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“Don’t worry about the future, we’re in good hands.”

So said former US president Bill Clinton in 2015, as he introduced Elizabeth Holmes to an adoring New York crowd.

It seemed an uncontroversial statement at the time, as he hailed the achievements of a woman who had become America’s youngest self-made female billionaire after taking Silicon Valley by storm.

A hub for the world’s biggest tech companies, the only thing more synonymous with this infamous stretch of northern California than scientific breakthroughs and innovative gadgets were the rich white men who were invariably behind them – turtleneck jumpers and smart trouser-sneaker combos in tow.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks with Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, and Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York
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Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Holmes at the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2015 meeting in New York

Holmes – a high school computer whizz turned Harvard dropout – was a bona fide gatecrasher, her stunning rise to the cover of Forbes magazine powered by her founding health technology firm Theranos and its rapid ascent to a peak valuation of $9bn. Look back on what it was promising to deliver, and it’s easy to see why.

Revolutionary blood tests were at the heart of its pitch, ones which could be performed at phenomenal speed with merely a small drop required – and no needles.

Holmes’s catchphrase became “change the world”, such were her assertions that the equipment her company had developed could test for dozens of diseases in one fell swoop.

She insisted it would change healthcare in the US, not just by speeding up and streamlining trips to the doctor, but by eventually rendering such visits obsolete by selling the gizmos in stores.

It took more than a decade for such claims to be exposed as the stuff of science-fiction, but Holmes’s shameless willingness to talk the talk regardless helped her become one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, raising hundreds of millions from investors and venture capitalists.

As Theranos grew, her public image was crafted to perfection to make her the perfect face of one of America’s most exciting companies, famously adopting the aforementioned turtlenecks from her idol Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder, and speaking in a strikingly deep voice which added extra gravitas to her every word.

Fame isn’t for everyone, but for Holmes it seemed elementary.

Nothing, it seemed, could go wrong. Until it did. Big time.

Theranos collapsed and Ms Holmes now faces a criminal trial for wire fraud
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Theranos reached a value of $9bn

How the lie was exposed

Holmes’s empire began to unravel upon the publication of a bombshell expose by The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Theranos’s technology was profoundly flawed.

The devices used to collect people’s blood, which the firm dubbed “nanotainers”, were said to be so far off the mark that Theranos had in fact been using other companies’ equipment to carry out blood tests in its laboratories.

The most distressing piece of the Journal’s report was that the company’s ex-chief scientist, Briton Ian Gibbons, had tried to take his own life after telling his wife the tech did not work. He died shortly after from liver failure.

The stories emerged just a month after Holmes had shared the stage with Bill Clinton.

Mr Carreyrou said Holmes channelled Silicon Valley's 'fake it 'til you make it' culture
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Silicon Valley is home to some of the biggest names in tech

As described by Sky’s Ian King when Theranos went bust in 2018, three years after the Journal’s report, key to the company keeping the wool fixed firmly over the public’s eyes until then had been an almost cult-like culture among its executives and staff, and one of extreme secrecy.

Neither are unique to Silicon Valley – some of the big tech personalties who have emerged over the years remain an odd focus of worship in some corners of the internet – but rarely have they combined to such destructive effect.

The journalist who broke the story, John Carreyrou, has since written a book on the scandal called Bad Blood, which stands to be turned into a feature film. There’s perhaps a cruel irony that it’s being produced by Apple, the company whose late co-founder was a source of such inspiration for Holmes.

Her rise and fall also inspired a hit podcast series called The Dropout, and a subsequent Hulu series of the same name starring Amanda Seyfried.

The show presents Holmes as a brave, smart, single-minded young woman determined to succeed, and she is initially easy to root for. As Apple designer Ana Arriola tells Holmes in a scene when she attempts to recruit her following the launch of the first iPhone: “Honestly, it’s just really exciting to me that you’re a young female CEO, instead of a cocky little boy in a sweatshirt.”

But Holmes’s goal of becoming a wealthy star of the biotech scene quickly overcomes all other instincts – including a willingness to tell the truth.

It’s a trait that left some staff feeling deeply uneasy, not just Gibbons and Arriola, who describes her time at Theranos on her LinkedIn page as “altruism through corrupt unethical science-fiction”.

Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout: Pic Disney+
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Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout: Pic Disney+

How a life unravelled

Carreyrou’s revelations, which Holmes has admitted trying to silence, sparked investigations by medical and financial regulators in the US. In a development which would once have been unthinkable, the now 34-year-old was facing criminal charges in 2018.

She and the president of Theranos, ex-lover Romesh Balwani (who she has since accused of sexual assault), were accused of engaging “in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors, a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients”, and each faced two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud.

