempting to allow conversions to Judaism outside of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate.
The liberal streams have made strides in Israel in recent years, establishing synagogues, youth movements, schools and kindergartens. A former leader of the liberal Reform movement in Israel is now a lawmaker and Israel’s secular majority has become more accepting.
But authorities have generally tended to regard them as a somewhat alien offshoot imported from North America that does not mesh with how religion is typically practiced in Israel. That helps explain why the Western Wall agreement is so important to them.
Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said that if implemented, the agreement would open the door to other steps toward religious pluralism in Israel.
“This is an issue that won’t change everything, but it will change and symbolically shifts things towards more respect or legitimacy,” he said. “I hope this government will find the political will to do it.”
Tattoo artist anger over new EU rules goes beyond skin deep
By RAF CASERT
1 of 3
By RAF CASERT
1 of 3
FILE - A man, wearing a protective face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus, is tattooed at Paul and Friends tattoo parlour in downtown Brussels, March 26, 2021. The European Union is imposing restrictions on the inks that tattoo artists can use as of Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. The EU says it is a necessary move to protect the health of consumers because thousands of chemical elements now in use can cause anything from allergic reactions to cancer. The tattoo industry complains it is unfairly targeted and is losing an essence part of its art. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Tattoo parlors say their art will lose a lot of its vibrancy after European Union rules banning thousands of chemicals in their coloring ink kick in on Wednesday. The 27-nation bloc answers back that public health will be much better served with tougher restrictions on elements in ink that may cause cancer or allergies.
The standoff between regulation and freedom of artistic expression has triggered a torrent of complaints and accusations.
In Amsterdam, Tycho Veldhoen has plied his trade for a quarter century and fears an “enormous impact” on his work once certain colors are banned. “Because, like a painter, you suddenly lose a gigantic part of your palette” with no alternatives in sight.
And he warned that it could even get worse next year when more inks currently in use could be banned. Tattoo shops in the 27-nation bloc have had a rough two years since COVID-19 hit with restrictions and lockdowns. Now they say a perfectly avoidable crisis is hitting them even harder.
“It is all rather sudden,” Veldhoen said. “There should have been a lot more preparation.”
The EU begs to differ. The bloc says the consultation process began in 2016 while the official regulation heralding Wednesday’s start of restrictions dates back to Dec. 14, 2020.
“So this is not something which is either a surprise or a complete novelty. It is a sort of generalization of practice which is already existing in quite a few member states,” said EU spokesman Eric Mamer. Seven EU nations already had national restrictions.
The Commission says alternatives to the banned products do exist but tattoo parlors say they’re too slow to make their way from the manufacturers to their shops.
Angelo Bedani of Brussels’ Boucherie Moderne tattoo parlor said he had nothing to prepare with since the new inks had only become available a week ago. On top of that “a bottle costs double compared to the one we have today.”
Considering that at least 12 percent of Europeans have tattoos, and double that number in the 18-35 age group, according to EU figures, strict health guidelines were necessary.
The EU’s chemical agency ECHA says that allergic and inflammatory skin reactions “are expected to decrease thanks to the restriction.” It adds that “more serious effects such as cancer, harm to our DNA or the reproductive system potentially originating from chemicals used in the inks could also decrease.”
Michl Dirks, who is behind a “Save the Pigments” petition which has already collected 176,000 signatures in the EU objects to such conditional phrasing and insists the ban is not sufficiently backed by science, something which the EU disputes.
Erich Maehnert, co-organizer of the petition, said such bans unduly hurt the industry since people will use illegal ways to get the products from third countries.
“They continue to obtain their tattooing products without any checks and without the possibility of tracing them,” he said. Others say the small tattoo industry is easily targeted while the tobacco and alcohol industries still hold much more sway.
The petition pair is already preparing for the next battle. Up to now pigments Blue 15 and Green 7 are still enjoying a grace period until next year because no alternatives are yet available.
Veldhoen said it leaves him with awful choices when a customer will walk into his Amsterdam shop. “A rose with brown leaves is a lot less attractive than a rose with green leaves,” he said.
___
AP videojournalist Sylvain Plazy contributed.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Tattoo parlors say their art will lose a lot of its vibrancy after European Union rules banning thousands of chemicals in their coloring ink kick in on Wednesday. The 27-nation bloc answers back that public health will be much better served with tougher restrictions on elements in ink that may cause cancer or allergies.
The standoff between regulation and freedom of artistic expression has triggered a torrent of complaints and accusations.
In Amsterdam, Tycho Veldhoen has plied his trade for a quarter century and fears an “enormous impact” on his work once certain colors are banned. “Because, like a painter, you suddenly lose a gigantic part of your palette” with no alternatives in sight.
And he warned that it could even get worse next year when more inks currently in use could be banned. Tattoo shops in the 27-nation bloc have had a rough two years since COVID-19 hit with restrictions and lockdowns. Now they say a perfectly avoidable crisis is hitting them even harder.
