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Daily Business Briefing
Sept. 17, 2021Updated
Sept. 17, 2021, 10:01 a.m. ET
Sept. 17, 2021, 10:01 a.m. ETImageCredit…Chris Helgren/Reuters
United Airlines briefly paused flights nationwide on Friday morning amid reports of a system outage.
The airline issued a ground stop on all its traffic in the United States and Canada, according the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
In a statement before 8 a.m., the airline said it had “experienced technical system issues” and that all systems were working normally again.
“We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible,” the company wrote on Twitter, addressing consumer complaints. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”
Airlines occasionally pause flights, known as a ground stop, for technical reasons. Often, the stops are temporary and service resumes quickly after, though not without causing delays and possibly even some cancellations. Sometimes, a ground stop can be part of a more lasting disruption.
Credit…Peter Nicholls/Reuters
The investment banking giant Goldman Sachs planted its flag far from any of the world’s major financial centers this week, opening a new office in Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city after London. So far, about 100 people have been hired or moved there.
At the office’s opening, Richard Gnodde, the head of Goldman Sachs International, spoke about Goldman’s future in Britain after Brexit and how the investment bank’s return-to-office plans were progressing. The conversation was condensed and edited for clarity.
Post-Brexit agreements between Britain and the European Union aren’t forthcoming, so British regulators are reviewing a lot of their financial rules. Is there anything you want to see changed?
Where we would want change is redundant, unnecessary regulation, which pushes up our cost of production because we are filing reports that no one ever looks at.
There’s a set of rules that right now is identical given that we were all joined up 12 months ago. If, on the margin, either side starts tinkering with those rules so there’s just a marginal difference, but no real benefit, we can’t then apply one set of processes across the board. Let’s not make changes for changes’ sake.
Do you expect to move more staff out of London?
We are done with the work that we needed to do for Brexit. But our teams will continue to evolve. And so there will be movement from here into Europe.
Are you planning more acquisitions in Europe?
To the extent that we saw further interesting acquisition opportunities across the asset management space, we’d be interested in that. And something potentially in the consumer space.
You removed social distancing in your British offices, returned them to full occupancy and encouraged staff to return. Did you feel something was lost when most people were working from home?
Every year, we bring a lot of people into the firm. And how do you integrate, how do you train those people? Memories fade. The office is our center of gravity, absolutely crystal clear. People should be spending the majority of their time in the office, but around that there can be flexibility.
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Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) and Erin Woo (@erinkwoo), two of our tech reporters, are covering the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University to create the blood testing start-up Theranos at age 19 and built it to a $9 billion valuation and herself into the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire — only to flame out in disgrace after Theranos’s technology was revealed to have problems.
Follow along here or on Twitter as she is tried on 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The trial is generally held Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
That’s it for today.??⚖️
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
So far the theme of the cross-exam of Cheung seems to be using excruciatingly arcane details about the processes and procedures of the Theranos lab to show that its work was very complicated, involving lots of smart, pedigreed people.
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
Cheung testified that in meetings about quality control failures, Theranos’s lab directors ignored the most obvious possible reason for the failures: “The Edison devices didn’t work.”
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
Trial gear alert: A reporter brought their own binoculars to see the exhibits on the TV screens.
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
Erika Cheung is back on the stand.
She described Theranos’s practice of demoing blood tests for V.I.P.s, where some of the results came from Theranos machines and others from Siemens analyzers.
Read more
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
I should note the woman who clapped and yelled “you’re a good mom!” at Holmes yesterday suddenly stormed out of the courtroom after Judge Davila warned everyone that yelling stuff like that in front of any jurors could cause a mistrial. I don’t see her here today!
1 day ago
Erin Griffith
Elizabeth Holmes’s entourage is down to just her mom today.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Carlos Chavarria for The New York Times
Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the blood testing start-up Theranos, stands trial for two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud.
Here are some of the key figures in the case →
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Stephen Lam/Reuters
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout. She raised $700 million from investors and was crowned the world’s youngest billionaire, but has been accused of lying about how well Theranos’s technology worked. She has pleaded not guilty.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Ramesh Balwani, known as Sunny, was Theranos’s president and chief operating officer from 2009 through 2016 and was in a romantic relationship with Holmes. He has also been accused of fraud and may stand trial next year. He has pleaded not guilty.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
David Boies, a prominent litigator, represented Theranos as its lawyer and served on its board.
He tried to shut down whistle-blowers and reporters who questioned the company’s business practices.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Getty Images
The journalist John Carreyrou wrote stories exposing fraudulent practices at Theranos.
