Will Elizabeth Holmes Testify in the Theranos Trial?

The signifier is acceptable for what could beryllium the astir melodramatic infinitesimal of the transgression proceedings of Elizabeth Holmes, laminitis of the failed start-up Theranos.

After 11 weeks of tribunal proceedings plagued by delays, prosecutors look prepared to remainder their lawsuit soon. Then the defence volition beryllium up.

The defence lawyers’ database of imaginable witnesses includes Holmes, the erstwhile Silicon Valley darling who has pleaded not blameworthy to aggregate counts of ligament fraud and faces up to 20 years successful situation if convicted.

“Taking the basal would beryllium a risky move, but Holmes has shown she tin beryllium precise persuasive and charismatic,” Erin Griffith, a newsman for The New York Times, told me. “And she’s intelligibly a risk-taker.”

Holmes dropped retired of Stanford and started the blood-testing start-up Theranos astatine property 19. For years she convinced big-name investors of her company’s promise. At 1 point, Theranos was valued astatine $9 billion.

But she and the institution fell from grace aft claims astir its exertion were shown to beryllium false. Her downfall has captured the nationalist imaginativeness and spawned a documentary, book and podcast — and a mini-series based connected that podcast.

Holmes, present 37 and a caller mother, has been successful the courtroom each time during the trial, but jurors person yet to perceive her talk extracurricular of recordings played arsenic evidence. Her look is covered by a mask. And she sits truthful inactive that a courtroom creator said she’s peculiarly casual to sketch.

The Times newsman Erin Woo told maine that she thought a cardinal portion of the defense’s lawsuit mightiness necessitate Holmes to instrumentality the stand.

Holmes’s lawyers are expected to reason that she was manipulated by Sunny Balwani, Theranos’s erstwhile main operating serviceman and Holmes’s erstwhile boyfriend. In tribunal filings, Holmes has said Balwani, who faces a abstracted proceedings adjacent year, was emotionally abusive and controlling.

But jurors truthful acold haven’t heard overmuch of this argument. And erstwhile Theranos employees are improbable to beryllium capable to shed airy connected Holmes’s backstage beingness with Balwani, Woo told me.

“The 2 of them kept their narration concealed during their clip astatine Theranos,” Woo said. “It seems similar Holmes herself whitethorn person to attest to their narration if her squad wants jurors to recognize what the interior workings of it were like.”

For more:

• The proceedings has exposed the carelessness of start-up investors.

• What it’s similar inside the courtroom.

• Follow Erin Griffith and Erin Woo connected Twitter for unrecorded updates.

If you work 1 story, marque it this

Drug overdose deaths soared during the pandemic, especially successful California.

The remainder of the news

• U.C. onslaught averted: The University of California and the national representing 6,500 lecturers reached a tentative statement aboriginal Wednesday that averted a planned two-day walkout, The Associated Press reports.

• Huge fund surplus: California predicts a $31 cardinal surplus for the 2022 fund twelvemonth that begins July 1, The Associated Press reports.

• More fires: New probe shows that the hottest summertime days successful the Sierra Nevada greatly summation the hazard that wildfires volition ignite oregon spread.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

• Fewer parking spaces: San Diego wiped retired parking requirements for businesses successful galore neighborhoods to accelerate efforts to marque the metropolis little reliant connected cars, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

• Staples Center: The Los Angeles stadium that is location to the Lakers, Clippers, Sparks and Kings announced it volition rebrand arsenic Crypto.com Arena, named after a cryptocurrency level based successful Singapore.

• Secretive spying: The Los Angeles Police Department partnered with a exertion institution that could alteration officers to usage fake societal media accounts to surveil civilians, The Guardian reports.

• Covid alleviation fraud: A San Fernando Valley mates convicted of illegally applying for $20 cardinal successful Covid-19 alleviation funds is presently on the run.

CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

• Drought: Poor San Joaquin Valley towns with a past of radical exclusion present conflict for entree to drinking water, Capital & Main reports.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

• Safe injection sites: San Francisco could unfastened a supervised drug-use tract arsenic soon arsenic adjacent spring, KTVU reports.

• Fawn fire: A pistillate accused of starting a wildfire adjacent Redding successful September was deemed incompetent to basal trial, The Associated Press reports.

• New park: A quality conservancy bought the financier Dean Witter’s ranch and volition person it to the Eel River Canyon Preserve successful Mendocino and Trinity Counties, The Associated Press reports.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s extremity comes from Meg Waite Clayton, who recommends visiting California’s autarkic bookstores:

“There are much than 100 betwixt Eureka Books, housed successful a 1879 Victorian, and Warwick’s, wherever the La Jolla assemblage speech ne'er stops, truthful you are seldom acold from one. Many person fantastic histories, similar Kepler’s successful Menlo Park, wherever the Grateful Dead and Joan Baez hosted impromptu salons to sermon ideas, governmental enactment and music. Some are arsenic tiny arsenic A Great Good Place for Books successful Oakland, which hosts the astir charming writer events successful its cozy space, portion others similar Vroman’s successful Pasadena and Books Inc. successful the San Francisco Bay Area screen aggregate floors oregon person aggregate stores.

In immoderate of these stores, fantastic booksellers tin assistance you find books you volition love. Independent bookstores are wherever astir authors archetypal find their readership, and wherever readers observe caller authors, too, truthful successful supporting them you’ll beryllium contributing to the maturation and vibrancy of literature.”

Tell america astir your favourite places to sojourn successful California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll beryllium sharing much successful upcoming editions of the newsletter.

And earlier you go, immoderate bully news

When the Dixie occurrence scorched monolithic swaths of Northern California, wildlife officials were worried.