“It is all rather sudden,” Veldhoen said. “There should have been a lot more preparation.”
The EU begs to differ. The bloc says the consultation process began in 2016 while the official regulation heralding Wednesday’s start of restrictions dates back to Dec. 14, 2020.
“So this is not something which is either a surprise or a complete novelty. It is a sort of generalization of practice which is already existing in quite a few member states,” said EU spokesman Eric Mamer. Seven EU nations already had national restrictions.
The Commission says alternatives to the banned products do exist but tattoo parlors say they’re too slow to make their way from the manufacturers to their shops.
Angelo Bedani of Brussels’ Boucherie Moderne tattoo parlor said he had nothing to prepare with since the new inks had only become available a week ago. On top of that “a bottle costs double compared to the one we have today.”
Considering that at least 12 percent of Europeans have tattoos, and double that number in the 18-35 age group, according to EU figures, strict health guidelines were necessary.
The EU’s chemical agency ECHA says that allergic and inflammatory skin reactions “are expected to decrease thanks to the restriction.” It adds that “more serious effects such as cancer, harm to our DNA or the reproductive system potentially originating from chemicals used in the inks could also decrease.”
Michl Dirks, who is behind a “Save the Pigments” petition which has already collected 176,000 signatures in the EU objects to such conditional phrasing and insists the ban is not sufficiently backed by science, something which the EU disputes.
Erich Maehnert, co-organizer of the petition, said such bans unduly hurt the industry since people will use illegal ways to get the products from third countries.
“They continue to obtain their tattooing products without any checks and without the possibility of tracing them,” he said. Others say the small tattoo industry is easily targeted while the tobacco and alcohol industries still hold much more sway.
The petition pair is already preparing for the next battle. Up to now pigments Blue 15 and Green 7 are still enjoying a grace period until next year because no alternatives are yet available.
Veldhoen said it leaves him with awful choices when a customer will walk into his Amsterdam shop. “A rose with brown leaves is a lot less attractive than a rose with green leaves,” he said.
___
AP videojournalist Sylvain Plazy contributed.
Activists urge Tesla to close new Xinjiang showroom
Tesla CEO Elon Musk holds a press conference to introduce the auto-driving system upgrade for Chinese Tesla owners in Beijing, China on Oct. 23, 2015. Activists on Monday, Jan 3. 2022 are appealing to Elon Musk and Tesla Inc. to close a new showroom in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, where officials are accused of abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities
Tesla CEO Elon Musk holds a press conference to introduce the auto-driving system upgrade for Chinese Tesla owners in Beijing, China on Oct. 23, 2015. Activists on Monday, Jan 3. 2022 are appealing to Elon Musk and Tesla Inc. to close a new showroom in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, where officials are accused of abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities
. (Chinatopix via AP)
BEIJING (AP) — American activists are appealing to Tesla Inc. to close a new showroom in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, where officials are accused of abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.
Tesla on Friday announced the opening of its showroom in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital, and said on its Chinese social media account, “Let’s start Xinjiang’s all-electric journey!”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an American organization based in Washington, D.C., on Monday urged Tesla and its chairman, Elon Musk, to close the showroom and “cease what amounts to economic support for genocide.”
Pressure on foreign companies to take positions on Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and other politically charged issues has been rising. The ruling Communist Party pushes companies to adopt its positions in their advertising and on websites. It has attacked clothing and other brands that express concern about reports of forced labor and other abuses in Xinjiang.
“No American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority,” the group’s communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in a statement.
A message was left Tuesday seeking comment from Austin, Texas-based Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department.
Activists and foreign governments say some 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim minorities have been confined in detention camps in Xinjiang. Chinese officials reject accusations of abuses and say the camps are for job training and to combat extremism.
On Friday, the ruling party’s discipline agency threatened Walmart Inc. with a boycott after some shoppers complained online they couldn’t find goods from Xinjiang in its Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in China.
In December, Intel Corp., the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, apologized for asking suppliers to avoid sourcing goods from Xinjiang after the state press attacked the company and comments online called for a boycott of its goods.
The United States has barred imports of goods from Xinjiang unless they can be shown not to be made by forced labor.
China is one of Tesla’s biggest markets. The company’s first factory outside the United States opened in Shanghai in 2019.
Other foreign auto brands including Volkswagen, General Motors and Nissan Motor Co. have showrooms in Xinjiang operated by the automakers’ Chinese joint-venture partners. VW also operates a factory in Urumqi.
If Tesla and Musk are bowing to Chinese government pressure, it’s in contrast to the U.S., where Musk has repeatedly clashed with government agencies. Last year he moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin from California after a spat with Alameda County health officials over reopening a factory at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also has fought with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a 2018 tweet claiming that he had financing to take Tesla private, when that funding was not secured. He and the company agreed to pay $20 million each to settle allegations that he misled investors. Musk branded the SEC the “shortseller enrichment commission,” distorting the meaning of its acronym. Short sellers bet that a stock price will fall.