His coverage for The Wall Street Journal helped lead to the implosion of Theranos.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, via Getty Images
Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung are former Theranos employees and were whistle-blowers. They worked at the start-up in 2013 and 2014.
Shultz is a grandson of George Shultz, a former secretary of state who was on the Theranos board.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Eric Thayer for The New York Times
James Mattis, a retired four-star general, was a member of Theranos’s board.
He went on to serve as President Donald J. Trump’s secretary of defense.
Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial
Erin Woo?Reporting from San Jose, Calif.
Edward Davila, a federal judge for the Northern District of California, will oversee the case.
Kevin Downey, a partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, is the lead lawyer for Holmes.
Robert Leach, an assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of California, will lead the prosecution for the government, along with other prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Read more about Elizabeth Holmes:
Aug. 30, 2021
Item 1 of 9
Reporters at The New York Times are chronicling the prosecution of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos, which promised an innovation in blood testing that prosecutors say was too good to be true. The trial is expected to last four months.
To go deeper into our coverage, here are some of the stories — and a podcast — we recommend.
Schemer or Naïf? Elizabeth Holmes Is Going to Trial.
The trial for the founder of Theranos, the once high-flying blood testing start-up, will cap a saga of Silicon Valley hubris, ambition and deception.
Read moreVideo
CreditCredit…Erik Carter
More than 20 years ago, the internet drove an upheaval in the advertising industry. It eviscerated newspapers and magazines that had relied on selling classified and print ads, and threatened to dethrone television advertising as the prime way for marketers to reach large audiences.
Now the push for privacy is upending the ad industry again and disrupting the internet’s lifeblood.
The struggle has entangled tech titans, upended Madison Avenue and disrupted small businesses. And it heralds a profound shift in how people’s personal information may be used online, with sweeping implications for the ways that businesses make money digitally.
The fallout may hurt brands that relied on targeted ads to get people to buy their goods. It may also initially hurt tech giants like Facebook — but not for long. Instead, businesses that can no longer track people but still need to advertise are likely to spend more with the largest tech platforms, which still have the most data on consumers.
Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology writer, looks at how the internet is changing and what that means for you.
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U.S. stocks fell slightly in early trading on Friday, with the S&P 500 heading to extend Thursday’s losses. The index was down 0.2 percent, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.4 percent lower.
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Even so, the S&P 500 was on track to end the week with a small gain.
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The University of Michigan will publish on Friday preliminary results of its monthly consumer sentiment index, a key indicator into the economic recovery. The results come after the Commerce Department reported on Thursday that retail sales increased slightly in August.
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The Federal Open Market Committee will hold its two-day monetary policy meeting next week. Investors will be watching for the central bank’s next steps for tapering of its asset purchases.
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European stock indexes rose slightly, with the Stoxx Europe 600 0.2 percent higher.
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Oil prices fell, with West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, down 1.1 percent to $71.80. On Thursday, President Biden said he was “taking a close look” at rising gasoline prices, with oil prices up more than 50 percent in 2021.
Credit…Associated Press
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The game show “Jeopardy!” announced on Thursday that its host, Mayim Bialik, would split hosting duties with Ken Jennings, a former contestant, through the end of the year.
It was the latest twist in the game show’s drawn-out struggle to find a replacement for Alex Trebek, the popular longtime host whose death in November started a fraught succession battle.
“Jeopardy!” began by cycling through a series of guest hosts. Then it announced that the job would go to Mike Richards, who had been its executive producer. After a reporter unearthed a series of offensive and sexist comments that he had made on a podcast, he stepped down as host, and shortly after that left the program entirely.
Ms. Bialik, who had initially been tapped alongside Mr. Richards to host a series of prime-time “Jeopardy!” specials, was enlisted to begin hosting weeknight programs as well.
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An investigation into manipulation of an annual World Bank report has found that Kristalina Georgieva, the bank’s former chief executive, who now leads the International Monetary Fund, directed staff to alter data to placate China.
The investigation focused on accusations that top bank officials pressured the team that conducts the Doing Business survey to inflate China’s standing in its 2018 report. There also were accusations that the 2020 report was manipulated to artificially bolster Saudi Arabia’s ranking.
At the time of the reported manipulation, World Bank officials were concerned about negotiations with members over a capital increase and were under pressure not to anger China, which was ranked 78th on the list of countries in 2017 and was set to decline in the 2018 report.