Former Theranos President and COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani smiles after a hearing at a federal court in San Jose. Pic: Reuters
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Former Theranos president Ramesh Balwani

Among those defrauded investors were the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the American pharmacy giant Walgreens, while similarly big names had been attracted to Theranos’s board of directors.

Among them were former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, and an ex-director of the US Centers for Disease Control.

All of them had been hoodwinked by Holmes, who had founded Theranos aged just 18 and quickly learned how to tell her backers exactly what they wanted – and she needed them – to hear.

As Eric Jackson, a startup founder and author of The PayPal Wars, put it to Sky News: “There is almost endemic to the system a need to, I don’t want to say exaggerate, but to tell a narrative that’s compelling to investors. At a certain point hype does have to be in line with credibility, if not you’re in an instance of good old-fashioned fraud.”

Whether it was a matter of delusion, falling victim to the treacherous “fake it ’til you make it” culture that permeates American startups, or something more sinister, Holmes maintained during her trial that she initially believed her company’s purportedly revolutionary blood tests were real.

“I wanted to convey the impact the company could make for people and for health care,” she told the court of her meetings with investors.

To prosecutors, such assertions were the consequence of a woman who was “out of time and out of money”.

Having launched her company by repurposing family funds meant for her Harvard degree, taking it mainstream meant doing whatever it took to attract her big time investors and venture capitalists.

The once-enamoured former US secretary of defence Jim Mattis, who joined the company board, told the trial: “There just came a point when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos any more.”

REFILE - ADDING COUNTRY Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes arrives for a hearing at a federal court in San Jose, California, U.S., July 17, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
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Holmes arrives for a hearing in San Jose in 2019

‘She chose lies when we needed truth’

Holmes’s sentencing on Friday comes after she was convicted of fraud earlier this year, her years-long scam having failed to move the jury as it had done her backers.

After a case which gripped the world, just as her rise to fame had done, US federal prosecutors want the judge to jail her for 15 years, a term considered appropriate for “one of the most substantial white collar offences Silicon Valley or any other district has seen”.

Balwani has been left waiting until next month for his sentencing, having also been convicted of multiple fraud counts during a separate trial.

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In a 46-page brief last week, assistant US attorney Robert S Leach wrote of Holmes: “She repeatedly chose lies, hype, and the prospect of billions of dollars over patient safety and fair dealing with investors.

“Elizabeth Holmes’ crimes were not failing, they were lying – lying in the most serious context, where everyone needed her to tell the truth.”

A counter document from Holmes’s attorneys, totalling 82 pages, insisted her reputation had been permanently and unfairly destroyed, given it had turned her into a “caricature to be mocked and vilified”.

They are appealing for a sentence of no more than 18 months.

More than 130 friends, family, former investors and employees have also submitted letters to the judge, Edward Davila of San Jose, California, to appeal for leniency.

Senator Cory Booker used his to hail Holmes, still only 38, as someone who “can, despite mistakes, make the world a better place”.

Whether that’s true or not, she won’t be able to from behind bars.

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Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un again – as soon as ‘this year’

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Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un again - as soon as 'this year'

Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.

Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”

“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.

“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.

Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
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Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters

Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.

In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.

The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.

“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.

Mr Trump met South Korea's Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters
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Mr Trump met South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters

Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.

However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.

Kim possible: Is Trump seeking another ‘Hermit Kingdom’ handshake?

It was Donald Trump’s first meeting with the new president of South Korea.

A highly unconventional platform for glowing words about the North Korean one.

He said he got along “great” with Kim Jong Un and would like to meet him again “this year”.

The US president’s renewed interest in North Korea appears less about policy and more about theatrics.

The historic image of President Trump stepping on to North Korean soil in 2018 gave him global headlines.

The timing is curious – North Korea has been busy polishing its nuclear credentials and vowing not to disarm without serious concessions.

In other words, Pyongyang is holding the same cards it held four years ago, only now they’re shinier.

But Trump seems eager to revive his image as the only US president bold, or brash, enough to break bread with the ruler of the “Hermit Kingdom”.

Supporters call it visionary diplomacy; critics call it reality TV masquerading as foreign policy.

Either way, President Trump clearly sees value in the spectacle.

Whether Kim Jong Un does is another story.

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Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.

The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.

The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.

As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.

Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.

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Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.

Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.

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Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

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Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.

The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.

The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.

He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.

He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.

Pic: AP
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Pic: AP

During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.

The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.

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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.

In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”

“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.

In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.

The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.

Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.

An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters
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An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters

According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.

Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.

Pics: Reuters
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Pics: Reuters

Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.

“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”

A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.

Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.

She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.

After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.

Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP
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Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP

The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.

After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.

The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.

Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.

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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.

Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.

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