Tesla also faces inquiries by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over its Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” systems. The company has said both are partially automated driver-assist systems despite their names.
BEIJING (AP) — American activists are appealing to Tesla Inc. to close a new showroom in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, where officials are accused of abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.
Tesla on Friday announced the opening of its showroom in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital, and said on its Chinese social media account, “Let’s start Xinjiang’s all-electric journey!”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an American organization based in Washington, D.C., on Monday urged Tesla and its chairman, Elon Musk, to close the showroom and “cease what amounts to economic support for genocide.”
Pressure on foreign companies to take positions on Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and other politically charged issues has been rising. The ruling Communist Party pushes companies to adopt its positions in their advertising and on websites. It has attacked clothing and other brands that express concern about reports of forced labor and other abuses in Xinjiang.
“No American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority,” the group’s communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in a statement.
A message was left Tuesday seeking comment from Austin, Texas-based Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department.
Activists and foreign governments say some 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim minorities have been confined in detention camps in Xinjiang. Chinese officials reject accusations of abuses and say the camps are for job training and to combat extremism.
On Friday, the ruling party’s discipline agency threatened Walmart Inc. with a boycott after some shoppers complained online they couldn’t find goods from Xinjiang in its Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in China.
In December, Intel Corp., the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, apologized for asking suppliers to avoid sourcing goods from Xinjiang after the state press attacked the company and comments online called for a boycott of its goods.
The United States has barred imports of goods from Xinjiang unless they can be shown not to be made by forced labor.
China is one of Tesla’s biggest markets. The company’s first factory outside the United States opened in Shanghai in 2019.
Other foreign auto brands including Volkswagen, General Motors and Nissan Motor Co. have showrooms in Xinjiang operated by the automakers’ Chinese joint-venture partners. VW also operates a factory in Urumqi.
If Tesla and Musk are bowing to Chinese government pressure, it’s in contrast to the U.S., where Musk has repeatedly clashed with government agencies. Last year he moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin from California after a spat with Alameda County health officials over reopening a factory at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also has fought with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a 2018 tweet claiming that he had financing to take Tesla private, when that funding was not secured. He and the company agreed to pay $20 million each to settle allegations that he misled investors. Musk branded the SEC the “shortseller enrichment commission,” distorting the meaning of its acronym. Short sellers bet that a stock price will fall.
Tesla also faces inquiries by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over its Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” systems. The company has said both are partially automated driver-assist systems despite their names.
PRISON NATION USA
Man free after 37 years due to ‘sex for lies’ false witness
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
1 of 7
Man free after 37 years due to ‘sex for lies’ false witness
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
1 of 7
Willie Stokes walks from a state prison in Chester, Pa., on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022, after his 1984 murder conviction was overturned because of perjured witness testimony. Stokes was serving a life sentence and spent decades in prison before learning the witness who testified against him at a 1984 court hearing soon pleaded guilty to perjury over the testimony.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia man was freed from prison Tuesday after 37 years in a case marred by detectives who allegedly offered a witness sex and drugs at police headquarters in 1983 in exchange for false testimony.
The trial witness was charged with perjury just days after Willie Stokes was convicted of murder in 1984. But Stokes didn’t learn about that perjury plea until 2015, decades into a life sentence.
Stokes, 61, walked out of a state prison near Philadelphia eager to get a hug from his mother and a corned beef hoagie. His mother was too nervous to come after several earlier disappointments, so he greeted other family members instead.
“Today is a tremendous day. We’re all very thankful,” said his lawyer, Michael Diamondstein. “However, it’s also a sad day, because it reminds us of how lawless, unfair and unjust Philadelphia law enforcement was for so long.”
Both detectives who allegedly offered witness Franklin Lee a sex-for-lies deal to help them close a 1980 murder case are now deceased. Lee was in custody on unrelated rape and murder charges at the time, and said he was also promised a light sentence.
“I fell weak and went along with the offer,” Lee told a federal judge in November, recalling his testimony at a May 1984 preliminary hearing when he claimed Stokes, a neighborhood friend, had confessed to killing a man during a dice game named Leslie Campbell.
Lee recanted the story at Stokes’ murder trial in August 1984, but Stokes was nonetheless convicted and sent to prison for life. Days later, Philadelphia prosecutors charged Lee with perjury — not over his trial testimony, but over the initial testimony he’d given at the preliminary hearing. Lee pleaded guilty, admitting he’d made up the confession, and was sentenced to a maximum seven-year prison term.
“The homicide prosecutors that used Franklin Lee’s testimony to convict Willie Stokes then prosecuted Franklin Lee for lying on Willie Stokes. And they never told Willie Stokes,” Diamondstein argued at the November hearing in federal court.
Stokes’ mother, now elderly, has been planning for his homecoming as his appeals gained traction, only to face repeated setbacks, she told The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported on the case.
