The new CEO of FTX, John Ray, III, revealed several wild and shocking items found in the collapsed company’s bankruptcy filing, which include the founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lending himself $1 billion, and FTX corporate funds being used to buy personal homes, among other things.
… The judge has a big decision to make. Silicon Valley executives will be watching with interest. Founders rarely end up getting convicted of fraud.
What happens to Holmes will be seen as a test case. Does corporate fraud in Silicon Valley end up with a slap on the wrist? Or does it mean serious jail time?
We are about to find out.
She defrauded a virtual who’s who list of very wealthy folks you would think should have known better but some ordinary people were hurt as well.
She is now well married and hey it’s California so anything is possible.
I bet SBF has an eye on this.
Elizabeth Holmes’s Sentencing: How Other White-Collar Criminals Fared
Elizabeth Holmes is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, and the Theranos Inc. founder could be joining a list of notable white-collar criminals to serve time in prison.
Ms. Holmes was convicted in January on four counts of criminal fraud for deceiving investors while running a yearslong scheme at Theranos, the blood-testing startup where she was chief executive.
She faces up to 20 years in prison, plus fines, for each guilty count. Lawyers following the case have said she is unlikely to receive the maximum penalty, based on outcomes of other white-collar prosecutions.
Deep changes in American society are a security risk for Israel.
Can Israel break its dependency on the United States?
The question has always been widely dismissed as unthinkable. But recent events are prompting it to be raised with increasing urgency.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been far from friendly towards Israel. Despite continuing to fund its defense needs and support it against the relentless malice of the U.N., the Bidenites’ reckless appeasement of the Iranian regime has increased the Islamic republic’s capacity to attack Israel. At the same time, the U.S. has repeatedly pressured Jerusalem to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinian Arabs.
There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.
The top U.S. general on November 16 said the chances of any near-term military victory for Ukraine are not high unless the Russian military completely collapses, which he said is unlikely.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while the Ukrainian military has had important successes in Kharkiv and Kherson, Russia occupies 20 percent of Ukraine and still has significant combat power inside the country’s territory.
#Ukraine: A precise artillery strike from the Ukrainian 59th Brigade destroyed a Russian BTR-80/82A APC on the left bank of the Dnipro River- near Oleshky, #Kherson Oblast. pic.twitter.com/oRnnYyGW6H
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) November 17, 2022
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser and other senior officials felt the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s threshold to determine a national threat under the Emergencies Act “should be reconsidered,” a public inquiry has learned.
Jody Thomas told lawyers for the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is investigating the federal government’s decision to invoke the act during the “Freedom Convoy” protests last winter, that in her opinion, the “totality of circumstances” at the time constituted a threat to national security, documents say.
“Analysis carried out shows traces of explosives on several of the foreign objects that were found” at the site, Ljungqvist said in a statement.
The prosecution authority said the preliminary investigation was “very complex and comprehensive” and further scrutiny would show whether anyone could be charged “with suspicion of crime.”
A journey to the site of the Nord Stream explosions
… Later, we discovered the Russian offshore vessel we had spotted was part of a separate investigation Moscow had begun into the Baltic explosions. While many in the West see this as a cynical move by Moscow, Stockholm is worried that Russia might use this as a pretext to stage a more regular presence close to Swedish shores. The country is poised to join Nato.
One thing has become clear from the explosions – the critical importance of Europe’s energy infrastructure, bringing oil, gas and electricity from source to our homes and workplaces at this time of energy crisis, and the huge difficulty in protecting it.
OTTAWA — In freezing the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters, Finance Canada bureaucrats said they did not intend to hurt protesters’ families’ ability to buy groceries or pay child support, though they admitted that may have ultimately happened, the Emergencies Act inquiry heard Thursday.
It is an unfortunate fact of human nature that there will never be a shortage of people to run Gulags.
Lab-made meat might soon be coming to a dinner plate near you.
The Food and Drug Administration has declared laboratory-grown chicken is “safe to eat,” potentially revolutionizing America’s food processing practices forever.
The agency’s declaration, which came on Wednesday, pertains specifically to cultivated chicken produced by a California start-up, Upside Foods. However, it may soon extend to synthetic meats manufactured by many other companies.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “dismissive” behaviour towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G20 summit is a result of the Liberal government’s failure to treat national security issues seriously, says Conservative Senator Leo Housakos. Other Tory lawmakers are calling for stronger actions to address Beijing’s interference in Canada.
The house has served as a museum for 30 years, as a symbol of the late Supreme Leader. The structure was set ablaze as protesters celebrated a symbolic victory over the Iran’s regime.
The ancestral home of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that has functioned as a museum to the late Supreme Leader was set on fire by anti-regime protesters who continued their nearly two months of defiance against the hardline rule of Iran’s theocratic rulers.
Videos posted to social media showed the house in Khomein in the western province of Markazi on fire as crowds marched past and cheered.
Iranian revolutionaries just burnt down Khomeini’s house in Markazi province. #IranRevolution pic.twitter.com/nO563H2uHG
— Xerxes (@persian_cowboy_) November 17, 2022
Less than one quarter of the 370,000 approved Canadian visa applications from Ukrainians fleeing the war in their country have so far made it to our borders.
Testifying Thursday before the Senate committee on foreign affairs, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine Larisa Galadza said only between 80,000 and 90,000 Ukrainians managed to make the journey to this country, under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel program.
That’s a lot of folks saying no thanks. Makes you wonder if Canada is now regarded as a shithole 3rd world state.
Authorities have arrested a 22-year-old driver on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly plowing his vehicle into Los Angeles county sheriff’s academy recruits on a training run, injuring more than two dozen people.
The Los Angeles county sheriff’s department said in a statement Thursday that Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez was arrested Wednesday for investigation of attempted murder on a peace officer.
Authorities have said that a man driving an SUV early Wednesday veered onto the wrong side of the road in suburban Whittier, crashing into recruits on a morning run and then hitting a nearby light pole. Five of them were critically injured, including head trauma, broken bones and “loss of limb”, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Wednesday.
It wasn’t to long ago $31.00 would have bought the whole bird and not just one breast. pic.twitter.com/3ljENcACvU
— Mike (@midnightriderV2) November 18, 2022
h/t Mauser
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told a secret cabinet meeting that Canadians with bank accounts frozen under the Emergencies Act should be denied their money unless they first reported to police. “Banks were pleased,” said confidential minutes.
“Minister of finance reported on a conversation she had with chief executive officers at the major banks,” said minutes of the Monday, February 21 meeting. “Banks were pleased that the government was working on a plan that would see individuals with their bank accounts frozen report to police prior to the bank to have their accounts unfrozen.”
The collapse of FTX has dealt a catastrophic blow to crypto’s reputation and aspirations
The fall from grace was hard and fast. Only a fortnight ago Sam Bankman-Fried was in the stratosphere. ftx, his cryptocurrency exchange, then the third-largest, was valued at $32bn; his own wealth was estimated at $16bn. To the gushing venture capitalists (vcs) of Silicon Valley he was the financial genius who could wow investors while playing video games, destined, perhaps, to become the world’s first trillionaire. In Washington he was the acceptable face of crypto, communing with lawmakers and bankrolling efforts to influence its regulation.
