Free Republic

A pair of Arizona-based Christian artists is challenging the local law that threatens to fine and imprison them for refusing to make same-sex wedding invitations. Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio in Phoenix, lost a case at trial level which accused them of violating a local ordinance that protects homosexuals from discrimination, Fox News reported. The ordinance also prevents the business owners from publicly explaining their convictions or even defending their decision lest they face jail time for that as well. This apparent violation of the First Amendment protection of free speech is at the...

For the first time in history, the F-35B took off from a ship with a full-load of weapons. Integrating the F-35B will change tactics on-board amphibious assault ships The Marine Corps F-35B Short-Take-Off-and-Vertical-Landing Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter took off from a Navy amphibious assault ship for the first time with a full load of weapons -- in preparation for its planned deployment in 2018. The aircraft flew from the Navy's first America-Class Amphibious Assault Ship, the USS America, to Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz., where it dropped live precision guided weapons on mock targets in the desert. The F-35B dropped...

<p>Theranos, the biotech company started by a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, has another hurdle to cross in its whole "we're totally a legit blood-testing company" campaign. This time, it turns out that tens of thousands of blood tests were voided, making them totally invalid. Whoops!</p>

We haven't really written much about the insane Theranos scandal, though we discussed it on our podcast. The whole story is pretty crazy -- involving a heavily hyped up company that appeared to basically be flat out lying to everyone about what it could do. The company still exists, but barely. The company's founder and CEO, who was plastered across magazine covers and compared frequently to Steve Jobs, has been banned from running a lab for two years, and the company is now facing a $140 million lawsuit from its biggest partner, Walgreens, who claims that Theranos repeatedly lied to...

Determined was a good word to describe Jillian Bearden, who won the women’s 106-mile race in 4:36.07. Bearden, who is transgender, rode for the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance — SAGA — to promote gender inclusion within cycling. Saturday marked the 36-year-old’s first El Tour, which is Southern Arizona’s largest participatory sporting event.

An Arizona abortion facility filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop the state Attorney General’s Office from receiving detailed information about its handling of aborted babies’ body parts. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The Arizona Republic reports Camelback Family Planning, a Phoenix abortion facility, wants a judge to prohibit state investigators from reviewing certain records and to invalidate a subpoena for its owner, Gabrielle Goodrick, to testify.The abortion facility’s lawsuit claims that the attorney general’s office wants to inspect unredacted records of “patients who have had abortions and donated fetal tissue.” It also argues that Goodrick could have to testify about patients under oath.The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

It's worth asking why Elizabeth Holmes is still leading the embattled blood testing company Theranos Inc. But there may be a good reason why she still is in charge, one that has little to do with the scandal-ridden company's performance to date. Forget what venture capitalist Tim Draper — one of the first to invest in the Palo Alto company — implied this week that Holmes is being attacked because she's a young, female entrepreneur. The simple fact is that Theranos has not been able to deliver on its technology from a commercial, scientific or regulatory standpoint, and that falls...

2016 has not been too kind to Elizabeth Holmes, the Steve-Jobs wannabe in charge of fraudulent Theranos. She has thus far been banned for 2 years from operating labs, removed from hosting fundraisers for Hillary and lost her entire net worth. And now, the Wall Street Journal has published the "tell-all" story of the whistle-blower, 26 year old Tyler Shultz, who brought the the whole Theranos farce crashing down. It's a sordid tale complete with all the expected twists and turns of a Jason Bourne thriller including intimidation, coercion and private detectives. Tyler Shultz is the grandson of George Shultz,...

A Democrat congressman told the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday that the next president of the United States is a bigot, a demagogue, a liar, a sexual predator and a con artist. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said in a floor speech at the end of the day’s proceedings that President-elect Donald Trump could not be treated like any other politician or like any other Republican. “Because he is not. Trump represents something much more dangerous,” he said. “While none of us want to be in this case, we have a duty to treat him like the threat that he...

Woke celeb Lena Dunham sought solace in the Arizona wilderness this week as she works to overcome her post-election anxiety. She posted of photo on Instagram that shows her hiking in a fashionable sports bra and flashing a “true smile” while hiking in exclusive Sedona, Ariz., on Monday. Sedona is home to a number of facilities offering “spiritual retreats,” “vision quests,” and other forms of “emotional healing” adventures. In a note accompanying her Instagram post, Dunham expressed love for her fans and described how she had “whispered some wishes for you into the big red rock” after asking “the Canyon...

After working at Theranos Inc. for eight months, Tyler Shultz decided he had seen enough. On April 11, 2014, he emailed company founder Elizabeth Holmes to complain that Theranos had doctored research and ignored failed quality-control checks. The reply was withering. Ms. Holmes forwarded the email to Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who belittled Mr. Shultz’s grasp of basic mathematics and his knowledge of laboratory science, and then took a swipe at his relationship with George Shultz, the former secretary of state and a Theranos director. “The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this...

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

Theranos Inc. allegedly voided 11.3% of all blood-test reports that the Silicon Valley laboratory firm provided to customers of Walgreens stores through a yearslong partnership between the two companies, according to legal papers the drugstore chain filed Tuesday. Theranos, whose main lab failed an inspection by U.S. regulators earlier this year, told Walgreens in June that it subsequently voided 31,000 test reports provided to the chain’s customers, Walgreens said in the public version of a sealed lawsuit.

“You can expect to see CBP pushing back and holding those people,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. “They’re going to want to make it look like they’re in lockstep with [Trump] … We’re already seeing it now.” Judd said the processing center at Nogales, Arizona, is set to open soon, and he added that he expects other processing centers to open, as well, in order to increase detention capacity. Career-level supervisors will be more worried about offending the incoming administration than the outgoing one, Judd said.

SAN FRANCISCO – Walgreens has filed a $140 million breach of contract suit against Theranos Inc., compounding the woes of the Silicon Valley-based medical device startup. The suit was filed under seal in Delaware federal court on Tuesday. It's not clear what exactly the Illinois-headquartered pharmacy chain is alleging, but the docket describes the case as a breach of contract suit with a demand of $140 million.

There is something in the air. Yuma, Arizona is the butt of many jokes but it is a military town with two bases, The USMC Air Station and the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground just to the north.Today they had their annual Veteran's Day parade. It was way different than the past several years and you could feel the difference. There always have been flags but this year, there were many more and not just in the parade but in the spectator areas too. People and groups were not afraid to show their love and support of our flag. Many...

Just announced on tv.

Go to this site, Politico or any of the others featuring presidential maps. They have finally called Alaska for Donald Trump, not that the result was ever in doubt, but it just shows the bile of the media. Meanwhile, Arizona is still in doubt even with Trump's solid lead. So is Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire, with Hillary holding a steady but still narrow lead in only the last two.And didn't Trump actually win one electoral vote in Maine's 2nd congressional district? Or is that still undecided? Maine is solid Clinton colored.Does it really kill them that much to admit...