But Lee’s mother also played a role early on.
In federal court testimony last November, Lee said his girlfriend — who detectives summoned to have sex with him at police headquarters back in 1983 and who was allowed to bring marijuana and a few dozen opioid pills — told his mother about the deal he’d struck.
His mother told the woman not to go down to the station again. Instead, police secured him a sex worker the next time, Lee said.
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“Once I talked to my mother, she told me, ‘I didn’t raise you like that, to lie on a man because you got yourself in a jam,’” Lee testified, according to the transcript. “She said, ‘I couldn’t care if they give you 1,000 years. Go in there and tell the truth.’ And that’s what I did.”
One surviving prosecutor, now in private practice, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday. However, he has given a statement saying he doesn’t remember either case, according to court files.
Philadelphia police offered no immediate comment on the case.
The U.S. magistrate who heard the appeal called the omission an “egregious violation of (Stokes’) constitutional rights,” and a U.S. district judge agreed, overturning the conviction last week.
As for Lee, he ended up serving 35 years on the rape, murder and perjury charges. He got out of prison two years ago and now works as an assembly line supervisor.
He apologized to Stokes in court “for the problem I caused.”
“I’m going to take his tears to indicate he’s accepting the apology,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells said.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose office has championed about two dozen exoneration cases, supports Stokes but has not yet formally decided whether to retry him. That decision should come before a scheduled Jan. 26 hearing in state court, a spokesperson said.
___ Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia man was freed from prison Tuesday after 37 years in a case marred by detectives who allegedly offered a witness sex and drugs at police headquarters in 1983 in exchange for false testimony.
The trial witness was charged with perjury just days after Willie Stokes was convicted of murder in 1984. But Stokes didn’t learn about that perjury plea until 2015, decades into a life sentence.
Stokes, 61, walked out of a state prison near Philadelphia eager to get a hug from his mother and a corned beef hoagie. His mother was too nervous to come after several earlier disappointments, so he greeted other family members instead.
“Today is a tremendous day. We’re all very thankful,” said his lawyer, Michael Diamondstein. “However, it’s also a sad day, because it reminds us of how lawless, unfair and unjust Philadelphia law enforcement was for so long.”
Both detectives who allegedly offered witness Franklin Lee a sex-for-lies deal to help them close a 1980 murder case are now deceased. Lee was in custody on unrelated rape and murder charges at the time, and said he was also promised a light sentence.
“I fell weak and went along with the offer,” Lee told a federal judge in November, recalling his testimony at a May 1984 preliminary hearing when he claimed Stokes, a neighborhood friend, had confessed to killing a man during a dice game named Leslie Campbell.
Lee recanted the story at Stokes’ murder trial in August 1984, but Stokes was nonetheless convicted and sent to prison for life. Days later, Philadelphia prosecutors charged Lee with perjury — not over his trial testimony, but over the initial testimony he’d given at the preliminary hearing. Lee pleaded guilty, admitting he’d made up the confession, and was sentenced to a maximum seven-year prison term.
“The homicide prosecutors that used Franklin Lee’s testimony to convict Willie Stokes then prosecuted Franklin Lee for lying on Willie Stokes. And they never told Willie Stokes,” Diamondstein argued at the November hearing in federal court.
Stokes’ mother, now elderly, has been planning for his homecoming as his appeals gained traction, only to face repeated setbacks, she told The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported on the case.
But Lee’s mother also played a role early on.
In federal court testimony last November, Lee said his girlfriend — who detectives summoned to have sex with him at police headquarters back in 1983 and who was allowed to bring marijuana and a few dozen opioid pills — told his mother about the deal he’d struck.
His mother told the woman not to go down to the station again. Instead, police secured him a sex worker the next time, Lee said.
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“Once I talked to my mother, she told me, ‘I didn’t raise you like that, to lie on a man because you got yourself in a jam,’” Lee testified, according to the transcript. “She said, ‘I couldn’t care if they give you 1,000 years. Go in there and tell the truth.’ And that’s what I did.”
One surviving prosecutor, now in private practice, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday. However, he has given a statement saying he doesn’t remember either case, according to court files.
Philadelphia police offered no immediate comment on the case.
The U.S. magistrate who heard the appeal called the omission an “egregious violation of (Stokes’) constitutional rights,” and a U.S. district judge agreed, overturning the conviction last week.
As for Lee, he ended up serving 35 years on the rape, murder and perjury charges. He got out of prison two years ago and now works as an assembly line supervisor.
He apologized to Stokes in court “for the problem I caused.”
“I’m going to take his tears to indicate he’s accepting the apology,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells said.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose office has championed about two dozen exoneration cases, supports Stokes but has not yet formally decided whether to retry him. That decision should come before a scheduled Jan. 26 hearing in state court, a spokesperson said.
___ Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Elizabeth Holmes saga still has some loose ends to resolve
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Elizabeth Holmes leaves federal court after the verdict in San Jose, Calif., Monday, Jan. 3, 2022. Holmes was convicted of fraud for turning her blood-testing startup Theranos into a sophisticated sham that duped billionaires and other unwitting investors into backing a seemingly revolutionary company whose medical technology never worked as promised. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A jury has ended the suspense surrounding the fraud trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes by finding her guilty on four of the 11 charges facing her, but some issues in the legal drama remain unresolved. Here’s a look at some of the most pressing questions.
PRISON BOUND
The general consensus is that Holmes almost certainly will be sent to prison, although it’s difficult to predict for how long. Technically, she could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each of the four felony convictions, but experts doubt that will happen.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani believes Holmes, 37, will be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison unless she can win an appeal to overturn the guilty verdicts. Holmes was convicted for duping Theranos investors and conspiring to commit fraud against them.
An appeal also seems certain, especially because the jury acquitted Holmes on four counts alleging she had also defrauded and conspired against patients who paid for Theranos blood tests that didn’t work as advertised.
“Mixed jury verdicts are definitely the kind of thing you want to bring to an appellate court,” said Matthew Barhoma, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in appeals. “You want to use that mixed result to say the jury didn’t understand the information presented to them, and there’s an argument to be made that the evidence was insufficient for a conviction.”
Holmes declined to answer questions from reporters after she left court Monday following the verdicts.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who presided over the complex trial in San Jose, California, indicated it will probably be several months before he sentences Holmes. Until then, she will remain free on bail, although she will now likely to have to offer some sort of property or cash as security to discourage from trying to flee.
The freedom will allow her to spend more time with her infant son, who was born shortly before the trial began in September.
Davila is also expected to declare a mistrial on three fraud charges that deadlocked the jury.
WHAT ABOUT SUNNY?
Initially, there was relatively little interest in Theranos’ longtime chief operating officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Until, that is, Holmes heaped much of the blame for the company’s scandalous downfall on his alleged attempts to control her and his alleged mismanagement of the company’s blood-testing labs.
The trial also cast a bright light on the secret love affair that Holmes and Balwani, now 57, had been having for years, unknown to Theranos’ board of directors and almost everyone else in the company.
At one point in the seven days she spent on the witness stand, Holmes weepily testified that Balwani had subjected her to years of mental, emotional and sexual abuse and suggested it may have clouded her judgment at times. Balwani’s attorney adamantly denied Holmes’ accusations, but Balwani never told his side of the story during the trial.
He will get that chance in his own fraud trial scheduled to start next month.
Interest in Balwani’s trial will intensify if Holmes takes the stand to testify against him. But her attorneys almost certainly won’t allow that in order to protect her likely appeal of her conviction, said Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who represents investors in startups.
OTHER LEGAL ENTANGLEMENTS?
While it’s always possible there might be additional civil lawsuits filed against Holmes, there doesn’t seem to be much left for would-be litigants to pursue. Theranos is now worthless, and Holmes reached a civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission even before she was indicted on criminal charges.
In addition to imposing a $500,000 fine on Holmes, the SEC settlement also required her to surrender controlling interest in Theranos. That stake was valued at $4.5 billion in 2014 before a series of revelations about Theranos’ flawed technology caused it all to collapse. Holmes also was barred from becoming an executive or board member of a publicly held company for 10 years,
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Elizabeth Holmes leaves federal court after the verdict in San Jose, Calif., Monday, Jan. 3, 2022. Holmes was convicted of fraud for turning her blood-testing startup Theranos into a sophisticated sham that duped billionaires and other unwitting investors into backing a seemingly revolutionary company whose medical technology never worked as promised. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A jury has ended the suspense surrounding the fraud trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes by finding her guilty on four of the 11 charges facing her, but some issues in the legal drama remain unresolved. Here’s a look at some of the most pressing questions.
PRISON BOUND
The general consensus is that Holmes almost certainly will be sent to prison, although it’s difficult to predict for how long. Technically, she could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each of the four felony convictions, but experts doubt that will happen.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani believes Holmes, 37, will be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison unless she can win an appeal to overturn the guilty verdicts. Holmes was convicted for duping Theranos investors and conspiring to commit fraud against them.
An appeal also seems certain, especially because the jury acquitted Holmes on four counts alleging she had also defrauded and conspired against patients who paid for Theranos blood tests that didn’t work as advertised.
“Mixed jury verdicts are definitely the kind of thing you want to bring to an appellate court,” said Matthew Barhoma, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in appeals. “You want to use that mixed result to say the jury didn’t understand the information presented to them, and there’s an argument to be made that the evidence was insufficient for a conviction.”
Holmes declined to answer questions from reporters after she left court Monday following the verdicts.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who presided over the complex trial in San Jose, California, indicated it will probably be several months before he sentences Holmes. Until then, she will remain free on bail, although she will now likely to have to offer some sort of property or cash as security to discourage from trying to flee.
The freedom will allow her to spend more time with her infant son, who was born shortly before the trial began in September.
Davila is also expected to declare a mistrial on three fraud charges that deadlocked the jury.
WHAT ABOUT SUNNY?
Initially, there was relatively little interest in Theranos’ longtime chief operating officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Until, that is, Holmes heaped much of the blame for the company’s scandalous downfall on his alleged attempts to control her and his alleged mismanagement of the company’s blood-testing labs.
The trial also cast a bright light on the secret love affair that Holmes and Balwani, now 57, had been having for years, unknown to Theranos’ board of directors and almost everyone else in the company.
At one point in the seven days she spent on the witness stand, Holmes weepily testified that Balwani had subjected her to years of mental, emotional and sexual abuse and suggested it may have clouded her judgment at times. Balwani’s attorney adamantly denied Holmes’ accusations, but Balwani never told his side of the story during the trial.
He will get that chance in his own fraud trial scheduled to start next month.
Interest in Balwani’s trial will intensify if Holmes takes the stand to testify against him. But her attorneys almost certainly won’t allow that in order to protect her likely appeal of her conviction, said Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who represents investors in startups.
OTHER LEGAL ENTANGLEMENTS?
While it’s always possible there might be additional civil lawsuits filed against Holmes, there doesn’t seem to be much left for would-be litigants to pursue. Theranos is now worthless, and Holmes reached a civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission even before she was indicted on criminal charges.
In addition to imposing a $500,000 fine on Holmes, the SEC settlement also required her to surrender controlling interest in Theranos. That stake was valued at $4.5 billion in 2014 before a series of revelations about Theranos’ flawed technology caused it all to collapse. Holmes also was barred from becoming an executive or board member of a publicly held company for 10 years,
Elizabeth Holmes Convicted of Defrauding Theranos Investors
Joel Rosenblatt and Joe Schneider
Mon., January 3, 2022
Elizabeth Holmes Convicted of Defrauding Theranos Investors
(Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of criminal fraud for her role building the blood-testing startup Theranos Inc. into a $9 billion company that collapsed in scandal.
A jury in San Jose, California, returned the verdict after hearing three months of testimony that was often technical, heavily contested and, from Holmes herself, shocking. The 37-year-old faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, although she’ll probably get far less than that. Holmes will also likely appeal her conviction and any sentence she gets.
Holmes, wearing a mask in the courtroom as everyone else did, stayed perfectly still and upright while the verdict was read. She looked directly at the jurors as they were polled by the judge to determine if the verdict matched their conclusions. There was little reaction in the courtroom to the verdict, beyond the sound of fluttering of keyboards from the press. Holmes’s partner, her mother and father sat still in the front row.
Holmes was convicted of four out of 11 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud and acquitted of four counts. The jury didn’t reach a verdict on three of the counts. Holmes was found not guilty of all charges pertaining to defrauding patients.
Elizabeth Holmes Verdict Breakdown in Theranos Fraud Case
“The jurors in this 15-week trial navigated a complex case amid a pandemic and scheduling obstacles,” San Francisco U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in a statement. “The guilty verdicts in this case reflect Ms. Holmes’s culpability in this large-scale investor fraud and she must now face sentencing for her crimes.”
Holmes’s fall from her status as celebrity chief executive to convicted felon marks one of the most dramatic descents in Silicon Valley history. While her trial was viewed as a test of the “fake-it-til-you-make-it” braggadocio that has become synonymous with venture capital, the verdict is unlikely to significantly change behavior in a red-hot startup investing market, where no one’s willing to slow down.
Read More: Memorable Moments From the Elizabeth Holmes Fraud Trial
After deliberating for seven full days, jurors agreed Monday with prosecutors that Holmes lied to investors over several years about the accuracy and capabilities of Theranos blood analyzers. A parade of witnesses told jurors they were gravely misled by the Stanford University dropout-turned-entrepreneur. They ranged from executives at Walgreens and Safeway Inc. to James Mattis, the former U.S. secretary of defense who served on the Theranos board, as well as advisers to investors who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the company.
The panel of eight men and four women also heard colorful accounts from several Theranos employees about the company’s lab taking dangerous shortcuts to conceal shortcomings with the analyzers, and from patients who recounted receiving inaccurate test results that left them anxious about their health.
Would You Invest in Theranos? Listen to Elizabeth Holmes’s Pitch
As was the case with the fate of Theranos itself, Holmes’s defense was tethered to her charisma and credibility. She made the risky decision, unusual in white-collar criminal cases, to testify in her own defense.
The move gave Holmes the final voice in the long trial -- and served to dampen the testimony of dozens of government witnesses before her -- but also forced her to make uncomfortable admissions during a grueling cross-examination.
In seven days on the witness stand, Holmes alternated between deflecting blame, failing to remember certain events and accepting responsibility for mistakes, even while insisting she didn’t intend to deceive anyone.
The most jolting moments in the courtroom were when Holmes testified she was raped as a student at Stanford University and suffered years of verbal and sexual abuse from her former boyfriend, former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
By Holmes’s account, the abuse lasted throughout the decade-long relationship with Balwani and had a profound if incalculable influence on her life. Her legal team’s decision not to call a psychiatrist with an expertise in relationship trauma as a witness left it up to jurors how to factor the testimony into their decision.
Read More: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos
A prosecutor told the jury in closing arguments that the alleged abuse isn’t relevant to the fraud Holmes was charged with.
“In the absence of any evidence linking that experience to the charged conduct, you should put it out of your mind,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bostic told jurors.
Holmes’s defense team tried to convince the jury that she made a sincere effort over 15 years to steer Theranos to success and shouldn’t be punished for failing to achieve her dream.
“Elizabeth Holmes was building a business and not a criminal enterprise,” attorney Kevin Downey told jurors.
Michele Hagan, formerly a prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, said the jury may have rejected the patient fraud charges because there wasn’t enough evidence of wrongdoing by Holmes. Jurors heard Theranos patients testify their blood-test results falsely led them to believe they had unhealthy conditions.
“I could see any reason for a jury not finding her guilty of those charges,” Hagan said. “I mean, for instance the HIV, the positive HIV, well that turned out to be a false positive, so I could see how they could find reasonable doubt there.”
Robert Weisberg, a Stanford University law professor, said the details of the specific counts Holmes was convicted of and those she wasn’t “don’t matter that much since she really had a big broad scheme to defraud and that’s what the jury believed.”
“Her personality defenses failed completely,” Weisberg said. “Her claims that she was psychologically undone by Sunny Balwani and so on, because of the conviction on the major fraud counts, it’s clear that those defenses failed, and if she avoided conviction on other grounds they were on technical matters.”
The judge allowed the jury to deliver a verdict on only eight of the 11 charges she faced, after they said they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on all of the counts.
Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for Hinds, had no comment on whether prosecutors would seek to retry Holmes on the three counts for which the jurors were unable to reach a verdict.
After the verdict Holmes walked out the front door of the court and was trailed by media for a block to the Marriott hotel in San Jose. She ignored all questions posed to her. Holmes’s attorneys declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila said Holmes will remain free on bond for the time being.
Holmes rose to prominence with her promise of a revolution in health care, based on her claims the compact Theranos devices could perform hundreds of diagnostic tests faster, more accurately and cheaper than traditional, bigger machines.
A big selling point was that Theranos analyzers could arrive at the results with just a pinprick instead of vials of drawn blood. Holmes cited her own fear of needles as inspiration for the invention, part of the narrative investors and the public heard over years in her promotion of the technology.
By 2015 Holmes was dubbed by Forbes as the youngest female self-made billionaire and was gracing the covers of magazines. But that same year, the Wall Street Journal published stories pointing to flaws in Theranos technology, which led regulators the following year to conclude the machines posed a danger to patient health.
The revelations triggered civil lawsuits, including one Holmes settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department’s investigation and prosecution. Holmes, Balwani and Walgreens all still face claims over inaccurate blood tests by customers of the drug store chain in an Arizona lawsuit.
Balwani, who faces a separate trial in February on the same fraud charges as Holmes, has pleaded not guilty and has denied her abuse allegations.
(Updates with comments by U.S. attorney, former prosecutor and law professor.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Joel Rosenblatt and Joe Schneider
Mon., January 3, 2022
Elizabeth Holmes Convicted of Defrauding Theranos Investors
(Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of criminal fraud for her role building the blood-testing startup Theranos Inc. into a $9 billion company that collapsed in scandal.
A jury in San Jose, California, returned the verdict after hearing three months of testimony that was often technical, heavily contested and, from Holmes herself, shocking. The 37-year-old faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, although she’ll probably get far less than that. Holmes will also likely appeal her conviction and any sentence she gets.
Holmes, wearing a mask in the courtroom as everyone else did, stayed perfectly still and upright while the verdict was read. She looked directly at the jurors as they were polled by the judge to determine if the verdict matched their conclusions. There was little reaction in the courtroom to the verdict, beyond the sound of fluttering of keyboards from the press. Holmes’s partner, her mother and father sat still in the front row.
Holmes was convicted of four out of 11 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud and acquitted of four counts. The jury didn’t reach a verdict on three of the counts. Holmes was found not guilty of all charges pertaining to defrauding patients.
Elizabeth Holmes Verdict Breakdown in Theranos Fraud Case
“The jurors in this 15-week trial navigated a complex case amid a pandemic and scheduling obstacles,” San Francisco U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in a statement. “The guilty verdicts in this case reflect Ms. Holmes’s culpability in this large-scale investor fraud and she must now face sentencing for her crimes.”
Holmes’s fall from her status as celebrity chief executive to convicted felon marks one of the most dramatic descents in Silicon Valley history. While her trial was viewed as a test of the “fake-it-til-you-make-it” braggadocio that has become synonymous with venture capital, the verdict is unlikely to significantly change behavior in a red-hot startup investing market, where no one’s willing to slow down.
Read More: Memorable Moments From the Elizabeth Holmes Fraud Trial
After deliberating for seven full days, jurors agreed Monday with prosecutors that Holmes lied to investors over several years about the accuracy and capabilities of Theranos blood analyzers. A parade of witnesses told jurors they were gravely misled by the Stanford University dropout-turned-entrepreneur. They ranged from executives at Walgreens and Safeway Inc. to James Mattis, the former U.S. secretary of defense who served on the Theranos board, as well as advisers to investors who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the company.
The panel of eight men and four women also heard colorful accounts from several Theranos employees about the company’s lab taking dangerous shortcuts to conceal shortcomings with the analyzers, and from patients who recounted receiving inaccurate test results that left them anxious about their health.
Would You Invest in Theranos? Listen to Elizabeth Holmes’s Pitch
As was the case with the fate of Theranos itself, Holmes’s defense was tethered to her charisma and credibility. She made the risky decision, unusual in white-collar criminal cases, to testify in her own defense.
The move gave Holmes the final voice in the long trial -- and served to dampen the testimony of dozens of government witnesses before her -- but also forced her to make uncomfortable admissions during a grueling cross-examination.
In seven days on the witness stand, Holmes alternated between deflecting blame, failing to remember certain events and accepting responsibility for mistakes, even while insisting she didn’t intend to deceive anyone.
The most jolting moments in the courtroom were when Holmes testified she was raped as a student at Stanford University and suffered years of verbal and sexual abuse from her former boyfriend, former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
By Holmes’s account, the abuse lasted throughout the decade-long relationship with Balwani and had a profound if incalculable influence on her life. Her legal team’s decision not to call a psychiatrist with an expertise in relationship trauma as a witness left it up to jurors how to factor the testimony into their decision.
Read More: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos
A prosecutor told the jury in closing arguments that the alleged abuse isn’t relevant to the fraud Holmes was charged with.
“In the absence of any evidence linking that experience to the charged conduct, you should put it out of your mind,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bostic told jurors.
Holmes’s defense team tried to convince the jury that she made a sincere effort over 15 years to steer Theranos to success and shouldn’t be punished for failing to achieve her dream.
“Elizabeth Holmes was building a business and not a criminal enterprise,” attorney Kevin Downey told jurors.
Michele Hagan, formerly a prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, said the jury may have rejected the patient fraud charges because there wasn’t enough evidence of wrongdoing by Holmes. Jurors heard Theranos patients testify their blood-test results falsely led them to believe they had unhealthy conditions.
“I could see any reason for a jury not finding her guilty of those charges,” Hagan said. “I mean, for instance the HIV, the positive HIV, well that turned out to be a false positive, so I could see how they could find reasonable doubt there.”
Robert Weisberg, a Stanford University law professor, said the details of the specific counts Holmes was convicted of and those she wasn’t “don’t matter that much since she really had a big broad scheme to defraud and that’s what the jury believed.”
“Her personality defenses failed completely,” Weisberg said. “Her claims that she was psychologically undone by Sunny Balwani and so on, because of the conviction on the major fraud counts, it’s clear that those defenses failed, and if she avoided conviction on other grounds they were on technical matters.”
The judge allowed the jury to deliver a verdict on only eight of the 11 charges she faced, after they said they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on all of the counts.
Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for Hinds, had no comment on whether prosecutors would seek to retry Holmes on the three counts for which the jurors were unable to reach a verdict.
After the verdict Holmes walked out the front door of the court and was trailed by media for a block to the Marriott hotel in San Jose. She ignored all questions posed to her. Holmes’s attorneys declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila said Holmes will remain free on bond for the time being.
Holmes rose to prominence with her promise of a revolution in health care, based on her claims the compact Theranos devices could perform hundreds of diagnostic tests faster, more accurately and cheaper than traditional, bigger machines.
A big selling point was that Theranos analyzers could arrive at the results with just a pinprick instead of vials of drawn blood. Holmes cited her own fear of needles as inspiration for the invention, part of the narrative investors and the public heard over years in her promotion of the technology.
By 2015 Holmes was dubbed by Forbes as the youngest female self-made billionaire and was gracing the covers of magazines. But that same year, the Wall Street Journal published stories pointing to flaws in Theranos technology, which led regulators the following year to conclude the machines posed a danger to patient health.
The revelations triggered civil lawsuits, including one Holmes settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department’s investigation and prosecution. Holmes, Balwani and Walgreens all still face claims over inaccurate blood tests by customers of the drug store chain in an Arizona lawsuit.
Balwani, who faces a separate trial in February on the same fraud charges as Holmes, has pleaded not guilty and has denied her abuse allegations.
(Updates with comments by U.S. attorney, former prosecutor and law professor.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
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